She had perfected the art long ago of repressing all her deepest feelings so that other people would be able to rely upon her as steady and dependable. "Oh, Meg," Vanessa said, "/of course/ we all trust you. It is just that we all love you so very dearly and want your happiness more than we could possibly want almost anything else in the world." "Meg." Stephen's voice was filled with misery. "I did not mean a word. I am so sorry. Forgive me. It is just that you are more than a sister to me. I was the youngest. I hardly remember our mother. My memories even of our father are dim. /You/ were my mother, and a wonderful one you were too. You were the Rock of Gibraltar. I will never forget what I owe you. I /certainly/ do not owe you spite and bad temper." Elliott cleared his throat. "Sheringford will be treated with the proper courtesy this evening, Margaret," he said. "You may be assured of that." She dried her eyes and blew her nose and felt very foolish. "Thank you," she said. "Cook will be mortally offended if we send back the cake plate untouched." "I thought," Jasper said, "no one would ever think of offering it and that I was doomed to return home hungry." He picked up the plate and handed it around himself.

He had called her sexually appealing, Margaret remembered suddenly – the Earl of Sheringford, that was.

What shockingly outrageous words! /Sexually appealing/.

A treacherous part of her mind told her that it was perhaps the most delicious compliment anyone had ever paid her.

What a shocking admission!

And there was something about him. He was not handsome. He was not even good-looking. But he was… Interesting.

Fascinating.

Totally inadequate words. But properly brought up ladies did not have the vocabulary to describe such men.

Doubtless it was the fascination of the forbidden. He was a self-confessed jilt and wife-stealer. He scorned to use either lies or wiles or charm despite his desperate need to attract a bride. Perhaps she was simply curious to know how such a man could have persuaded a respectably married lady to give up everything – including her character and reputation – in order to elope with him.

He was very much /not/ the sort of man she would have expected to find fascinating. And that was a fascination in itself. /Sherry/.

It was a name suited to a happy, active, carefree young man.

What had he been like /before/? What had he been like /during/? What was he like /now/ – apart from a man who looked neither happy nor carefree?

She had two weeks in which to satisfy her curiosity and get to know him.

Two weeks during which to understand her fascination with him and get over it – or convert it into a lifetime commitment.

Margaret shivered, but fortunately no one noticed. They were all taking cakes so that the cook would not be offended, and talking with determined cheerfulness.

Duncan arrived slightly late at the theater so that he would not have to hover outside Moreland's box looking conspicuous while he waited for the duke's party to arrive. It was a ruse that accomplished nothing, though, for being late meant that he had to make an entrance into a box where everyone else was already seated. And it had to be done in full view of an audience that was also seated and assuaging its boredom before the play began by observing and commenting upon each new last-minute arrival.

He might as well have been the lead actor making his entrance upon the stage. He did not doubt that every eye in the theater was fixed upon him. He did not look to see, but he did not need to. There was a changed quality to the sound of voices that told him he was the focus of all attention.

It was unnerving, to say the least. /This/, he thought, had been deliberate, not to mention sadistic.

Margaret Huxtable was testing his mettle. Perhaps she was testing her own as well, for she was going to be as much on public display this evening as he was. Of course, to be fair, she had not invited him to arrive late. But he saw immediately that she had taken a seat at the front of the box and had kept one chair empty beside her. She could not have chosen a chair at the back so that she – and he – could duck down behind her relatives if she chose?

Every head in the box turned his way. Moreland looked haughty, Merton looked grim – nothing new there – Monty was grinning, his lady opened her fan and merely looked, the duchess smiled broadly with what appeared to be a genuine attempt at warmth, and Miss Huxtable coolly raised her eyebrows. "Ah, Lord Sheringford," she said, and, like her sister, she opened her fan.

He bowed, and she proceeded to introduce him to her sisters, both of whom were beauties, though the duchess perhaps possessed more warm charm than actual good looks. "Do come and sit beside me," Miss Huxtable said, and he made his way to her side and seated himself. He could hardly feel more conspicuous, he thought, if he had decided to come here without a stitch of clothing.

