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impeccably virtuous too, which must add luster to your friendship. And I think he’s quite, quite interested in you,” Bea said confidentially. “He looked straight in your direction when he entered the room. Whenever I speak to him, he simply glances around the room. Normally”—her smile grew—“I am used to complete attention.”
    Bea had on a dinner dress that had neither a front nor a back. One could only guess how it stayed above her waist, given that her plump little breasts threatened to escape her scrap of a bodice. Men must simply slaver over her, Helene thought enviously. She herself was wearing a gown of Egyptian net over a dark blue silk. She had felt very a la mode in her chamber, but now she felt dismally overdressed, like a dog wearing a sweater.
    But Bea seemed to follow her train of thought perfectly. “I’m certain that he doesn’t like my gown,” she said. “Last night at dinner he kept looking at me as if I had something stuck between my teeth. Come along!” She jiggled Helene’s arm. “You don’t want to wait too long, do you? What if Arabella manages to convince the man that he should wed Lady Rawlings? You could hardly have a liaison with your friend’s husband!”
    Helene thought about that as they moved across the room.
    â€œYou see,” Bea said, not quite as softly as Helene would have liked, “he’s looking at you right now!”
    But when Helene looked up, it seemed to her that Stephen was watching her companion, although with an expression of deep annoyance. She swallowed and curtsied before Stephen Fairfax-Lacy. “Sir,” she said. Bea had glided away without even greeting Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.
    He smiled down at her, and Helene realized again what a good-looking man he was. There wasn’t a whisker on his face, not like her husband, who always had a shadowed jaw by evening.
    â€œHow are you?” he asked.
    â€œI’m quite well.”
    There was a moment’s silence while Helene thought desperately of a conversational tactic. “Did you read this morning’s paper?” she finally asked. “Napoleon has escaped from Elba and is in France again! Surely the French army will not support him.”
    â€œI believe you are quite correct, Lady Godwin,” Stephen said, looking away. He had decided to play this game very, very slowly, so as not to startle her.
    Helene felt a crawling embarrassment. How on earth could she have ever thought to seduce a man? She couldn’t even carry on a simple conversation.
    â€œWhat do you think of the fact that Catholics cannot sit in Parliament?” she asked.
    He blinked, not prepared for philosophical reasoning. “I have long felt that the prohibition should be rethought,” he said finally.
    â€œI believe it has to do with the wordings of the oaths they would have to take. Wouldn’t it violate their religious vows to take Parliamentary oaths?”
    â€œMost of the men I know don’t give a fig for those oaths,” Stephen said.
    Helene heard a faint bitterness in his voice and wondered about it. Why was Mr. Fairfax-Lacy in Wiltshire rather than sitting in the House of Commons?
    â€œWhy should we expect Catholics or Jews to be more circumspect than Anglicans?” he continued.
    â€œSurely to establish oneself as a Catholic in this country, given its Anglican past, implies a deeper fidelity to religion than one might expect from an ordinary gentleman,” Helene said. She was quite enjoying herself now. He wasn’t regarding her in a lustful fashion, just with the sort of normal engagement one might expect during a conversation.
    But she waited in vain for a reply. He appeared to be looking over her shoulder.
    â€œMr. Fairfax-Lacy,” she said, with a bit of sharpness to her voice.
    He snapped to attention. “Yes, Lady Godwin? Do forgive me.”
    â€œIs there something interesting that I should see