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Finally, the damn dance ended, with Epagnard sweeping to a halt not far from where he was sitting. Stella turned around when he called to her and froze, just briefly, before she walked toward them.

The men rose, Yasmin offering a graceful apology for staying in her seat. Silvester could read hesitation in Stella’s determined smile as she greeted the earl and countess. She dropped a curtsy and murmured her congratulations.

But before Silvester could take her hand and pull her down to sit beside him, she said that she’d promised to sing a duet with their host. Without glancing at him, Stella flitted away.

Silvester sat down again, irritation filling his chest. Giles turned away, engaging in conversation with Lord Boodle.

Yasmin smiled at him. “I don’t know your wife well, but I find her so interesting. Perhaps we could attend the theater together, before I must retire due to my condition?” She wrinkled her nose at him in that charming way she had. “Apparently I should remain invisible in the last months of my pregnancy.”

Stella headed blindly for the other side of the room, aware that she was taking in deep, shuddering breaths that she could not allow anyone to see. She forced her mouth to curve into a brittle smile, keeping her head high.

Harold’s eyes lit up as she walked to his side, probably the same way that her husband’s eyes had lit on seeing Yasmin. Stella’s stomach roiled. Luckily Harold was capable of carrying on conversations entirely by himself, switching from French to English every few minutes.

“Don’t you agree?” he asked now.

Stella looked at him blankly. All she could think about was the way diamond pins in Yasmin’s hair caught light from the chandeliers, highlighting her golden locks. The way her violet silk gown drifted around her slim body, whereas Stella’s gown swathed her body, which suddenly made her feel dowdy.

The Earl of Lilford would never need to fake a romantic charade to tell the world why he married his wife. It had nothing to do with their baby, no matter how soon it arrived.

“The decorative value of buttons,” Harold said painstakingly. “A man may have as many as a dozen useless buttons on his evening coat, black and almost invisible. If a thing is useless, it should be exquisite, don’t you agree?”

Stella murmured something, her gloved hands tightening on her reticule. Was she useless? She wasn’t exquisite.

“Buttons should be gilt, enamel, or inlaid metal,” Harold proclaimed. Then, with a grand wave of his hand: “Otherwise, they have no reason for existing.”

Before Stella could summon up a response for that statement, Blanche shouldered Harold out of the way. She caught Stella’s arm in hers. “Smile!” she hissed.

Stella smiled.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Blanche said to Harold, pulling Stella away.

As they walked through the door of the ladies’ retiring room, Blanche gave the one woman resting in a comfortable chair a hard look, and the lady fled.

Stella could feel her face crumpling. Hot tears pressed the back of her eyes.

“No crying!” Blanche said fiercely. She turned to the table at one side and upended her reticule, scattering the belongings. “I’m going to powder your face. You’ll put on lip color, and then you’ll walk back into that room, picture every single person naked, and regard them as loftily as might a queen.”

“I will?”

Blanche flipped open a powder pot. “I’ll be damned if you are pitied by all those idiots out there.”

Stella’s throat was thick with tears. “It’s nothing new. He loves her, you know.”

“So what?” Blanche began expertly dusting Stella’s face with powder. “Who gives a damn whom a man loves or doesn’t love? My father loves French prostituées.” She shrugged. “All we can ask is that these fools keep their entertainments to themselves. That is not too much to require.”

“Silvester would never be unfaithful,” Stella mumbled.

“You can believe that if you wish. But really, who cares? He humiliated you in front of your friends, in front of society. That is not done.” Blanche’s voice grated with fury.

The door slammed open, and the dowager walked in. She narrowed her eyes at Blanche. “You’re not making things worse, are you?”

“She’s not,” Stella said. “She’s . . . she’s being very kind.”

Blanche dropped the powder and picked up some lip salve. “I was just telling the duchess here that she is going to return to the room with her head held high. She will dance with every attractive man in the room, most of them twice, perhaps a third time if there’s a pretty one on offer.”

“My son is a fool,” the dowager said, advancing just enough to wrap her arms around Stella’s shoulders and give her a brief squeeze.

Stella stood still, made uncomfortable by the unfamiliar experience and grateful when the dowager stepped away.