Chapter Thirteen

It was New Year’s Eve, and Zo?, Clarissa and Izzy were at Izzy’s house getting dressed for the party with their maids in attendance. As Clarissa had said, “It’s silly to come in a carriage when we’re only a few steps across the garden, but the ground is damp, and we don’t want our hems to get stained or dirty. Or our lovely silk slippers.”

Zo?’s nerves were strung tight, and they were not helped by what felt like a flock of swallows swooping around in her stomach. She probably should have eaten something, but she hadn’t been able to force a morsel past her lips for fear it would come straight back up again.

She took slow, deep breaths. It was ridiculous to be nervous, she told herself. This was for her sisters, not her. For herself, she didn’t care if people did learn she was an English bastard half sister, but she did care—very much—if that damaged the reputations of her sisters. So long-lost French cousin she was to be. Leo had even suggested she could add de Chantonney to her surname.

De Chantonney had actually been Maman’s surname, but in her fearful flight the nurse had changed her surname to Beno?t, which did not signal “aristo” the way that de Chantonney did. The terror must have stayed with Maman, because she’d never changed it back.

And while de Chantonney did sound vastly more aristocratic than Beno?t, she was still Maman’s daughter, and she would respect her decision, even if the reasons for it no longer existed.

Taking on the de Chantonney name would also mean she was associating herself with a family and place she felt no connection with. The Chateau de Chantonney was an abandoned ruin, and the grand family who had once lived there was gone. It was all in the past, and she was stepping into the future.

Behind her Marie put the final touches to her hair and stepped back. “Oh, mademoiselle, vous êtes très belle .”

Zo? stood and walked to the full-length looking glass.

Her green silk dress was gorgeous, there was no other word for it. The silk was the exact color of her eyes. It was simply but stylishly cut, with a low neckline—but not too low—and trimmed with dark red piping.

“Knock, knock,” a familiar voice called, and Clarissa entered, dressed in peach silk. “Oh, but you look lovely,” she exclaimed, and Zo? was about to return the compliment when she looked at who was behind Clarissa and froze. Her jaw dropped. “Izzy!”

Izzy, who had been posing in the doorway, laughed and stepped inside. She linked arms with Zo? in front of the looking glass. “Don’t we look perfect?”

Zo?’s breath finally came back. “But your dress is exactly the same as my dress! And our hair, too.” Izzy had instructed Marie to put Zo?’s curly dark hair up into a high knot, with a few loose tendrils about her face and one long ringlet falling to her left shoulder. Izzy’s hair was identically arranged, only her ringlet touched her right shoulder. They were mirror images of each other.

Izzy laughed and pirouetted. “I know. Isn’t it perfect?”

“Yes, but we can’t wear the same dress and have our hair arranged the same. We’ll look like twins. Everyone will talk.”

“Yes, that’s the idea,” Izzy said, laughing. “Everyone is going to be commenting on how alike we are anyway, and so rather than trying to minimize it, we’re going to flaunt it.”

“But then they’ll think…They’ll all know I’m your bastard half sister.” And, by implication, Clarissa’s. The whole point of her masquerade as a French cousin was to prevent that very thing.

“No, they can only guess,” Clarissa explained. “They will wonder about it anyway—your resemblance is too strong for them not to—but if we tried to hide your resemblance to Izzy everyone would know there was something to hide.”

“But if we flaunt it, it will show everyone that we are proud of you and are delighted at how much we look alike,” Izzy finished. “Which I, for one, am. And so we’ll flaunt it, glory in it, celebrate it! It’s going to be such fun.”

“I don’t know,” Zo? began. “What will your husband think?” Izzy’s husband had always seemed to her to be a stickler for correct behavior.

“Leo? When I told him of our plan, he laughed and said he was looking forward to seeing it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, now don’t look so anxious. We love you and we want you to enjoy yourself.”

Clarissa slipped an arm around Zo?’s waist and squeezed. “Truly, there’s nothing to worry about, my love. Most of the people here are our friends and are looking forward to meeting our long-lost French cousin. And you look absolutely beautiful.”

“Yes, you’ll dazzle—no, we’ll dazzle the lot of them,” Izzy said.

There was a soft knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Leo and Race, both looking magnificent in their evening clothes. “Ready?” Leo said. He gave Zo? and Izzy a long look, raking them from head to toe, then nodded briskly. “Perfect.”

