“Not necessarily for the better. I enjoy my life tremendously, but I wouldn’t wish it on you. And did this ruffian ask you to run away with him?”

“Of course not,” she said, sounding disappointed. “And if he had, I certainly wouldn’t have gone. It was just so … so …”

“Exciting?” Miranda suggested, but Jane shook her head. “Frightening? Distracting? Entertaining? Tempting?”

“Delicious,” she said with a shy smile, brushing her hair away from her face.

Miranda froze. “What the bloody hell is that?”

“What?” Jane said, confused.

“On your finger. That’s not Bothwell’s tiny little ring.”

Jane looked at her hand, and jumped, uttering a distressed squeak. A very large, very handsome diamond now rested on the ring finger of her left hand, and she yanked at it, trying to pull it off. It wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, no,” she moaned.

“Where’s Bothwell’s ring?”

She held out both hands, but the plain, cheap little ring was nowhere in sight. “Oh, God, what am I going to do, Miranda? How will I ever explain this to him?”

“Try your pockets.”

She did, hurriedly reaching into the pockets sewn into her dress, and breathed an audible sigh of relief. “It’s here.”

“Now all you have to worry about is getting the other one off.”

“And returning it to its rightful owner,” she said, yanking at it.

“Don’t do that—you’ll make your finger swell and it’ll be even worse. We’ll use warm water and soap and it will slip right off. I presume it belongs to the duchess of Carrimore?”

“Of course it does. What else would draw a jewel thief in the middle of a party? We have to get it back to her!” Jane looked as if she wanted to cry.

“That’ll teach you to go kissing jewel thieves in the middle of the night,” Miranda said cheerfully.

“Don’t laugh! This is a serious problem.”

“You meet a quixotic jewel thief who kisses you and slips a diamond ring on your finger. Next thing we know he’ll be asking you to marry him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She stopped fretting at the ring. “I’m marrying Mr. Bothwell.”

“Of course you are…. Unfortunately. But aren’t you glad you at least had a taste of adventure?”

Jane absently put her hand to her mouth, and the diamond ring sparkled in the candlelight. Miranda watched, and an unexpected spark of jealousy danced through her. The dreamy expression still lingered in Jane’s deep brown eyes, and the fingers that touched her slightly swollen lips were a subtle caress. Miranda had never been kissed like that, and it was more than likely she never would. She’d never know that swept-away feeling, that tender, almost painful longing for something you could never have. She had been ruined in more ways than one.

“I think,” said Jane sadly, “I might have been better off without it.”

Miranda could feel the pain in her voice. “The good thing is, no one knows about it. No one but the thief, and he’s hardly likely to start talking. You’ll forget all about this once you’re happily married.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to marry Mr. Bothwell.”

“I don’t, but it’s better than running off with a jewel thief,” she said frankly. “And don’t worry about the ring. I’ll ask the earl what we should do about it.”

“You aren’t going to tell him what happened!” Jane protested, horrified.

“Of course not. I’ll tell him I found it. But he’s a very clever man—I expect he’ll figure out a way to return it with no one the wiser.” She couldn’t rid herself of the sudden suspicion that the earl knew far too much about the jewel thief and the Carrimore diamonds. But that was absurd—he was a peer of the realm. With a worse reputation than she enjoyed. But still, it was ridiculous.

Jane glanced down at the ring, a wistful expression on her face. “That would be for best … wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, dearest,” Miranda said, tucking her arm around Jane’s waist. “You can’t keep it, as gorgeous as it is. Don’t fret about it. You just get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow everything will be resolved.”

But she knew Jane would do no such thing. She would lie in bed, and touch her mouth again, and remember what her mysterious admirer had said and done. And the sooner she got married off to the odious Mr. Bothwell, the safer she would be.

It was a great deal too bad that safety no longer looked so appealing.

“You did what?” Lucien de Malheur demanded of his criminal confederate.

“I kissed a proper young lady who happened to stumble in on me while I was gathering the duchess’s extra diamonds. I don’t know how she got there—probably the servants’ access. One moment I was alone in the room, scooping up the diamonds, in the next she was there. What else was I to do but kiss her?”

“Break her neck?” Lucien suggested dryly.

