Fifteen minutes into the Prince Regent’s costume party, and Arabella was reaching the conclusion that she would not make a very good spy.

Which was unfortunate, as “Become a spy” topped her list of things to do if her father disinherited her. For the most part, she surely qualified for the job—she excelled at knowing things she ought not know, at dissembling, and at guessing others’ misdeeds before they’d even had a chance to commit them—but she now suspected that being a spy required patience, and patience had never been her forte.

Already her patience had reached its limits. If only she could order people to arrange themselves as she pleased! But no, she had to drift insouciantly through the crush of guests spilling out into the gardens, concealing her vexation beneath polite greetings and gracious nods.

It was a fine, fresh evening, the late-summer sky as clear as one could hope for in London, and the expansive lawns were ablaze with flaming torches and hanging lanterns. If the party’s organizers had intended an atmosphere of carnivalesque chaos, they had succeeded: Colorfully dressed acrobats cartwheeled among the costumed guests, fire-eaters breathed out flames, troubadours sang and jugglers juggled, and up on their tightrope, the rope dancers leaped and twirled.

A dazzling spectacle, certainly, but it rather frustrated Arabella’s secret, simultaneous missions: hunting Lord Hardbury, avoiding Lord Sculthorpe, dodging Mama, scaring away the fortune hunters who had multiplied after Hardbury jilted her, and pointedly eyeing every other Minerva so they maintained an appropriate distance.

Arabella had ordered the Minerva costume—draped Roman-style robe and red-plumed helmet—knowing it was noway unique, but, as she had said to Mama, “If one must face society’s scorn at a costume party with the Prince Regent and three thousand of his closest friends, one ought to do it dressed as a warrior goddess.”

“It is not like you to exaggerate, Arabella,” Mama had scolded in her serene way. “Lord Hardbury has not actually jilted you. He was correct in saying that an agreement between your fathers when you were infants is not a binding engagement, and everyone knows that. No one will mention it.”

True, no one was mentioning it. In every conversation, Arabella could hear them Not Mentioning it. How dreadful people were, the way they went around Not Mentioning things.

If only someone would mention it! What a relief if someone were to say, “Well, Miss Larke, Guy Roth has finally returned to claim the title of Marquess of Hardbury, after an absence so long some feared he was dead, and his first announcement is that he will not marry you. Tell me, Miss Larke,” this wonderful person would say, “how fares your famous pride now? Shall we prepare a poultice for it, fetch it some bandages, or is it time to send for the vicar?”

Arabella would look down her nose at them, in the imperious manner she had perfected by age twelve, and say, “Pray, do not trouble yourself. It will take more than a set-down by Lord Hardbury to finish off my pride.”

Yes, her blessed pride, her most loyal companion these twenty-three years. Always stepping in to save her, taking control of her mouth, and making her say things she didn’t mean. It was a wonder she could stay upright under the weight of all that pride, though sometimes she doubted she would stay upright without it.

And now her pride had brought her to this: After a lifetime of boasting that she would become the Marchioness of Hardbury, while secretly praying she would never actually have to marry that detestable Guy Roth, she needed to ask him a favor.

That Arabella Larke asked a favor of anyone was enough to make the sky crack and tremble. That she was asking it of Guy Roth would surely make the heavens collapse onto their heads.

But ask it she must, when the alternative was—

Lord Sculthorpe.

Arabella froze.

Baron Sculthorpe stood not five yards away, conversing in a small group, his face mercifully turned away. He was dressed as an old-fashioned highwayman, in a tricorne hat, black cape, and lacy cuffs. The costume made him look every inch the dashing, athletic war hero that society so admired. He was approaching thirty-six, but that didn’t matter, not for a man as hale and hearty as he.

A few more steps and he might have seen her. Under her helmet, Arabella’s scalp prickled, her heart pounding from the close call. Don’t be ridiculous, she scolded herself, and glanced around to assess her avenues of escape.

Sidling toward Sculthorpe’s group were a pair of jesters, their medieval costumes a riot of red and yellow, from their three-pointed fool’s hats to their long-toed shoes. They danced close to Sculthorpe and the matron at his side, grabbed their wrists, and briskly tied man and woman to each other with a length of pink ribbon.

Arabella could not hear the words over the crowd’s merriment, but she knew this game, slightly risqué but not uncommon at such gatherings: The jesters announced that his lordship had only to kiss the fair lady to be released. Sculthorpe clutched at his heart with exaggerated delight, bestowed a peck on the lady’s round cheek, then made a show of fanning himself, as their little audience cheered. The jesters cut the ribbon and skipped away, and the enlivened group resumed their chatter.

