Quill couldn’t bring himself to lash back at her, to say something dismissive about her gowns. Gabby knew damned well that her evening gown was unconcealed provocation. Madame Carême—clever fiend of a Frenchwoman—had seen that Gabby would never succeed at playing a frail English miss, and so she had played to Gabby’s husky voice, to her lush figure, to her unspoken sensuality. Gabby, dressed in one of Madame Carême’s creations, was a danger to all mankind.

“I will write Peter tonight and send it by messenger,” Quill said. He was horrified to hear the rasp in his tone. He’d better start researching firms in Jamaica. Or perhaps in Zanzibar. Jamaica was too close; he would still be able to imagine Gabby dancing at that ball she wanted to attend so much. Would imagine her melting into a man’s arms. At the ball, and then…after the ball.

Quill swallowed and stood up so abruptly that his chair almost fell. He bowed regally. “Please forgive me, Gabby. I find that I am already late for my engagement this evening.”

“Oh, Quill, mightn’t I go with you?”

“Absolutely not. Ladies never accompany men to private engagements,” Quill snapped.

“Why not?”

Gabby’s eyelashes were dark, dark brown, and then, just at the curling ends, they turned a dusky gold that matched her hair. “A lady,” Quill said exactingly, “does not query a gentleman about his engagements.”

“Oh.” Gabby’s face lightened and she smiled. “I suppose you are going to visit your chère amie. How nice that you have one! Is she someone I would like?”

“God,” Quill muttered. Gabby was beyond unconventional. She wasn’t misguided either. She was simply a force of nature. Were there any businesses located in the nether reaches of the Antarctic? Perhaps he could start a trade in polar-bear skins. “I do not have a chère amie,” he snapped. “And it is most improper of you to mention such a thing to me.”

“All right,” Gabby said amiably, filing away yet another rule in her growing and seemingly endless list of English improprieties. “But why not, Quill?”

Quill had lost track of the conversation again. “Why not what?”

“Why don’t you have a woman friend? In India, all the English gentlemen had female friends, or so I had heard. Not that I am discussing it,” she added hastily. “I am only asking you, Quill, and you are practically my family, so it’s of no account.”

It was amazing how many things Gabby assumed were of no account because he was family, Quill thought sourly.

“I will not discuss the subject with you, Gabby.” And this time his face was so menacing that she could not dismiss his comment as moodiness.

“It was simply a friendly question!”

Quill gave a bark of laughter. “Just don’t ask that sort of question around Peter.”