She struggled to free herself. “Pray, let me go. I mean it, sir.”

“Miss Wychwood, you compel me to be blunt.” He grasped both of her arms. “I require a wife. An heir. And your father has assured me you’re the one to fill the role.”

“I’m not, I promise you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” His intoxicated breath was sickly warm on her face. “You must know I find you ravishing beyond description. I may not be as young as I once was, but rest assured, I shall have no trouble rousing myself to—”

“Lord Gresham, really.” Julia pushed against him, horrified by the sentiments he was expressing. They weren’t a surprise. But to hear them—and to know how close she was to being obliged to submit to his desires—made her stomach roil in protest. “You go too far.”

The earl was past the point of heeding her. “My dear”—he strained to kiss her—“you drive me to be forceful.”

“Likewise.” She brought her foot down hard on his instep. The little heel of her silk slipper landed with a satisfying crunch.

“Argh!” Lord Gresham released her. Groaning plaintively, he hopped about the clearing on one foot. “Damn and blast it!”

“You have only yourself to blame, sir,” she said primly. Backing away from him, she glanced around the darkened clearing for her best route of escape. “I told you to let me go.”

“Miss Wychwood!” Captain Blunt emerged through the shrubbery. His black-and-white evening clothes, so understated and civilized, stood in stark contrast to the dangerous glint in his ice-gray eyes. “Are you all right?”

Her already racing pulse kicked into a gallop. “Captain Blunt. What are you doing here?”

Felix Hartford appeared in the captain’s wake.

Julia took another step back.

She’d known Mr. Hartford for most of her life, but theirs wasn’t anything resembling a friendship. He’d always been more interested in Anne than in her—an interest that manifested itself in razor-sharp jests that never failed to rile Anne’s temper.

Seeing him now, Julia wasn’t entirely confident he was there to assist her. Not until he moved to intercept Lord Gresham.

“What’s the meaning of this, sir?” Lord Gresham blustered.

“I could ask the same.” Mr. Hartford grasped the earl by his coat. “Dragging off a defenseless young lady? And in your appalling condition?”

Lord Gresham shrugged free of him. “You have a damned nerve, Hartford. There’s nothing wrong with my condition.”

“You smell like a distillery.”

His lordship turned the color of a ripe tomato. “I may have lost my head a little owing to drink, but—”

Captain Blunt advanced on the earl, something savage in his expression. In that moment, Julia could easily imagine him as Hades, God of the Underworld.

Or as a merciless soldier, cruel and pitiless to his core.

A shiver went through her.

Captain Blunt saw it. His face darkened like a thundercloud. “If you’ve hurt her—”

“I? Hurt her?” Lord Gresham was indignant. “It’s you who’s frightening her, Blunt, not I. Miss Wychwood and I have an arrangement. The girl’s father—”