“Effingham is a fine fellow, Jude,” Branwell said eagerly. “He has taken me to the races and given me useful tips on picking a winner, and to Tattersall’s and advised me on how to choose the best horseflesh.

He took me as a guest to White’s Club one evening and I took a turn at the tables and won three hundred guineas before losing three hundred and fifty. But still, only fifty guineas lost when other fellows around me were losing hundreds. And at White’s . You should just see it, Jude—but of course you can’t because you are a woman.”

She had recovered from the first surprise of seeing him, and from the first delight too. Branwell, the only boy among four sisters—handsome, eager, sunny-natured Bran—had always been the darling of them all. He had gone away to school at great expense to Papa and had come home with very mediocre reports. But he had excelled on the playing fields and was everyone’s best friend. Then he had gone to Cambridge and scraped through every examination by the skin of his teeth. But he had not been interested in a career in the church or in law or in politics or the diplomatic service or the military. He did not know what he wanted to do. He needed to be in London, mingling with the right people, discovering exactly where his talents and abilities could be put to best use to earn him a fortune.

In the year since he had come down from Cambridge, Branwell had spent everything their father had set aside for him—and then everything that had been allotted to his daughters as modest dowries. Now he was eating into the very substance of Papa’s independence. Yet he was still the darling boy, who would soon be finished sowing his wild oats and would then proceed to rebuild the family fortune. Even Papa, who was so very strict with his girls, could see no wrong in Branwell that time and experience would not mend.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Effingham,” Judith said, withdrawing her hand from his as soon as she was decently able. “And I am delighted to see you again, Bran. But I must hurry inside.

Grandmama will be waking from her sleep, and I must see if she needs anything.”

“Grandmama?” Branwell said. “I had forgotten the old girl was here. An old tyrant, is she, Jude?”

She did not like the disrespect with which he spoke.

“I am remarkably fond of her,” she said, quite truthfully. “You may wish to pay your respects to her as soon as you have freshened up, Bran.”

“If Judith is going to be with her, I’ll come with you, Law,” Horace Effingham said with a laugh.

But Judith was hurrying away, contrasting her situation with her brother’s. She was here in the nature of an unpaid servant, while Bran was just arriving as a guest. Yet he was the cause of all her woes. All of them. If it were not for Bran she would not have been on that stagecoach. She would not be here.

But there was absolutely no point in falling back into self-pity.

She noticed in some relief that the hall and stairs were still deserted. As she hurried upward she could hear the hum of voices coming from the drawing room.

Rannulf, just like the rest of his family, had never been much enamored of social gatherings, whether in London during the Season or at Brighton or one of the spas in the summer or at house parties any time of the year. The house party at Harewood was going to be particularly insipid, he could see almost immediately. Yet he could not escape it. He must spend the next two weeks determinedly dancing attendance on Miss Effingham. During those two weeks or soon after he was going to have to propose marriage to her.

Two proposals to two different women, both within a month of each other. But from the second he could expect no reprieve.

It was made embarrassingly obvious from the moment of his arrival at Harewood for dinner that he was the honored guest, even though he was not staying at the house as all the others were. Not only honored guest, but most favored suitor for the hand of Miss Julianne Effingham. The mother led him about the drawing room after his arrival to introduce him to those guests he did not already know—most of them, in fact—and invited her daughter to join them in their progress. Then she had him lead the girl into the dining room, and he found himself seated beside her through dinner.

He was interested to discover that one of the guests was Branwell Law, a fair-haired, good-looking lad, who was presumably the brother of Judith Law—had not Claire Campbell named him? Of Judith herself and Mrs. Law there was no sign, for which fact he was enormously thankful. To say that he felt embarrassed after their encounters in the garden, especially the second one in the rose arbor, would be to understate the case. She had refused him .

