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She studied the faces, unsure whether to feel relieved or sorry that Mr. Marfleet’s was not among them. “Nor do I,” she said, lowering her quizzing glass, “but they are not the only gentlemen here tonight.” It would be best
not
to see Mr. Marfleet, she decided, her hand going to her bare throat.

What if he mentioned seeing her coming out of the pawnbroker’s shop?

Jessamine took another sip of champagne, bracing herself for the encounter. If Mr. Marfleet was here, she’d have to trust his discretion. If he did let something slip, she’d have to brave it out.

Lancelot eyed the crowded ballroom when he arrived with Harold. They were fashionably late since Harold had insisted they dine at his club beforehand. That had led to a stop at the faro table. Only by intimating that he wanted to see Miss Barry and Miss Phillips at the ball was Lancelot able to pull his brother away.

He put on his spectacles now and scanned the ballroom, seeking Miss Barry. He didn’t see her and swallowed a sense of disappointment. Hadn’t they received an invitation? His mother had promised to drop a hint to the ball’s hostess, a close school friend.

He touched his pocket, feeling the slight lump of the necklace’s pendant there. He meant to give it to Miss Barry this evening, if he could find a moment alone with her. He grimaced, wondering how she would react at seeing him tonight.

Harold disappeared into the crowd. Deciding to wait a bit before making a foray into the ballroom himself, Lancelot backed out and headed to the card room.

He was a coward around women, he knew, but even as he acknowledged this, he kept moving away from the ballroom, his hand patting his pocket once more.

7

J
essamine tapped her foot against the parquet floor to the beat of the Scotch reel. She and Megan were still standing where Lady Bess had left them when she’d gone off to the card room with a friend with the parting admonition, “Don’t sit out too many dances.”

That had been an hour ago. Jessamine had finished her champagne, the euphoria long since worn off. The evening was promising to be like all the others since coming to London.

When a passing footman laden with a tray of glasses crossed in front of them again, she snatched another glass of champagne. Her abrupt gesture jarred the tray and set the glasses shaking.

The footman halted, startled at her sudden movement. She glared at him, and his features took on the impassive look of a well-trained servant.

“Are you sure you should have any more?” Megan whispered after he’d moved away.

Jessamine stared at her over the rim of her glass. “If I am to stand here bored until supper, yes, I think I should indeed.” She took a healthy swallow.

Megan returned to watching the dancers.

A moment later she touched Jessamine’s arm. “There is Sir
Harold.” Her hold tightened. “He has seen us.” She raised a hand in acknowledgment.

If he was here, it meant his brother must be too. Jessamine resisted the urge to lift her quizzing glass. Instead she took another swallow of champagne.

A moment later, Sir Harold bowed before them. “Good evening, ladies, how pretty you both look.” His glance rested on Jessamine. “Ravishing, I should say. What have you done to yourself?”

Her already warm cheeks felt warmer as his eyes drifted downward and lingered on her neckline. She had the urge to tug it upward. Instead, she touched her hair. “Shorn my locks.”

“So I see . . . à la Caro.” His gaze returned to her face with a lazy smile. “I hope you don’t fall in love with Byron and make a cake of yourself as she has done.”

“Running besotted after a poet? I can assure you I shall not be so foolish.”

His dark blond brows drew together. “Why are neither of you dancing?”

“Because no one has asked us,” she replied, emboldened by the champagne.

“Where is that slowtop brother of mine?” He craned his neck around. “I swear he was following me just now. Ah, well, I’ll find him presently. In the meantime—” He snagged the arm of a passing gentleman. “Reggie, I need your services.”

Sir Harold turned back to them with a flourish. “May I present Reginald Layton. Reggie—Miss Phillips, Miss Barry.”

The handsome young man bowed to each then asked Megan, “May I have this dance?”

Sir Harold made a courtly bow to Jessamine. “Can you content yourself with me until I find my wayward brother?”

“You mustn’t feel obliged to ask me—”

“Nonsense. It is my pleasure. Come, let’s set down your drink and kick up our heels.”

They followed the other two onto the dance floor and joined a set.

It was a lively dance that kept them moving constantly so she did not have to worry about talking to Sir Harold but for brief snatches.

