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your Miss Rivers is, I’ve set my cap elsewhere.”
    Setting his cap for Lady Katherine was but the first step in winning her. In his hard-scrabble experience, winning anything meant fighting for it. Whether he found himself in a London opera house, a pugilist’s ring, or a railway laborer’s hut sleeping three to a bed, jungle law prevailed.
    He divided his gaze between his two friends. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s a lady who’s promised me the next dance … only she doesna know it yet.”
    Gavin and Harry exchanged amused looks. Gavin’s dark brows rose. “Pardon me for asking, but since when do you dance?”
    It was a reasonable question. What little grace he possessed was centered in his nimble-fingered hands; otherwise, he’d been born with two left feet.
    Rourke grinned and handed Harry his champagne flute. “Since now.”
    Blood pumping as though he was once more ramping up to step into the ring, Rourke shouldered his way through the throng. From the pit, the orchestra struck up a waltz. He smiled. The dance had three features to recommend it to a tangle-toed clod such as him: it required moving in step with only one other person, its tempo was slow, and it afforded a man the chance to lay actual hands upon a woman in public without being slapped.
    Approaching his quarry, he ran his gaze over the competition, assessing his most likely point of entry. Of the six men assembled, he recognized two by name. The tall, lanky blond was Henry, Lord Dutton, and his porcine and prematurely balding young friend was Sir Cecil Wesley. The latter’s slouch betrayed him as the weak link.
    Aware of Lady Katherine watching him, Rourke summoned a sunny smile. “Good evening, gentlemen, milady. I trust there are no objections to my joining you?” Without awaiting an answer, he clapped Wesley on the shoulder. Fingers sinking into the young baronet’s sponginess, he moved him aside and stepped forward, thrusting himself dead center into the circle.
    He made Lady Katherine what he hoped was a serviceable bow. “Lady Katherine.” Straightening, he caught a whiff of her scent, orange blossoms and some other fresh but as yet unidentified fragrance that had him thinking of sunshine and balmy spring breezes. Ignoring his rivals’ furious faces, he honed his gaze on her coolly curious brown eyes. “I’ve come to claim my dance, milady.”
I’ve come to claim you.
    For a few seconds, her aloof mask slipped, and he caught a flicker of surprise in her eyes, the pupils widening ever so slightly. She hesitated, glancing down at the arm he extended. “Yes, I do believe this dance is promised to you.”
    Lord Dutton scowled, his bottom lip protruding like a sulky child whose gingerbread was about to be taken away. “But how can that be? This is the first waltz of the evening.” He turned to Lady Katherine. “As I’m sure you will recollect, I bespoke this dance when I brought you your glass of punch.”
    Tiny though she was, she held her ground. “You are mistaken, sir.” She circumvented Dutton and came to Rourke, laying her small, gloved hand lightly atop his arm. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse us.” The latter was not spoken as a question.
    Chest swelling, Rourke led her away toward the dance floor, his triumph a trillion times more potent than snaffling a watch or pinching a purse. In this case he’d stolen something far more precious, a diamond of the first water, a pearl beyond price, straight out from under the toffee noses of his supposed betters.
    As soon as they were out of earshot, she leaned in and whispered, “I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me. Dutton and his set, ugh! What a lot of bloody bores.” She angled her face to his profile. “By the by, who the hell are you?”
    For a lady born, she certainly cursed a blue streak, not that he was one to mind. “Patrick O’Rourke, though my friends call me Rourke. Actually, my enemies call me Rourke, too, as well as do my business colleagues. Come