“He wouldn’t do it, though,” Sir Isaac said decisively, sitting upright in his chair and setting down his glass. “There are limits to what even Monty would do on a dare, and this is one of them. He would not seduce an innocent for all sorts of reasons I could name-which I will not do on account of the odd fact that my tongue and my lips and my teeth are all at odds with one another. Besides, he probably couldn’t do it even if he did decide to try.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Seducing an innocent was the sort of thing no decent gentleman would even dream of attempting-or even one of society’s most notorious hellions for that matter. There were limits to what one would take on for a wager, though admittedly they were few. Of course, those limits fluctuated, depending upon whether one were sober or inebriated. Jasper was very far from being sober-just about as far as it was possible to be without losing consciousness altogether, in fact. And someone had just suggested that there was something he could not accomplish even if he tried.

“Name her,” he said.

“Oh, I say!”

“Ho, Monty.”

“Splendid of you, old chap.”

His friends had been given all the encouragement they needed. They proceeded to trot out the name of almost every young lady who was currently in town for the Season making her debut. It was a lengthy list. Yet everyone on it was gradually eliminated for one reason or another, though none by Jasper himself. Miss Bota was Isaac’s second cousin once removed, while Lady Anna Marie Roache was about to be betrothed to Hal Blackstone’s brother’s friend’s brother-in-law-or something like that. Miss Hendy had spots and therefore did not qualify as lovely… And so on.

And then Katherine Huxtable was named.

“Con Huxtable’s cousin?” Sir Isaac said. “Better not. He would veto her name in a moment if he were still in town and here with us tonight. Wouldn’t like it by half, he wouldn’t.”