“By which he means you all look dazzlingly lovely,” Race said.

Clarissa stepped forward and linked her arms with her husband and Leo. “You and Izzy are to follow behind,” she said, and they stepped out into the hall. Zo? blinked. This was not how she’d expected the night to start, but then neither had she expected to be dressed identically to her sister.

Izzy linked her arm through Zo?’s. “Ready, little sister?” Zo? swallowed and nodded. She wasn’t, but there was no choice. She couldn’t run away now. “Then let’s go. They’re all waiting for us.”

The guests were assembled at the foot of the stairs, all waiting to meet Zo?. Clarissa, with Leo on one arm and Race on the other, went first. Halfway down the stairs they stopped. A hush fell. Then Leo said in a loud voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, my wife and I and Lord and Lady Randall are delighted to present our beloved French cousin, Miss Zo? Beno?t.” They stepped aside to reveal Zo? and Izzy standing arm in arm in identical dresses. Izzy raised an arm in a kind of flourish, as if presenting Zo? to the world. Which Zo? supposed she was.

A gasp rose from the audience, then a murmur of exclamations.

“And now we curtsy,” Izzy murmured, and, beaming, she gave a graceful curtsy. Zo? did the same. Izzy reminded her of a ringmaster presenting an act to the circus—with Zo? as the star—and they began a slow descent, with Clarissa and Lords Salcott and Randall acting as a kind of escort on either side.

Below Zo? was a sea of faces, a few she recognized—Lucy and Gerald, Lord and Lady Tarrant, Milly Harrington and her mother, and several of the old ladies whose portraits she’d painted—but most were complete strang— Oh no! A very familiar pair of Mediterranean-blue eyes were glaring at her across the room.

She stumbled, missed a step and might have fallen, except that Izzy was still holding on to her and Race caught her other arm. “Steady there,” he murmured.

Zo? swallowed. Her heart was racing. What was Reynard doing here, of all places? He was a vagabond, a rootless artist.

Yes, and she was an unfairly dismissed French maidservant. Oh God.

She continued down the stairs, presenting what she hoped was a serene visage. Izzy was talking in a hurried undertone, pointing out various people, but Zo? didn’t take it in. She’d forgotten about the multitude of eyes watching her. She was only aware of one pair of Mediterranean-blue eyes, only this time his expression was as cold as the North Sea.

Oh lord, what was she going to do? More to the point, what was he going to do? Would he make a scene? And how did he get invited? Everyone here was supposed to be a friend. Was he invited? By whom? And why?

The swallows in her stomach had turned into crows.

Had he found out who she was, or was he here by coincidence and as surprised to see her as she was to see him?

Three more steps to go.

How on earth was she going to handle this? The only thing she could think of was to feign illness, and she did feel slightly ill, but only since she’d spotted Reynard. She couldn’t do that to Izzy and Clarissa and their husbands. This party had been arranged especially for her. She couldn’t let them down.

But if there was a scandal…that would be worse.

She prayed silently for Reynard to be an illusion. Or to disappear. Spontaneously combust. Anything.

He disappeared from sight as she reached the floor, and people crowded forward to be introduced to her and to exclaim over her and Izzy’s extraordinary resemblance.

Izzy was loving every moment of it, telling everyone the story they’d agreed on. “Yes, isn’t it amazing? Of course, we always knew there was some sort of cousin in France—one of Papa’s cousins married a Frenchman—but so many people simply disappeared during the Terror, we had no idea whether any of our relations had survived. And of course, Papa was never one for keeping contact with family. But by some miracle, one relative escaped Madame Guillotine and later gave birth to our beloved Zo?. Lord and Lady Thornton found her for us in France, and looking at her, you can see why we had no doubt that she was related. She could easily be my little sister, couldn’t she? Even my twin.”

She and Clarissa took Zo? from group to group, endlessly repeating variations of the story. Luckily Zo?’s shock at seeing Reynard was taken to be shyness by most people. A few wondered whether she spoke English, and tried some French on her. She responded, of course, in English, which caused relief and congratulations on her pretty accent.

Several times she told the story of how her mother was smuggled to safety during the Terror. She didn’t say how or to where and allowed people to assume it was to somewhere in France. And any halting in her recitation of the tale was ascribed to emotion—which it was; she was fretting about Reynard.

Where was he? What was he doing?

Finally it happened. She looked up and saw him plowing through the crowd toward her with a grim expression on his face.

