Her lips tightened. “They say what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.”

Nev wished he knew who “they” were, so that he could wring the vipers’ necks. He didn’t know how to convince her. “The behavior of a gentleman’s wife reflects on him,” he tried at last. “Her honor is his honor. I cannot be ashamed of you without being ashamed of myself.”

“Have you never been ashamed of yourself, my lord?”

That drew him up short. Her list made it plain what she thought of him-that he was a rake and a ne’er-do-well with no more self-restraint or capacity for self-reflection than a newborn infant, who would spend her money on himself and despise her. Why would she think anything else? “Of course I have. Knowing what you do of me, can you doubt it?”

“The mere fact of wrongdoing does not in itself produce repentance. After all, you have done no more than a hundred young men of your rank-though with rather more imagination, which naturally produced more notoriety.”

He did not know what compelled him to continue, when it could hardly help his case. “You yourself saw me carousing the night of my own father’s death! Every feeling revolts-”

She started, and took a step toward him. “But you didn’t know he was dead!”

Nev ’s father wouldn’t be dead for hours yet when Nev had seen Miss Brown, but somehow that wasn’t the point. “No. But I would have known sooner if I had been home. My little sister knew. She saw them bring in his shattered body.”

Miss Brown’s lips parted in a silent exclamation. “I hadn’t thought-”

He didn’t want to hear it. He turned back to the list. 5. Do not resent me. We have made an honest bargain, from which you benefit as much as I do. He shrank from the cold statement of it, in that neat clerk’s hand. How like a merchant she sounded, there! But he knew very well how she would react to that sentiment-or rather, he thought she would react unpredictably, but badly.

6. Allow me to still correspond with Edward. “Why the devil would you ask me who you can correspond with?”

She blinked. “You’ll be my husband.”

His brow wrinkled. “I can’t remember m’mother ever asking my father who to write to. She’d be in the morning room half the day scribbling away and he never came near her. So long as you don’t bed the fellow-”

She looked away.

He frowned. Could Edward possibly be-but no, she was a virgin, he would stake his life on it. And then he forgot all about Edward as item #7 burned into his eyes. “No mistresses?”

Five

The black words stood out accusingly from the crisp white paper she had used. 7. No mistresses. Nev remembered his fingertips burning on Amy’s shoulder as he watched Miss Brown. He felt overheated. “You saw me at Vauxhall, didn’t you?”

“I told you, I changed my mind!” She would not meet his eyes. “You mustn’t suppose that I think I have bought you, and will try to control your every movement. I know it’s nothing to do with me if I-if you occasionally find yourself in need of more than I can provide.” Her voice trembled a little. “So long as you’re discreet and don’t give me the pox.”

He had a sudden image of Miss Brown, raving, her pretty features rotting away. He shuddered. It didn’t matter; he had known in the back of his mind that he would have to give Amy her congé anyway. She was too expensive.

“I promise you”-he drew a deep breath and didn’t think about Amy-“I promise you that the connection you witnessed will be at an end immediately, and that your sensibilities will never hereafter be wounded by hearing of another.”

Her eyes flew to his face. Then she smiled, shyly. “It would, perhaps, be nobler to insist on letting you go your own way, but I won’t. You are very generous. Thank you.”

He knew very well he wasn’t generous in the least. But he let himself smile back and say with mock solemnity, “No mistresses.”

By rights, Penelope ought to have been hoping her parents would take a dislike to Lord Bedlow at dinner; then she could say that she had done her best and be free of the whole matter. But when he showed up with his cinnamon hair combed rigidly into place and a nervous smile on his lips, she felt it would be hideously unjust if they rejected him. Couldn’t they see he was trying?

She found herself relieved and a little disconcerted when both her parents showed signs of succumbing to his charm. He complimented the food, Mrs. Brown’s embarrassingly large pearls, and Penelope’s gown-all with apparent sincerity.

When her father, who did not drink, offered to have a bottle of claret opened, Penelope held her breath. One of the things her father had never forgiven Edward for was that he had once, years ago, got himself foxed at a Brown Jug Brewery Christmas party. Mr. Brown had made some terrible remarks about Papists. And Penelope knew that Lord Bedlow drank.

To her surprise, the earl hesitated for only a moment before saying, “No, thank you.” Mr. Brown commended him and launched into one of his sermons on the value of sobriety. And her father owned a brewery! But Lord Bedlow didn’t even point out the inconsistency. Penelope flushed in mortification and sighed in relief all at once.

She was on tenterhooks for the half hour the gentlemen remained at table with their watered-down wine. She played snatches of Scotch airs on the piano and replied to her mother’s conversation in monosyllables.

She heard her father’s uproarious laughter first. Then she caught the sound of footsteps, and they entered the room, her father’s arm slung about Lord Bedlow’s taller shoulders.

“That’s a good one! Mrs. Brown, do you know what his lordship said when I told him how many obscure musical instruments Penny would insist on bringing with her to his house? ‘In for a Penny, in for a pound,’ he says!” Mr. Brown laughed again.

Penelope flushed. She knew it was contrary, but the more her parents were won over, the more she resented how easily they were taken in. It was so obvious that a gentleman like Lord Bedlow would not have found anything to admire in a prosaic parvenue like her if he had not needed her money, or anything to flatter in her parents-so patently clear that he was too good for them, and too good for her.

But Lord Bedlow, though he had to slouch to fit under Mr. Brown’s arm, just smiled sheepishly at her and winked. If he was disgusted, he hid it well.

It was as though he had the Midas touch. He went straight to her mother’s wall of sentimental engravings and old book illustrations in gilt frames, and pointed to a garishly colored old engraving of Venice that her mother loved. “It’s the Bridge of Sighs! Have you been to Venice, Miss Brown?”

“No,” Penelope said. “I have never been out of England.”

Mrs. Brown smiled. “Oh, those old pictures are all mine. Penny is much too elegant for such trifles! I hope very much to go to Venice with Mr. Brown someday.”

“Oh, you must!” Lord Bedlow said. “It’s splendid! I wish the gondoliers still sang Tasso, but it looks just the same as always! My grandfather bought some sketches when he was there half a century ago, you know, and a Canaletto, and-”

A familiar gleam came into Mrs. Brown’s eye. “Oh, yes, your grandfather’s art collection is very fine, isn’t it?”

Lord Bedlow shrugged. “I’ve been told it is. People come rather often to view it.”

Mrs. Brown looked anxious. “You haven’t sold any of it, have you?”

Penelope winced at her mother’s lack of tact, but Lord Bedlow did not seem to take offense. “No. Fortunately my father allowed all of it to remain entailed, or I might have been tempted. I had offers from all over the country for the Holbein.”

Lord Bedlow could not have known that those words would advance his suit more than any amount of touching rhetoric. Mrs. Brown’s eyes took on an almost fanatical glow. “You have a Holbein?”