A Pair of Rogues by Patricia Wynn

determined steps to frighten her off had had quite the opposite effect.
    Perhaps he thought that heated looks and a low, threatening voice, carefully designed to incite lustful feelings, would intimidate an innocent like her with the hint of dangers she knew nothing of.
    Well, Ned would discover that she was made of sterner stuff.
    Christina wondered what she could do to annoy him next. She had certainly managed to stir him out of his snug arrogance. The worst thing she could do just now would be to rest. Without Ned to tease, the evening at Almack’s would have passed with intolerable boredom, and Christina was not ready to resign herself to a life filled with that.
    Well, she thought to herself, slipping down into the sheets with a sense of some accomplishment, she would simply have to see. If Ned could not be provoked by her actions at the next gathering they attended, she could always attach herself firmly to Robert Edward, and he would be frustrated into rage.
    The thought of Ned’s rage, and the form it might take lured her into a delicious sleep.
    *    *    *
    The next many days saw an increase in the number of their social engagements. Christina was duly presented at Court and made her curtsy.
    Fortunately, for Robert’s sake, she managed to evade the Regent’s eye, for his Highness always preferred a woman of ampler girth. Not that Robert had feared the Regent would make seriously improper advances to the sister of one as highly born as he, but he would not have relished the gossip if Christina had taken it into her head to flirt with the Prince.
    For now that she was on the town, Robert’s worries followed him every night and on into every morning, so that he could hardly get a decent night’s sleep. If he and Louisa did not watch the girl carefully, she was certain to do something to cause them to blanch. At least, Robert reflected with justifiable incense, he always blanched. Louisa apparently experienced no such anxiety over Christina’s reputation. She’d already informed him it would be his task to find Christina the appropriate partner since he had already refused to consider her two candidates.
    No reasonable—or for that matter, unreasonable—amount of discussion had convinced Louisa that her two first choices—Ned and Levington, for goodness’ sake!—were entirely out of the question.
    Robert began to regret that Louisa had ever made the offer to bring Christina out. He missed their quiet evenings spent together at home. This running after Christina and watching whom she danced with, and how many times, whom she met, and whom she sat down to dinner with was wearing him out. Fortunately, now that Robert knew that Ned had no interest in his sister, he could trust him to take on some of the burden.
    * * * *
    It had been wonderful really, Robert reflected to himself one night before his dinner guests arrived, how Ned had become such a reliable friend, ever since Robert had confided to him his lack of confidence in Louisa as a chaperone. Ned had forsaken some of his own pursuits to stand by Robert in his time of need.
    The first time Robert had spotted Ned at a ball on an evening he would normally have spent at the opera or at cards, he had been grateful for Ned’s willingness to share the task of mounting guard over Christina.
    Not that Robert had ever asked Ned to play at duena. But the second Christina’s partner had crossed the line between polite flirtation and behavior beyond the pale, Ned had been quick to step in. He’d prevented them from seeking a private interview behind a heavy pair of curtains, before Robert had even realized the couple’s intent. Robert could only assume that Ned’s superior experience in clandestine affairs—he had so often been the perpetrator of scandals himself—had given him an instinct which allowed him to predict such occurrences before they actually transpired.
    How else to explain Ned’s quickness any time Christina stood in danger of exposing