She took a deep breath and braced herself.

“Ah, there you are, Foxton,” Leo said as Reynard reached them. “You wished to meet my aunt, didn’t you? Allow me to take you to her. She doesn’t like crowds, so she’s settled in the library. Come along.”

“Oh, but—”

“You’ll have plenty of time to meet Miss Beno?t, but my aunt keeps early hours, so if you wish to meet her, now is the time.”

Zo? breathed again as, with ill-concealed reluctance, Reynard allowed Leo to take him off to meet Lady Scattergood. There was really nothing else he could do without being rude to his host. She would have laughed if she weren’t so nervous.

“Aunt Olive,” said Lord Salcott, “I’d like to present Lord Foxton, who has been scouring London in the hope of meeting you. Foxton, my aunt, Lady Scattergood.” He bowed and withdrew, no doubt to see to the rest of his guests.

Julian mentally groaned. It wasn’t untrue, but saying it so bluntly gave entirely the wrong impression. Julian bowed over the old lady’s hand, murmuring a greeting.

She was thin, almost scrawny, but was draped with a multitude of large multicolored silk scarves, several of which threatened to drip off her narrow shoulders. Seated in a large bamboo chair shaped rather like a peacock’s tail, she was holding court with a collection of other old ladies seated in a semicircle facing her.

She lifted a lorgnette and trained it on him for an uncomfortably long time. “Scouring London for me, were you, sirrah? And why was that, pray tell?”

Julian didn’t want to say that he was actually searching for Vita—Zo?—so he said the first thing that came into his head. “I believe you are a friend of my grandmother.”

“Indeed? And who is your grandmother?”

“Lady Bagshott.” Several of the other ladies tittered as if they knew something that he didn’t.

“Bagshott?” She snorted. “She’s no friend of mine.”

“Oh? I understood you were friends when you were young.”

The old lady snorted again. “Friends? What rot! I disliked her when she was a pushy young gel and dislike her just as much—possibly even more—now that she’s a pushy old—”

“Olive,” one of the old ladies said warningly.

Lady Scattergood gave a pettish shrug. “Well, she is.” She turned back to Julian. “Is that all you wished to say? Because if it is…”

“I am an admirer of the paintings done by your protégée, Miss Beno?t. I saw the one she did of my grandmother. I wished to speak with her, possibly engage her services.” And possibly wring her thieving little neck.

The lorgnette was trained on him again. “An admirer of the paintings or of Miss Beno?t?”

“Both.”

The old lady made a hissing sound. “I might have known it. You stay away from my protégée and keep your lustful thoughts to yourself, you rake!”

Julian blinked. Rake?

“My Zo? has her career to think of, and she doesn’t need some wretched man dragging her down into domesticity and forcing obedience on her, not to mention other unspeakable acts.”

Julian raised a brow. He couldn’t see any man forcing obedience onto Vit— Zo?. And unspeakable acts? Was the old lady demented?

“Although”—she peered beadily at him through the lorgnette—“do you have any plans to travel abroad anytime soon?”

“Not in the immediate future, no. But I generally do travel abroad most years.”

“Hah! But you come back, don’t you, you blackguard?”

“Yes.” By now Julian was quite bewildered.

“Ah, Foxton, there you are,” Lord Randall said from the doorway. “Good evening, Lady Scattergood, ladies. Could I borrow you a moment, Foxton? There’s someone I want you to meet.” He gestured to Julian, who was only too glad to escape.

“Phew, I’m glad you came when you did,” he said when they’d left the room. “That old lady is—”

“A terror?” Randall said and chuckled. “She’s not so bad once she gets to know you, but she’s somewhat hostile toward men.”

“I did pick up a hint of that,” Julian said dryly, and Randall laughed again.

“It took me months before I could even get past her front door when I was courting my wife. Clarissa was living with her at the time, so you can imagine how it rather inhibited us. The thing is, the old lady had what we suspect to be an unhappy marriage—it lasted a couple of weeks and then her husband sailed off to the Far East, where he remained for the rest of his life. He sent her back an endless flow of gifts, all kinds of statues and ornaments and—you saw the scarves. If you ever get inside her house, which you probably won’t, you’ll see it’s crammed with an enormous clutter of priceless oriental art.”

“So she resents being left alone all that time. I understand.”

“No, you don’t. As far as she’s concerned, that was the best part of her marriage. Did she ask you if you planned to travel?”

