Amy had stepped up beside him, Lucius realized, and taken his arm.

Frances turned to him then and her eyes met his once more.

“My lord,” she said.

“Miss Allard.” He bowed to her.

Her eyes moved on to Amy. “Miss Marshall?”

“You brought tears to my eyes, Miss Allard,” Amy said. “I wish I could sing like that.”

Lucius felt as if someone had dealt him a blow to the lower abdomen.

But one thing was perfectly clear. Whatever her feelings toward him might be, she certainly had not forgotten him.

“Miss Martin’s may be a superior school,” his grandfather was saying, “but what on earth are you doing teaching there, Miss Allard, when you should be enthralling the world with your singing voice?”

The color deepened in her cheeks as she turned back to him.

“It is very kind of you to say so, my lord,” she said, “but teaching is my chosen profession. It gives me great satisfaction.”

“It would give me great satisfaction,” the earl said, smiling kindly at her, “if you would take supper with Amy and Sinclair and me, Miss Allard.”

She hesitated for just a moment.

“Thank you,” she said. “That is very obliging of you, but I have already agreed to sit with Mr. Blake and a few of his acquaintances.”

“But, Miss Allard,” Mrs. Reynolds protested, sounding horrified, “I am quite sure Mr. Blake would be more than willing to relinquish your company to the Earl of Edgecombe for half an hour. Would you not, sir?”

The gentleman she addressed frowned but inclined his head to his hostess in an obvious preliminary to agreeing with her demand. However, Frances spoke first.

“But I am unwilling to relinquish his,” she said.

“And quite right too, my dear,” the earl said with a low chuckle. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Perhaps you would do me the honor of taking tea with me tomorrow in

Brock Street

. My grandson will be delighted to come and fetch you in the carriage, will you not, Lucius?”

Lucius, who had been standing there staring like a dumb block or a moonstruck halfling, inclined his head. It was, he realized, far too late for either him or Frances to do the sensible thing and admit to a previous acquaintance.

Deuce take it, but why could he not be simply surprised to see her or pleased to see her or displeased to see her? Why the devil had he been knocked so off balance that he still felt as if he were staggering around like a man who had no control over his own world or his own impulses?

But, Lord—that voice!

She drew breath as if to say something but apparently changed her mind.

“Thank you.” She smiled without looking at Lucius. “I would like that, my lord.”

The devil! Lucius frowned ferociously, but no one was paying him any attention.

“Oh, and I shall look forward to it of all things,” Amy cried warmly, clapping her hands. “I shall be able to be hostess since only Grandpapa and Luce live there on

Brock Street

with me.”

And then other people claimed Frances Allard’s attention, and there was nothing left for Lucius to do but remark upon his grandfather’s obvious tiredness, ignore Amy’s look of disappointment, and have the carriage brought around without further delay.

It seemed an age before it came.

“I want to be able to listen to that voice again in my memory,” the earl said as he settled in his carriage seat for the short drive to

Brock Street

. He set his head back against the cushions, sighed deeply, and made no further attempt at conversation.

Amy was either doing the same thing or else she was reliving the whole party, which she had obviously enjoyed enormously even though she had been deprived of the pleasure of partaking of supper before leaving. She sat in silence, looking out into the darkness, a dreamy smile on her lips.

Lucius sat in his corner, quietly seething. It was bad enough that he had sighed over the memory of her like a damned lovelorn poet for at least a month after Christmas. It was worse that after seeing her on the Crescent yesterday he had suffered through a largely sleepless night, though he must have nodded off occasionally or he would not have had such vivid dreams about her. It was worst of all to have discovered her at a party he was attending tonight—and in such a manner.

That voice!

Deuce take it, what a voice it was. It added a whole new dimension to his knowledge of her character, of the talent and beauty of soul that lived within her beautiful body. It made him realize how much more of her there must be that was still unknown to him. It filled him with a yearning to know more.

He had a bad case of resurrected infatuation—there was no denying it. And he did not appreciate it one little bit. It had taken him long enough to forget her in the first place.

And to cap it all, she had looked even more beautiful tonight than he remembered her. Her naturally olive-hued complexion had looked darker, as if from exposure to the sun. Her eyes had looked a richer brown in contrast, and her teeth whiter. She still wore her hair the same way, but the style that had seemed merely severe after Christmas had looked elegant and richly shining tonight. She was as slender as he remembered her, but the simply styled ivory silk gown she had worn tonight and her almost regal bearing had made her look quite exquisitely feminine.

Was that fellow who had been with her a suitor? A fiancé? He was half bald, for the love of God. And he had been prepared to relinquish her company at supper, albeit reluctantly. If she had promised to sit with him, Lucius thought, and someone had tried to usurp his place, he would have offered fisticuffs or pistols at dawn, not meek compliance, by Jove.

“I have been royally entertained this evening, I must say,” his grandfather said as the carriage rocked to a halt, “and should sleep soundly tonight. I can only wish that I had been sitting in the drawing room as you were, Amy, to watch the whole of that last performance. Miss Allard has a rare talent. And she is a beautiful woman too.”

“Mmm,” Lucius mumbled.

“What a wonderful evening it has been,” Amy said with a sigh of contentment as Lucius handed her down onto the pavement. “And tomorrow I will be Grandpapa’s hostess for tea. Are you not looking forward to Miss Allard’s visit of all things, Luce?”

“Of all things,” he said curtly.

He could not blame her for being there at the Reynolds soiree tonight, of course, though he had been inclined at first to do just that—schoolteachers ought to remain inside the walls of their schools so that castoff lovers did not have to run the risk of running headlong into them when they least expected it.

But he could blame her for accepting the invitation to tea. She had had a clear choice. She could have said yes or she could have said no.

She had said yes, damn her eyes.

He was feeling almost dangerously out of sorts. Yet he could not even retreat to White’s or some other gentlemen’s haunt in London to drown out his sulks in noise and action and alcohol.

“You are home safe and sound, then, miss,” Keeble observed with almost paternal solicitude when he let Frances into the school so soon after her knock that she suspected he must have been standing in the hallway waiting for her. “I worry when any of you ladies are out after dark. Miss Martin has invited you to join her in her sitting room.”

“Thank you,” Frances said, following him up the stairs so that he could open the door for her and even announce her as if she were visiting royalty.

She had suspected that her friends would be awaiting her return, but even so her heart sank. She so wanted to creep off to her room to lick her wounds in private. Was it only last night she had made the bold and liberating decision never to spare another thought for Lucius Marshall, Viscount Sinclair? But how could she have known that by some bizarre twist of fate she would meet him again tonight? She never attended parties in Bath. She had not sung in public outside the school since coming here.

It was not just bizarre. It was cruel. When her eyes had alighted on him, she . . .

“Well?” Susanna jumped to her feet as soon as Frances stepped into the sitting room, and regarded her with eager face and sparkling eyes. “Need we ask if you were a resounding success? How could you not have been?”

“Were you as well received as you deserve to be?” Anne asked, smiling warmly at her. “Did everyone make much of you?”

“Come and tell us all about your performance,” Miss Martin said. “And pour yourself a cup of tea before you sit down.”

“I’ll do that for her,” Susanna said. “Sit, Frances, sit, and allow me to wait on Bath’s newest celebrity. After tonight I daresay you will be a star and invited everywhere.”