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Regina had no need to drop her fan at the feet of another man should she wish for a different fiancé. If she showed the slightest interest, a suitor would likely drop to his knees.

But she never did.

Bea had discovered any number of parallels between ballrooms and barnyards, and Regina’s behavior had a precedent in the hencoop. Regina had no interest in the rooster, so she was devoting her time to trying to plucking Bea’s feathers, with the occasional sharp peck at other women in the vicinity.

From behind the shelter of a particularly large frond, Bea watched as a man she didn’t recognize entered, joining Regina. She could only see him from the rear, but she didn’t think she’d seen him before.

Lady Sheffield and Marguerite sank into synchronized, frenzied curtsies before him. What’s more, Regina’s closest friend, Lady Martha Telton-Sacks, burst from the crowd and sank into a curtsy, Misses Prudence and Petunia Massinger on her heels.

Bea shrank even further back behind the fern, cursing her bad luck. The depth of Martha’s dip suggested that the stranger was Regina’s older brother, the duke.

He was one of those eligible gentlemen whom her chaperone had warbled about introducing her to, which would frankly be a fate worse than death. Dukes were better than anyone at putting on a faintly contemptuous look that reminded an undesirable woman just how undesirable she was.

His Grace had just returned from somewhere. War? No, it couldn’t be war. They never let titled men go to war, did they?

Prudence and Petunia were curtsying before him. The light of a chandelier directly above them made the twin’s yellow curls look stiff and metallic. In fact, their heads looked like matching brass bed knobs.

Query: What are the odds that Prudence, Petunia, or Martha would marry Regina’s brother, the duke?

Prediction: 70%.

Unless he was promised to another lady when he was in the cradle. Perhaps he was in love with a barmaid. Perhaps he planned to run away to sea.

Perhaps he was enamored of a footman (Bea’s younger brother had returned from Eton with interesting facts that no lady was supposed to know). Perhaps he would be mowed down by a runaway horse before reaching the church.

In stark contrast to Regina’s flashy elegance, her brother’s tumble of hair was mahogany dark with a few lighter streaks, as if he had spent a good deal of time outdoors. Bea couldn’t see his face, but even from here, she could see Prudence simpering and twitching her shoulders in a manner that suggested she found His Grace attractive.

Equally likely, she found his title attractive.

Query: What conclusion could be drawn about the Duke of Lennox, given his sister’s character and his position in society?

Prediction: There was a 90% chance that he would be thoroughly despicable. To be avoided at all costs. Although the dowager duchess—

Bea let out a little shriek as acid peppermint-scented breath washed over her, and a fan sharply rapped her on the shoulder.

“I found you!” Her chaperone, Lady Alcon, was in a rage, not an unusual condition. She was a tall, lean woman who seemed constitutionally prone to either a twitter of nerves or a storm of bad temper.

“Straighten up, Beatrice,” she barked. “It is extremely rude of you to make me poke around the ballroom, peering in the corners as if I were inspecting for dust. Lord only knows what our hostess thinks of me.”

Bea dropped into a curtsy that was as deep as Martha’s before the duke. “I apologize, Lady Alcon,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on the floor. She had proved unable to disguise an ironic gaze around her chaperone.

Lady Alcon was not one to appreciate irony, and in a black mood, she tended to employ her fan until Bea’s collarbone and shoulder were covered with little blue marks.

“I can’t believe that you are hiding behind a plant like a lazy housemaid!” Lady Alcon went on. “It’s quite intolerable that I keep having to search you out. Why, last Season—”

She broke off, likely because last Season didn’t present happy memories. She had been given charge of Miss Leodoldina Cottons, who had danced with princes, flirted with dukes—before running away with a thirty-seven-year-old rake whose fortune failed to compensate for he twenty-year difference between their ages.

Miss Cottons’ father had publicly blamed Lady Alcon for allowing his daughter anywhere near an aging roué, particularly a French one.

In the last five weeks, Beatrice had come to quite dislike Leopoldina without ever meeting her. In the normal course of events, Lady Alcon would have been shepherding about an aristocrat’s daughter. But in the aftermath of Leopoldina’s elopement, the lady had found herself available to chaperone a mere miss from the country, albeit one with a large dowry.

If Leopoldina hadn’t made a cake of herself, Beatrice wouldn’t be disappointing Lady Alcon on a daily basis.

Bea’s father had been ecstatic when he managed to hire her ladyship. “I did inform her,” he had announced, “that you were not to dance with any Frenchmen. Perhaps a German, but only if he had the best possible credentials.”

Too bad that no one asked Bea to dance, French, German, or otherwise.

“I told you to keep walking,” Lady Alcon snarled, pulling on Bea’s arm. “If you insist on eating a meal before the ball, you must keep moving. Sit down for even for a moment, and you must ask yourself: ‘Do I have the right to go into the dinner?’ ”