“You know I wouldn’t do that. Not to an innocent. Besides, she was such a shy, sweet little thing. Though not so little, if I recall. Clearly she needed kissing.”

“You’re just lucky she didn’t scream her head off.” The earl’s voice was sour; he’d been thinking too much about Miranda Rohan and it had put him in a foul mood. Jacob’s romantic dalliances didn’t help.

“Oh, I made sure she couldn’t,” Jacob said. “And even if she had it wouldn’t have been a problem. I could have just dove out the window and be off before she managed to raise the wind on me. You would have been perfectly safe.”

“I wasn’t worried. I just think you’re being a little reckless. You had half a dozen men who could have done your job tonight, and yet you chose to endanger yourself and me.”

Jacob Donnelly shrugged his wide shoulders and began using his aristocratic accents. “Don’t worry, I won’t be seeing her again. I don’t even know her name.”

“I do. It’s Jane Pagett. She’s engaged to marry some dull stick named George Bothwell, and she happens to be Miranda Rohan’s closest friend.”

Jacob looked undaunted. “Too bad we can’t have a double wedding.”

Lucien swore. “How many wives do you have at this point, Jacob? Half a dozen?”

“None of them legal,” Jacob said cheerfully. “And there’s none that calls themselves that at the moment. I’m fancy free.”

“Keep it that way,” Lucien said in a chilly voice. “My life is complicated enough.”

“And how are your plans working out? Is the lady enamored?”

“Completely. She’s a great deal more outspoken than I expected, but in the end that will serve me well, I think. I’ll just move things up a little faster than I planned.”

“You were seen with her tonight—I heard the servants talking. It won’t take long for word to get to her family, and then all hell will break loose.”

“I know what I’m doing. I wish I could say the same for you.”

“Jesus, Lucien, it was only a kiss.”

“Just so long as you keep your distance in the future. You’re sure she didn’t get a good look at you?”

“It was black as night. I saw her, she couldn’t see me. Ah, but Lucien …” he said, shaking his head, leaning back in his chair. “She tasted … delicious.”

The next few days were almost too lovely, Miranda thought in retrospect. That in itself should have been a warning—after twenty years of a singularly blessed life she’d learned that things could turn ugly very quickly. Who would have thought falling in love with Christopher St. John would have led to such disaster?

She’d accepted she would spend the rest of her life as a disgraced nun, shunned by former friends, living a secluded life empty of love and life and joy. A calm life.

But now, suddenly, there was Lucien De Malheur. Not so handsome, not so charming, and yet he totally bewitched her, with his soft, lazy voice, his wit, the faint tinge of malice directed toward those who deserved it. The way he moved, despite the limp, the way he mocked the prudes who looked down on them both. And there was something in the pale eyes that watched her, something she refused to define, that nonetheless filled her with the kind of longing she thought she would forever be impervious to.

They rode together, laughing, knowing disapproving eyes were watching them. He joined her for tea, much to Cousin Louisa’s fascination and Jane’s astonishment. He teased her into calling him Lucien, he flattered her so extravagantly all she could do was laugh. He took her to the opera and kissed her hand decorously and she wondered if it were possible that after all she had been through, after all this time, she was capable of falling in love.

She hoped not. She knew perfectly well that those hopes were doomed.

8

Miranda was sound asleep when she heard the pounding on her bedroom door. She sat up, disoriented, pulling the covers to her neck.

No one in the world would come storming into her house and beat on her door, unless the Bow Street Runners were after the stolen ring, which Jane, after more than a week, still hadn’t been able to remove from her finger … in which case she was just going to hide under the covers and pretend she couldn’t hear a thing.

“Open up the door, sister!” Her younger brother Brandon bellowed from the other side. “I can’t stand here all day.”

Miranda would have been more than happy to have left him there all day, but he was making far too much noise to allow any continued sleep. She dragged herself out of bed, shivering slightly when her bare feet met the cold floor, and she crossed the chilly room to the door, flinging it open just as he was about to pound on it again.

“It wasn’t locked,” she said in a deliberately mild tone.

“I don’t just barge into a lady’s bedroom uninvited,” he said stiffly, doing just that. “You might be dressing.”