Having seen the press of people in the park, Mary could only imagine that the Black Tulip's object was exactly as he claimed, to give her further instructions. How the Black Tulip intended to find her was another matter entirely.

Mary staggered as someone bumped into her from behind, but it was only a lanky teenager elbowing his way to a better position.

Unfortunately, patriotism seemed to exist in an inverse relationship to the use of soap. As Mary and Vaughn picked their way gingerly across the park, the air around them was pungent with unwashed bodies, spilled drink, churned dirt, and the unmistakable scent of horse. In front of them, a small child dribbled a steady stream of drool down the back of its mother's dress. A crusting of crushed crumbs and spittle, long since dried, testified that this was by no means the infant's first offense.

The woman in front of her patted the baby's back, eliciting a ripe burp, redolent of sour milk. "'Ave you ever seen the like?" she demanded of her neighbor, who was chiefly notable for a towering ruin of a bonnet, the plumes cracked and sagging, the silk water stained. "Old Boney ain't going to mess with them."

"Don't reckon he would, dearie," her companion replied comfortably. With the affairs of nations thus so satisfactorily settled, she extracted a glass bottle from the pocket of her skirt and helped herself to a hearty swig of gin.

Vaughn turned a deeper shade of green.

"Shall we attempt to find some higher ground?" he asked, lifting his lace-edged handkerchief to his nose.

Holding on to the edge of her bonnet, Mary edged sideways, heading towards a relatively untenanted stand of trees a little ways away. "If you find this so unpleasant, there was no reason for you to come."

"Naturally," said Vaughn with heavy sarcasm, using his cane to clear her path. "Any gentleman would allow you to wend your way through this charming assembly alone."

"I'm sure Mr. St. George would have been delighted to accompany me. And been a good deal more good-natured about it."

"If good nature is all you demand, may I recommend the acquisition of a lap dog? You shall find its company just as stimulating."

"Pets bite," Mary said tartly, using her elbow to good effect on a group of teenage boys who showed no inclination to step aside. "And they don't generally come with estates in Warwickshire."

"I would advise against rushing into rustication." Vaughn slipped through the gap after her.

Mary employed her sunshade as a walking stick, not looking back. "I hear it's a lovely country. The climate is most salubrious."

"But the inhabitants leave something to be desired."

Mary arched a glance back over her shoulder, her eyes inscrutable beneath the brim of her bonnet. "Unless one desires the inhabitants."

Joining her beneath the tree, Vaughn plunked his cane down beside a tree root like a conquistador planting his flag. "You don't," he said, with altogether too much assurance.

"Isn't that for me to judge?" Mary shook out her crumpled skirts, paying particular attention to the smudges of something sticky just above the right hip. It had the texture and consistency of old oatmeal. Mary flicked experimentally at it with one gloved finger. She could feel Vaughn's eyes on her, not the least bit deceived by her seeming inattention.

"Don't do it," he said shortly. "There is nothing more unpleasant than finding oneself inescapably yoked to a person for whom one has no regard."

Mary abandoned the stain. "Nothing more unpleasant? You have a very limited imagination, my lord. I can think of a great many things more unpleasant."

With one hand braced on the silver head of his cane, Vaughn radiated worldly skepticism. "Can you?"

"Yes, I can," retorted Mary. "And better than you. Do you know what it is to be a pensioner in someone else's house? Of course not! You're Lord Vaughn. You have houses and estates and — "

"Horses," supplied Lord Vaughn helpfully.

"Servants," finished Mary, with a quelling glance. "All rushing to do your bidding. Yours. Not someone else's. You don't know what it is to have to wait upon the whims of others. And all because no man has deigned to offer me the protection of his hand."

"Protection? An odd way of describing the institution of matrimony."

Mary's lip curled. "How else would you describe it? Marriage is protection against poverty, protection against all the carping old women who say, 'Oh, poor dear, no man would ever have her,' protection against the advances of unscrupulous cads who think nothing of taking advantage of a woman alone. Why else would anyone ever bother to marry?"

"One has heard that there are occasionally other reasons," interjected Vaughn mildly.

Mary bristled at the implied mockery. "Don't even think of talking to me about love. It doesn't make a difference, whatever your beloved poets say."

