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single private word with her that evening, what with his responsibility to entertain Miss Borden and her mama and Allie’s preoccupation with this fellow from Bath, who had better not turn out to be a fortune hunter after all, if he knew what was good for him. 
    His amusement was complete when a servant opened the door to admit the two ladies. He rose to his feet and bowed. Lady Margam looked all that was proper for the occasion. And so did Miss Borden, by Jove! Piers thought. She looked quite exquisitely pretty in white satin and lace, her hair in masses of auburn ringlets, her eyes lowered, her cheeks becomingly flushed. She wore a single strand of pearls at her throat, doubtless the mother’s influence. He had half expected to find her loaded to the ground with costly and vulgar jewels of the fond uncle’s choosing.
    But it was as much amusement as admiration he felt as he helped the girl on with her wrap and ushered both ladies out to his waiting carriage. Amusement that he found himself in such a situation, about to appear before the ton with a blushing member of the infantry, and singled out quite markedly by her uncle as an eligible husband. Mr. Bosley must be well aware of the baron’s title that was so close to being his, he thought. Perhaps he was not as well aware of the fact that the present baron was in his early sixties and hale and hearty enough to live to be a hundred. And perhaps he did not know that Mr. Westhaven need not fall all over himself for that fishy fortune, being a very wealthy man in his own right.
    Good Lord, he thought, taking his seat in the carriage opposite the two ladies, he did not even know what color the girl’s eyes were. He pursed his lips and concentrated on not laughing aloud. He began to talk, using only the surface of his mind to do so. He had a feeling that what he had said to Allie about cooing to the girl most of the time was probably not a gross exaggeration. The mother was reasonably sensible; the girl was mute.
    Thank goodness Allie was at the theater before him, he thought fifteen minutes later. Of course, it would be strange if she were not, since there were barely five minutes left before the start of the performance. He grinned at her behind the backs of his ladies and exchanged bows with her escort. The introductions were made.
    Sir Clayton Lansing was a handsome enough man, he supposed after a brief penetrating glance before he seated first Lady Margam and then Miss Borden. He took his own seat next to the latter and asked her if she was in any draft from the door. He did so merely for the amusement and pleasure of seeing her eyes peep up at him from beneath those lowered lashes and of hearing her whispered, “No, I thank you, sir. You are very kind.” 
    Lansing was well enough for those females who liked long, thin males with long, thin faces and hair that had been plastered to the head for neatness after being parted with ruthless symmetry down one side. Perhaps it was Allie he should have been asking about drafts. But not from doorways. The man was leaning close enough to be sending drafts down her gown to her toes.
    She looked remarkably handsome in a dark green gown with Web’s diamonds at her throat. But then Allie always did look handsome, he thought. No matter what time of day he had walked in on her and Web— and he had walked in at all hours—she had always been neat and elegant. 
    It was strange to see her with another man. A man who was not Web, that was. They had been a devoted couple. Theirs had been everyone’s dream of the perfect marriage. For the last several years before his friend’s death he had ceased to think of them as separate individuals. They had been Web-and-Allie, his dearest friends.
    Strange, really, when he and Web had been almost inseparable as boys and as young men. She had been Alice Carpenter, the rector’s daughter, an awkward child during one visit home, an alluring young woman