“Yes, and I told her I did, regularly.”

“And then I suppose made the mistake of telling her that you also regularly returned.”

“Yes.”

“Ah well, that’s you done for,” Randall said cheerfully. “I hope you got what you came for.”

“I did,” Julian said, though he could have done without meeting the old lady and skipped straight to Vita. Zo?. “By the way, who was it you wished me to meet?”

“Oh, no one. I just thought you probably needed rescuing.”

“I did. And I’m very grateful.” The band had finished one dance and was about to start another. “But if you could introduce me to Miss Beno?t, I’d be even more grateful.”

Zo? had started to relax a little. Everyone had been very kind and welcoming, nobody seemed to have any suspicion that the story they’d been told was only partially true, and now that the dancing had started, she didn’t have to talk, just dance. Best of all, Reynard seemed to have disappeared. Leo had taken him away to introduce him to Lady Scattergood for some reason. She didn’t care why, she just hoped he’d left.

The dance that had just finished was a country dance, and her partner had gone to fetch her a drink. She was good at dancing. She’d had plenty of practice in Paris with Lucy and Gerald. The next one was a waltz. She loved the waltz, and it had been bespoken by a pale young man whose name she couldn’t recall. She remembered what he looked like, though. And there he was—oh no. There was Reynard with Race, threading his way through the crowd toward her.

Her mind went blank. She stood numb, helpless, silently panicking as Race introduced him. She barely took in a word, just stared, trying to think how to escape.

He bowed over her resistless hand, and said “Ah, they’re about to begin the waltz, Miss Beno?t. Our dance, I believe.”

“Oh, but I say—” the pale young man began.

“Sorry, but Miss Beno?t and I are old friends, and we arranged this earlier,” Reynard said firmly, ignoring the fact that they’d just been introduced in front of the pale young man. “Better luck next time.” He took her arm and turned her toward the dance floor.

“No,” Zo? said. “It’s…No, it’s a waltz.” She snatched the excuse out of thin air. “I can’t dance with you. I don’t have permission to dance the waltz.” She wrenched her arm out of his grasp.

“No, my dear,” a nearby matronly lady told her kindly. “This is a private family occasion. It’s only at Almack’s that a young lady needs to seek the permission of one of the patronesses in order to waltz. So go ahead, dance with your young man.” She beamed.

“Yes, dance with your young man,” Reynard said grimly, and led her on to the dance floor.

She glanced up at him as they prepared to take their positions, and the smug expression on his face turned her numb panic into anger. He thought he’d won, did he, manipulating her into this dance? What was he planning to do—expose her? Well two could play at that game.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“Looking for you, of course.”

“How could you? You had no idea who I was.”

“Obviously I did.”

“How?”

The orchestra played an opening chord, and he took one of her hands in his, and set the other lightly on her waist. They weren’t wearing gloves—it was an informal dance—and instantly she was taken back to that moment when they’d been traveling and a pothole had almost caused her to fall off the wagon. His arm had shot out around her waist and pulled her to safety. And had remained there for several minutes until she’d forced herself to move slightly away.

In that moment, all that time ago, she’d begun to fall under his spell.

Well, it wouldn’t happen again. Why hadn’t he asked her for a country dance where he wouldn’t loom over her so much and she wouldn’t have to be so aware of him, dammit?

She placed her other hand lightly on his shoulder, refusing to meet his gaze. But from the corner of her eye she observed the changes in him.

His hair was no longer shaggy and overlong, but was cut short in a stylish masculine crop. She told herself she preferred it long, but it wasn’t true. The new cut emphasized his fine bone structure, the sculpted planes of his cheekbones. They were dancing so close under the glittering chandeliers that she could see the fine-grained texture of his skin now that he’d taken to shaving off his habitual stubble. He was tanned, as few others in the room were. She’d lost her own tan through the dedicated application of a number of lotions.

He smelled wonderful—no, his cologne did. He smelled like a swindler and a cheat.

“So,” he murmured as they moved into the dance, “Vita from the Latin turns out to be Zo? from the Greek.”

“ En francais ,” she flashed, refusing to meet his eyes, those blue, blue eyes, now so cold and hard, as if the Mediterranean had frozen. She didn’t want anyone overhearing their conversation. In French she continued, “At least it was my real name—or close to it. And what about the vagabond calling himself Reynard? Who does he turn out to be?” She added in a bored voice, “I wasn’t listening when my cousin’s husband introduced us.”

