Con would very probably not be pleased with this wager or its inevitable outcome-for it was, of course, inevitable.

Which fact merely added titillation to the challenge, for Con was, of course, his friend.

The other men were preparing to leave, he saw. He was very glad that he was already at home, though even the thought of hauling himself to his feet and climbing the stairs to bed was daunting. He had better make the effort, though, or his valet would be in here within a half hour with a burly footman or two to carry him off to his bed. It had happened once, and Jasper had found it more than a mite humiliating. Perhaps that had been Cocking’s intention. It had never happened again.

And so less than half an hour later, having seen his friends safely off the premises, he weaved his way upstairs to his rooms, where he found his valet awaiting him despite the hour, which was late or early depending upon one’s perspective.

“Well, Cocking,” he said, allowing his man to unclothe him just as if he were a baby, “this has been a birthday best forgotten.”

“Most birthdays are, milord,” his man said agreeably.

Except that he was not going to be able to forget it, was he? A wager had been made. Another one.

He had never lost a wager.

But this time?

For a few moments after he had dismissed his valet and crossed his bedchamber to open a window, Jasper could not remember what it was he had wagered upon. It was something that even at the time he had known he would regret.

He did not usually look too closely at each year’s new crop of young marriage hopefuls. There were often a few notable beauties among them, but there was also too much danger of being ensnared in some matrimonial trap-despite what someone had said earlier about the innocents not wanting to marry him. He was, after all, a wealthy, titled gentleman, two facts that could easily wipe out a multitude of sins.