The champagne made her giddy but light on her feet as well. “How is your sister?”

“Delawney?” he said. “She never comes to these things. She is worse than Lancelot. She refused a season and now is squarely on the shelf and says she doesn’t care.”

“Refused a season?” Jessamine could scarcely imagine it, especially if one’s parents were as important as the Marfleets.

“Said she couldn’t abide being looked at by a bunch of worthless gentlemen who had the temerity to judge if she’d make them a suitable wife.”

By the time the dance ended and he asked her for the next, the new quadrille, Jessamine felt better. After that, Sir Harold introduced her to another friend. Mr. Allan led her out for a country dance.

At the end of it, the slower strains of a waltz began.

She had never danced the waltz. It was not permitted at the assemblies at home.

“Do you know the waltz?” Mr. Allan asked her.

She shook her head.

“There is nothing easier.”

She refused to try it, but he stayed with her. She studied the couples as they moved in the short march that preceded the dance. As each one paired off and went through a set of graceful movements, Jessamine was enthralled. What would it be like to be held in one’s partner’s arms as he twirled and promenaded one in a small circle?

An image of Rees filled her thoughts. No! She mustn’t think of him. She tried to conjure up someone else, and all she succeeded in doing was picturing Mr. Marfleet. He would probably step all over her feet.

When the waltz ended, two acquaintances of Mr. Allan’s stopped by, and he introduced them, Lord Fane, whom they called “Cubby,” and Mr. St. Leger, a tall, dark-haired man who appraised her through his quizzing glass.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” he drawled after a full minute of perusing her.

“Allan said you are from West Sussex?” Cubby asked her.

“Yes, a small village.”

“It is a pretty countryside,” St. Leger said, dangling his quizzing glass.

“Are you familiar with it?”

“No, I can’t say that I am.”

She couldn’t help smiling at his droll reply.

“How do you find London?”

“London is . . .” She searched for a word. “Crowded and cold.”

He cocked an eyebrow at an exaggerated height. “Do you find it cold?”

She smiled. “Not physically, not at this time of year.”

“Ah, you mean its citizens. We shall have to remedy that so you do not take an unfavorable impression back with you to your hamlet.”

Her tongue loosened by the champagne she had drunk earlier, she asked, “And where are you from?”

“My family hails from Nottinghamshire for the last several centuries. Since Henry I, to be specific.”

“No outlaws among you?”

He eyed her appreciatively. “None in such noble lawbreaking endeavors as Robin Hood. But we do boast many questionable characters throughout the age. Our portrait gallery is filled with these reprobates.”

She couldn’t imagine living in a house with its own portrait gallery, much less knowing her ancestors from so long ago.

After a moment, he said, “Excuse me if I don’t ask you to dance,
but I find it exceedingly nonsensical to be cavorting about an open area for amusement.”

“Why then do you come to a ball?” Mr. Allan asked him with a smile.

“To watch the ladies cavorting,” he drawled, his gaze taking in Jessamine’s gown.

“That’s quite all right,” she managed. “I have been cavorting for a good hour and could stand a rest.”

“And some refreshment too, I’ll be bound. All that jumping about the dance floor must have you parched.”

“Indeed it has,” she admitted. “I had a glass of champagne but have no idea where it went . . .” She glanced about her, but it had long since been cleared away by a footman.

“No matter. I shall fetch you another.” Before she could protest that a lemonade was all she desired, he signaled a footman then took a glass of champagne and handed it to her. “For the parched lady.”

She looked longingly at the lemonade but said nothing, taking the glass from him. She didn’t want to appear unsophisticated.

“For myself, there is nothing like a punch,” Cubby said, taking the small glass from the tray.

Mr. Allan raised his glass to her, and the others followed suit. “To a country miss—may she soon dance her first waltz.”

“Hear, hear!”

She smiled shyly and took a sip, determining that she must learn the waltz.

Mr. St. Leger lowered his glass. “A country miss come to town. How delicious. We shall be most happy to initiate you into the ways of the city.”

She joined in their laughter even though she knew they were teasing her. But at least she was no longer standing against the wall.

Soon more gentlemen approached, and she found herself surrounded. To her surprise, she made them laugh with her pert remarks.