“Julian Fox, Earl of Foxton, at your service.” He tightened his grip on her waist, pulling her closer.

She stared up at him, almost forgetting to dance. “You’re an earl ? That makes it even more despicable.” Suddenly becoming aware of how close his body was to hers, she pushed him back.

“What’s despicable?” he asked. As if he didn’t know, the rat.

She glared up at him, but the warmth of his hand on her waist and the way he clasped her other hand was very distracting. She tried not to let her body sway closer to him. It was surprisingly difficult. “The way you fleeced those poor peasants. I suppose you have gambling debts or something and try to justify it that way. Well, no matter the cause, I still think it’s quite despicable.”

“Yes, you made that clear in France. And as I said at the time, those ‘poor peasants’ had looted the paintings in the first place, and in any case, nobody forced them to make the trade. They were all quite happy with the replacements, which were paintings of them, not some stiff-faced aristos.”

“Only because they didn’t know the true value of the ones they traded.”

“Ah, but you did, didn’t you, my little voleur ?”

“I am not a thief!” she flashed.

“So, one of my valuable paintings just happened to vanish mysteriously the very same day you disappeared? Incroyable. ” He squeezed her waist as he swept her in a circle.

She felt herself flushing. “Think what you like. That painting belongs to me.”

“Because you painted its replacement for Madame LeBlanc?” He snorted.

“No.” She was silent for several rounds of the dance floor. She didn’t want to tell him the truth about the painting, but she also hated the idea that he thought her a thief. When really he was the dishonest one.

“Do you remember which painting I took?”

“Yes, it was a family portrait, mother, father and two children.”

She gazed past his shoulder, not meeting his eyes, and said, in a hard little voice—she was determined not to let her voice tremble—“The adults in that painting were my grandparents, the Comte and Comtesse de Chantonney.” She waited but he didn’t react. “The little girl in that painting was my mother, Lady Chantal de Chantonney. The boy was—would have been—my uncle, Lord Philippe Charles Rupert de Chantonney. They were murdered during the Terror, went to the guillotine. Only my mother escaped.”

He said nothing. They twirled around. The warmth of his body soaked into her. Did he believe her or not? She could feel his gaze on her and itched to look up and see his reaction to her revelation, but those eyes: she had a tendency to drown in those eyes, and she wouldn’t allow it.

She was still angry with him. And disappointed. He still couldn’t see that what he had done was very much worse than what she had done. If he couldn’t see why she had every right to the painting she’d taken, she wasn’t going to argue. It was clear that for him, it was all about the money he’d lost being unable to sell it.

After a long silence, he said, “Why pretend to be a maidservant?”

She blinked. That was his first question? “For safety, why else? A poor maidservant draws less attention than an elegantly dressed lady would.” Not that her disguise had guaranteed safety, but she didn’t regret it. “Why did you pretend to be a poor vagabond artist?”

“For fun, why else?” His voice was dry, mocking. She wanted to smack him.

“For fun and profit ,” she corrected him. “Swindling the poor.” She glanced up at him and found him staring down at her with an unreadable expression.

“If you say so.” He spun her in such a rapid circle the room blurred and she almost lost her balance, but managed to retain it—just. She was never going to let him unbalance her again, not in any way.

Julian didn’t know which he wanted more—to throttle her or to kiss her senseless. She twirled like thistledown in his arms, but she was warm and lovely and…furious.

He didn’t understand it. He was the one who’d been betrayed. After a night of making love—glorious love, the likes of which he’d never experienced—she’d vanished into the night without a word, taking the painting with her.

How much of her tale did he believe? When he’d first arrived at the reception, he’d heard the buzz of anticipation and speculation. A surprise cousin from France? He wasn’t sure he believed that. She could just as easily be an imposter, trading on her remarkable likeness to Lady Salcott.

But then there was her visit to the ruined Chateau de Chantonney. And her tears when she’d told him her grandmother was dead. They’d seemed genuine, and heartfelt—and she’d had no way of knowing he’d waited for her.

Though her grandmother had died decades before, if the tale about the guillotine was true. And those tears were fresh. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. It could just be a convenient tale she’d made up. She was good at that.

He glanced at the people watching the dancers and intercepted a hard look from Lord Salcott. He was no fool, Lord Salcott, and he wouldn’t be giving a reception for Vit— Zo? if he wasn’t convinced she was the genuine article.

