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had agreed to join Piers’ theater party. It would be lovely to dress up for a formal occasion again and to watch a play. And she felt a great curiosity to see Miss Borden and her mama. As for herself, the chance to satisfy Sir Clayton Lansing by including him in the party was not to be missed. After this evening she would consider her duty done and would politely but firmly refuse any further invitations. It was to be hoped that he would take himself back home to Bath within a few days.
    It seemed that Sir Clayton had other ideas. Alice engaged him in polite small talk in the carriage on the way to the theater and was somewhat disappointed to find that the box Piers had taken for the evening was still empty when they arrived. She hoped the rest of the party would not be long in coming.
    “My dear Mrs. Penhallow,” Sir Clayton said, seating her in the box with courtly care and bowing to her before taking his own seat beside her, “how you do outshine all the other ladies present.”
    She smiled at him. “It is a very splendid theater, is it not?” she said.
    “I knew you would, of course,” he said, “but now I am sure of it. I must be the envy of every other gentleman present.”
    “How kind of you to say so,” she murmured. “Have you seen this play before, sir? I have been assured that it is well worth watching.”
    “I doubt I will be able to force my eyes to turn to the stage,” he said, “when there is something far more delightful to look at—or should I say someone?”
    “I do hope Mr. Westhaven and his party will not miss the beginning of the performance,” she said.
    “Do you have a long acquaintance with the gentleman, ma’am?” he asked. “And must I be jealous of him?”
    “I have known him all my life,” she said. “He was a particular friend of my late husband’s. And mine, too.”
    “Ah,” he said, smiling, “then I will not be jealous. For if you have known him all your life, ma’am, and he is still just a friend, I will suppose he can never be more to you or you to him.”
    This speech was delivered with a great deal of smiling and bowing. Alice was glad she had brought a fan with her. She used it, though the theater was not yet overly hot. And she gazed about her with a deliberate interest. If Piers was much longer, she would throttle him. If he failed altogether to put in an appearance, she would borrow a dueling pistol and shoot him.
    And of course, she thought, Sir Clayton’s final words ringing in her head, Piers would always be just a friend. Of course she would never mean more to him. She had known that from the time she had been fourteen, as thin and flat as a blade of grass, her hair still in long braids and herself almost totally invisible to the gentleman. She had feared it the following year when he and Web were coming home and she had finally persuaded her father to let her put her hair up and had looked with satisfaction at her newly developing figure in the glass. She had known it for sure as soon as they did come home and she saw the look of warm admiration in Webster Penhallow’s eyes and the look of appreciative amusement in Piers’.
    She had known it during the two and a half years of Web’s courtship, while he waited for her to grow up and reach marriageable age. And on her wedding day when Piers had taken her waist between his hands and kissed her cheek and smiled with twinkling amusement at her blushing face and told her quite outrageously that he envied Web more than he could say for a wedding night to look forward to with an innocent and timid bride.
    She had known it through nine years of marriage, when he had been more like a member of their family during the long spells when he was at home than just a very close and dear friend.
    He and Web had always been like brothers. His relationship with her during those nine years had been light and teasing and comfortable, though he had cried with her over Nicholas and she