The last thing Bronwyn wanted to do was attend a ball or be its crowning jewel, but she’d come to her aunt’s against Rawley’s instructions and the whole entire point of being in plain sight was not to blend and to be seen as Lady Bronwyn Chase enjoying the season. She didn’t plan to stay long in Paris. Just long enough for Rawley to catch up with them as he’d intended and for her presence to be noted by enough people in case he did not. If the Duke of Thornbury did follow on her heels, he would be hard pressed to accuse her of anything in front of the entire French aristocracy.

She hoped.

As such, her take-no-prisoners aunt had commissioned the most sought-after modiste in Paris to fit Bronwyn in a dress in the two short days since she’d arrived, and here she was. Dressed in the most sumptuous confection of a gown she’d ever beheld and being paraded and courted and charmed by everyone with a title, and even a few without, at her aunt’s very well-attended party.

“This is my dear friend, the Marquis de Tremblay,” her aunt Esther was saying. “He’s quite a lovely gentleman when he’s not flirting with anything in skirt.” She frowned. “Or trousers. Or any clothing, actually.”

Bronwyn bit back her horrified giggle. Her aunt was the opposite of her dour sister, Bronwyn’s mother, in every way. It was a wonder the two had shared the same womb.

“I do not flirt unless it is invited,” the marquis said in charmingly accented English.

Bronwyn’s eyes lifted to meet the smiling face of a very handsome man she was certain she might have met before, but all the faces were beginning to merge. Goodness, did her aunt intend to introduce her to all of Paris in one evening? Perhaps she and the Marchioness of Borne weren’t so different if she also secretly intended to marry her off at the best opportunity that presented itself.

“Lovely to meet you, Monsieur,” Bronwyn replied in fluent French.

His eyes brightened with delight. “Your accent is perfection, my lady.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Will you dance the next set?” he asked.

“I would love to.” At least it would get her away from more unwelcome introductions. Aunt Esther seemed ready to embark with a new group of eligible gentlemen she’d summoned. Bronwyn was never going to remember all those names! She supposed her aunt meant well, intending for her to have fun, unlike Bronwyn’s mother, whose marital leanings hinged on the match that would serve her best.

But Bronwyn wasn’t interested in any gentlemen, save for the one she emphatically could not have.

A hard face with amber eyes and sculpted lips filled her vision, and she blinked, feeling a wash of gooseflesh rise on her arms.

He wants you in jail, you nitwit. That’s why you ran.