There was Vaughn, and then there was Jasper. Letty would have been willing to stake her dowry (what was left of it, at any rate) that the antipathy between the two cousins was genuine. But…he had asked Jasper to be his groomsman. And, last night, she would have been equally eager to wager that Lord Pinchingdale had amorous designs of the worst sort on Miss Gilly Fairley. Could the animosity between the two cousins be as much of a blind as Jane's silver-gilt curls?

Trying to sort out who was pretending what—and to whom—was beginning to give Letty a headache.

Lord Vaughn looked equally pained, but for different reasons. Faced with the prospect of an evening with Miss Gwen, Lord Vaughn chose flight over valor.

"Although it plunges me into the deepest agonies of regret to refuse such an honor as the company of Mrs. Grimstone, I promised young Augustus I would make one of his party next Friday."

Miss Gwen emitted a noise that sounded suspiciously like, "Coward."

Unmoved, Vaughn eyed her dispassionately through the lens of his quizzing glass. "My dear Mrs. Grimstone, sometimes cowardice is merely another word for common sense."

Miss Gwen considered for a moment. "Pithy," she said at last. "I'll give you that."

"I am, as ever, humbly grateful for any gift at your disposal," replied Lord Vaughn, with an elegant mockery of a bow.

"Ha!" said Miss Gwen. "You were never humble in your life."

"We were all young once."

"And probably the worse for it, too." Confident in having achieved the last word, Miss Gwen smirked at the company at large.

Jane quickly intervened, moving to mollify Lord Vaughn with a speed that confirmed all of Letty's suspicions—or, at least, some of them. "My Lord Vaughn, you simply must come, or I shan't ever forgive you."

"How could I refuse anything to such a fair flower?"

As Jane turned to smile at him, a chance shaft of sunlight struck the gold locket at Jane's throat, lighting it like a beacon.

Letty sneezed.

Chapter Seventeen

"I don't think that's ours," said Jay, turning back around.

"Huh?" My eyes were still fixed somewhere just over his shoulder.

"The food," said Jay. "It's the wrong order."

He didn't seem to realize that the universe had just flipped onto its head and started jumping about like a Romanian gymnast in the last leg of the Olympics.

I mustered a weak smile. "Oops," I said. "Sorry."

In an alternative universe, I continued to look and sound like a perfectly normal human being. One leg was crossed over the other, my right hand was loosely clasped around the stem of my wineglass, and my hair fell in a becoming arc just beneath my jaw. Inside, I was a blubbering mess.

I smiled at Jay and made some sort of inane comment about the food. I have no idea what it was, but it must have been perfectly acceptable, because he didn't stare at me as though I'd sprouted three heads or bolt for the door. Meanwhile, my internal monologue was stuck on a repeating loop of My God, my God, my God, enlivened with a chorus of What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, in stereo sound.

Over Jay's shoulder, Colin didn't seem to have noticed me yet. He and his friends had trooped in a noisy herd over to the bar, Ungh and friends seeking water hole after a long day of mammoth hunting.

At least he wasn't there with a woman.

Oh, no, you don't, I told myself. That didn't change the basic fact that he was back in London and hadn't called. He hadn't even tried to call. At least, as far as I knew. I didn't have an answering machine back in the flat…but that was because no one ever called me on my landline, anyway, except my parents, and occasionally Alex. Everyone else used the mobile. And the mobile registered missed calls.

Which effectively ruled out the charming picture of Colin nobly hitting redial while the phone rang and rang in an empty flat.

"How long are you in London for?" I asked Jay, in the hopes that if I got him talking again, he might not notice that I found the area just over his left shoulder much more interesting than I found him.

"Just for tonight." Jay flipped open his phone with the air of a habitual cell phone checker. I wondered if it was programmed into him never to be able to discuss time without first looking at his phone. "I fly back to New York tomorrow."

"Oh, are you going home for Thanksgiving?"

The three guys were clustered at the bar in that weird way men have, as though in a football huddle or a Canada goose flight formation, two at the actual bar, the one in the middle slightly behind. The other two were, in a word, unremarkable. The one in back had a shock of red hair and a healthily browned complexion. The other was shorter, darker, and more heavily built, with closely cut curly hair. Just guys. Or, as they would undoubtedly call themselves, blokes.