He took Miss Huxtable's free hand as he seated himself and raised it to his lips. "Bravo," he said softly, for her ears only. "This was quite deliberate, was it not?" She did not pretend ignorance of his meaning. She smiled at him as she recovered her hand. "Let us see how much you want me, Lord Sheringford," she said. "And let the /ton/ see it." She leaned a little toward him as she spoke, still smiling. No one else heard the words.

At this precise moment – or any other moment for that matter – he wanted her only because the alternative was unthinkable. "You are looking astonishingly lovely," he said quite honestly. "But since you always do, I will not belabor the point. You are fortunate enough to have the sort of beauty that will survive into middle age and even into old age and only very gradually mutate into handsomeness." "You certainly know how to turn a woman's head, my lord," she said, fanning her face vigorously. "I am quite in love with you already. Is that your intent?" The words were not spoken with either venom or sarcasm. They were spoken with /humor/. She was laughing at him, but not with any apparent spite.

Maybe she was not just a cold fish, after all. He must be thankful for small mercies.

He almost smiled back, but scores of eyes were boring into him from all directions, near and far, and if he did not look back into those eyes soon, he would not do it at all, and some infernal gossip writer would take note of the fact and discern his discomfort and interpret it as shame.

He would not enjoy that – chiefly because he did not /feel/ ashamed. Never had and never would.

He had had the forethought to arm himself with a quizzing glass before leaving the house – a fashion accessory he did not normally affect.

Indeed, Smith had had to go searching around in numerous drawers before finding one. He lifted it to his eye now and looked slowly about the theater – up at the tiered boxes, down to the pit, which was occupied almost exclusively by gentlemen, one or two of whom waved cheerfully up at him.

A few people looked boldly back at him from the boxes. Far more, though, turned away and pretended to be quite unaware of his very existence. "You ought to be warned," Miss Huxtable said at just the moment when the warning became unnecessary, "that Mrs. Pennethorne is seated in a box almost directly opposite and above us. Elliott has identified the gentleman beside her as Mr. Pennethorne and the gentleman directly behind her as Mr. Turner, her brother." Laura's husband, no less.

They were all looking back at him, Duncan saw as he lowered his glass and made a slight inclination of the head in their direction. Good God, no wonder there had been such a buzz when he stepped into Moreland's box. Caroline had not changed in any noticeable way in five years. She was looking as sweetly pretty and delicate as ever. Norman was surely larger in girth, but he looked as prosy a bore as he had ever looked.

And he still liked to risk the health of his eyeballs with the height and sharpness of the points of his starched shirt collar. Randolph Turner was looking as if someone had drained all the blood from his handsome blond head.

Was he wondering, perhaps, if the /ton/ would expect him to slap a glove in Lord Sheringford's face and proceed to put a bullet between his eyes from twenty paces on some chilly dawn heath? /That/ would be enough to send all his blood pooling in his feet.

None of the three of them acknowledged his nod.

Then the buzz of conversation changed subtly. The play was about to begin. "One might almost believe, Miss Huxtable," Duncan said, dropping his quizzing glass on its black ribbon and taking her hand to set on his shirt cuff, then holding it there with his other hand, "that you had orchestrated the whole thing. It is a marvelous piece of theater in itself, is it not?" She laughed. "That would have been very clever of me," she said. "Do you admire Mr. Goldsmith's plays?" "I shall answer the question after viewing the performance," he said.

But he could not concentrate upon it. He was very aware of the warmth of her hand, the slim length of her fingers, the perfect oval of her short-cut nails. And he was aware that she was a woman of great physical attractions, and that he was definitely attracted – physically, that was.

Bedding her would be no hardship at all, if they ever married.

He was aware of her family sitting very close and watching in silence – though whether it was him or the play that they watched, he did not know since they were all behind him.

And he was fully aware that those who were in attendance tonight would have far more interesting things to discuss tomorrow than the caliber of the performance that was proceeding on the stage. /Would/ Randolph Turner finally defend his honor and challenge him to a duel now that he had dared show his face in London?