“Thank you. You are very kind.” She smiled at him with something bordering on affection.

Miss Marshall actually hugged her.

“This has been such fun,” she said, revealing all her youthfulness in the exuberance of her farewell.

“It has indeed.” Frances smiled warmly at her. “And I have been treated royally by my hostess. Thank you for entertaining me so well.”

But the girl turned impulsively to her brother just as Frances would have stepped out of the room ahead of him.

“Luce,” she said, “you have been saying that if I am to be allowed to go with you and Grandpapa to the assembly in the Upper Rooms three evenings from tonight, we must find an older lady to accompany me. May we invite Miss Allard. Oh, please, may we?”

As Frances looked at her in dismay, the girl gazed at her brother, her eyes imploring, her hands clasped to her bosom.

How dreadfully gauche of the girl to ask in her hearing!

“Older?” Viscount Sinclair cocked one eyebrow.

“Well, she is,” the girl said. “I did not say old, Luce, only older. And she is a teacher.”

“It is a splendid suggestion, Amy,” the earl said. “I wish I had thought of it for myself. Miss Allard, will you so honor us? Though perhaps since you live in Bath, attending one of the assemblies will be no great treat for you.”

“Oh, but I have never attended one,” she said.

“What? Never? Then do please agree to attend this one as our special guest,” the earl said.

“Please, please do, Miss Allard,” Miss Marshall cried. “Caroline and Emily—my sisters—will expire of envy if I write and tell them I am to go after all.”

Frances was terribly aware of the silent figure of Viscount Sinclair standing beside her. She turned and glanced up at him, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. How could she refuse without hurting Miss Marshall, who obviously was desperate to be allowed to attend an assembly before she was officially out?

He did not help her. But how could he without appearing churlish in front of his relatives?

“I wish you would, Miss Allard,” he said curtly. “You would oblige all of us.”

The trouble was that she had always thought it would be wonderful to actually dance in the Upper Rooms, which she had seen, but only with a party of girls one day when she took them sightseeing. She had once attended balls in London and had always enjoyed them exceedingly.

But how could she go to this one?

How could she not, though? Now the invitation had been extended by all three of them.

“Thank you,” she said. “That would be delightful.”

Miss Marshall clapped her hands, the earl bowed, and Viscount Sinclair ushered her out of the room without another word, one of his hands firm against the small of her back and feeling as if it burned a hole there.

They rode side by side in the carriage back to the school without exchanging a word. It was most disconcerting. At one moment Frances almost asked him if he really minded her going to the assembly, but of course he minded—as did she. She thought of asking him if he wished her to send back a refusal with him after all. But why should she? She had been properly invited, even if it had been impulsive of Miss Marshall to speak out as she had without consulting her brother privately first.

Besides, if he minded or if he wished for her to change her mind, he had a tongue in his head just as she did. Let him be the first to speak.

And yet her heart, she realized, was in a very fragile condition, and she would certainly do it no good by seeing him again after today. Even now she would suffer some sleepless hours in the nights to come, she did not doubt. Good heavens, she had actually made love with this silent man beside her. She could recall every detail of that night of intimacy with great clarity.

And of their wretched parting the next day.

The carriage drew to a halt outside the school at precisely half past five. Peters opened the carriage door and set down the steps, and Viscount Sinclair descended and handed Frances down onto the pavement. He escorted her to the door of the school, which Keeble was already holding open.

“I shall come to escort you to the Upper Assembly Rooms three evenings from tonight, then,” Viscount Sinclair said.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Perhaps,” he said, and it seemed to her that his eyes burned into hers, “we will get to dance together again, Miss Allard.”

“Yes.” She turned and hurried inside and up to her room, where she hoped to be able to gather her scattered thoughts sufficiently to get a few of her essays marked before dinner.

I shall come to escort you. . . .

Perhaps we will get to dance together again . . .

Life was so terribly unfair. Just last evening she had been feeling happy again. And now . . .

Now it seemed that everything about her—every part of her body, her head, her emotions—was in a seething turmoil.

She read attentively through one four-page essay before realizing that she had not absorbed a single word.

It would be well, she told herself severely, to remember that she was a teacher. It was her primary and only really important role in life.

She was a teacher.

She started to read from the beginning again.

Lucius frowned at his image in the looking glass a few moments after he had dismissed his valet. He always took pains to look his best. It was, after all, part of being a gentleman always to look fashionable and well groomed, especially when one was known as something of a Corinthian. But why the devil had he made poor Jeffreys discard three perfectly respectably tied neckcloths before he had been satisfied with the fourth?

Was he turning into some sort of dandy?

He was going to an assembly in Bath, for the love of God, not to a ball at Carlton House! He would be fortunate if there were a dozen people below the age of fifty there. It was very probably going to be one long snore of an evening. And yet here he was, going to more than usual trouble over his appearance.

He could hardly believe that he, Lucius Marshall, Viscount Sinclair, was actually going to attend such an insipid gathering. He rarely attended balls or routs even in London, though he would have to do so this spring, of course. He could treat this evening as something in the nature of a rehearsal for things to come.

His frown became a grimace, and he turned away from the glass.

Amy was already dressed and pacing the sitting room floor, he found when he went downstairs, even though she and their grandfather were not scheduled to walk across to the Upper Rooms for half an hour yet. She had been in a fever of excitement all day, quite unable to settle to anything.

“Well, you look remarkably pretty this evening,” he said after she had caught up the sides of her skirt and pirouetted before him and he had looked her over critically from head to toe. He approved of her pale blue muslin dress—he had helped pick it out two days ago—and her carefully curled and coifed hair. Her maid had had the good sense not to try to make her look older than her years. Although she did not have either Caroline’s height and elegance or Emily’s dimples and natural curls, she might yet turn out to be the prettiest of the three, he thought. Margaret, of course, had been a beauty in her day and was still handsome now that she was in her thirties and the mother of three.

“Will I do, then?” Amy looked at him, flushed and bright-eyed.

“Very well indeed,” he said. “If you are mobbed by all the gentlemen tonight, I shall have to beat them off with my quizzing glass.”

“Oh, Luce.” She laughed in obvious delight. “I hope you will not look quite so fierce when you stand beside me or no one will muster the courage to ask me to dance at all. You do look splendid, though.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He made her a mock bow. “You will walk slowly when you leave the house with Grandpapa, Amy? You will not gallop along in your excitement and force him to keep up with you?”

She sobered instantly. “Of course I will not,” she said. “I think the waters really must be doing him some good, do not you, Luce? He has looked quite well lately.”

“He has,” he agreed, though they both knew that he would never actually be well again.

“I just can’t wait to go,” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom, “or to see Miss Allard again. She is exceedingly amiable and treats me like a grown-up. And she is lovely too, even though she does not dress in the first stare of fashion. I admire her lovely dark hair and eyes. Oh, when will Grandpapa be ready?”

“At exactly the time he said he would be,” Lucius told her, striding over to the window. “You know how punctual he always is. And if I am to be punctual, I must be on my way. I see Peters has the carriage outside.”