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another season. Maybe some of the British gentlemen who admired you so much when we were there would seem more attractive to you with a second look. The Duke of Carrington, for example, or Lord Danville, or perhaps Sir Roger Oliphant. Or some new gentleman perhaps. Meanwhile . . .” She gave another nod to the three British men nearby. “There are possibilities right here in Newport.”
    “Mother, you are impossible.” Exasperated by her mother’s singular talent for ruining any tender moment between them, Linnet turned her attention to the ballroom floor and strove to find a change of subject that wouldn’t lead to another fight.
    “Oh, look,” she said, “there’s Davis MacKay dancing with Cicely Morton. I wonder if he’s at last worked up the nerve to ask for her hand? In her last letter to me, he hadn’t.”
    But she was not destined to escape her mother’s machinations so easily. “Never mind Cicely Morton,” Helen whispered. “Featherstone is still watching you.”
    “Is he?” Uninterested, she rose on her toes, trying to see over the people in front of her to better watch the dancers.
    “Yes, indeed. It’s clear you’ve piqued his interest.”
    “Oh, I’m sure,” she muttered without glancing in that direction. “I suspect what he admires most is my pocketbook.”
    “I do hate seeing such cynicism from you, and based on what? You condemn Featherstone and every other peer because of one bad experience.”
    “I am not doing any such thing. I’m forming a logical conclusion based on facts. Everyone knows the previous Lord Featherstone was a ne’er-do-well who spent Belinda Hamilton’s entire dowry before he died, so the present Lord Featherstone must be in desperate need of cash. I’ve no doubt he’s in America to embark on the same nefarious course his brother pursued, but as we have discussed so many times, I have no intention of rewarding a fortune hunter with my dowry.”
    She cast a baleful glance at the subject of their conversation. “Heavens,” she muttered as she returned her attention to the dance floor. “If he intends to pursue an American heiress, he ought to at least be somewhat discreet about it. Why, I might be a pastry in a shop window the way he stares at me. It’s rude.”
    “Of course he’s staring at you. Men stare at you everywhere you go. It’s obvious Featherstone appreciates what a beauty you are and what an excellent countess you would make.”
    Having already had her romantic illusions shattered by just such a man two seasons ago, and having just departed England and its impoverished nobility in happy relief, Linnet could not imagine a worse fate than being married to that dark, hawklike reprobate across the room. Besides, she wanted to live here and enjoy the sort of the life she’d always had with a man she knew and understood, a man she could be certain cared for her, not her money. A man like Frederick.
    She wasn’t in love with him as she’d been as a girl, but when she thought of the warmth in his eyes and the way he’d pulled her close, she knew she could fall for him again if she let it happen. And she knew now that he loved her. He could give her everything she wanted in life.
    With that thought, any doubts she had about a rendezvous with him vanished. She would meet him in the pagoda, and she would accept his proposal. Daddy would agree to the match, of course, for unlike her mother, her father was no more eager to hand over hard-earned American cash to some British ne’er-do-well than she was. He’d made that clear ever since Conrath.
    Once her father’s permission was obtained, she and Frederick would announce their engagement straightaway, perhaps even right here at this ball. That would put an end at last to her mother’s relentless campaign.
    Linnet took another glance at her watch ring. It was five minutes to midnight. If she intended to go through with this, she didn’t have much time. She swallowed the last of her sherry, set the