The latch gave easily under Annabel’s fingers, and the door opened without a sound. She had one foot in the shadows and the other still in the warmth of the room when he caught her from behind and ran his hands from her shoulders to her hips.

She wriggled for freedom, but it was futile. “What are you doing?”

“Making certain my things are still mine.” He pushed his fingers through the folds of her skirts.

She spun on him, put her boot in his foot the way her father had taught her, and put her hands flat against his solid, warm chest. “Get your bloody hands off me.”

Though he winced in pain, he didn’t budge. “Every young lady has a place to hide a handkerchief.” He lowered his head until they were nose to nose. “Turn out your pocket.”

She did as he asked and glared at him. “Empty as when I arrived, your lordship.”

“I believe I saw someone walking this way.” Charlotte’s sly words were accompanied by the glow of candles at the head of the hallway.

Annabel pushed herself free but lost her footing when her boot tangled in the carpet. Jasper’s hold on her arm, and then her waist, kept her from crashing to the floor.

“Miss Pearce?” called Madame Theodore in a squeal that was too practiced to be shocked. “Is that you?”

“Blast,” Annabel whispered as she fought to stand upright.

“Double blast,” Jasper muttered as he stepped between her and their audience.

Chapter Seven

“You were such a loving child. I cannot understand when, or why, you grew to be so vexing.”

“Don’t shout so, Mum.” Jasper leaned against the back of the chair he’d been occupying for the last half-hour. “You’ll give yourself a megrim.”

“It would serve you right if my head caved in.” The Countess of Lambourn put her fingers to her temples, careful to keep them out of her perfectly arranged hair. “A chaperone, Jasper?”

“Baron Chilworth’s oldest daughter.” It was a wonder that it took less than one Season for Society to forget a family that had been on everyone’s invitation lists. If Chilworth’s speculation had been successful, the ton would have been lining up at his door.

“Who has no dowry and, if rumor is to be believed, may soon have no home.” Mother leaned back against lace pillows that matched her silver-white hair. “They will be an albatross around your neck.”

“You are assuming a great deal.” Not the least of which was that Annabel Pearce would allow her family to be homeless. “She isn’t one to trap a man into marriage.”

“Yet she was in your room. In your arms. And you were half undressed.” She closed her eyes and heaved a weary sigh. “What possessed you? No, wait, don’t answer that.”

“I was hardly undressed.” And he’d been possessed by the perverse need to discomfit Miss Pearce as much as she’d done him when she wheeled on him in his own ballroom. “And she was not in my arms until she tripped. Would you have had me watch a young lady tumble to the floor?”

“Don’t be obtuse. It doesn’t suit you,” Mother snapped. “I can understand dalliances with unhappily married women. I don’t like it, but I’m aware they happen and are generally safer than…alternatives. And you wouldn’t be the first in our family to chase a servant around a bedroom. But this, Jasper. Do you understand the consequences of this gossip?”

He rose from his chair and strode to the fireplace, using his height to feel less like a boy being scolded for stealing sweets. “I did not invite Miss Pearce to my room.” She was there to spy on me. “I did not mistreat her.” Other than searching her person for anything she might have found. “And she left for London with her virtue intact.”

As had young Miss Spencer, who had been the girl waiting for him, Jasper had no doubt. Though whether it was for her own ruin or as a trap for Annabel, Jasper couldn’t tell. Charlotte Bainbridge was a vicious socialite in the making. Heaven help them all when she became Raines’s viscountess, which was likely to happen before the end of the Season.

“Which doesn’t signify after your involvement with that Stratford mess before the holiday.”

Jasper had long kept an eye on Viscount Stratford because he’d believed the man’s predilections would make him ripe for blackmail, and therefore a target for Spencer. However, he’d never suspected the man of murder. “Would you rather the Burnleys lost the chance to grieve their daughter?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” his mother said. “I’d rather you hadn’t escorted a doxy to a party with the prime minister.”

“In the company of two dukes, a viscount, Uncle Augustus’s proxy, and Cousin Amelia,” Jasper reminded her.

“Amelia’s Canadian husband is no more a fit proxy than I am.” Mother rolled her eyes. “And then you testified in court that the…woman had been your guest at Ramsbury. It was in all the papers that you’d taken a trollop to the family estate.”

“She likely wasn’t the first,” Jasper muttered.

Mother tossed the bedclothes aside and stood. “Don’t be insolent.” She pulled on her dressing gown before approaching him. “It was a lucky thing that anyone came to your blasted party, and then you do this.”

Despite her flair for the dramatic and her penchant for taking to bed whenever she was irritated, the Countess of Lambourn was an imposing figure. Taller than most women, with bright blue eyes that reminded Jasper of lightning in a storm, she was whip-lean and far smarter than most men of his acquaintance. “I didn’t do anything, Mum.”

Even as he said it, the recollection of Miss Pearce’s curves twitched his fingers. She’d been warm and soft, though she’d fought with surprising strength. This morning he’d caught himself smiling at the memory as he struggled to get his bruised foot into a stiff boot.

“The ton doesn’t care. It will seize on the gossip and the scandal.” His mother met his gaze, her mouth in a stern line. As a child, Jasper had been terrified of disappointing her. He had to admit that now, in this darkened room where he couldn’t tell her everything, he was still nervous.

“I’ll weather it, Mother. After the next ball, the matrons will seize on a new scandal and a new young miss to terrorize.” He bent to kiss her cheek and frowned when she avoided him.

“You may, but your sisters will not.” She put a finger in his chest. “Jane and Johanna have been insulated from your affairs, but it is their first Season. They need to be invited to the best parties to find good matches.”

Jasper’s throat tightened. He’d promised his father he’d ensure Jane and Jo’s happiness. “They’re sisters to a viscount, and they have substantial dowries. They’ll be invited to everything.”

“They are sisters to a viscount who drags a baron’s daughter into his chambers.”

“She was a chaperone just a few moments ago,” he quipped. He regretted it the moment Mother arched her eyebrow.

“Then you’re the man who will seduce young ladies’ companions before proposing to them and then chase the servants once you’re married. Or you’ll bed your sister’s friends at their parties.”

“I’m not marrying to stop malicious gossip. Not even for the girls.” This time he did kiss her cheek. She smelled of rosewater. “Not even for you, Mum.”

“Jasper.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior when the ton is looking.” He left her and walked toward the door. “That’s all I’ll promise.”

Once he was alone in the hallway, Jasper drew a deep breath. He’d been prepared to have a title, to have a voice in Parliament, and to manage estates. No one had prepared him for managing his family.

From adolescence, he’d learned which women were safe for dalliances and which brothels to avoid. Nothing had prepared him for a wide-eyed brunette in gray standing in front of his bed, who was angrier at him than she was worried about getting caught doing whatever she was doing before he arrived.

“Lord Ramsbury?”

“Yes, Charles?” Jasper managed a smile for the family butler who kept his mother’s house running like a well-wound clock, no matter the time of day or the events taking place under the roof.

“Miss Allen is in the downstairs drawing room.”

He hadn’t seen Fiona since Mrs. Linden had shuffled her into a coach the morning after the incident with Annabel. After a week of being lectured by Kit about his safety and scolded by his mother about his choices, the thought of a friendly face made him smile. “Thank you.”

The downstairs drawing room was at the front of the house, done in the same wood tones as the other rooms. White satin drapes reflected the light through the windows during the day and candlelight at night, softening the masculine edges and making the room seem larger.