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viscount could fade into such a derelict neighborhood.
    A different woman opened the door a few minutes later. This one was not so old, not so stooped, but she had the same man-hating sneer on her hard-lined face. She held his card in one hand, ripped in two, and the slavering dog’s collar in the other. “ Mademoiselle ain’t in. She’ll have a thing or two to say to that weasel of a manager for giving out her address, asides. Now get.”
    “But I have a proposition to put to Miss Montclaire,” Galen protested, not anxious to force his way past the dragon or the dog.
    “I’m sure you do, just like all the other randy young bucks, and the randy old goats, too. Mademoiselle don’t entertain gentleman callers, ’specially at her house, after dark, and she don’t entertain lewd offers, never. Now go on with you, or I’ll set the dog loose.”
    Galen doubted the dog would let him pass, and he couldn’t shoot the beast for doing his job, so he backed away. “But I will be returning, you can tell your mistress that. With an offer she’ll want to hear.”
    He was glad, in a way, that he’d been turned aside, for his dismissal meant that Miss Montclaire was no ripe plum, ready to fall into any man’s hands. Of course, she might have a man upstairs already, but he could not think about that now. He had too much to do to convince her to see him and to listen to his offer. More firmly convinced than ever that he was on the right course, that Miss Montclaire was his salvation, Galen hurried back into the night. The walk through the cool, dank air to find a hackney, rare in this neighborhood, did not bring about a change of heart or mind. He might be above par, Galen confessed to himself, but he was not so castaway that any of his other options appealed in the least. His liquor-laced logic might be saying he needed Miss Montclaire, but his loins were, too.
    There was nothing for it, then, but to pay a call on his old schoolmate, Skippy, “Skip the lecture,” Skidmore. Since he and Skippy had been out celebrating the end to Galen’s bachelorhood last evening, right into this morning, the viscount was fairly confident Skippy would be at home, making an early night of it. Galen knew for a fact that Skippy’d been up betimes this morning, for his old friend had been standing right there in his robes, next to the bishop, ready to assist at the wedding that wasn’t.
    Lud, he still had a hard time thinking of old Skipper in orders. In jail, perhaps; in the arms of some doxy, likely; in Dun Territory, always. But in holy orders? The Lord most decidedly worked in mysterious ways, choosing such an addle-pated apostle. Of course, the Lord hadn’t precisely chosen young Skidmore, nor had Skippy willingly taken the cloth. The cloth was all that was being offered, however, by a family out of patience with such a debt-ridden, decadent dunderhead. He wasn’t even the second son, the spare heir, who got to go into the Army. Galen silently thanked Baron Skidmore. They’d all be speaking French by now if Skippy had taken colors instead of clerical collars.
    The rattlepate had barely made it through university, but his powerful father had bought him a position as aide to the bishop. No one let him minister to the congregation, thank God. Galen supposed God should be thanking the bishop for not inflicting Skippy on His innocent believers. Still, Skippy looked a treat in his flowing robes, until one smelled the liquor on his breath, and he had not been arrested once since joining the Church. The brother who had signed up with Wellesley returned missing a limb or two; all Skippy missed were a few, a very few, parties when the bishop needed his assistance. He might be a man of the cloth, but he was still a gentleman of fashion, and he had wits enough to figure betting odds.
    Galen reached for the key nailed to the bishop’s back door and headed toward the servants’ stairwell. He was fully familiar with the house, having dragged a