Colin hadn't seen me yet—at least, I didn't think he had. I concentrated on arranging my smile at its most becoming angle, just in case he should glance over.

"You're not going back?"

What was he talking about? Oh, Thanksgiving. I forced myself to focus for just as long as it took to reply. "I can't really justify it. I'll be heading home for Christmas in just another month, anyway."

The bartender plonked three large pints on the trendy counter, pale gold and dripping with foam. My eyes strayed to the half-finished glass in front of Jay. Why was it that when Jay ordered beer it seemed pretentious, but when Colin did, it just seemed normal?

Maybe it was because Colin wasn't wearing a jacket without a tie. Or maybe it was because I was a little bit biased.

Just a little bit.

On the other hand, Jay returned calls, and Colin didn't. Returning calls was a big plus.

"—homesick?" Jay was finishing.

I'd missed most of it, but it wasn't hard to guess. I could probably tune out for half the conversation, and come back in half an hour later knowing exactly what had been said.

That, I reminded myself, wasn't fair either. No one said anything particularly interesting on a first date. There was practically a rule against it.

"Not really," I responded to his unheard question, as though I hadn't been on the verge of sobbing into the Marks & Spencer sandwich case a few days before. "An old friend of mine always does a huge Thanksgiving dinner for expats and assorted hangers-on, so I'll get my turkey and stuffing fix for the year."

"It's not the same as going home," said Jay, in a smug way that annoyed me enough to drag my attention away from Colin.

"No, really, you think?"

At least, that was what I wanted to say.

Since that might get back to Grandma, I just shrugged, and said, "You take what you can get. And I've known Pammy and her family since I was five, so it's almost as good as going home. Lots of reminiscing about old times, that sort of thing."

"Pammy is…?"

"The friend who's doing Thanksgiving dinner. We went to Chapin together."

"Right." Jay processed that information as solemnly as though it were a bullet point on a spreadsheet. Did spreadsheets have bullet points? I didn't know. More important, I didn't want to know. I had a feeling Jay would try to tell me if I gave him the chance. Complete with PowerPoint presentation and graphs.

"Does your family make a big deal out of Thanksgiving?" I asked, assuming an expression of great earnestness. My motives were purely ignoble. The more open-ended the question, the longer Jay would keep talking. And the less likely he would be to notice that my attention was largely elsewhere.

His mouth began moving. I nodded and smiled, all the while tracking Colin's movements like high-tech army radar with an enemy warship in range.

I knew exactly how I was going to play it. I wasn't going to smile. I wasn't going to jump up and down and wave like a maniac. I winced at the memory of standing in a ruined cloister in Sussex, with my eyes closed, my head tipped back, and my lips puckered up.

I'd already indicated more than enough interest.

For once, I was going to play it cool. If he came up to me, I knew he was interested; if he stayed on the other side of the room, he wasn't. It was a test of the Emergency Boy Interest System.

There was just a slight hitch to the plan. Colin's back was to me, which meant that, unless he suddenly grew eyes in the back of his head (which would be a distinct turnoff in the dating department), he had no idea I was there.

Details, details.

And, lo, the great dating gods did cast the glow of their countenances down upon me. At the bar, Colin suddenly twitched and plunked his glass back down on the counter. No, it wasn't a sudden epileptic fit or an attack by a killer snake only he could see. It was his mobile, buzzing away in his left pocket. He dove sideways, like John Travolta on the downswing of "Staying Alive," and yanked the phone out of his pocket, swiveling away from his companions as he did so, that marginal move by which cell phone users maintain the illusion of privacy with the minimum actual movement.

Which put him facing directly toward me.

My little sister calls it the Evil "I-Know-You" Look. The Evil "I-Know-You" Look begins with surprised recognition (generally represented by Jillian widening her eyes, dropping her jaw, and poking one finger in the air in a sort of "Eureka!" motion). Recognition is followed by doubt—the finger droops as the viewer leans in closer to get a better look. The final stage is alarm. The outstretched hand is hastily retrieved as the viewer seeks a way to hide before being forced to acknowledge the acquaintance. Hence the "evil" in the Evil "I-Know-You" Look, otherwise, one assumes, it would simply be an "I-Know-You" Look.