He would leave town after Patricia’s wedding. He would never see her again. “Good-bye, Charlotte.”

The latched turned under his hand, forcing him to step back quickly lest he be struck by the opening door.

“Ah, Lord Carlisle, there you are. A little bird told me I could find you here.”

Dare looked with growing horror at the smiling, suspicious face of his hostess.

“Lady Jersey. I…er…”

“Your sister was worried about you, weren’t you, Miss McGregor?”

Dare took another step back as Patricia slipped in next to Lady Jersey. Both women looked beyond him to where Charlotte had scurried behind the chair. “I was. It’s not like my brother to disappear when he promised me a waltz, although if you have some business with that gentleman, Dare, I am willing to forgive you the oversight.”

Lady Jersey stepped farther into the room, inclining her head toward Charlotte as she held out her hand. “Sir, I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure?”

Charlotte, with a strangled sound and a quick indecipherable glance at Dare, reached out to take the proffered hand, but snatched it back quickly when her breeches started to slide down her hips.

“Good God in heaven!” Lady Jersey exclaimed, her sharp eyes missing nothing of Charlotte’s rumpled appearance. “Lord Carlisle, I had no idea you are a…that you preferred…”

Thankfully the presence of Patricia put a halt to any further utterances. Dare opened his mouth to explain, but he couldn’t. If he mentioned who Charlotte was, the parson’s noose would be around his neck before he knew it. Yet if he didn’t, Lady Jersey would be sure to spread word of his alleged sexual preference, which, given his luck of late, would find its way unerringly to the ears of the very straitlaced Mrs. Whitney, and that would spell a disaster from which he could not recover. He tried to rally his wits, but the full horror of the situation had struck him, leaving him with a sick, clammy feeling in the region of his stomach, hands that were suddenly damp, and the knowledge that if his goose was not yet actually plucked, it was next in line. Before he could do more than sputter an objection, however, the matter was taken from him.

“Lord Carlisle was merely helping me with my codpiece,” Charlotte said in a deep, obviously false approximation of a male voice. Two more people crowded into the doorway as she cleared her throat and added, “That is, he was assisting in removing an object from it.”

Dare’s mind went numb around the edges. He hadn’t thought matters could be made worse, but when Mrs. Whitney leaned toward him and in a scandalized whisper asked why a half-clad man was standing before Lady Jersey, he felt the leaden weight of despair clamp itself around his heart. Dare glanced at her, over to the sympathetic eyes of Patricia’s betrothed standing beside his aunt, and felt the cold hands of the feather plucker approaching. He was caught. Ensnared. Trapped. It had come to this, to a choice. If he wanted any hope of selling his engine design to the Whitney shipyards, he would have to salvage the situation, and assuming his prayer for the earth to open up and swallow him whole was not going to be answered, salvage meant sacrifice. His sacrifice.