What a performance! What charm! No wonder wealthy, handsome Baron Sculthorpe was one of the most eligible bachelors in the land.

And lucky Arabella, she was the one he had chosen.

That was how Papa had put it, when he announced that, after Lord Hardbury had written to confirm that he would not marry her, Lord Sculthorpe had written to confirm that he would. Arabella did not feel lucky. This past spring, when Sculthorpe first displayed an interest in her, she had needed only three conversations to realize she could not marry him and insisted on awaiting Guy’s return. She had counted on Guy not returning, at least not before Sculthorpe married someone else. Wrong on both counts.

“You’re fortunate Sculthorpe still wants you, so don’t spoil this too,” Papa had said to Arabella, his eyes on his beloved Delphine as he stroked her bright-green feathers, while the portrait of her dead brother Oliver smirked from its prize position on the wall.

“If Lord Sculthorpe is so eager to marry me, Papa, I don’t see how I could spoil it.”

“Heiress to a grand estate, yet men fall over themselves to avoid marrying you. Lord Luxborough jilted you, and now Lord Hardbury has jilted you, so make sure Lord Sculthorpe doesn’t jilt you too.”

“A wiser course would be to dispense altogether with this tiresome parade of lords,” she had argued.

“Are you saying you refuse to marry Sculthorpe?”

“I told you, I have a viable alternative. If you would only wait. I have written to—”

“I am tired of waiting! I’ve been patient with you, my girl, but it’s past time you married and provided me with grandsons.” Then Papa had concluded with a definitive statement: “When you come back from the Prince Regent’s party, you will be engaged.”

“Or?”

“Or you need not bother coming back at all.”

Once more unto the breach, Arabella thought, and melted into the crowd before Sculthorpe could see her. The thought of marrying him was unbearable, which meant she needed to buy time. Very well: If her only way to avoid losing everything was to get engaged tonight, then get engaged she would.

For which she must find Guy.

* * *

How was Arabella to identify Guy Roth, Marquess of Hardbury, in a crowd this size, after an absence of more than seven years, with everyone in costumes?

Easy: Look for the cloud of sycophants buzzing like gnats around a useless, self-satisfied dandy.

He would be preening at their flattery, no doubt, failing to see, as always, that he would be nothing if not for his money and name. When they were children, on those all-too-frequent occasions when their families gathered at the same country house, Arabella would watch, amazed, as the other boys let Guy win whatever game they played, and he was too arrogant to realize it. Arabella was the exception, of course; she never let anyone win.

To be fair, Guy had been a gracious winner. He never boasted, but then he never needed to: There were always toadies eager to do the boasting for him. Neither was he a sore loser when Arabella defeated him. Publicly, he would congratulate her and laugh off jibes about being beaten by a girl, especially the one he was meant to marry, but they both knew. Privately, he would say, “I’ll defeat you next time, Arabella,” to which she would retort, “You’ll never defeat me, Guy,” and they’d exchange glares and not speak again.

He was dazzling society years before Arabella made her come-out, and she had to suffer through glowing reports of how he had won this footrace and that debate, how he danced so elegantly and wore the latest fashions to perfection. Then the final reports, of course: that he had fallen in love with a lady who spurned him, and so, when he didn’t get his own way for the first time in his life, he had run away from England for a seven-year sulk.

Yet it was one thing for him to go missing for years; it was quite another—and vexingly inconvenient—to go missing at the party held to celebrate his return. Arabella worked her way through the crowd, exchanging nods and gliding on, inspecting and dismissing a man dressed as a bear, a knight, a hangman. Then an acrobat backflipped across her path; Arabella swerved, just as a fire-eater blew flames into the air.

When her vision cleared, she found herself blinking at a tall man dressed as Caesar, with a red cloak thrown over a leather breastplate and knee-length skirt. A small space surrounded him, for even in this crowd his imperial presence kept others at a respectful distance, save for the middle-aged man chattering at his side. Arabella let her eyes drift over Caesar’s bare arms, and was absently examining the pteruges that ended inches above his boots when she remembered herself and pivoted away.

Mid-turn, her legs stopped; a heartbeat later, her mind caught up.

No. Surely not.

And yet…

Twisting, Arabella looked over her shoulder. Then turned her whole body. And blinked again.

For while the man dressed as Caesar was definitely Guy, he was not Guy as she knew him.

This version of Guy seemed… Well… That is… Guy was…

Good grief.

Guy had grown up.

