As if he could. That nonsense was the only thing that helped him feel alive, useful, and anything other than a complete leech on Society. His age had nothing to do with it.

“Just tell me what she wants.”

“She has come for . . .” Nelson cleared his throat again.

“For what?”

“A. . . a man, sir. One to . . .” He shifted. “Ruin her. Apparently, your reputation has preceded you.”

A man to ruin her? Had Mrs. Cuthbert sent her? Mrs. Cuthbert should have known better. He was occupied with Lady Emily at the moment. Mrs. Cuthbert had arranged it herself. “Please tell me you didn’t bring her to the drawing room. Transactions like these should not be performed at night. Send her away.”

Nelson shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t send her to the drawing room.”

“Thank the heavens you had the sense for that. What was her name? I can arrange to meet her in town if she is desperate, I suppose, but the timing—did she say it was urgent?”

The door to his office swung open, and a soaking-wet, dark-haired woman stepped inside. Her dress clung to her legs and arms, and her drenched bonnet drooped over half her face. What the devil?

Nelson pulled on his neckcloth a second time. “She wouldn’t go to the drawing room, sir. She thought you might not see her if she went there.”

She was deuced right—he wouldn’t have. The woman was dripping on his Parisian rug.

“Lord Bryant,” she said in a voice slightly familiar and out of breath. Her bonnet still hung forward on her face, shrouding her in shadows. Her hand lay still on his study door as if she were afraid she would be pushed out and it would be slammed closed. A fair assumption. Where had he heard her voice before? He met an excessive number of women in London. Her shape was decent. More than decent. Tall and slender with well-made but unembellished clothing. She didn’t seem like the type of woman who would need his help.

She could be here to actually be ruined. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the first time a lady found him in his study. It had taken him two years of refusing visits before cards stopped coming to his home. Disturbing Lord Bryant at his home was an offense not easily overcome. Someone should have told that to this chit.

“It seems you have an advantage over me,” Everton said.

She released the door and swiped her bonnet off her face with the back of her forearm. It fell back and dangled behind her by the strings, making her look like a willful child. Her eyes widened at his open shirt and disheveled hair, but how had she expected to find him at this late hour? Sitting home alone in his blacks? Despite the general dampness of her clothing and face, she was young and fresh and brought with her a light that didn’t belong in his home. “Miss Diana Barton,” she said. “We have met on a few occasions.”