“Miss Beaumont, I fear you’ve had a bit too much of the bubbly.”

Julia grinned at the teasing tone in her cousin’s voice. “I daresay you’re right, Algie,” she said, “but Lud, it feels marvelous to be a touch addled.”

She rose up on her tiptoes, leaned in and kissed Algernon Ayers’s smooth cheek, stumbling on a cobble in the process. The men righted her promptly.

She wasn’t truly sotted. The two glasses of champagne she’d drunk were just enough to make her feel nicely frayed about the edges.

“It was fun, wasn’t it?” She sighed, blowing that blasted curly strand of hair out of her face. It had been so long since she’d had fun. When she’d left England for Paris, she had not expected her life to fall into such an abyss of desperation and fear. Viscount Clayton, who she’d trusted as a friend and confidant, had turned on her when she’d rejected his advances. After that horrible night, after she’d fended him off by kicking him in the ballocks and then running for her life, he’d returned to London and spread vicious lies about her.

Knowing she’d never again be welcomed at her uncle’s house in London, she had been living in Paris on the edge of destitution for several months, trying to survive off the odd sewing job and struggling desperately to make ends meet, when Algernon had arrived to bring her back to England. With her talent for clothing design, he said, she could make something of herself in London.

After all that had happened between her and Lord Clayton in Paris, after she’d ripped her reputation into tatters beyond repair, Algernon hadn’t judged and condemned her like everyone else. Instead, he had convinced her that she still possessed value as a human being. She loved him for that.

Now she staggered home between Algernon and Thomas Jones, her cousin’s lover. Algernon and Julia had been inseparable in childhood and had stayed close, the two proverbial black sheep in their pious family.

Thomas grinned. “It was fun indeed, m’dear. You are ravishing. You had every gentleman at the party primed to drop to his knees for you.”

Algernon flashed Thomas a quelling look. She squeezed his forearm and spoke gravely. “It’s all right. Please don’t worry about me, dear Algie.”

Algernon knew everything—she’d told him back in Paris. He’d worried even then, not quite convinced that she’d done the right thing by leaving London. But even after hearing the whole sordid tale, he still hadn’t judged her. And even though he trusted her not to make any more foolish mistakes, she still saw these flashes of concern in his eyes. She knew he wanted her to be happy. She was trying—she really was. But for the past year, happiness for Julia had been an elusive, ethereal thing, impossible to hold onto.

“I am not worried about you. You know that.”

She smiled gratefully. Returning home was the most frightening thing she had ever done, and she could not have done it without Algernon. He had given her employment as head seamstress in his stylish tailoring shop, a position that kept her in the back room of his shop and separated from society. Tonight it had been fun to flirt a little, but she had no plans to try to reestablish herself in society. It would be impossible, considering how Viscount Clayton had slandered her.

She was someone altogether different from the person she had been a year ago. She knew now to always use her head and to no longer be controlled by matters of the heart. She had come to her senses and remembered that in the end, men only wanted one thing, and it was always temporary. Lord Clayton, whose intentions she had so naively thought honorable, had driven the lesson home.

A single growled word yanked Julia from her thoughts. “Stop.”

The voice had come from behind them. Rough. Deadly. Familiar.

All three of them froze. Algernon and Thomas dropped her arms and spun around. Julia turned more slowly, fear rising like a flood in her chest.

The man stood in the shadows about ten feet away. He was dressed in black, and it was nearly impossible to make out his features in the darkness of the night. He took a single step forward, the crunch of his boots on the ice like a loud crack in the cold, late-night stillness.

And even though she couldn’t see him, she knew who he was. She knew the way he stood, his stature, the square, broad shape his shoulders made beneath his coat, the way his dark hair curved into a widow’s peak at the top of his forehead.

“You will be coming with me, Julia. Walk slowly toward me.” His voice was low and gravelly-rough. “You two,” he added, tilting his head first at Algernon, then at Thomas, “stay where you are.”

Julia cast a frantic look at their surroundings. She didn’t know this street; she only knew that they were somewhere near Algernon’s house in Bedford Place. It was a narrow lane, quiet, with not a soul in sight. The houses abutting the pavement were dark, their occupants long since retired for the evening. But if she screamed loudly enough…

No sooner had she opened her mouth to do just that than he took another step forward and snapped, “Don’t make a sound.”

