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in the garden, don’t you think?”
    There was truth in his accusation. Cara reined in her temper. “Please try and understand. It is very difficult for me to present myself in public when I am constantly being recognized and quizzed. People ask the rudest questions, and what they think is no doubt even worse than what they say.”
    There was truth in her words also, but Beau chose to overlook it. “If you hadn’t secluded yourself in the country with your sheep and your kumquats and your blasted chickens, Zoe might not have turned into such a strong-willed minx.”
    “And perhaps she would have, with you indulging her every whim!” But Cara didn’t wish to war with her brother, and so she changed the subject. “Did you know that Mannering was at Lady Miller’s rout?”
    Beau didn’t wish to quarrel either, not with his last hope. “Mannering was at Lady Miller’s? Good God, where will he show up next?” He looked around the garden as if expecting the marquess to pop out from beneath a bush.
    Daisy returned, panting, minus her stick. Both Beau and Cara ignored her. The setter dropped down on her haunches and watched them curiously.
    “He also took her down to dinner. The rest of us accompanied them.” Cara hadn’t enjoyed a spoonful of the repast, even though it had included rib of lamb and mayonnaise of salmon, boiled fowl and Béchamel sauce, collared eel and lobster salad and boar’s head; charlotte russe à la vanilla; veal-and-ham pie; jellies, compotes of fruit, cheesecakes, dishes of small pastry, and blancmange, all arranged tastefully up and down the table, interspersed with flowers and epergnes; and additionally a joint of cold roast and boiled beef placed on the buffet, something substantial for the gentlemen to partake of to keep up their strength. Instead she had sat quietly, and listened to Baron Fitzrichard’s explanation that delicate colors required to be supported and enlivened, and therefore were best relieved by contrast; though the contrast should not be so strong as to equal the color it was intended to relieve, for it then became opposition, which should be avoided at all costs; while Ianthe responded with flattered interest, and Zoe fluttered and flirted and struck her attitudes.
    The girl truly was shameless. Cara didn’t know what Beau expected she might do. Warn Zoe against coming under the gravest censure, so that Zoe might fairly say, so what? A Loversall wasn’t dissuaded by such considerations in the ordinary way of things, let alone when in pursuit of his or her True Love.
    True Love! Cara wasn’t sure that there was such a thing. If she’d once had such youthful fancies herself, she’d long since set them forcibly aside. And if such fancies sometimes crept into her dreams—Vigorously, she uprooted a nettle. Perhaps Cara had scant control over her dreams, but she didn’t have to dwell upon such nonsense in the daylight hours. Then why was she sitting here, brooding about it, all the same?
    If Beau had suspected that Mannering would appear at Lady Miller’s, he would have attended the damned rout himself, and consequently was glad he hadn’t suspected, for he disliked such events.
    Thoughtfully, he brushed dog hair off his breeches. “Perhaps I’ve been a trifle hasty. Maybe Mannering’s interest has been piqued.”
    Cara flung down the nettle. “You’re as mutton-headed as Ianthe if you think Zoe may bring such a man to heel.”
    Mutton-headed, was he? Exposure to the sunlight, and his unusually short-tempered sister, had not helped Beau’s headache one bit. “I’ll tell you what I think! You’re jealous of your own niece.” Before Cara could recover sufficiently from her astonishment to reply, or box his ears, he set out in search of his valet, and a soothing tisane.
    Cara scowled at her brother’s retreating back, then turned away and wandered farther along the path until she came to the neatly arranged vegetable garden, which lay near the kitchen door.