All the same…in the deepest, most private corner of his neglected heart, there was one wish that Simon could not seem to extinguish.

He shot a covert glance across the ballroom, experiencing as always the peculiar sharp pang that the sight of Annabelle Peyton produced. With all the women that were available to him—and there were more than a few—no one had ever seized his attention with such all-encompassing thoroughness. Annabelle’s appeal went beyond mere physical beauty, though God knew she’d been blessed with an inequitable surplus. Were there an ounce of poetry in Simon’s soul, he might have thought of dozens of rapturous phrases to describe her charms. But he was plebeian to the core, and he could not find words accurately to describe his attraction. All he knew was that sight of Annabelle in the glittering light of the chandeliers was very nearly knee-weakening.

Simon had never forgotten the first moment that he had seen her standing outside the panorama, digging through her purse with a little pucker on her forehead. The sun had picked out streaks of gold and champagne in her light brown hair and made her skin glow. There had been some thing so delicious…so touchable…about her, the velvety skin and shining blue eyes, and the slight frown that he had longed to soothe away.

He had been altogether certain that Annabelle would have been married by now. The evidence that the Peytons had fallen on hard times had not signified to Simon, who had assumed that any peer with his brains intact would see her worth and claim her at once. But as two years had passed, and Annabelle had remained unwed, a fragile tendril of hope had awakened inside Simon. He saw a touching valiance in her determined search for a husband, the self-possession with which she wore her increasingly threadbare gowns…the clear value that she placed on herself, despite her lack of a dowry. The artful way she approached the process of husband-hunting brought to mind nothing so much as a seasoned gambler playing his last few cards in a losing game. Annabelle was smart, careful, uncompromising, and still beautiful, although lately the threat of poverty had lent a certain hardness to her eyes and mouth. Selfishly, Simon was not sorry for her financial hardship—it created an opportunity that he never would have had otherwise.

The problem was that Simon had not yet figured out how to make Annabelle want him, when she was so obviously repulsed by everything he was. Simon was well aware that there were few graces to his character. Moreover, he had no ambition to become a gentleman any more than a tiger aspired to become a house cat. He was merely a man with a great deal of money and all the accompanying frustration of realizing that it could not buy the thing he most wanted.

So far, Simon’s strategy had been to wait patiently, knowing that desperation would eventually drive Annabelle to do things that she had never considered doing before. Privation had a way of presenting a situation in a whole new light. Soon Annabelle’s game would end. She would be faced with the choice of marrying a poor man or becoming the mistress of a wealthy one. And in the latter case, his bed would be the one she ended up in.

“A tasty little tart, isn’t she?” came a comment from nearby, and Simon turned toward Henry Burdick, whose father, a viscount, was reputedly on his deathbed. Caught in the interminable wait before his father kicked off and finally yielded the title and family fortune, Burdick spent the majority of his time gambling and skirt-chasing. He followed Simon’s gaze to Annabelle, who was engaged in a lively conversation with the wallflowers around her.

“I wouldn’t know,” Simon returned, feeling a jolt of antipathy for Burdick and all his ilk, who’d been given all manner of privileges on a silver platter since the day they were born. And usually did nothing to justify fate’s imprudent generosity.

Burdick smiled, his face florid from too much drink and rich food. “I intend to find out soon,” he commented.

Burdick was hardly in the minority. No small number of men had set their sights on Annabelle, with the anticipation of a wolf pack trailing after a wounded prey. At the moment that she was at her weakest, and would offer the least resistance, one of them would move in for the kill. However, as in nature, the dominant male would always win out.

The shadow of a smile settled on Simon’s hard mouth. “You surprise me,” he murmured. “I would have assumed that a lady’s predicament would inspire gallantry from gentlemen of your sort—and instead I find you entertaining the ill-bred notions that one would expect from my sort.”

Burdick emitted a low laugh, missing the feral gleam in Simon’s black eyes. “Lady or no, she’ll have to choose one of us when her resources finally give out.”

“Will none of you offer her marriage?” Simon asked idly.

“Good God, why?” Burdick licked his lips as anticipatory thoughts crossed his mind. “No need to marry the chit when she’ll soon be available for the right price.”

“Perhaps she has too much honor for that.”

“Doubt it,” the young aristocrat returned cheerfully. “Women that beautiful, and poor, can’t afford honor. Besides, there is a rumor that she’s already been giving over the goods to Lord Hodgeham.”

“Hodgeham?” Inwardly startled, Simon kept his face expressionless. “What started that rumor?”

“Oh, Hodgeham’s carriage has been seen at the mews behind the Peyton at odd hours of the night…and according to some of their creditors, he takes care of their bills now and then.” Burdick paused and chortled. “A night between those pretty thighs is worth paying the grocer’s account, wouldn’t you say?”