He had made a vow, after all.

Daniel Smythe-Smith had been his closest friend. No, his only friend, his only true friend.

A thousand acquaintances and one true friend.

Such was his life.

But Daniel was gone, somewhere in Italy if the latest missive was still current. And he wasn’t likely to return, not while the Marquess of Ramsgate still lived, hell-bent on revenge.

What a bloody cock-up the whole thing had been. Marcus had told Daniel not to play cards with Hugh Prentice. But no, Daniel had just laughed, determined to try his hand. Prentice always won. Always. He was bloody brilliant, everyone knew it. Maths, physics, history—he’d ended up teaching the dons at university. Hugh Prentice didn’t cheat at cards, he simply won all the time because he had a freakishly sharp memory and a mind that saw the world in patterns and equations.

Or so he’d told Marcus when they’d been students together at Eton. Truth was, Marcus still didn’t quite understand what he’d been talking about. And he’d been the second best student at maths. But next to Hugh . . . Well, there could be no comparison.

No one in their right mind played cards with Hugh Prentice, but Daniel hadn’t been in his right mind. He’d been a little bit drunk, and a little bit giddy over some girl he’d just bedded, and so he’d sat down across from Hugh and played.

And won.

Even Marcus hadn’t been able to believe it.

Not that he’d thought Daniel was a cheat. No one thought Daniel was a cheat. Everyone liked him. Everyone trusted him. But then again, no one ever beat Hugh Prentice.

But Hugh had been drinking. And Daniel had been drinking. And they’d all been drinking, and when Hugh knocked over the table and accused Daniel of cheating, the room went to hell.

To this day Marcus wasn’t sure exactly what was said, but within minutes it had been settled—Daniel Smythe-Smith would be meeting Hugh Prentice at dawn. With pistols.

And with any luck, they’d be sober enough by then to realize their own idiocy.

Hugh had shot first, his bullet grazing Daniel’s left shoulder. And while everyone was gasping about that—the polite thing would have been to shoot in the air—Daniel raised his arm and fired back.

And Daniel—bloody hell but Daniel had always had bad aim—Daniel had caught Hugh at the top of his thigh. There had been so much blood Marcus still felt queasy just thinking about it. The surgeon had screamed. The bullet had hit an artery; nothing else could have produced such a torrent of blood. For three days all the worry had been whether Hugh would live or die; no one gave much thought to the leg, with its shattered femur.

Hugh lived, but he didn’t walk, not without a cane. And his father—the extremely powerful and extremely angry Marquess of Ramsgate—vowed that Daniel would be brought to justice.

Hence Daniel’s flight to Italy.

Hence Daniel’s breathless, last-minute, promise-me-now-because-we’re-standing-at-the-docks-and-the-ship-is-about-to-leave request: