He saw a pallid young gentleman and a lady who appeared to be his mother whispering as they looked toward him. He smiled at them, a black brow arching, not that he blamed them for their gossip. After all, he was the new Lord Mountjoy, and people were speculating on how he was adjusting to a title as empty as a gourd since the old earl had left all his wealth to Nicholas's three younger half brothers. All that was left to him was the entailed moldering family estate in Sussex, Wyverly Chase, built by the first Earl of Mountjoy, who had fought the Spanish like a Viking berserker and managed to charm the eternal virgin Queen Elizabeth. She had duly elevated Viscount Ashborough to his earldom. Wyverly Chase was going on three hundred years old, and showed every decade. As for the entailed three thousand acres, his father had ensured it was as worthless as a lack of money and care could make it by the time he'd died. His son was left with nothing but fallow fields, desperate tenants, and mountains of debt.

Was the young man's mama wondering where he'd come from? He'd heard one man whisper that the new earl was newly arrived from China. That made him smile.

Nicholas saw a man looking toward him, saw him say something to a portly man beside him. Was he speculating on whether Nicholas had yet met with his three half brothers, all young men now, two of them, he'd heard, as wild as any Channel storm? Ah, but most importantly, beggared as he was, had he come to London to find an heiress?

The music stopped, the waltz finally ended. Women smiled and laughed, waved themselves vigorously with dainty fans, gentlemen tried not to let anyone see how winded they were.

Nicholas watched the older man lead her to a knot of people standing on the opposite side of the ballroom.

It was time to do what he was supposed to do, time to do what he was meant to do.

3

He walked directly to the older man who'd danced with her, and bowed. "Sir, I am Nicholas Vail and I would like to dance with-" Nicholas stalled. Could she be his wife? Surely not. His daughter? "Ah, this young lady, sir."

The man gave him a brief bow in return. "I know who you are. As for the young lady, she has already promised this waltz to my son."

Nicholas flashed a quick look at a young man around his own age, smiling at something the girl said to him. He looked up, cocked his head to one side, and nodded to Nicholas. Then the girl turned to look at him, straight on, her eyes never leaving his face. So joyous she'd been, but now her expression was remote and unreadable. But he saw something in her eyes, something-knowledge, secrets, he didn't know. Ah, but he would, and soon. Then the young man spoke to her and she placed her hand on his forearm and let him lead her to the dance floor. She did not look back at him.

It seemed to Nicholas that she'd recognized him. Well, he knew her, so it made sense she would recognize him-but he just wasn't sure. She'd never met him, but her eyes-the light-filled blue, just as he'd known they would be-yes, he'd found her, even though he didn't yet know her name.

The older man cleared his throat and Nicholas realized he'd continued to stare after her. He said to Nicholas with amusement, "I am Ryder Sherbrooke. This is my wife, Sophia Sherbrooke."

Nicholas bowed to the woman, plump and pretty, her mouth full and soft, but she wasn't smiling, she was looking at him with a good deal of suspicion.

He felt huge relief. She wasn't his wife. He bowed to Sophia Sherbrooke again. "Ma'am, a pleasure. I am Nicholas Vail, Lord Mountjoy. Your husband is an excellent dancer."

She squeezed her husband's arm, laughed, and said, "My husband tells me he was born with accomplished feet. When we were younger he would let me dance on his accomplished feet. I was known as the most graceful female of the season."

Nicholas was charmed.

Ryder said, "As I said, I have heard of you, Lord Mount-joy, and I am not at all certain I wish you to meet my ward, much less dance with her."

His ward? Nicholas admitted to surprise. He hadn't imagined anything like this.

"I have not been in England long enough to earn a reputation to alarm you, Mr. Sherbrooke. May I inquire why you feel concern about me?"

"Your father was a man I would have gladly challenged to a duel had he but once crossed the line rather than always toeing near it. I suppose I am foisting his deficiencies upon you, his son, grossly unfair of me, I know, but there it is."

"To be honest, sir," Nicholas said slowly, "I escaped him as soon as I could. I rarely saw him after he wedded his second wife, which was during my fifth year."

An eyebrow went up. "I understand his three younger sons would gladly stick a knife in your throat." Ryder paused a moment, looked at the young man searchingly. "You are aware, I assume, that Richard, your eldest half brother, feels the title should be his?"

Nicholas shrugged. "Any or all of them are free to try for my gullet, sir, but I am a difficult man to dispatch. Others have tried."

Ryder believed him. He looked big and hard, a young man who'd had to make his own way, a man who knew who and what he was. He watched Nicholas Vail look yet again toward Rosalind, who was laughing, as she always did when she waltzed. Ryder said, "It grows late, sir. After this waltz, I am taking my family home."

"May I call upon you tomorrow morning?"

Ryder looked at him appraisingly. Nicholas felt the weight of that look, wondered if he would be found acceptable. Of course he'd heard of the Sherbrookes. But to find this couple acting as her guardians, he simply didn't understand, and he knew to his gut that complications would now billow up like a raging wind. How had it come about?

Ryder slowly nodded. "We are staying at the Sherbrooke town house, on Putnam Square."

"Thank you, sir. Ma'am, a pleasure. Until tomorrow, then." Nicholas strode from the ballroom, oblivious of the guests who moved out of his way.

Ryder Sherbrooke said to his wife, "I wonder what this young man is about."

"Rosalind is beautiful. It is probably the simple interest of a man in a woman."

"I doubt there is anything at all simple about Nicholas Vail. I wonder who and what he is."

"If he is a fortune hunter, he will learn soon enough that Rosalind isn't an heiress, and he will look elsewhere."

"Do you think he is in need of an heiress?"

Sophie said, "I've heard it said his father gave him naught but a title and a dilapidated property, and he did it apurpose. I wonder why. Is this young man in debt? I don't know. But I do know, Ryder, that pride and arrogance meld very nicely together in him, don't you think?"

Ryder laughed. "Yes, they do. I wonder if he realizes he is all the talk of London."

"Oh, yes, of course he does. I imagine it amuses him."

Neither of them noticed Rosalind staring after Nicholas Vail, who looked neither to the right nor to the left as he strode from the ballroom.

Nicholas was accepting his cane and hat from a liveried footman, palming him a shilling for his service, when a voice said, "Well, well, if it isn't the new Earl of Mountjoy, the sixth, I believe, in the flesh. Hello, brother."

Nicholas fancied he remembered that voice from his boyhood, but it took a moment for him to recognize that the young man facing him was his eldest half brother, Richard Vail. It occurred to him in that moment, staring at the young man, that he minded very much sharing his name. He looked into Richard's brilliant eyes, dark as his own, nearly black, and they glittered-with anger? No, it was more than simple anger, it was impotent rage. Richard Vail was not happy. Nicholas smiled at the young man. "It's a pity your memory has failed you, and here you are so very young-I am the seventh Earl of Mountjoy, not the sixth, and the eighth Viscount Ashborough."