He was bigger than she remembered, broader, more solid. He had always been athletic, but only in relation to gentlemanly pursuits; if this man were a stranger, she would not take him for a gentleman, let alone a lord. Perhaps it was the way he was weathered, as no English lord ought to be, with the ends of his thick hair turned nearly gold by the sun and his complexion unfashionably tanned. His narrow nose bore a bump; perhaps that imperfection was what unsettled her. Once upon a time, no person in England would dare break that lordling’s nose. His features now had nothing smooth about them. The hollows in his cheeks provided a counterpoint to the sharp definition of his jaw, and he had a furrow in his brow, as though the world posed too much of a conundrum to give him a moment’s peace.

But it was something more that arrested her, something about the way he held himself. As a youth, Guy had strutted unseeingly through the world, secure in the belief that no harm would come to him. Now, an alertness thrummed beneath his confident ease, as if he anticipated an attack.

Where have you been, Guy? Arabella wondered. What have you been doing, to make you like that?

Yet despite his watchfulness, he had not seen her, and she let her eyes travel over him again. More pteruges hung over his shoulders, the leather strips caressing the muscular lines of his bare upper arms. His forearms, too, were bare, the tanned skin stretched over corded muscles and veins.

Really, Guy. Arabella’s gaze lingered on his forearms. What have you been doing, to make you like that?

The way his eyes roamed, it was only a matter of time before he saw her. Arabella felt unusually ill-prepared. The Guy of the past would have been easy to manage, but this man… This man was someone new.

As she watched, his eyes drifted over a trio of young gentlemen who lingered nearby. Their attitudes sharpened, their smiles beckoned—but his eyes kept traveling as if they were not there. Had he made eye contact, that would have been the cut. As it was, it barely skated over politeness. The gentlemen knew it too, for they stiffened, and then launched into an animated discussion as if they had never sought Guy’s attention.

Arabella slipped back into the crowd. If Guy did that to her—and given their history of mutual antagonism, there was a good chance he would—others would be sure to notice. The humiliating gossip would never end. Curse him. He could too easily dismiss her without even hearing her proposition, while she stood like a petitioner begging an audience with a king. How society would snicker at her, for Arabella was prideful and outspoken, and everyone loved to mock a woman who thought too much of herself.

Then she must find a way to approach him without risking her pride. If her plan failed, her pride would be all she had.

As she considered her options, she again spied the jesters with their pink ribbons. She thought of Guy’s bare, muscular forearm and the contents of her reticule.

Within a minute, Arabella had a plan.

* * *

Yet another fellow was babbling at Guy about something, another of his late father’s cronies hoping the son would pick up where the father left off. How adorable they were, the way they clucked at him about their corrupt schemes, like so many eager hens. And how amusing, the way their clucking grew more insistent, the longer that Guy acted obtuse.

But at least while this chap, Minister for Something, clucked on, no one else approached, so Guy let him talk while he scanned the carnival party for Freddie, hoping he would recognize her; there would be a big difference between the eleven-year-old girl he had left behind and the nineteen-year-old lady she would have become. Fiendishly clever of them, to put everyone in costumes, thus making the game of Find-My-Sister-In-A-Crowd-Of-Thousands that bit trickier.

“Does that not strike you as ridiculous, my lord?” the man was saying, with a chortle.

“What strikes me as ridiculous is your conviction that I wish to pass this evening discussing your petty politics,” Guy replied.

“Ha ha, how droll you are! Quite right, quite right. Then let us discuss it next week at my club. Over a bottle of the finest Burgundy.”

This bit of nonsense made Guy snort. “Even six bottles of the finest Burgundy would not make your notions appealing.”

“Please, my lord. Have you no interest in the fate of our nation?”

“In the fate of our nation, yes. In the fate of your corrupt schemes, no.”

“I would not call them that!”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you naughty little rascal. But I would.”

His companion’s mouth opened and closed, as he spluttered his outrage. Guy couldn’t help laughing. Never had he expected politics to be such fun.

The man rallied fast, although if he wanted to look dignified, he should not have dressed as a badger.

“This scheme benefits you too, my lord,” he hissed. “I would expect you to appreciate my assistance, given that your late father bequeathed to your sisters every bit of property that wasn’t entailed. Why, I hear he did not even make you their guardian, so you haven’t the benefit of managing their trusts.”

No, indeed. That “benefit” went to Sir Walter Treadgold, an obscure knight whose sister had married Guy’s father a few years earlier. The law stood firmly on the side of his father’s will; according to Guy’s solicitors, the Court of Chancery would overturn the will only if Sir Walter was found to be mismanaging his wards’ trusts. Evidence of that should be easy to find: Any intimate of the late marquess was almost certainly corrupt.

