There was a sudden tension across his shoulders as she shot his yet to be offered name. Was nowhere in England too far for his face to be recognized? Perhaps she was the daughter of some well-moneyed criminal, for she walked too grandly to be one of the common women that so often ended up behind bars.

He glanced when she sat, finally meeting her gaze again with cool resolve. She was no one, as far as he could tell. A beautiful woman, a woman who had been through finishing school, but most likely some merchant’s freshly minted woman who had a few bachelors in mind to make her own.

Sonia … Carrington? His brow furrowed in skepticism. There was no Carrington he knew by the name of that, and he used to grudgingly tolerate one of the brothers. Husband? His gaze immediately dropped to her hands, scouring them for rings as she spoke. Dead husband-- oh, oh God. This was Magnus’ widow?

Diamond Pony. There was only one instance he had ever been there While he figured she thought it just the usual parlays with women and disease … the ghost of Oscar Wilde’s trial hung heavy over him.

Zechariah Meijer might have been half a head shorter than her, but he was broad and he was bold. He closed the distance between them, thigh just shy of touching thigh, and cupped one of her hands between two of his. He leaned in, not close enough to kiss but certainly closer than strangers ought be.

Better to be thought a lecher than known a bugger, after all.

“Mrs. Carrington,” he murmured, not unkind but neither gently, either. “May his memory-” he began out of habit, but then desisted.

His memory was a curse, and Zechariah was not inclined to pretend otherwise. He changed tracks.

“You are no doubt a comfortable widow now – why complicate that with another husband?”