His companions gave the matter serious thought. Each threw out a few names, all of which were rejected out of hand by the others for a variety of reasons.

“There is Miss Edgeworth,” Lord Arthur said at last, when they appeared to have run out of suggestions. “But she is too long in the tooth.”

“Miss Edgeworth?” Lord Farrington repeated. “Of Newbury Abbey? The Earl of Kilbourne’s abandoned bride? Lord, my sister was at that wedding. It was the sensation of last year. The bridegroom waiting at the front of the church, the bride in the porch ready to make her grand entrance. And then the arrival of a ragged woman claiming to be Kilbourne’s long-lost wife—and telling nothing short of the truth, by gad. The Edgeworth chit fled from the church as if the hounds of hell were at her heels, according to Maggie, who is not normally prone to exaggeration. Is she in town this year, Kellard?”

“Staying with Portfrey,” Lord Arthur said. “The duchess is Kilbourne’s aunt, y’know. And Miss Edgeworth is connected to her too in some way.”

“I had heard she was in town,” Mr. Rush admitted. “But she doesn’t go about much, does she? Hedged around by the Portfreys and dozens of other relatives, I daresay, all trying to get her married off quietly—and respectably.” He snickered. “She is doubtless dull enough to set one to yawning at the mere thought of her. You don’t want her, Ravensberg.”

“Besides,” Lord Arthur added with what proved to be the fatal challenge, “you would not get her even if you did want her, Ravensberg. Portfrey, Anburey, Attingsborough— none of her relatives would allow someone of your reputation within hailing distance of her. And even if you did slip past their guard, she would give you the cut direct. Turn you into an icicle on the spot, I daresay. You are just the sort none of them would want for her, least of all the lady herself. We will have to think of someone else for you. Though why you would want—”

But Kit was laughing gaily as he turned his face from the fire again. “Was that a challenge, by any chance?” he asked, cutting his friend off midsentence. “If it was, you could scarce have made it more irresistible if you had tried. I will not be allowed within hailing distance of Miss Edgeworth, you say, because I am the sort of rake and rogue from whom such a delicate and aging bloom must be protected at all costs? And she would freeze me with a single glance from her severe, maidenly eye, would she? Because she is incorruptible and I am corruption incarnate? By Jove, I’ll have her.” He slapped the arm of his chair with one open palm.

Lord Farrington flung back his head and shouted with laughter. “I smell a wager,” he said. “A hundred guineas on it that you cannot do it, Ravensberg.”

“And a hundred more of mine,” Lord Arthur added. “She is very high in the instep, Ravensberg. Someone just last week, though I can’t for the life of me remember who, likened her to a marble statue, except that she came out the colder of the two.”

“I might as well throw in my hundred too,” Mr. Rush said, “though I should know better where Ravensberg is concerned. It was Brinkley, Kellard, who is forever scouting out prospective new mothers for his orphaned brood. That’s how I knew she was in town—I remember now. She told Brinkley right straight out as soon as he broached the subject of wedlock with her—when he was strolling with her on Rotten Row one morning, if you can imagine it—that she has no intention of marrying anyone ever. He believed her. Apparently she is not the sort of lady whose word one doubts. That was when he made the remark about marble statues. Brinkley is eminently respectable, Ravensberg.”

“And I am not.” Kit laughed again. “Well, for three hundred guineas and to annoy my father into the bargain I’ll have to change her mind, won’t I? Shall we say by the end of June, when I have to leave for Alvesley? A marriage before the end of June, that is. Between Miss Edgeworth and yours truly, of course.”

“Less than six weeks? Done.” Lord Farrington got resolutely to his feet. “Now I am for my bed, while I can still find it and convey myself toward it unassisted. Come along, Rush, I’ll steer you in the direction of yours at the same time. I would not begin the campaign for at least another week if I were you, Ravensberg. Any delicately nurtured female would swoon outright at the sight of that eye. That will give you approximately five weeks.” The thought amused him considerably.

“A marriage to Miss Edgeworth by the last day in June, then,” Lord Arthur said, summing up the wager as he joined his friends on their way out of the room. “It cannot be done, Ravensberg. Not even by you— especially not by you. This will be the easiest hundred guineas I have made this year. But of course you will try.”