By the time the music started again, she was being called a wit. One of them asked her for a dance. After that she lacked no partners for the next two sets. She had not had such fun in an age. If her season continued like this, soon Rees’s memory would fade.

As Cubby turned to lead her off the dance floor, she came face-to-face with Mr. Marfleet.

“Good evening, Miss Barry.”

His black evening clothes of tailcoat and breeches, white waistcoat and neckcloth were as elegant as the other gentlemen’s. His unruly red hair was neatly brushed, but he wore his spectacles, reminding her again that he was a clergyman and botanist. She remembered her own spectacles, but insisted that didn’t signify, since she had now learned to handle a quizzing glass.

“Good evening, Mr. Marfleet.”

“Hallo there, Lance. You here tonight too?” Cubby, his plump cheeks red with exertion, eyed him in surprise. “I didn’t know you were back—from where was it, Arabia?”

Mr. Marfleet spared him a brief look. “India. Hello, Cubby.”

“I heard you were laid up with a fever. Only seen you a few times with Harold. Wouldn’t think dancing was quite the thing if you’ve been abed.”

“I’m over it now, thank you.”

An awkward pause descended.

Mr. Marfleet’s attention returned to her.

He seemed to be looking at her bare neck—or was it her neckline? Would he notice her quickened heartbeat thumping against her chest?

“I didn’t see you earlier,” she said, then could have bitten her tongue. He would think she had been looking out for him.

“I was in the card room.” His gaze stayed fixed on her.

Once again, her hand rose to her neck to fiddle with her necklace before recalling that it was not there. “We saw your brother some time ago.” That was worse. It sounded as if she was reproaching
him for not looking for them sooner. To banish that impression, she waved a hand. “He is around here if you are in search of him.”

He smiled faintly. “I am not, thank you all the same.”

When Mr. Marfleet didn’t move or say anything more, Cubby took her lightly by the elbow. “If you will excuse us—”

Mr. Marfleet put a step forward, blocking their path. “I wanted to ask you for the next dance, Miss Barry.”

“I—I’m sorry, I feel a bit fatigued.” In truth, she felt a bit too queasy to dance anymore.

“I see. I shall not trouble you further.” With a clipped inclination of his chin to them both, he left them.

“Poor old Lancelot, such an old parson. It sticks out all over him. Nothing at all like Harold or the rest of us. Suppose it was inevitable, being the second son and all, to be obliged to enter the church.”

She stiffened. “There is nothing wrong with entering the church.”

“But no one expected him to take it to such lengths. Going off to India, upon my word.” He shook his head, his jowls trembling above his starched shirt points.

“Perhaps he felt compelled to.” She bit her lip, annoyed that she found herself defending Mr. Marfleet.

Cubby blinked at her. “What’s that?”

“Perhaps he felt a conviction to—to take the gospel to the heathen.” The more she spoke, the more awkward she felt at the growing puzzlement on his round face.

“A ‘conviction’?’ ’Pon my word, Miss Barry, you sound like a Methodist. Don’t tell me you are one.” He chuckled as if the joke was on him.

She smiled in reassurance. “Not at all. I am merely a vicar’s daughter.”

He opened his mouth, then burst out laughing. “That’s a good one—a vicar’s daughter.”

They had rejoined the other gentlemen by this time. “Did you hear that? Miss Barry’s a vicar’s daughter.”

Mr. St. Leger eyed her. “How curious. You don’t look like a vicar’s daughter.”

“Not at all,” Mr. Allan echoed, taking her measure.

“What does a vicar’s daughter look like?” she asked, feeling their ridicule.

“Deuced if I know,” Mr. Allan murmured.

“Prim and drab,” maintained Cubby. “Certainly not wearing a fashionable gown like yours.”

Once again she was the center of attention. She made a mocking curtsy, remembering Lady Dawson.

“Certainly not enjoying a season in London,” Mr. Allan said.

“Nor flirting with gentlemen of questionable repute,” Mr. St. Leger added softly.

“Am I flirting?” She batted her eyelashes at each of them. If they were going to tease her, she would show them she was not fazed. “With gentlemen of questionable repute? I had no idea.”

“We are shockingly disreputable reprobates, dear Miss Barry,” Cubby said, folding his hands before him as if he were sincerely penitent.