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worried about Tess and Revel. There was no trusting a fellow like Revel, though it would be wonderful if Tess could nab him. Certainly the pair of them had been kissing, which was shocking. Tess should have more sense, but then who could resist a dashing fellow like Revel?
    There was more to Tess than she had realized. James, too, had spoken warmly of her. A little more warmly than Mrs. Marchant quite liked. “A charming girl,”he had said so often she wanted to crown him.
    Perhaps men saw something in Tess that evaded her own feminine eyes? It was not only beauty that attracted men, but some other intangible aura of sexuality. Personally she had never glimpsed such a thing in Tess. If Tess nabbed Revel, she would be a countess! With such powerful connections, what was to stop Dulcie from becoming a duchess?
    Tess’s thoughts, while different, were equally troublesome. Until that night, she had not realized how much Mama still loved Papa. It seemed hard to add to her worries at this troubled time, yet something must be done. Papa would not come home while Lord James was in the picture.
    Breakfast was an unpleasant affair, with Dulcie in the boughs at Tess’s trick of darting off to the Lower Rooms without her. A little ray of light penetrated the gloom when Tess mentioned that Mr. Evans was to call that afternoon,
    “The man you used to ogle at the Pump Room?”Dulcie asked. “The one with the long nose?”
    “His nose is not long!”
    “Why did you not tell me Evans is calling?”Mrs. Marchant demanded. “This is wonderful news. He has five thousand a year if he has a sou. And he cannot be too high in the instep, for his mama married a dancing master when his papa died. It was a great secret; everyone was whispering it.”
    Dulcie burst into peals of laughter. “I don’t think he ought to be encouraged,”she said.
    “Beggars cannot be choosers,”the mama retorted. “With your father making a scandal of us, we are fortunate for friendship from any half-decent source. And Evans is half decent. His papa was a gentleman, even if his mama is a goosecap.”
    As the ladies would be remaining at home in the afternoon, they took the carriage out for a spin in the morning. The main point of interest in these drives was to scour the streets for a sight of Mr. Marchant and/or Mrs. Gardener, and if they spotted the latter, to see what she was wearing. She was glimpsed coming out of the milliner’s, but she was not with her new beau.
    The carriage was immediately stopped and the three ladies descended to follow Mrs. Gardener for a block, at which point she got into her own carriage and disappeared, without realizing she had been under observation.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Mrs. Marchant made the supreme sacrifice of lending Henshaw to the girls for their toilettes that afternoon. Fearful for Tess’s burgeoning powers of attractions, she said, “If young Evans suggests a ride, Tess, you will take Dulcie with you.”
    “I cannot leave,”Tess said. “Someone else might call.”
    Her mother gave her a look, half-pitying, half-disdainful. “If you refer to Revel, I would not sit home waiting for him to come. He made it pretty clear last night. ‘IfTessand I ever go out again,’he said, bold as brass. And calling you Tess, too. He never did that before, now I think of it.”
    “I was not necessarily referring to Revel. I met other gentlemen as well last night.”
    Mrs. Marchant, watching Tess’s reflection in the mirror, decided it was the mirror that gave Tess that sly expression, like a cat. Yet the girl had certainly changed her stripes in the space of twenty-four hours. That very morning Mrs. Marchant had been required to answer the letters from Northbay, for Tess had not done it as she usually did. A grudging admiration was sneaking in with the annoyance.
    When the young ladies were as pretty as Henshaw’s clever hands could make them, they went belowstairs to await Evans’s arrival. He came punctually at three,