But why would a gently born young lady—a beautiful one, at that—choose to travel alone, pretending to be a dismissed maidservant? Alone and unprotected. Anyone he’d met in France who had any connection to the aristocracy boasted of it—now that the danger of meeting Madame Guillotine was long in the past.

Was she penniless? If so, that would be a reason to contact her rich English relatives, he supposed. And they’d certainly done her proud with this reception and that dress she was wearing. Though the fact that she and Lady Salcott wore identical dresses was a surprise. Why had they chosen to do that? It couldn’t have been an accident.

He twirled her in his arms, every fiber of his body aware of her. She continued avoiding his gaze. A guilty conscience? Or mixed feelings? He could appreciate that. He was equal parts angry and aroused, himself.

Her English was perfect. Too perfect. One would almost imagine it was her native language—except that her French had seemed perfect to him, too. Not that he was an expert French speaker. But she’d known he was English, and yet all that time they’d been together she had feigned ignorance of the English language. Why, unless she had something to hide?

But what?

She couldn’t possibly have planned to meet up with him on that dusty country road. It was a coincidence too impossible to believe.

If she’d told him her story back then—that she was a descendant of the Comte de Chantonney, down on her luck—he would have believed her, wouldn’t he?

Maybe not. Too many people these days pretended to be other than who they were. He might even have thought her a maid pretending to be a lady. And why would she have confided in a stranger?

Except that they’d gone far beyond that, especially after that last glorious night they’d spent together. Surely by then she could have trusted him enough to confide in him?

And why had she slept with him? He’d assumed she felt as deeply as he had—and her virginity proved she hadn’t taken the act lightly. As least that’s what he’d thought at the time. Now he had no idea what to think. Surely it wasn’t just to get hold of that blasted painting. She could have stolen that without giving herself to him.

It was all too puzzling.

He’d thought—no, he’d imagined —she’d felt something for him that night, as he’d felt for her.

But it was clear she’d had no expectation of meeting up with him in London. He’d seen her face when she’d first noticed him in the crowd. Her shock was unmistakable. He’d been just as shocked to see her here and, what’s more, as the guest of honor they’d all been invited to meet.

And now he had her in his arms, but she was freezing him out. And still angry with him.

They were coming to the final movements of the dance. “We need to talk,” he told her in a low voice.

“No, we don’t.”

“I think you owe me the courtesy of an explanation.”

“I owe you nothing,” she responded, but he thought he saw a flash of guilt in her expression.

“Did it mean nothing to you, then? That night we spent together?” He hated the way it came out, sounding faintly needy when he’d intended to sound angry and accusing.

She shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

It was a lie, he was sure. And it sparked his anger.

She froze him out for a moment, then looked up at him. “What did you do with Rocinante?”

Ah, that was his Vita, more concerned with animals than people. Than him. But he was still furious with her. “Sent her to the knackers,” he said indifferently.

She gasped. “You didn’t!”

He said carelessly, “It was where she was headed when I found her.”

She bit her lip. “And Hamish?”

“Can you imagine a dog like that in an English gentleman’s home?” He achieved a scornful snort. “I had him drowned.”

She stared at him in horror. The last chords of the dance sounded, and omitting the usual curtsy at the end, she wrenched herself out of his arms, saying, “You are more than despicable!” She kicked him on the shin and swept from the dance floor, leaving him standing.

“I think it’s time you left, isn’t it, Foxton?” Lord Salcott appeared on one side of him, Lord Randall on the other, their expressions implacable. “I don’t know what you said to my young cousin, but I could see she was upset.”

“Yes, come along, there’s a good chap,” Randall said in a pleasant tone, but the look in his eyes was icy. He took Julian by the arm, seemingly companionable, but quietly insistent.

There was no point in trying to argue with them, Julian could see. Besides, a crowded party was no place for the discussion he needed to have with Vita—Zo?. Holding her in his arms for the period of one waltz was enough to show him his feelings for her were unchanged, though his thoughts remained angry and confused. He was sure she felt something for him—apart from her current misplaced fury—and until he knew what it was and the reason why she had stolen off into the night without so much as a goodbye, he wasn’t yet willing to let her go.

He bowed slightly. “Of course, gentlemen. Thank you for a very pleasant evening. I will call on Miss Beno?t at a more convenient time.”

“You are welcome to try,” Lord Salcott said enigmatically. “Good evening.”