When You're Desired by Tamara Lejeune

disobeyed, and their commander came to drag them away from the tables. Such unpleasant scenes were bad for business.
    â€œMay I interest your lordship in a game of faro?”
    â€œNo,” Simon answered curtly. “I’m looking for Captain Fitzclarence. Is he here?”
    â€œYou may find the captain in the supper room, my lord.”
    â€œWith St. Lys?”
    The proprietor merely bowed. One must be discreet, after all.
    Simon plunged into the smoke-filled club where scores of men and women—mostly wealthy gentlemen and their bejeweled mistresses—huddled around various gaming tables. Here and there a masked female moved through the crowd. These possibly were ladies with reputations to protect, but more likely they were courtesans pretending to be ladies with reputations to protect.
    St. Lys, of course, would never be found amongst the incognitas.
    As he stood in the doorway of the supper room, the Earl of Torcaster called out to him.
    The aging roué was seated at a table with a companion. Simon could not escape the acquaintance. The earl’s first wife had been Simon’s aunt on his father’s side. Rather curiously, his lordship’s second wife had been Simon’s aunt on his mother’s side. Happily, Torcaster’s current wife was no relation to Simon at all. Unhappily, he still considered Simon his nephew.
    â€œGood evening, my lord.”
    â€œYou remember Miss Rogers, of course.”
    â€œGood evening, Lord Simon,” said the earl’s companion. She was a lovely young woman with black hair, lively dark eyes, and toffee-colored skin. She was almost covered in jewels—rubies and diamonds mostly.
    â€œSelina,” Simon said, giving her a polite bow. Miss Selina Rogers, the ranking beauty of Covent Garden, had been his mistress briefly, but she had left him for a rich man. Simon had not loved her, and so they had parted on relatively good terms. He had no regrets and no hard feelings, though he was a little surprised to see her with Torcaster, a man old enough to be her father.
    â€œI am looking for Captain Fitzclarence. By any chance have you seen him?”
    Torcaster frowned in concentration. “The D. of C.’s bastard? No, dear boy. But St. Lys is here. If he is not with her now, he soon will be. Lucky bastard.”
    â€œIs St. Lys here?” Simon said casually.
    â€œCan’t you smell her?” said Miss Rogers, laughing. “You must be the only man here who can’t! She was playing at French roulette when last we saw her.”
    â€œYes, dear boy,” said the earl, “angels do play at French roulette.”
    â€œThank you.” With a slight bow, Simon withdrew, moving swiftly to the next room. He paused on the steps to survey the room, and spotted his quarry almost immediately. St. Lys was seated at the very center of the room with a group of red-coated officers, directly under the chandelier. More men crowded around her table. As they shifted, vying for the actress’s attention, Simon caught tantalizing glimpses of the actress: golden hair, pink satin, a white elbow on the green baize table. He was loath to approach her, loath to join the throng of men clustered around her like excited bees around a flower, lest he be mistaken for one of her panting admirers. Sooner or later, he reasoned, she would have to get up from the table, and then he would intercept her.
    A flash of scarlet across the room caught his eye. Fitzclarence was making his way to St. Lys, holding aloft two glasses of champagne as he threaded his way through the crowd. Simon watched, his eyes narrowed, as the circle around the actress opened up to admit him. For a moment, he could see St. Lys’s face clearly, outrageously beautiful with her golden hair cascading down her back as she gazed up at Fitzclarence adoringly. Laughing, she took her champagne and clinked her glass against his. Simon could not hear her laugh, but he knew the sound,