Suzanne Robinson by Lady Dangerous

he knew she was around. Other than to take note of her presence and pay her bills, he had left her upbringing to his wife. After all, how difficult could it be to teach a girl to play the piano and dress herself well? He launched her into country society first, as he would have launched one of those steamers in which he’d invested, never suspectingthat his daughter would have anything to say about his plans for her. She had.
    While he’d been absorbed in raising and indulging his son, Liza had been left much to herself. Mama too was enraptured with William Edward, when she could spare time from pursuit of her one real interest in life—herself. Left alone, Liza explored the world through study, since she couldn’t do it in person. She used her allowance to buy books and prints. She read newspapers and magazines.
    If he’d bothered to find out what she was doing, Papa wouldn’t have approved. As it was, the unpleasant discovery of his daughter’s bluestocking character came in the midst of her first party. Liza took perverse satisfaction every time she remembered that night. Papa had turned vermilion as he heard his daughter argue with an eligible son of a knight of the empire about the merits of a married woman’s property act and the necessity of a divorce bill.
    Well, it served him right. But then had come her first season, and the event that soured her already negligible taste for titled young men. It wasn’t that she hated men. She wasn’t so stupid as to think all men as parsimonious and close-fisted with their love as Papa. It was just that none of them seemed to understand that a young woman would want more than to sit at their feet and goggle at them in adoration.
    Papa had been furious at her. He accused her of being “clever.” It was social death for a girl to be thought clever. Still, it had been his own fault. Perhaps if he’d spared her some morsel of his affection, she wouldn’t have insulted a total of five bigoted young men during the course of one ball and gotten herself ostracized from Society. Definitely, it had beenPapa’s fault. After that had come his threat to disown her. She still couldn’t think of the way he’d so easily cast her out without feeling a sharp jab of pain in her chest. Yes, the whole disaster had been Papa’s fault, but this knowledge didn’t take away the pain.

H e watched Jocelin pour brandy into coffee cups. Jocelin, the gracious; Jocelin, the beautiful; Jocelin, the dangerous. He shouldn’t have come tonight. He was feeling the beast, snarling, pawing, keening to come out in the open. On the way over in the carriage he’d almost stuck his head out the window and howled. And now they were talking about Stapleton’s death in a cloud of after-dinner cigar smoke. Stapleton had drunk two bottles of brandy without stopping. A man can’t do that and live, which had been the point.
    The beast rolled over inside him, grunted, and snuffled. When he felt like this, he saw everything as if he were crouched on all fours, and everyone eitheras predator or as prey. His fingers curled into claws. His thoughts blurred into elemental instincts, flashing images of quarry scrambling for safety, of running, running, running through a battlefield. His horse was gone. Oh, God, his horse was gone.
    On foot he was dead. Around him shells exploded. Pieces of his men spattered his coat. He screamed. Lieutenant Cheshire rode at him. Cheshire was wounded and slumped over his horse’s neck. He grabbed the rider, who cried out as he was hauled from the saddle. He mounted. Cheshire grabbed his leg and pleaded. He kicked out, and Cheshire flew backward onto the lance of an advancing Russian.
    He kicked the horse, and it sprang forward. He heard Cheshire’s dying cries, swept by Sergeant Pawkins, saw Jocelin clash his saber against that of a Russian cavalry officer. He galloped on and on until he was safe. But he would never be safe, because someone besides Cheshire might have seen his