Shifting his gaze to Heather, Furlough smiled-more sincerely, a tad ruefully. “Miss Cynster. Would we had met in less crowded surrounds. Perhaps next time.” With a parting nod, he sauntered off into the crowd.

Heather let free an exasperated huff. But before she could even gather her arguments and turn them on Breckenridge, he tightened his grip on her elbow and started propelling her through the crowd.

Startled, she tried to halt. “What-”

“If you have the slightest sense of self-preservation you will walk to the front door without any fuss.”

He was steering her, surreptitiously pushing her, in that direction, and it wasn’t all that far. “Let. Me. Go.” She uttered the command, low and delivered with considerable feeling, through clenched teeth.

He urged her up the salon steps. Used the moment when she was on the step above him to bend his head and breathe in her ear, “What the devil are you doing here?”

His clenched teeth trumped her clenched teeth. The words, his tone, slid through her, evoking-as he’d no doubt intended-a nebulous, purely instinctive fear.

By the time she shook free of it, he was smoothly, apparently unhurriedly, steering her through the guests thronging the foyer.

“No-don’t bother answering.” He didn’t look down; he had the open front door in his sights. “I don’t care what ninnyhammerish notion you’ve taken into your head. You’re leaving. Now.”

Hale, whole, virgin intacta.Breckenridge only just bit back the words.

“There is no reason whatever for you to interfere.” Her voice vibrated with barely suppressed fury.

He recognized her mood well enough-her customary one whenever he was near. Normally he would respond by giving her a wide berth, but here and now he had no choice. “Do you have any idea what your cousins would do to me-let alone your brothers-if they discovered I’d seen you in this den of iniquity and turned a blind eye?”