Unlike Vaughn, however, he was willing to come up to scratch. Nothing else mattered.

Mary forced herself to smile warmly up at him. "Never, my dear Mr. St. George. You defy categorization."

"There is a category in which I would greatly desire to be placed. Were you to be so inclined."

"And what might that be, Mr. St. George?"

In the hidden place between their bodies and the wall, St. George possessed himself of her hand.

Pressing it earnestly, he said, "That of your friend."

Mary managed to hold the corners of her smile in place. "But, of course, Mr. St. George," she said smoothly, drawing back on her hand. "I esteem myself honored in the friendship of so worthy and honorable a gentleman."

St. George's grip tightened around her fingers. "Your friend and — "

Behind them, someone cleared his throat, forcefully enough to scour the inside of a chimney.

"Miss Alsworthy," Vaughn drawled, standing at his ease with his quizzing glass poised at one eye. The glass flicked to her companion. "St. George."

St. George hastily dropped Mary's hand. "Vaughn."

Vaughn wagged the quizzing glass in St. George's general direction. "What a penchant you have, my dear sir, for conversing in corners. Are these country manners?"

St. George drew himself up to his full height, which put him at least an inch over Vaughn. "In the country, sir, we are accustomed to the luxury of completing a conversation unmolested."

"Indeed?" Vaughn affected an expression of polite interest. "What a charming, rural custom."

Ignoring him, St. George bent over Mary's hand. "I hope we may continue our conversation on a more auspicious occasion?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Mary could see the flash of Vaughn's glass as he dangled it languidly from one finger, the silver winking in the light. "I should like nothing better."

"In that case…" St. George pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, his lips brushing glove, not air. "I shall call upon you. Soon."

"Do," Mary said, the word sounding stiff on her lips beneath the lowering influence of Vaughn's cynical gaze. Fixing her attention firmly on St. George, she repeated, with a flirtatious smile, "Do."

Mary watched St. George depart, wishing she could feel anything at all. He carried himself well. Even if his coat was ill cut, the breadth of his back stretched pleasingly beneath the fabric and the candles caught the gold in his tawny hair. He was a respectable figure of a man, a solid one, a kind one, and she ought to feel something, if only gratitude for the prospect of rescue from spinsterhood. She ought to be relieved. But, instead, as she watched him clap his hat on his curly head, all she felt was a dull sense of resignation.

"Am I to wish you joy?" Vaughn's breath was warm against her ear.

"Coming from you," Mary said tartly, turning towards Vaughn, "it would undoubtedly be a barbed gift. Did you have something to say to me, my lord?"

"Other than the usual pleasantries?"

Tipping her head to one side, Mary indicated that she was not amused.

Vaughn cocked one dark brow. "Unless other affairs have intervened, I believe we have an outing to arrange."

"An outing," Mary repeated.

"To Hyde Park," Vaughn reminded her smoothly. "For matters of a martial kind."

So they were to continue with their association then. Having not heard from him for a week — Mary's lips tightened automatically at the memory — she had assumed that their bargain had ended. After all, he knew that the Black Tulip was to be at Hyde Park at the appointed day and hour. He didn't need her anymore. He didn't need her or want her — and she most certainly didn't need him.

Even now, though, the prospect of a day with Vaughn thrilled her. It was painful and embarrassing to be so drawn to someone who had already proven his indifference to her twice over. Yet there was no denying that words seemed sharper, colors brighter, ideas clearer, the very air more exhilarating when he was there, taunting, teasing, baiting. In short, being himself.

"I suppose my other affairs can wait the day."

"I am relieved," Vaughn said smoothly. "I should have hated to disappoint our friend."

"But you have so many friends," murmured Mary. "In all sorts of places." Down the hall, for example.

Vaughn regarded her lazily though his quizzing glass. "Some are more demanding than others."

Despite having opened the topic, Mary decided she didn't want to know. "What time do you call for me?" she asked abruptly.

"It will be early," Vaughn warned her. "Well before noon."

"I believe I can contrive to drag myself from my bed," Mary said with heavy sarcasm. "I'm scarcely such a hothouse flower as that."

To her surprise, instead of replying in kind, Vaughn just looked at her. His eyes, without their accustomed armor of the quizzing glass, dwelled on her face for what felt like a very long time.

