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of a husband.
    â€œAre you enjoying yourself?” she asked, remembering rather belatedly that she was nominally, at least, a hostess. Arabella had taken over all the duties of running the house, the better for Esme to concentrate on her supposed confinement. “Is your chamber acceptable?”
    â€œTruly, it has been all that is comfortable,” he said. And then changed the subject. “I much enjoyed Countess Godwin’s waltz. Her husband is not invited to this gathering, I presume?”
    Yes! Esme felt all the exuberance of an old friend. Helene appeared to have made a remarkable impression on Fairfax-Lacy. “Absolutely not,” she hastened to say. “Helene and Rees have had little to do with each other for years. He has other interests. She and her husband have an entirely amiable friendship,” she added. One wouldn’t want the M.P. to be frightened off by the notion of an irate husband.
    Stephen was watching Helene talk to Bea on the other side of the room. Esme didn’t quite like the contrast that conversation presented: Bea was such a vividly colored young woman that she made Helene look pale and washed out. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said brightly, “I must confer with my butler.” She allowed Fairfax-Lacy to haul her to her feet and then trundled off toward the door, stopping next to Helene and Bea.
    â€œHe was just asking for you!” she whispered to Helene.
    Helene looked adorably confused. “Who was?”
    â€œFairfax-Lacy, of course! Go talk to him!”
    Helene looked across the room, and there was Stephen Fairfax-Lacy smiling at her. But she felt a strange reluctance; it was all she could do to hover next to the door and not flee to her bedchamber. Her life, to this point, had not been easy. In fact, although she only admitted it to herself in the middle of the night, sometimes she felt as if she must have been cursed at birth. It had only taken one foolish decision—the foolish, foolish decision to elope with an intoxicating man by the name of Rees—to ruin her entire life. But in the last year she had realized that if she didn’t do something about it now, the rest of her life would follow the pattern of the past seven years. The years hadn’t been unpleasant: She lived with her mother and she was welcome everywhere. But she had no life, no life that mattered. No child.
    She glanced again at Fairfax-Lacy. He looked like a gentleman, not like that savage she had married. Perhaps, just perhaps, she would even like having intimacies with him. It wouldn’t be terrifyingly messy and embarrassing as it had been with Rees. It would be…proper. Acceptable. He was quite lovely: all rangy, lean, English gentleman. And without a doubt it would curdle Rees’s liver to see her with such a man. If anything could curdle her husband’s liver, given the qualities of brandy he drank. So why wasn’t she walking straight into Mr. Fairfax-Lacy’s arms?
    Suddenly a pert voice spoke just at her left elbow. “Shall I walk you across the room again?”
    Helene blinked. Bea’s eyes were sparkling with mischief. She repeated, “Shall I walk you across the room, Helene? Because I believe you are expected.”
    â€œAh—”
    â€œThis way,” Bea said efficiently, taking her elbow and strolling toward the far end of the room, where Stephen waited. “He is quite lovely, isn’t he?”
    Helene was so nonplussed that she couldn’t quite bring out an answer. “Who?” she finally said lamely.
    â€œMr. Fairfax-Lacy, naturally!”
    â€œI thought you found him Old Testament.”
    â€œThat too. But it seems obvious to me that the two of you are perfectly suited,” Bea said in a coaxing voice, as if she were taking a mare over a high jump. “There he is, a perfect specimen of the English gentleman, and here you are, exactly the same in a female form. Both