“Not really.” Charlotte whipped open her fan and adopted a coy look. “After all, you know what they say.”

“No, what do they say?”

“Necessity is the mother of intention.”

Gillian stopped. “Invention, Charlotte.”

“What?”

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Charlotte stared at her for a moment, then rapped her cousin on the wrist with her fan. “Don’t be ridiculous, where would I come up with an invention? Intentions I have a-plenty, and that’s quite enough for me, thank you. Now let’s go find this delicious rake of an earl. If he’s as bad as Mama says, he might just suit.”

Gillian laughed at her cousin as the pair resumed their course across the brightly lit ballroom. Three men standing nearby turned at the sound of their merriment and considered the pretty picture in contrast the pair made.

“What have we here?” The shortest man, stylishly dressed in salmon satin breeches and an embroidered ivory waistcoat, lifted his quizzing glass and gazed at the two women. “Ah, it’s the Collins chit. Who’s the Long Meg with her?”

The tallest member of the group lifted a dark eyebrow at the question. “I haven’t the slightest idea, Tolly. You’re the expert on members of Society. You tell us who she is.”

Sir Hugh Tolliver toyed with his quizzing glass. “You’d know, too, if you came to town more often, Weston. ’Struth, you haven’t even come for Parliament for the past five years! It ain’t healthy to bury yourself in the country like that, my friend. A man of your consequence should be in town, taking your rightful place in society. You owe it to your title and your family to do so.”

The Black Earl gave the young man a tolerant look. Tolly had always been a bit of a romantic, nattering on about chivalry and the rights of the nobility for as long as the earl had known him.

“You sound like my mother, Tolly,” he said with as much gentleness as he could muster, then turned his gaze back to consider the two women. “I’m here now, that will have to suffice.”

Sir Hugh flushed at the set-down. “But how long do you plan to stay in town? Don’t look at me like I’m a candle short, man, it matters a good deal if I am to smooth your path into society.”

“I’ll stay as long as it takes. And as for smoothing my path — I’ve told you, Tolly, I don’t give a damn what the ton thinks of me. I’m here for one purpose only, and once I’ve achieved my goal, I shall return to Nethercote.”

“Ask St. Clair who the Amazon is, Tolly. He’s tight with Collins and is sure to know.” The third member of the group, who had also been watching the two women make their way to the opposite side of the room, nodded toward a door leading to the card room. Sir Hugh obligingly turned to find his quarry but was stopped by a soft voice.

“Get me an introduction.”

Sir Hugh stared at his saturnine friend in surprise, the flush slowly fading from his face. “You’re serious then, Weston? You’re looking to get leg-shackled again? I would have thought after Elizabeth…”

The words dried in his mouth as Lord Weston gazed at him with a look he did not care to investigate further. “Er…yes. Which one?”

“Which what?” Weston drawled in a bored voice that made Sir Hugh even more nervous. His palms began to sweat. Weston was at his most dangerous when he appeared bored.

“Which chit did you want the introduction to?”

Weston sent an uninterested glance to where the pair had joined a flock of young women. “The redhead.”

“She’s a bit long in the tooth, don’t you think? On the shelf, and all that.” Sir Hugh regretted his comments the second they left his lips. One didn’t inquire into the reasons behind Weston’s actions. Although his gray eyes might be hooded by apparent disinterest, Sir Hugh knew how quickly they could turn frigid. His hands immediately stopped sweating and turned to blocks of ice.

“Tolly,” the third man warned, taking on his accustomed role of peacemaker, “just get the introductions. Weston has my curiosity up now as well — the Amazon is damned pretty, even if she is a head taller than you.”

Flushing again at the comment, Sir Hugh nodded curtly at the marquis and scurried off to garner the necessary information.

“Don’t tell me you’re shopping for a wife as well, Harry?”

Grimacing at the thought, Lord Rosse adjusted his spectacles and took another look down the line of this year’s crop of debutantes. “Lord, no. But you never know what lovely bit might be agreeable to carte blanche.”

“You’re looking in the wrong spot, old friend. Allow me to direct you away from the virgins. The widows and bored wives are kept on the other side of the room.”

Rosse ignored the gentle ribbing and continued his perusal. “If you hadn’t told me yourself you intended to wed again, I wouldn’t have believed it. I suppose you’re doing it for Nick’s sake?”