"No," he said quietly. "I don't believe you are."

Mary couldn't figure out whether or not she had just been insulted. It was hard to be sure of anything under the dizzying force of Lord Vaughn's concentrated regard.

"Not all of us have hothouses," retorted Mary belligerently.

"You wouldn't want one," said Vaughn softly, his eyes never leaving hers. "They aren't all one thinks they would be."

Mary tossed her head. "As opposed to the common wildflower?"

"Never common," countered Vaughn, with just a glimmer of a smile. "And only a little bit wild."

There was a strange ache at the back of Mary's throat. Why wouldn't he just let her hate him? No, not hate; despise, revile, all those other socially acceptable emotions. Why did he have to look at her like that?

Because, she reminded herself bracingly, he was a rake, a rogue, and a seducer. They did that. The rake looked at a woman as though she were his sole hope for salvation — and then he went right on along to the next one, to the opera singer, the blonde in the back room, and heaven only knew who else.

"My lord Vaughn?" Lady Richard's country cousin interposed herself between them.

Lord Vaughn's face reverted to its habitual urbane detachment.

As one of Vaughn's women, the cousin was an unlikely choice. Her hair was straight, with no hint of a curl, an indeterminate shade between blond and brown that might have been pretty had she taken any pains with it. Her dress was equally plain, a high-necked blue muslin that wouldn't have looked amiss on a Quaker. The color was a pale blue so dreary as to be nearly gray, the sort of color that blended back into the wainscoting. Her only ornament was the locket she wore on a ribbon around her neck, a simple gold oval with a flower delicately worked in enamel on the front, a pretty enough trinket for a young girl, but nothing to draw the eye.

Mary made an effort to remember her name. It was something to do with sheep. Lambsdale, Oviston…

Whoever she was, she had placed a hand on Vaughn's arm as though it had a right to be there. It was a very elegantly shaped hand, with long, tapering fingers, a most inappropriate hand for a country bumpkin.

"Will you pardon me if I borrow Lord Vaughn for a moment, Miss Alsworthy?" she asked in a pleasant alto voice, unmarred by any regional accent.

Mary smiled brittlely. "Borrow?' She gave an affected little laugh. "My dear, you may have him for as long as you like."

"Shouldn't that be as long as I like?" countered Vaughn, looking like a self-satisfied pasha.

"I'm sure it will be," said Mary sweetly. "It is, after all, as you like it."

"'As the ox hath his bow, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires.'"

"If you can make any sense out of him, you have my commendations," remarked Mary to the cousin.

The cousin smiled demurely, revealing a set of even, white teeth. "I'm afraid you do me too much credit, Miss Alsworthy. I am merely the messenger. I come on behalf of Lord Uppington, who wishes to see Lord Vaughn in his book room. About the impending parliamentary session, I believe?"

Mary didn't believe it for a moment. It was difficult to imagine a more whiggish Whig than Lord Vaughn, whose ancestors had been among those responsible for the expulsion of the last Stuart king in 1688, while the Uppingtons were staunchly Tory. They were as firmly members of Pitt's faction as Vaughn was of Charles James Fox's.

It was, Mary supposed, not entirely inconceivable that Vaughn might wish to broker a deal with Uppington on an issue of interest to both factions. Given the weakness of Addington's government, there might even be plans afoot for a coalition, although Mary was hard pressed to imagine the ministry that could combine both Pitt and Fox.

Mary smiled prettily at Vaughn. "I certainly wouldn't want to keep you from your parliamentary duties. Good evening, Miss — er."

And with that effective parting snub, she was gone, wending her way back along the hallway with all the deliberate provocation of a latter-day Cleopatra. It only lacked a few flute boys.

"Flute boys?" queried Jane.

Vaughn regarded her blandly. "A momentary lapse in concentration."

"More than a moment, I would think," replied Jane, arching both her brows in obvious amusement.

"You wished — pardon me. Lord Uppington wished to speak to me?"

Jane took the hint. Forbearing to quiz him further, she indicated one of the two corridors branching off the entryway. "Shall we?"

In the entryway, Mary was being helped into her wrap by her new brother-in-law and sometime suitor, her back very pointedly turned.