Chapter 4

“You must admit he is very handsome,” Felicity insisted as she and Sophia finished wreathing the doorknocker in greenery and ribbons. Sophia had been drafted into the job since Cissie Ellison had wandered off somewhere. Cedrica had gone to organize a room for Lord Elfingham, although where she would put him in the crowded house, Sophia had no idea.

“Handsome is as handsome does,” Sophia reminded her.

Elfingham had behaved very handsomely indeed, showing no offence at Felicity’s rudeness or Hythe’s. He had taken his horse to the stables, accompanied by a group of young men to whom he was explaining the horse’s virtues. Hythe, who would sooner cut off his arm than join them, nonetheless followed the horse with his eyes before seeking consolation in the billiards room with that horrible man Weasel.

Felicity echoed her thoughts. “He has beautiful manners, Sophia. You know he does.”

Sophia could not help but nod. His manners had been one of the things she noticed when they first met. The exotic horseman in his foreign robes, his dark eyes meeting hers, had inclined his head politely and said, in perfectly enunciated English, “Forgive my temerity in speaking without an introduction, my lady, but have you perchance mislaid this child?”

What a fool he must have thought her. She had been near speechless—from the horror and excitement of the child’s near escape, of course. She was twenty-five and well beyond being overset by a charming smile and an attractive person, however tall and broad and well put together.

She thought about this morning’s dream and shivered, but Felicity did not notice. She was still enumerating Lord Elfingham’s virtues. “He dances divinely, and he does not assume that the person with whom he is dancing is a brainless ninny.”

Sophia nodded again. He was as graceful on the dance floor as he was on horseback, with a way of focusing all of his attention on his partner.

And he was much in evidence on the dance floor, he and his much younger brother Lord Andrew. Whether James Winderfield senior, now Earl of Sutton, had married the Persian mother of his children might be in doubt, but most hostesses found it convenient to suspend judgment, particularly after the rumor-mill began to churn out stories of the wealth that was suddenly pouring into the Winshire coffers from trading enterprises that spanned the Middle East, and reached into China and India at one end and the countries of the Mediterranean at the other.

The two young men had money, looks, and manners. Even if the questions over their birth were resolved in the negative, they would still be welcomed as spare partners in most of London’s ballrooms. And if the new Earl of Sutton had, indeed, sired his offspring within the bounds of holy matrimony, as he claimed? Then the sons of the next Duke of Winshire, whatever questions might hang over their tainted bloodlines, would be valuable quarry in the marriage hunt.

“Do you think the horse is really injured?” Felicity asked. “It does seem a coincidence, him turning up like this.”

“It was limping,” Sophia said, keeping her own speculations to herself.

Had he followed Felicity here, to the Haverford house party? How audacious if he had!

Again, Felicity’s thoughts marched with hers. “I think it very romantic if he has followed us, Sophia. Into the very jaws of his enemy! They say,” she dropped her voice to a thrilled whisper, “the Duke of Haverford and the Earl of Sutton cut one another in the actual presence of the Prince Regent. Cut one another dead!”

“We shall not repeat gossip, Felicity.” Sophia tied the last ribbon and deftly twitched its loops into position. “There. We are done. Step back and see what you think.”

Over her sister’s shoulder, Sophia could see Lord Elfingham and the other young men returning from the stables. Hythe would not agree to a match between Lord Elfingham and Felicity, not unless the House of Lords found in Lord Sutton’s favor, and perhaps not even then.

“Come. Let us go and see how the decorating is going in the parlor,” she said. She would remove Felicity before the tempting man could reach them. This time. It would be a long few days until Lord Elfingham was on his way again.