Not one of them made her heart thump in her chest or made her stomach swirl in that delicious way her prisoner’s wicked gaze had done.

She’d dreamed of him. Alone at night, tucked in her lonely bed, it was his eyes she imagined, his big hands touching her skin. Their brief kiss haunted her, teasing her with a hint of how much more there was to experience in life. It was just her luck to discover she was attracted to rogues, instead of gentlemen. To lean, dark ruffians with soft brown hair and taunting eyes.

What he was doing, her pirate, her highwayman? She’d never actually discovered his crimes. Wherever he was, she hoped he was alive and well. It did her heart good to think of him laughing somewhere in the sunlight, thumbing his nose at convention, having adventures in the great wide world.

Part of her wished she could have gone with him. She wanted that freedom, the challenge of the great unknown, the excitement of knowing whole uncharted continents lay ahead, just waiting to be explored. She wanted to be Robinson Crusoe, or Gulliver, or Byron’s Corsair, sailing “o’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea” to find some “Pirate’s Isle.” She owned ships that sailed across the world, to exotic locations like Alexandria and Ceylon, Calcutta and Peking, but she’d never been adventuring on any of them. She’d never even been over to France, given Britain’s near-constant state of warfare with that country for most of her adult life.

Ladies don’t do that, Georgiana.

But, oh, how she wanted to.

The closest she’d ever been to a life on the ocean wave was sailing her single-mast sailboat, L’Aventure, on the artificial lake Father had created back in Lincolnshire.

Lucky pirate.

It was a shame she’d never see him again.

Chapter 7.

He was back.

Benedict had spent three weeks chasing down leads, trying to glean something from the idle chatter in London’s darkest and least salubrious taverns. But apart from some vague whispers about the plot to rescue Bonaparte from St. Helena, he’d learned little of value.

He’d rarely bothered with ton parties since his return from Belgium; he preferred to spend his free time in the card rooms at the Tricorn, listening to the gossip, but Alex had begged him to accompany him tonight, and he hadn’t had the heart to refuse.

Ben glanced sideways at Alexander Harland, second son of the Duke of Southwick, the man who, along with Sebastien Wolff, had been his best friend since their first days at Eton. All three of them were younger sons, the “spares” as opposed to the “heirs,” shipped off to receive a decent education without the stifling expectation of one day inheriting a title or having to take their seat in the House of Lords.