“Your concern is touching, dear sir,” Guy said lightly. “But fortunately for me, the entailed property generates enough income to provide all I desire from life, namely, several pairs of comfortable boots and a supply of hot buttered toast.” His gaze snagged on a pair of young ladies dressed as flowers, heads together in intimate conversation. Their bright eyes and fond smiles aroused a pang of nostalgia for something he had never had. “Oh, and a bride.”

“Is it true, my lord, that your bride will not be Arabella Larke? An alliance with Miss Larke would bring you considerable wealth.”

An alliance with Arabella would also bring him considerable indigestion, if she was still the bossy, quarrelsome know-it-all that he recalled.

“True,” he conceded. “But Miss Larke was my father’s choice, and it’s so much more sporting to choose one’s own wife, don’t you think?”

The man steepled his fingers. “Now you mention it, I recall that I have a niece.”

Guy laughed. Heads turned. Among them, he spied a pair of jesters, pink ribbons dangling menacingly from their hands. The young ladies dressed as flowers exchanged a mischievous look and drew closer. A tempting diversion, but Guy could not be distracted by a merry game of courtship tonight; first he must find Freddie, before Sir Walter played another of his tricks and whisked her away again.

He casually sidled away from the jesters, his latest hen clucking along beside him.

“Of course you have a niece,” Guy said, still searching the crowd. “And if you didn’t have a niece, you’d have a daughter or a sister or a cousin. During my absence, everyone in Britain has developed a female relative of marriageable age.” Guy spread his arms expansively, taking in the hubbub of the costumed, perfumed crowd. “May everyone send them all my way, and let the games begin.”

“If I might be so bold, my lord, my wife is planning a dinner party. You could meet my niece and we could discuss—”

Guy clapped the man on the shoulder. “I admire your persistence, old chap, but you have nothing else to recommend you. Here’s an idea: Come up with an honest scheme, one that doesn’t involve lining your pockets at the expense of the good people of Britain, and I shall happily attend all your dinner parties and meet everyone’s nieces. But for now, do me a kindness and toddle off. Go. Begone. Shoo.”

With that, Guy wheeled about.

Only to nearly collide with a Minerva.

Instinctively, he stepped back, excusing himself, already looking past her at the crowd. But the Minerva made no effort to move aside or apologize. Indeed, she did not betray any surprise at all.

Now he was paying attention, it dawned on him that this particular Minerva was tall for a woman. That the dark curls artfully arranged under the elegant helmet did little to soften her pale, angular features. That her gaze was as blue and unflinching as the desert sky. That her lips naturally curved upward at the corners, in the promise of a smile that would never come.

And when her eyebrows arched ever so slightly, wielded with as much control and skill as an orchestra conductor wielded his baton, Guy reached the dismaying conclusion that this was not any Minerva.

This was Arabella Larke.

Arabella Larke, matured from a gangling, scowling brat to a poised, haughty woman. Her unfashionable height was increased by the warrior’s helmet, whose mane of red feathers tumbled down her back. The drapes of her long Roman robe were fastened at one shoulder with an owl-shaped brooch, a reticule resembling a shield dangled from one wrist, and her pale arms were bare but for a silver snake coiled around her upper right arm.

His thoughts shattered. Arabella had somehow transformed into a compelling woman, and the sight crashed against his memories of her as a child. He shook off the sensation. Seeing people after a lengthy absence was always strange; that was all. He had last seen her when she was fifteen or sixteen; it was only natural that she had matured. Besides, judging by her haughty demeanor, quite unlike the obvious amiability of the young ladies he had admired, she had not otherwise changed.

So Guy saw no need to change his typical greeting.

“Oh no, not you,” he said. “And I was having such a lovely evening.”

“So it’s true: You’re not dead.” Her drawl was as imperious as ever, but her voice had developed an appealing huskiness. “The government was in quite a state over your absence.”

“So touching to know they cared.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t take it personally. It just doesn’t look good for the country, to go around misplacing its marquesses.” She eyed him with some perplexity. “How astonishing that no one did kill you.”

“Many tried. None succeeded.”

“Perhaps one did succeed but the Devil spat you out again.”

“He sends you his regards.”

Was that—a smile? No, not from Arabella. She had never been one to give smiles away easily.

Then she flinched, and a strong hand gripped Guy’s wrist.

Instinct had him jerking away, spinning, arm raised, ready to strike. Only to freeze— It was a jester who had grabbed him. Stars above, Guy had nearly hit the jester, and he felt sick to see that same knowledge reflected in the other man’s eyes.