“Of course.” Kit grinned at his friends. “And I will succeed. With what event shall I begin the campaign? What is happening a week or so from now?”

“Lady Mannering’s ball,” Lord Farrington said after a moment of consideration. “It is always one of the grand squeezes of the Season. Everybody attends it. Miss Edgeworth may well not, though, Ravensberg. I have not seen her at any balls—or any other entertainment for that matter. Not that I would recognize her if I saw her, of course, but someone would surely have pointed her out. She is still news.”

“Lady Mannering’s ball,” Kit said, hoisting himself out of his chair in order to see his friends on their way. “I must find out if she will be there. Is she a beauty, by the way? Or is she an antidote?”

“Now that,” Lord Farrington said firmly, “you must discover for yourself, Ravensberg. It will serve you right if she resembles a gargoyle.”

Chapter 2

Lauren arrived at Lady Mannering’s ball the following week in company with the Duke and Duchess of Anburey and the Marquess of Attingsborough. After much initial resistance, she had agreed to attend even though she was fully aware that almost the whole of the beau monde would be present. Or perhaps it was because of that fact. She had made her decision to go for sheer pride’s sake.

She was in London during the Season, and she was a member of the ton. If she maintained her decision to live a retired life as Elizabeth’s companion, she might give the lasting impression that she was afraid to appear in public, that she was afraid of being laughed at, scorned, shunned as a poor rejected bride. She was indeed afraid, mortally so, but above all else she had been raised to be a lady. And ladies did not allow fear to master them. Ladies did not abjure society merely because they were embarrassed and unhappy, merely because they felt unattractive and unwanted. Ladies did not give in to self-pity.

And so she had taken her courage in both hands and agreed to appear before the ton on one of the ton’s favorite playgrounds—a London ballroom during the Season. She would go and hold her head high and confront the demons that had shadowed her ever since that most dreadful of all mornings in the church at Newbury. She would remain in London until after Elizabeth’s confinement—the duke had brought his duchess to town so that she would be close to the best physicians—and then she would do what she had decided she really wanted to do. She would take her modest fortune and set up her own establishment, perhaps in Bath, and she would live a quiet, retired life with a small circle of select friends. She would endure this ball, because when she did, no one was going to be able to call her a coward.

The Duke of Anburey’s crested carriage took its place in the line of coaches depositing guests outside the Mannering mansion on Cavendish Square. Lauren could see that every window was ablaze with candlelight. Light spilled out from the double doors, which stood open, and illumined the red carpet that had been rolled down the steps and across the pavement. Even above the snorting of horses, the stamping of hooves, and the rumbling of wheels, she could hear the festive sound of voices raised in greeting and laughter.

It was a nerve-wracking moment and made her understand fully how much she had changed in the fourteen months since her wedding eve ball. Then she had felt very comfortably ensconced in her own milieu, perfectly at ease, perfectly assured of her own worth and her own place in the ranks of the beau monde. It was time she took that place again, not as Neville’s prospective bride and countess, it was true, but as the Honorable Miss Lauren Edgeworth. She raised her chin, an unconsciously arrogant gesture that masked her desire to jump from the carriage and run and run until Cavendish Square and Mayfair and London and her very self were far behind her.

And then it was their turn to alight. A footman opened the carriage door and set down the steps, the gentlemen descended, Uncle Webster handed Aunt Sadie down, and Joseph was reaching up a hand to assist Lauren. She took it and made her own descent to the red carpet, paying particular attention to her posture and facial expression as she did so. She knew she was looking her best. Her gown had been specially made for the occasion by Elizabeth’s own modiste, and Elizabeth had helped her choose both the fabric and the design, as well as all the accessories to wear with it. The Duchess of Portfrey was well known for her exquisite taste. But then so was Lauren Edgeworth.

Lauren smiled as her aunt and uncle made their way indoors and she laid her hand on Joseph’s offered sleeve.

“That’s it, Lauren,” he murmured approvingly, smiling at her and even winking. “You imitate a queen, my girl. Indeed you look lovelier than any queen I ever saw.”