Not that Penelope was all that bounteous in that area. Not like the girl on the floor of the zenana, who had positively jiggled with overabundance.

Penelope cast him a look to smolder by. “That depends on the . . . bounty of your offering, Mr. Pinchingdale.”

“Bartering your favors, Lady Frederick?” inquired Fiske, as though the idea rather pleased him.

“My favors, like everything else, belong to my husband,” countered Penelope, blowing a careless kiss at that individual. “The laws of England are quite explicit in that regard.”

Fiske hitched a hip against an octagonal table that wobbled with his weight, sending a small statue bobbling for balance. “I wouldn’t have thought you one to abide by the letter of the law, dear lady. Not from what I’ve heard of your . . . career.”

Penelope gritted her teeth and smiled. He was referring to her marriage, of course. Her infamous, thoroughly reported, thrice-damned marriage. Of all the manifold indiscretions in her long and heedless existence, who would have thought that that particular one would lead to this? Driving Percy Ponsonby’s phaeton into the Serpentine had been far more satisfying.

On the other hand, it did provide her an opening. Leaning forward, she made a show of settling the statuette into position, running her hand suggestively over its curves. “Nor, from what I’ve heard of your career, do you care overmuch for the strictures of the law, my dear, dear Sir Leamington.”

Fiske continued to leer, but it had a somewhat perfunctory quality to it. Between his absurdly high shirt points, his eyes were watchful. “And what have you heard of my . . . activities, dear Lady Frederick?”

Penelope arched an eyebrow and her back. “Alarmed?”

Fiske bared his teeth. “Interested.” With a show of nonchalance, he added, “I saw you and our young Daniel in tete-à-tete earlier this evening.”

“Daniel? As in the lion’s den?” Not an inapt description of the company. In the corner of the room, the worthy Residency matrons were glowering at her from behind their fans, sharpening their claws on her reputation.

Didn’t they know she was immune to that sort of thing? Penelope smiled brilliantly at them, eliciting a wholesale retreat behind their fans. Mr. Cleave was also watching, with a concerned expression on his face that suggested he was debating with himself whether it was incumbent on him to intervene on her behalf. Penelope winked at him, partly to reassure him, partly to annoy the fan brigade.

As for Captain Reid . . .

The Bible had all sorts of interesting things to say about adultery. And coveting one’s neighbor’s ass.

Penelope turned back to Fiske with a toss of her head. “I should have thought there would be other Biblical locations more to your liking. Sodom and Gomorrah, perhaps. I hear they’re lovely this time of year.”

Fiske was not amused by her Biblical exegesis. “As in Daniel Cleave. Has Mr. Cleave been telling tales about me?”

Penelope batted her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence. “Are there tales to be told?”

Something in her expression must have reassured him of her ignorance, because Fiske smiled a cat-and-canary smile, a smile of deep, private satisfaction. “You would be surprised at the tales I could tell.”

Penelope leaned forward so that her bosom pressed against the yielding neckline of her gown. The sapphire pendant of her necklace dangled in the hollow between her breasts. It had been a present from Freddy, a morning gift. She could see Fiske’s eyes following the glittering bauble. She shifted to give him a better view. “Try me.”

“You offered Pinchingdale a kiss for a glass. What do I get in return for information?”

“That,” murmured Penelope, her breath stirring the hair at his temple as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “depends on what you have to offer.”

Fiske smiled an infuriatingly superior smile that made Penelope itch to slap him. “Is that what you told old Freddy?”

It was an effort to keep her voice low and sultry. “And what would you say,” she whispered, “if I were to tell you that I already know?”

Fiske wasn’t smiling anymore. Good. “What do you know?”

“About your little club. Among other things.” Penelope made her voice as suggestive as she knew how, which was very, very suggestive, indeed.

“Right.” Obviously, it meant something to Fiske. He dropped the leer and his voice. “What do you want?”

What was it that Henrietta had said the spy called himself? A fuchsia? A frangipani? No, another flower. After the conversation she had overheard on the balcony, Penelope thought it exceedingly unlikely that it was Fiske whose coming they were supposed to await, but it was worth a go. One never knew where a stray shot might hit, especially with such men as Freddy called his intimates. Ammunition was cheap.