“And you—don’t come any closer,” Algernon warned, raising his hand in the universal gesture to halt. A brave, blessed soul, her cousin. She was close enough to him, however, that she could feel the tremors running through his body. She didn’t blame him. Sir Devlin Vaughn stood several inches taller than Algernon and was twice as broad. He was a dark, looming figure, as imposing as an avenging angel on this cold and lonely London street.

“Come here, Julia,” Dev commanded, reaching out his hand to her. She remained rooted to the spot.

Algernon straightened beside her and said stoutly, “I will not allow you to harm this lady.”

Lowering his hand, Dev laughed, but it was a bitter, caustic sound devoid of humor. “Well now, she’s hardly a lady, wouldn’t you agree?”

She swallowed, blinked hard, and gazed down at her feet, her heart constricting at his words. Like everyone else in London, Dev thought her a trollop. Lord Clayton had not forgotten anyone when he’d spread his vicious lies.

It hurt, but she shouldn’t be surprised.

She nudged Algernon with her elbow. “I know him. It is Sir Devlin Vaughn. He was the one—” She drew in a shallow breath. “I know him.”

Thomas gripped her elbow. “We will not let him have you, Julia.”

“Unhand her,” Dev growled. Julia could feel the heat of his gaze on the spot where Thomas held her.

Immediately, Thomas dropped her arm.

“Touch her again and you will regret it.”

In the gloom, she could not decipher the look upon Dev’s face, but he’d taken yet another step closer, and now she could see his fists bunched at his sides.

How she had missed him. Part of her wanted to run to him, to throw herself into his arms. Ridiculous, considering his attempts to bully the three of them. But how could she forget the talks and laughter she and Dev had shared, the cozy days in his bed and at the inn, the passionate lovemaking…?

A shudder rolled through her. Relinquishing her body to him had given her the most profound pleasure she had ever known. Her life in the past year had been utterly sterile in comparison.

“Come to me, Julia,” he ordered, his tone of one accustomed to command.

That voice sent waves of heat pulsing across her skin, centering low in her belly and pooling into desire.

No, no, no. That was a terribly incorrect response to this man—to this situation. What a traitorous body she had.

She might have spent the happiest afternoons of her life with Sir Devlin Vaughn, but he had also ruined her for anyone else, and now he threatened her closest friends in the world. She clenched her jaw against a sudden flare of anger.

“I will go,” she whispered to her cousin.

“Julia, you are not thinking clearly! You cannot.”

“I am thinking quite clearly.” And she was. Dev’s presence here, tonight, had a magically sobering effect. Dev himself, on the other hand, must be three sheets to the wind. What else could have prompted his appearance? “Let me go,” she whispered to her cousin. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She would not watch Thomas and Algernon get pummeled on her behalf. There was no question they would lose, even two against one. Dev was a trained fighter who boxed for sport, and Algernon and Thomas were…well, they were tailors, for heaven’s sake. They could, perhaps, do some damage with a needle and a thread, but not with their fists.

She couldn’t get them involved. Dev was her problem, and she would face him head-on. She took a step forward.

“Julia!” Thomas hissed.

She turned back and gave them a smile she hoped masked her quavering insides. “I will see you soon.”

Thomas shook his head and began to unbutton his greatcoat, preparing to fight.

“Please don’t, Thomas. I beg you. I promise he won’t hurt me.” A bitter taste rose in her throat at the lie. Dev could hurt her, but not in the way they imagined—she knew that much. “I promise, Algie. He would never harm me. I’ll go with him and talk some sense into him. If I am not home by morning, come fetch me from his house in Mayfair.”

Thomas’s hands paused over his buttons. A deep crease appeared between Algernon’s brows.

“Please,” she added in a desperate whisper. “I don’t want violence. I can defuse his anger, I know I can.”

“Julia—”

“No. Now promise me you won’t go to the authorities.”

“Julia—” Thomas said.

“Promise me!” she snapped.

The upper crust of London society often avoided the authorities and took matters into their own hands because the repercussions, should certain things become subjects of gossip, could be devastating. Instinct told her it would be wise to follow their lead in this matter.

Algernon looked bewildered, clearly not understanding why involving anyone else would probably only serve to make matters worse. “I don’t think—”

Now. She had to go to Dev now or they would do something rash. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She turned her back on them, lifted her skirts, and hurried up to Dev, stopping when she was within an arm’s length of him.

She looked up into his handsome face, with its straight, long nose, square jaw and brooding eyes. Ignoring her stuttering heartbeat, she met his dark gaze.

“Very well, Sir Devlin. Here I am.” And a rebellious spark somewhere deep within her added, Now what are you going to do with me?

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