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her. “I will see you at the Granby Ball tomorrow night, Miss Lister. You will save a dance for me.”
    He saw Alice’s eyes narrow at the fact that his words were a statement not a request. “Dance with you?” she said. She quoted his own words back to him. “I don’t think so.”
    “Yes, you will.” Miles smiled. “It is the beginningof our three-month courtship during which I shall prove myself the most honorable, worthy and upstanding of suitors.” He held her eyes, and she dropped her gaze first, the rose color deepening in her cheeks. “I assure you, Miss Lister,” he added, “that we shall be in each other’s company a great deal from now onward.”
    “That is ridiculous,” Alice snapped. “There is no need for us to spend more than the minimal amount of time together. No one is suggesting that this is a love match. It is a business arrangement!”
    “That may be so,” Miles said smoothly, “but I am not giving the lawyers any opportunity to suspect me. You will find me the devoted suitor, I assure you.”
    “I do not want you paying court to me,” Alice said. She was flushed with indignation now. “I loathe the idea. It…it makes a mockery of the whole concept of love and marriage.”
    Miles laughed. “Miss Lister, you are so charmingly naive. Accept it.”
    Once again he watched her struggle with her temper. “I suppose I have no choice,” she said angrily. She took a deep breath, recovered herself. “Mama will, of course, be present on all occasions to chaperone me, so that will at least ensure that you cannot try to circumvent the conditions and seduce me into marriage.”
    “Excellent,” Miles said cheerfully. “I cannot help but feel that Mrs. Lister will support my suit.”
    “Pray do not take that as personal approval,” Alice said sweetly. “If a duke comes along Mama will no doubt change her allegiance.”
    Miles laughed. “I have no illusions, Miss Lister.”
    “Nor indeed any principles,” Alice said.
    “Naturally not,” Miles said. “But I can adopt someon a temporary basis.” He bowed again. “Good day, Miss Lister. Until tomorrow night.” He kissed the back of Alice’s hand and let her go, noting with satisfaction that she clasped one hand in the other, unconsciously running her fingers over the place his lips had touched her skin. She might detest him, he thought, but she was far from indifferent to his touch. This was going to be the perfect arrangement. He would have Alice in his bed, and her money would save him from the debtor’s prison. Everything was within his grasp.
    Three months.
    Total honesty.
    The words echoed ominously in Miles’s head as he went out, down the steps of the house and onto the gravel sweep, but he told himself that he could do it to save himself from ruin. It would be easy.

CHAPTER FIVE
    A LICE STOOD BY THE WINDOW and watched as Miles walked away up the drive. There was a casual assurance in his gait that spoke of utter confidence. He turned to look back and raised a hand in farewell, and she chided herself fiercely at having been caught watching him. Miles Vickery was the sort of man that women watched all the time and he knew it. She wished she had not been the one to confirm it.
    With a sigh she dropped into the armchair that she had only recently vacated. She felt exhausted from the pressure of withstanding Miles’s blackmail and drained by an anger so deep and intense that she had thought it would consume her alive.
    Miles Vickery. He was despicable.
    He was just like all the rest. Men like Miles took what they wanted with a coldhearted disregard for the feelings of others.
    She thought of Miles, and of Tom Fortune, who had ruined Lydia and callously abandoned her, and of all those nameless, faceless, careless sons of the nobility who saw any woman as fair game and who believed that a servant girl in particular was placed on earth to clean their boots and tend to their pleasure, to be picked up, used and discarded at whim,