With a resigned nod, Guy forced himself to relax; Arabella had distracted him and it was too late to escape. He had to suffer through it, suffer through the two jesters pressing his bare forearm against hers, suffer through them deftly wrapping their joined arms in an ungodly length of ribbon. Her skin was soft and warm; what a surprise: she was not made of marble. He thought he caught a matching surprise in her eyes, but her eyelids lowered before he could be sure.

A greater surprise was that she did not stridently object to being manhandled in this way. How disappointing, if the years had turned Arabella docile. Her ferocity had been one of her few charms.

“Three thousand guests are attending this party,” Guy said. “What are the odds that I’d get tied to you, of all people?”

“Rather better odds than if I’d not paid for it to happen, I suspect.”

“Huh. You bribed them,” he said, nodding. Arabella always had cared more about winning than about trivial things like rules. “I ought to have guessed.”

“Do calm down. I’m not the only one who had the thought.”

“But you’re the only one with no scruples about doing it.”

“I beg to differ. It was a very scrupulous bribe.”

“A bribe, by definition, cannot be scrupulous.”

She lifted one silk-clad shoulder in a careless shrug. “I factored in the risk these men would take to assist me, and offered an exceedingly generous payment accordingly. Which makes this bribe scrupulous, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I agree,” said one of the jesters.

“As do I,” said the other.

“There,” Arabella said. “Everyone is content with this arrangement.”

“Except me.”

She made a dismissive “hm” sound in her throat, indicating that Guy’s approval was of no concern.

Their arms had been pressed together long enough that it was not quite clear where his skin ended and hers began. Guy tried to keep his shoulder as far from Arabella’s as he could, but the hint of her orange-blossom scent attempted to lure him near.

The jesters triple-tied their final knot and skipped back to admire their work. Around them, other guests were pausing to watch—naturally. Guy couldn’t scratch his chin without attracting comment, and Arabella would never pass anywhere unnoticed; given their history, the sight of them tied together would have the satirists composing lines.

But Guy was marquess now, only one rank below duke, and being one of the highest-ranking men in the land had to be good for something.

“You’ve had your entertainment,” he said to the jesters. “Release us.”

A waste of breath: England had a long tradition in which jesters alone could say what they pleased with impunity, and these two jesters did not relinquish that ancient right.

Instead, grinning, they recited a rhyme in unison: “We bring a gift from Cupid above: A bucketful of mischief, a cartload of love.”

“No love here,” Guy muttered. “This is all mischief.

One produced a dagger out of thin air; with a sleight of hand, it vanished again. “If you wish to be freed from this—You need but give the lady a kiss.”

“Kiss Arabella Larke?” Guy glanced at those curved lips. “Not a bloody chance in hell.”

The door opened silently. A person glided in and shut the door without a sound.

The person was not Clare. A shapeless cloak disguised the intruder’s figure, its hood shadowing the face, but Guy did not need to see the face. Clare was smaller and rounder, with a bounce in her step. This figure moved like water and was tall enough to be a man.

Well, well, well. It seemed Clare was still playing games, and Guy had walked into a trap.

He eased a letter opener off the desk, as the figure turned her—his?—head. In a bound, Guy had the blade pressed to the intruder’s chest.

“You seem to be lost, my friend,” he said. “What are you—assassin or thief?”

“Worse.”

The figure threw back the hood. It was indeed worse.

It was Arabella.

She was without adornment, without expression, regarding him as coolly as if they were in a daytime crowd. As if it were not unacceptable—indeed, unthinkable—for an unaccompanied lady to call on a gentleman at any time, let alone at night.

“Good grief, Guy,” she drawled. “I had no idea you had such a penchant for drama.”

“What the deuce are you doing here? I might have stabbed you.”

“Which would have been awkward for us both, I agree.”

She lowered her gaze pointedly to the blade still aimed at her breastbone. Guy stepped back. He thought he had faced everything during his adventures, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Arabella, in his house alone at night, calmly sweeping off her cloak to reveal a dowdy gray gown better suited to a governess.

He pressed the letter opener to a fingertip. No, not dreaming. Arabella really was here, draping her cloak over a chair and peeling off her gloves.

“Is this another of your schemes, some attempt to trap me into marriage?” He waved the letter opener at the door. “Will your mother come bursting in and scream about honor and ruin?”

“I sincerely hope not. But if she does, please refrain from stabbing her. I’m very fond of my mother.”

Guy had to laugh, though whether from absurdity or horror he could not say. He tossed the letter opener back on the desk, and reclaimed his wineglass. It seemed he might need it.

“I am here,” she announced to the room at large, “because I have something for you.”

“You have nothing I want.”

“An opportunity for revenge.”