Weston took two glasses of whiskey off the tray of a passing footman and handed one to his friend. “My son is part of the reason, my nursery another. It’s time I fill it.”

“Damned shame you didn’t marry Nick’s mother.”

The gray in Weston’s eyes turned to icy silver, but Rosse wasn’t daunted by the waves of almost palpable hostility that emanated from the man next to him; they’d been through too much together not to speak their minds in private.

“If you recall,” Weston said softly as he directed his gaze back toward the Amazon, “I was already married at the time.”

“Ah, yes. The lovely Elizabeth.”

Weston’s gut tightened, as it did every time her name was mentioned, his lips thinning into a cruel parody of a smile as he fought down waves of bitterness and deep pain. It never failed to surprise him that he could feel such pain; for the last five years it was the only emotion that breached the icy numbness that was his constant companion. The lovely Elizabeth. By God, he would make sure his second wife was nothing like that cold, heartless bitch.

He surprised himself by putting his thoughts into words. “My next wife will be a quiet, unassuming, biddable woman who will not draw attention to herself or cause scandal. She will be pleased to stay in the country, take care of my son, and provide me with heirs.”

Harry smiled. “In other words, this paragon of virtue will be everything your first wife wasn’t.”

Weston’s answering smile, icy as a fjord in February, matched the coldness he felt within. “Exactly.” Unbidden, his eyes wandered back to where the tall redheaded woman towered above the handful of dandies dancing attendance on her blond companion.

“Rosse, good to see you.” A deep voice rumbled behind the two men. Rosse and Weston turned to greet the Duke of Sunderland, but the greetings froze on their lips when the duke continued with a frosty, “I can’t say as much for your companion. Bad company you’re keeping, Rosse, bad company.”

Rosse stared after the retreating figure with an unhappy frown. “That was a direct cut, Noble.”

Weston tossed back his whiskey and nodded, rubbing his hands to warm then.

“It was indeed,” he answered, turning back to gaze across the ballroom.

“But damn it, man, it’s unfair! He’s your cousin! If you’d just let me speak about what happened that night—”

Weston made an abrupt movement. “It’s not important, Harry. Sunderland is a fool. I don’t particularly care what he thinks.”

“But — Noble, this is getting worse. You’ve been in town only a fortnight and already you’re being given the cut on the street, in your clubs, and now here! If you don’t take steps soon, you won’t be recognized in polite society.”

Weston snorted, pleased to feel the whiskey burning a path down to his stomach. At least he could still feel that. “Polite society. The day I care about what polite society thinks, Harry, is the day hell will freeze.”

His brows drew together as he watched across the room where Sir Hugh and another man approached the woman who had caught his eye. Tolly was paying far too much attention to the redhead, gazing up into her eyes as if she was the most fascinating woman on earth.

“Looks as if Tolly has cleared the path. Shall we?” Lord Rosse gave his friend an inquiring glance.

“Yes.” Surprised by the sharp bubble of emotion remarkably akin to jealousy, Weston gathered the mantle of boredom he habitually wore and sauntered after his friend across the inlaid wood floor toward the gaggle of tittering misses.

Charlotte’s keen and eager eye, ever on the alert for a titled rake, saw the two men heading toward them from across the room. She was certain after the interested looks the Black Earl had been shooting at Gillian he would claim an introduction and couldn’t decide what attitude to adopt about this unexpected turn of events. A hasty evaluation of the number of suitors gathered around her went far to assuage her plans for reforming the Black Earl, so it was with no sense of pettishness or ill feeling that she turned to mind to plotting the future happiness of her dearest cousin. A quick glance at said cousin showed that Gillian was in her usual state of disarray: her gloves were wadded up into sooty balls, tendrils of unruly red hair were fighting their way out of the once tidy coronet on her head, and her gown showed signs of losing the battle with the fire. Unfortunately, there was no time to rush her off to the ladies’ withdrawing room to affect repairs, but Charlotte was not one to go down without a fight — not when her cousin’s future was at stake.

“Would it be an inconvenience to ask for a cup of punch, Sir Hugh? I fear the warmth of the evening has made Miss Leigh rather thirsty, but she’s much too shy to ask you herself.”