Vaughn's lips twisted into a humorless smile. "I, of all people, am in no position to do that."

"You, my lord? You're in a position to do whatever you like. You, after all, are a man." Mary imbued the simple word with enough venom to damn a dozen Edens. "And not just a man, but the great Lord Vaughn, master of all he surveys. You have only to snap your fingers, and your every desire is gratified."

Vaughn's gaze never strayed from her face. "Not every desire."

Mary waved aside his words with an impatient hand. "Most of them, at any rate. And then you have the consummate gall to stand in judgment over me for taking the only way open to me — I don't see any other, do you? I can marry or I can rot. It's not admirable, and it's not glorious, and I don't deny your right to mock. But I would think that some notion of noblesse oblige would mandate more condescension to your struggling inferiors."

Vaughn's brows drew together. "I never thought of you as anyone's inferior. Least of all mine."

"Ha!" There was something very satisfying about the short syllable. Mary was so pleased with it that she repeated it. "Would you treat an equal like a — like a common doxy?" She stumbled over the vulgar term, but there was no point in mincing words now. How else was there to describe it? He had used her that night in the Chinese chamber as he would any other female who came conveniently to hand, so long as that female was a pretty one. "Good enough to kiss, but never good enough to marry," she finished bitterly.

Vaughn looked at her in surprise, his brows drawing together over his nose. "That isn't it."

"No?" Breathing deeply through her nose, Mary crossed her arms across her chest. She supposed that hadn't been it for Lord Falconstone or Martin Frobisher or any of the other men who wrote her sonnets and tried to wheedle her out onto to balconies, but somehow lost all their eloquence when it came to the four simple words that made the difference between reputable and ruined. "Then how else would you describe it? It's all simple enough. The great Lord Vaughn wouldn't deign to sully his bloodlines with a mere miss. You need the daughter of an earl, at least."

The shadow of the tree branches above moved darkly across Vaughn's face. "Enough," he said sharply, turning away.

"Why?" Mary yanked on his arm, oblivious to the people milling around them, to the bands still playing on the parade ground, to the King trotting up and down along the row of his recruits. The Black Tulip could have been turning handsprings behind them and she would never have noticed. "Why flinch at it? It's your own choice. Are you too much of a coward to own it?"

"Choice?" Vaughn took a step back, the head of his cane catching the sunlight, making the arched neck of the silver snake glow like the idol of a pagan cult. "I suppose you could call it that. I chose to marry the daughter of an earl, just as you advise. I made that choice long ago, and I've been paying for it ever since."

That, as far as Mary was concerned, was so much blether.

Mary would have said as much, but Vaughn's curt voice went relentlessly on, like the lash of a whip. "I made a host of other choices, too. I chose to run away. I chose to ignore what was inconvenient. I chose pleasure over substance. I chose and chose and chose. After a time, Miss Alsworthy, do you know what happens? You run out of choices. There aren't any left. You're pinned in a web of your own devising."

"I don't believe that," Mary shot back before he could catch his breath. "You can't hide behind inclination by calling it compulsion. If you truly wanted matters otherwise, you could make them so. Why can't you just admit it? It's just that you don't want me."

"I don't, do I?" Vaughn rolled the head of his cane beneath his fingers. "How terribly kind of you to inform me of that. Otherwise, I might have continued to exist under the exceedingly uncomfortable delusion that I did."

Mary fought her way out of the tangled web of syntax. "I didn't mean like that," she countered. After all, he was male; they wanted as easily as they breathed. Hence the convenient construction of balconies off so many ballrooms.

Vaughn's fingers tightened on the head of his cane. "Nor did I," he said.

For a long moment, he held her gaze without speaking, simply letting the impact of his words sink in, before adding rapidly, as though he wished to get it over with as quickly as possible, "I won't deny that you're beautiful. No mirror could tell you otherwise. But there are beautiful women for the buying in any brothel in London. Oh yes, and the ballrooms, too, if one has the proper price. It wasn't your appearance that caught me. It was the way you put me down in the gallery at Sibley Court." Vaughn's lips curved in a reminiscent smile. "And the way you tried to bargain with me after."