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rainbows.”
    “I do believe that Lady Eleanor and Raithby are acquainted,” he said, watching his mother’s face for clues. He didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean anything where women were concerned. “I suppose that, if I work the Raithby connection, I could find myself invited to events where Emeline has been invited due to her Kirkland connection. How tidy that would be, wouldn’t it? Both of us, working our London acquaintances for all they’re worth.”
    “Kit, don’t be vulgar.”
    “I thought I was being forthright.”
    His mother did not respond. She took up her needlework basket and twitched her fingers through the mass of projects, all of them barely begun. She pulled out something that looked like it wanted to become a chair cover and began sticking a needle into it, rather violently, he thought.
    “Do you want me to tighten the bond to Raithby or not?” he asked.
    “Only if it suits you.” That meant yes.
    “I suppose it would suit me. I have always been fond of Raithby,” he said.
    “I never thought otherwise.”
    If he did accept more invitations because of Raithby, and if Emeline accepted more invitations because of Eleanor Kirkland, then he would be able to make certain that Emeline was not in any danger from . . . well, he wasn’t sure what. Men, he supposed. Inappropriate, dangerous men. London men. Titled men. But he would be there, to protect her. That was only what a good elder brother would do, wasn’t it?
    Of course it was.
    “I shall be most pleased to accommodate you, Mother. As always,” he said, sounding very like the dutiful and devoted son he was.
     
     
    Lady Jordan, widow, had never been blessed with children. She had, however, married for love, or that was the rumor, and consequently, she had not married as well as her two sisters. One had married the Duke of Aldreth, produced two children and promptly died, and the other had married the Marquis of Melverly, produced two children and subsequently died. Lady Jordan had, by virtue of surviving life, found herself in the position of maternal placeholder and sometime chaperone to the three daughters of her two sisters.
    As it happened, Lady Jordan did not enjoy the dubious thrill of motherhood, even of the substitute sort; therefore, she was not a very eager chaperone. Also, she drank prodigiously.
    In Eleanor’s opinion, that all combined to make Lady Jordan very nearly the perfect chaperone.
    Emeline had got all this out of Eleanor in the first hour of their acquaintance. Eleanor Kirkland was quite forthcoming about nearly everything. She was, in a word, shameless. Or perhaps the word was courageous. Yet again, perhaps it was untouchable. No one in Society would ever look down upon Eleanor Kirkland. The same could not be said of Emeline Harlow.
    “I can’t just walk up to Lord Raithby and talk to him. It’s too forward,” Emeline said.
    “We’ll do it together. He won’t mind in the slightest. He’s a very even-tempered man,” Eleanor said.
    “I thought you hardly knew him.”
    “Everyone knows that about him. Everyone. He’s never even been in a duel, that’s how mild he is.”
    “Then that is not a dueling scar upon his cheek?” Emeline asked.
    They were at Lady Jordan’s musicale, the musicians still setting themselves up with their music sheets and chairs just so, finger limbering, or whatever it was they did before actually playing upon their instruments. Emeline had never been to a musicale before. She did not count the church Christmas play where the vicar and his wife played (violin and pianoforte, respectively) and Marquerite, the local soprano, sang (shrilly).
    Lady Jordan was hosting the musicale in the Marquis of Melverley’s home on Brook Street. It was a colossal home of ancient and proud lines, though some of the upholstery looked a bit shabby around the edges. Mama had told her in somewhat self-satisfied tones that the shabbiness was the result of Lord Melverley’s lack of a wife, not a