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better warn you that when it is finished, I will
    want some answers of my own."
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    She turned her head quite sharply to stare at him. "Answers? What sort of answers? "
    "Do not mistake me, Mrs. Deveridge. I am extremely impressed with the quantity and quality of the
    information you possess. Your sources must be excellent. But I fear you know a bit too much about me
    and my affairs."
    It had been a desperate gamble, but she had won. She was face-to-face with the mysterious Dream
    Merchant, the secret owner of London's most exotic pleasure garden. Madeline was well aware that she
    had taken a great risk by letting him know that she knew his identity. He had good reason to be
    concerned, she thought. He moved in high circles in the Polite World. He was on the guest list of every
    important hostess of the ton, and he was a member of all the best clubs. But even his fortune would not
    protect him from the social disaster that would ensue if Society discovered that it had admitted to its most
    exclusive ranks a gentleman who had gone into trade.
    She had to acknowledge that he had carried off an audacious performance. Indeed, Hunt had crafted a
    role for himself that was worthy of the great Edmund Kean. He had successfully managed to keep his
    identity as the Dream Merchant a secret. No one thought to question the source of his wealth. He was a
    gentleman, after all. Gentlemen did not discuss such matters unless it became obvious that a man had run
    out of money altogether, in which case he became the subject of considerable scorn and a great deal of
    vicious gossip. More than one man had put a pistol to his head rather than face the scandal of financial
    ruin.
    There was no getting around it. She had virtually blackmailed Hunt into helping her tonight, but she'd had
    no other choice. There would certainly be a price to pay. Artemas Hunt was a Vanza master, one of the
    most skilled gentlemen who had ever studied the arcane arts. Such men tended to be extremely secretive
    by nature.
    Hunt had gone to great lengths to hide his Vanza past—a very ominous move indeed. Unlike his
    ownership of the Dream Pavilions, a membership in the Vanzagarian Society would do him no harm in
    social circles. Only gentlemen studied Vanza, after all. Yet he was intent on cloaking himself in mystery.
    That did not bode well.
    In her experience the majority of the members of the Vanzagarian Society were harmless crackpots.
    Others were no worse than enthusiastic eccentrics. A few were quite mad, however. And some were
    truly dangerous. Artemas Hunt, she began to believe, might well be in that last category. When this night's
    business was finished, she could find herself facing an entirely new host of problems.
    As if she did not already have enough to keep her occupied. On the other hand, given her inability to
    sleep through the night lately, she might as well keep busy, she thought glumly.
    A shiver went through her. She realized that she was very conscious of the manner in which Hunt
    seemed to occupy a great deal of the interior of the small carriage. In overall size he was not as large as
    her coachman, Latimer, but there was an impressive breadth to his shoulders and a dangerously languid
    grace about him that disturbed her senses in some peculiar manner she could not explain. The watchful
    intelligence in his eyes only served to heighten the unsettling sensation.
    She realized that in spite of all that she knew about him, she was fascinated by him.
    She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself. Don't be a fool, she thought. The last thing she had
    ever wanted to do was become involved with another member of the Vanzagarian Society.
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    But it was too late to change her mind. She had made her decision. Now she must follow through on her
    scheme. Nellie's very life might depend upon this bold