Miss Effingham seemed absurdly young and alarmingly empty-headed. She talked about nothing but the parties she had attended in London and how this one and that one— mostly titled gentlemen—had complimented her and wished to dance with her when she had already promised all her dances to other gentlemen. She really thought dances should come in sets of two instead of three so that there could be more of them during an evening and more gentlemen could dance with the lady of their choice. What did Lord Rannulf think?

Lord Rannulf thought—or said he thought—that was a remarkably intelligent suggestion and should be brought to the attention of some of London’s more prominent hostesses, particularly those of Almack’s.

“How would you feel,” she asked him, gazing at him with wide blue eyes, her spoon suspended over her pudding, “if you wanted to dance with a lady, Lord Rannulf, and she was engaged for every set to other gentlemen even though she wanted desperately to dance with you?”

“Kidnap her,” he said and watched her eyes widen still further before she laughed with light, trilling merriment.

“Oh, you never would,” she said. “Would you? You would cause a shocking scandal. And then, you know, you would be forced to offer for her.”

“Not so,” he said. “I would have borne her off to Gretna Green, you see, and married her over the anvil.”

“How romantic ,” she said with an excited little gasp. “Would you really do that, Lord Rannulf? For someone you admired?”

“Only if she had no dances left to offer me,” he said.

“Oh.” She laughed. “If she knew that ahead of time, she would make very sure that there were none.

And then she would be whisked off... But you would not really do such an outrageous thing, would you?”

There was a small cloud of doubt in her eyes.

Rannulf was weary of the silly game. “I always make sure,” he said, “that if there is a lady I particularly admire, I arrive at a ball early enough to engage her for at least one dance.”

Her mouth turned down at the corners. “Are there very many ladies you admire, Lord Rannulf?” she asked.

“At the moment,” he said, fixing his gaze on her, “I can see only one, Miss Effingham.”

“Oh.”

She must surely know that she looked her prettiest with her mouth pouted just so. She held the expression for a moment, then blushed and looked down at her dish. Rannulf took the opportunity to turn to Mrs. Hardinge, mother of Miss Beatrice Hardinge, at his other side and to address a remark to her.

Soon after, Lady Effingham rose to signal the ladies that it was time to follow her to the drawing room while the gentlemen settled to their port.

The first person he saw when he entered the drawing room half an hour later was Judith Law, who was seated by the hearth close to her grandmother. She was wearing a pale gray silk dress which looked to be as shapeless as the striped cotton she had worn to Grandmaison earlier. She was also wearing a cap again. It was slightly prettier than this afternoon’s though it covered her hair just as completely. She was holding a cup and saucer for the old lady, he could see, while the latter held a plate and made short work of the cream cake on it.

He ignored the two ladies after nodding genially to Mrs. Law, who smiled and nodded back. It was intriguing to notice that for everyone else in the room Judith Law might as well have been invisible—as of course she had been to him just yesterday when he had first been introduced to her. All her vivid, voluptuous beauty was quite effectively masked.

Sir George Effingham offered him a place at a table of whist, but Lady Effingham took him firmly by the arm and bore him off in the direction of the pianoforte at which Lady Margaret Stebbins was favoring the company with a Bach fugue.

“It is your turn next, Julianne, dearest, is it not?” her mother said even before Lady Margaret had finished. “Here is Lord Rannulf come to turn the pages of your music.”

Rannulf resigned himself to an evening spent charming and flattering a gaggle of giggling young ladies and matching wits with a group of foolishly posturing young gentlemen. He felt a hundred years old.

Judith Law, he could not help noticing, was kept busy by her grandmother. She was constantly going back and forth between her seat and the tea tray. Twice she was sent from the room. The first time she came back with the old lady’s spectacles, which were set down and never used. The second time she returned with a cashmere shawl, which was then folded and set over the arm of the old lady’s chair and forgotten. Nevertheless, he noticed that the two of them were talking to each other and smiling and apparently enjoying each other’s company.

He smiled and complimented Miss Effingham, who had finished her second piece on the pianoforte and was clearly angling for a request for an encore. Meanwhile the Honorable Miss Lilian Warren and her sister awaited their turn at the instrument.