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“No.” She cut him off. “You did nothing wrong, Ben. I thought I favored him too. I do favor him. It is just that…Well, I asked for more time. Whether he will ask again, I do not know. And whether I will say yes or no if he does, I do not know either. I have a stupidly muddled mind. It is no wonder I am fast dwindling into spinsterhood.”

Jennifer had got up from her wheelchair and stepped onto the terrace to wave Stephanie’s carriage on its way. She leaned heavily on her specially designed cane and hugged Stephanie with the other arm.

“I understand, Stephanie,” she said softly. “Oh, I do understand.”

And the horrible thing was, Stephanie thought, that she believed Jennifer did understand even better than she did. That wretched kissing bough. And those wretched Westcott aunts, suitably cast as Macbeth’s witches at the Christmas concert, and their misguided matchmaking schemes. If they had chosen one of the Wayne brothers as their target, Peter or Ivan, she could have greeted their attempts with some humor. But…

Well, never mind.

Her mind was not serving her well these days anyway.

But that waltz. Ah, that waltz. Would she ever forget it? How utterly foolish that she did not believe she ever would.

But—buxom lasses.

The village a few miles south of the River Thames and London reminded Stephanie of Boscombe, and the cottage reminded her a little of her mother’s house by the river there. Winifred, though she was the same unglamorous young woman she had always been, with the same neat, simple hairstyle, nevertheless looked radiant and pretty. Nicholas, who traveled back and forth to his post at the Horse Guards on Whitehall almost every day, looked his usual solid, handsome self and was obviously happy with both his wife and his home.

And of course Stephanie had guessed correctly about the news they wished to share with her. Winifred was expecting a child before the end of the year. They told her together on her first evening there.

“We have written to my mama and papa,” Winifred said. “And to Nicholas’s and your mama and the Earl and Countess of Stratton—Devlin and Gwyneth, that is. Nicholas has told Owen.”

“We will be writing to Ben and Jennifer and to Pippa and Lucas within the next day or two,” Nicholas said.

“And to both grandmamas and grandpapas,” Winifred said. “We are excessively pleased with our news.”

Owen came out from London to call on them a few days later. He had asked Bertrand to come with him, he explained, but Bert was busy with some family commitments.

So he had come to London, Stephanie thought. But she did not fear any chance encounter with him. He would probably not come here as long as she was here, and Winifred very rarely went into London, preferring the greater intimacy of the social life the village provided. She had a number of amiable neighbors here and a few actual friends and wasted no time in introducing Stephanie to them.

Stephanie’s complaisance turned out to be not quite as well-founded as she had believed, however. Winifred’s birthday was fast approaching—at least, the day that had been fixed upon as her birthday after she had been discovered in a basket on the doorstep of the orphanage in Bath when she was about one month old. Nicholas remembered her saying once last year when she had been in London with her father that if there was one place there she would love to see, it was Vauxhall Gardens at night. So he was going to take her there for a birthday treat, and Stephanie was going to go with them and a cavalry captain who had recently been posted to the Horse Guards as a junior aide to General Haviland but knew almost no one in London.

Stephanie had never been to Vauxhall either. But she had heard many good things about its splendors. Her mind did touch upon the chance that they might encounter Viscount Watley there, but it must surely be a very remote chance. Besides, they must meet somewhere sometime, as they had both acknowledged at Christmas.

And they had not parted as mortal enemies, after all. Or even sort-of enemies. In fact, if it had not been for that buxom lasses incident—words, incidentally, that had been spoken by Viscount Dirkson and had initially amused her—she would probably be feeling quite well disposed toward Viscount Watley.

Winifred was excited about going to Vauxhall.

And so was Stephanie.

Chapter Ten

Bertrand’s fellow guests in the box Mr. and Mrs. Easton had reserved near the rotunda in Vauxhall Gardens were Mrs. Easton’s sister and her husband and the sister’s daughter and her husband. Their intention could not have been clearer. Viscount Watley was being presented to the eyes of all those in attendance as Miss Easton’s suitor. He had judged Mrs. Easton to be less aggressive than many other mothers in her pursuit of him for her daughter. It seemed he had been mistaken, and he was more than a little annoyed.

If she had thought to snare him by such an unsubtle maneuver, she was going to be disappointed. It had the opposite effect on him from anything she could have hoped for. He would be damned if he would be trapped into a marriage that was not entirely of his own free choosing, and one that was not of the free choosing of his bride too. He might be as mistaken in Miss Easton as he had been in her mother, but he did not believe she would have been a willing partner in this deception—and deception it most certainly was. When one was invited as a single gentleman to make up a party of friends for an entertainment, one did not expect to find oneself the only member of the party who was not close family.

He believed Miss Easton to be a young innocent. He had been intending to pursue an acquaintance with her to discover if they suited each other well enough for him to proceed to a more committed courtship. He was not going to be maneuvered into feeling obliged to offer for her.

He had arrived a few minutes early. Even so, the rest of the party was already gathered in the box. After greeting his hosts and acknowledging the introductions with a smile and a nod for the ladies and a handshake for the men, he bade Miss Easton good evening and took the only vacant chair, which, of course, was beside her. All was cheerful sociability for a while, with everyone’s attention focused upon the only stranger in their midst. He answered questions about his dear father, the marquess, and his dear stepmother and admitted that yes, they were in town for the Season, though no, he was not staying with them but kept his own bachelor rooms. And no, he did not know of any plans they might have for hosting a ball or assembly. Yes, he did have a connection through his stepmother, though not a blood tie, with the Duke of Netherby. He had not heard of any plan His Grace or Her Grace might have to repeat the splendid ball they had hosted last spring.

Bertrand had been at that ball. Avery and Anna had given it in honor of Winifred, who had been staying with them along with her father at the time. It was there she had met Nicholas and danced with him and sat at supper with him, though there had been no indication that they would end up marrying each other before Christmas.

The questions continued. Yes, his home was at Elm Court in Sussex. Alone, yes, since the marriage of his sister. Mrs. Easton’s brother-in-law had once seen the property and pronounced it to be substantial and attractive, its farms well kept and prosperous looking.

Bertrand did not confirm—or deny—that impression.

They ran out of questions after a while, no doubt deterred by the brevity of Bertrand’s answers, though he delivered them courteously and with a smile. Or perhaps Mrs. Easton had given some sort of signal that the courting couple should now be allowed to pursue a more private conversation between themselves. However it was, the other six launched with some enthusiasm into an exchange of news and opinions about people Bertrand did not know without any explanation to him of who those people were. Miss Easton had been quieter than usual so far this evening, almost to the point of muteness. Perhaps the behavior of her family embarrassed her.

“Miss Easton,” he said quietly, “does your first impression of Vauxhall live up to your expectations?”