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earl decided. If there was anything he could do to see Kersey suffer, then he would do it.
    Without the slightest qualm.

3
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LTHOUGH HE HAD BROKEN THE ICE, SO TO speak, by riding in the park and facing the
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, two weeks passed before the Earl of Thornhill attended his first social function. He considered not doing so at all. He had proved a point to both himself and them, and he had confronted Kersey with his knowledge. He was very tempted to leave London and go home to Chalcote. But he supposed that since he had made his stand, he might as well complete the process. Riding in the park was not quite the same as attending an entertainment of the Season.
    He decided to attend a ball. He had plenty of invitations to choose among. It appeared that his title and wealth were of greater significance after all than his notoriety. Every hostess during the Season liked to grace her ballroom with as many men of fortune as possible and as many titled gentlemen as could be persuaded to attend. Young, unmarried gentlemen were particularly courted, especially where there were young daughters or nieces or granddaughters to be brought out and married off. The Earl of Thornhill, being twenty-six years old, had every required attribute.
    He decided on Viscount Nordal’s ball in BerkeleySquare for the simple reason that both Sir Albert Boyle and Lord Francis Kneller were going there. Nordal had a daughter and a niece he was bringing out—though it would be more accurate, probably, to say that his sister, Lady Brill, was doing the bringing out. She was one of Society’s dragons. But the earl, seated in his carriage on the way to Sir Albert Boyle’s rooms to take him up before proceeding to Berkeley Square, shrugged his shoulders. Her brother had invited him, and if she chose to snub him, then he would put on an armor of cold haughtiness and make free with his quizzing glass.
    He did not really want to be attending this ball, but it seemed the wise thing to do.
    “What do these girls look like?” he asked Sir Albert when the latter had joined him in the carriage. “Does Nordal have a difficult task on his hands?”
    Sir Albert shrugged. “I’ve never seen ’em,” he said. “They must have made their curtsy to the queen this week and it is Society’s turn this evening. Five pounds say they are not lookers, though, Gabe. They never are. Every maidservant in sight tonight will have oceans of beauty, but every lady will look like a horse.”
    The earl chuckled. “Unkind, Bertie,” he said. “Perhaps they will not like the look of us either. One is supposed to look beyond outward appearance, anyway, to the character within.”
    Sir Albert made an indelicate noise, rather like a snort. “Or to their papas’ pockets,” he said. “If they are well lined, the girl’s looks are insignificant, Gabe.”
    “You have become a cynic in my absence,” the earlsaid as his carriage slowed to join the line of carriages outside the house on Berkeley Square.
    The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lit, and both it and the staircase were crowded with guests and humming with sound. The two gentlemen joined the line on the stairs. The earl fancied that several raised lorgnettes and several poker faces and outright frowns and whispers behind hands and fans were occasioned by his arrival. But there was nothing openly hostile.
    Viscount Nordal, at the beginning of the receiving line, was affable, and even Lady Brill, playing the grand lady as her brother’s hostess, nodded graciously before presenting her nieces. Lord Thornhill had an impression of two young ladies of
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dressed in virginal white, as was to be expected. The white gown was an almost obligatory uniform for unmarried young ladies.
    And then he recognized the one standing beside Lady Brill. Miss Samantha Newman. Looking tonight more the personification of English beauty than ever. She positively sparkled with blond loveliness and was refreshingly free of the pretense of ennui