Undulating towards him, Penelope tapped a finger against the roughly engraved ruby stickpin protruding from his cravat. “I find myself exceedingly partial to marigolds.”

Penelope’s gentle tap bowled him over backwards. Fiske rocked backwards and kept going, flailing for balance, with a look of startled alarm that might have been owing to the marigolds, the Madeira, or the fact that the table against which he had toppled wasn’t nearly equal to holding his weight. His mouth opened and closed in his favorite guppy imitation.

“Marigolds?” he croaked, latching on to Penelope’s arm to steady himself.

Penelope stumbled but held firm, arm to arm, practically in embrace. “One would do,” said Penelope, watching him closely. “If it were the right one.”

Freddy had had enough. With a prolonged scraping noise, he shoved his chair back to the table, grabbing Penelope by the arm as one might a wayward child.

“Will you excuse us, Fiske, old thing? I need to have a word with my wife .”

Brilliant. Freddy would choose just the right moment to remember his conjugal duties.

Penelope favored him with a smile dripping with acid. “Oh, is that what I am? It is, isn’t it? Funny, how easy that is to forget.”

Freddy manhandled her across the room, onto the balcony, where the mummers had long since packed up their props. Insects cruised idly through the guttering light of the remaining lanterns. “What was he telling you?”

Penelope slapped at a mosquito as it attempted a landing on her arm. “Darling, I hadn’t thought you cared. Are you afraid he’ll reveal all your little secrets? Or perhaps,” she added meditatively, “your not-so-little ones. Pity, the way those have of coming out. Or sometimes falling down flat on their arse.”

“You,” said Freddy through clenched teeth, “are embarrassing me.”

Penelope drew herself up to her full height. “You generally do that for yourself. I would imagine my contribution would be negligible.”

“You were flinging yourself at my friends!”

Personally, Penelope would have called it less of a fling and more of a shimmy, but she doubted syntactical precision was Freddy’s primary concern.

She ran her tongue across her lips in a deliberately sultry manner. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

Freddy’s lips tightened with annoyance. “You’ve got it backwards. You’re the goose. I’m the gander.”

“More like a rooster, strutting your cock in every walk,” flung back Penelope, with deliberate crudeness.

Freddy’s hands formed an automatic fig leaf over the area in question. “Don’t be absurd.”

Penelope followed up her advantage, like a boxer closing in on an opponent. “You needn’t bother coming to bed tonight. I don’t want you there.”

“Did you think I was planning to?” Freddy’s blow snuck under her guard, hitting her where it hurt. Penelope stiffened as though slapped. Softening, Freddy held out a hand, his voice taking on a wheedling note. “Now, Pen — ”

Penelope jerked out of his reach. Was that all he thought she was worth? A fist to the ribs and then a pat on the head like a dog? That was Freddy for you, always convinced he could charm his way out of anything with a minimum amount of effort for himself. “Don’t ‘now, Pen’ me. Go ahead. Go play with your little strumpet. But don’t object if I amuse myself as I see fit.”

When charm didn’t immediately succeed, sullenness invariably followed. Now was no different. Freddy dropped the smile, his brows drawing together in a threatening way. “Don’t push me, Pen. Or I’ll — ”

Penelope laughed contemptuously. It was like being kicked by a cocker spaniel. “What? Divorce me?” They both knew how impossible that was. “Or just deny me your conjugal companionship? I assure you, it will be no great loss.” She looked pointedly at the placket of his breeches.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be free of me for the next few weeks.” When she looked at him blankly, he made a gesture of exasperation. “Berar? The hunting? I told you about it.”

No, he hadn’t. He must have told her . The other one. The thought that she was interchangeable, just another woman in his bed, made Penelope’s temples ache, like the beginning of a migraine. They didn’t even look anything alike. They didn’t speak the same language, for heaven’s sake. How hard could it be to keep them straight?

How many others were there?

In a tone of exaggerated patience, Freddy said, “The First Minister invited me to Berar for the hunting. Fiske, Pinchingdale, and I will be gone a fortnight.”

Penelope remembered the First Minister’s sinister, rotting face. What was it Captain Reid had called him? An asp? There was a story going around that even snakes wouldn’t bite him, for fear of dying of his venom. Penelope wondered, briefly, whether she ought to warn Freddy off, to repeat any of what Captain Reid had told her.