"I say, Bram," he had said on first learning of his friend's betrothal, "didn't know the wind lay in that direction. And Miss Wells? Do you have a tendre for her, old man?"

Brampton had snorted. "My mother's and Rosalind's choice," he had explained. "Impeccable lineage and reputation and morals and all that."

"I say, though, Bram, you are planning to turn respectable?" his friend had asked anxiously.

"Have I ever been anything but?" Brampton had raised his eyebrows and favored his friend with a haughty glare.

"Oh, say, Bram, don't come the frosty aristocrat with me," Devin had said, unperturbed. "No offense meant. Was referring to Lisa."

"I shall be quite respectable enough for my wife and my mother and my sisters-all three of them, Dev," the earl had said decisively. "What I do privately and discreetly will hurt no one."

"So Lisa stays," Devin had concluded. "Not fair to the little Miss Wells, though, Bram," he had added daringly.

Only a close friend could have got away with such open criticism of the Earl of Brampton.

"I live my own life, Dev," was the stiff reply he received.

And Devin Northcott had devoted himself to seeing that his friend enjoyed his last few weeks of freedom. They had ridden, played cards, drunk, gone to the races and to boxing mills, spent hours at Jackson's boxing saloon, and wandered from club to club at night, very often not returning home until the early hours of the morning.

Lisa had not been too perturbed by his approaching nuptials. She knew that there was no hope of his marrying her, a mere opera dancer. He was a generous and an attentive protector. She had a comfortable home, an adequate number of servants, many expensive clothes and jewels, and a generous allowance of pin money. She knew from research she had done when he had first suggested becoming her protector that he made generous settlements on his ex-mistresses. She also knew from similar research that Miss Margaret Wells was a little mouse of a woman, almost middle-aged-all of twenty-five to Lisa's twenty-and quite unlikely to be a rival in her lover's bed.