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fill the house with eccentric servants.
    He glanced around the foyer, half suspecting that it might now be painted purple or have naughty frescoes on the walls. But it was the same. The same old family portraits looking down on him from cream silk-papered walls. The same carved, round Jacobean table and gold velvet-upholstered chairs lined the walls outside the closed library and drawing room doors. The same soaring ceiling. The only change was that the cold marble floor was now covered by a rug in glowing shades of crimson and blue.
    Marcus looked up into the shadows at the top of the staircase, wondering what else was the same in his home, and what had changed.
    “Would you care to come into the drawing room, my lord?” Douglas boomed, startling Marcus out of his reverie. “Refreshments have been ordered, and Miss Barclay will be with you very shortly.”
    “Miss Barclay?” Marcus said, puzzled. “Is it not rather late for her?”
    Douglas’s bushy red brows knit together. “Late, my lord? It is not even seven o’clock. Perhaps that is late where you came from?” He looked as if Marcus had only lately arrived from the moon and could have no idea about the proper way of doing things.
    “No, it is not.” But surely it was late for a child? Marcus had little experience with children. Perhaps the little beasts stayed up until dawn. “Well, then, I suppose her nursemaid could bring her down for a while.”
    Douglas’s brows shot up. “Her nursemaid, my lord?”
    Was the child too old for a nursemaid? Maybe she had a governess now. He couldn’t puzzle it out just then; he was aching for a brandy and something to eat. It had been such a decidedly odd day. “Just have her come down when she is ready, then, Douglas,” he said, and went into the drawing room.
    Douglas smiled hugely. “Oh,
yes
, my lord.”
    ***
    After Julia had changed her dress and tidied her hair as best she could, she went into the guest chamber next door to her own. Agnes, the leading lady of Abelard’s Ambling Players, had been laid up there ever since she had broken her foot falling off the stage.
    “Do I look presentable?” Julia asked, smoothing the skirt of her lavender gown. “Or shall I be a disgrace?”
    Agnes looked up from the costume she was mending. “You look very pretty, Julia! What is the occasion? A party?”
    Julia gave a little snort. “Not a party! I still tell everyone I am in mourning. And now that Mother and Gerald are gone, that Lady Angela Fleming will surely have her way at last, and I will be outcast, with no invitations at all.” She fell into a mock-despairing swoon across a chaise. “Alas, alas! Never to attend a musicale at the Hallsbys’ again! Never to have Freddie Barnstaple trod on my toes at a ball again! Whatever shall I do?”
    Agnes laughed. “A cruel fate, indeed. But I would not get my hopes up if I were you. No one will listen to that spoiled Lady Angela, and you will have to go out in company very soon.”
    Julia shook her head. “Lady Angela Fleming is the reigning Beauty of the neighborhood, and she has hated me ever since I tripped and spilled punch on her at my first ball. But I have greater worries than that tonight.”
    “Really? What has happened?”
    “The new earl is arrived.”
    “No!” Agnes gasped. “Have you met him? What is he like?”
    “I did meet him this afternoon, but he did not know it was me.” Julia then proceeded to outline the whole ridiculous scene in the muddy lane.
    Agnes fell back against her pillows in helpless laughter. “Oh, Julia! I would so dearly love to see his face when he realizes who you are.”
    Julia grimaced. “Perhaps you could go down instead of me? You are so pretty; you would make a much better me than I do.”
    “Oh, no. You are the leading lady of this farce. But you must tell me all about it after. I am planning on writing my own play, you know; I always need fresh material.”
    Julia sighed. “Yes, I’ll tell you all.”
    Agnes