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that so many young ladies affected in order to make themselves appear more mature.
    The Earl of Thornhill bowed to her and murmured some platitude before turning his head expectantly toward the other young lady. The Honorable Miss Jennifer Winwood.
    Yes. Oh, yes, indeed. He had exaggerated nothing in memory. He was a tall man, but her eyes were on a level with his chin. And fine dark eyes they were too, moreamber than brown. All the glorious dark red hair he had merely glimpsed beneath her bonnet in the park was now piled on her head with cascades of curls over her neck and temples. And she was as shapely as a dream, though he did not lower his eyes from her face to confirm the impression. Her coloring and her figure made her look as vivid as if she were dressed in scarlet. And every bit as enticing.
    He bowed over her hand, murmured that he was charmed, looked deeply into her eyes to be sure that she had recognized him—how mortifying if she had not!—and moved on into the ballroom.
    “Well, Bertie,” he said, coming to a pause inside the doors and raising his quizzing glass to his eye to survey the scene about him, “you owe me five pounds, my dear chap. The Season has at least two lookers to offer.”
    “I had convinced myself,” Sir Albert said, “that they must have been a figment of our imagination, Gabe. I am smitten to the heart.”
    “By the blonde, I suppose,” the Earl of Thornhill said. “I intend to dance with the other. We will see if I have been invited merely as an aristocratic ornament, Bertie, or if I am to be allowed within striking distance of one of Society’s daughters.”
    “Five pounds say you will be allowed close, Gabe, and encouraged to stay close,” his friend said. “I’ll win my money back easily.”
    “Ah,” the earl said. “Here comes Kneller. Wearing lavender. You look too gorgeous to be real, Frank. Youare out to slay the ladies, not singly, I see, but by the dozen.”
    I T HAD BEEN AN exciting and a frustrating fortnight. Exciting in the sense that they had prepared for their presentation at the queen’s drawing room and, amidst great trepidation, had accomplished the task. And exciting too in that there had been their come-out ball to look forward to and a dizzying number of invitations to read and choose among—though that had usually meant agreeing to the events that Aunt Agatha approved and rejecting others that they might have found more tempting. And there had been fittings to enjoy and newly delivered garments to try on and exclaim over.
    But it had been frustrating too. At long last they were in London and the Season had begun and all around them the
ton
were enjoying themselves with furious determination. Yet they must remain in seclusion until they had been presented and then until their come-out ball. It was enough to give even the cheeriest of mortals the dismals, Samantha had declared on more than one occasion.
    It had been frustrating for Jennifer in another way too. Viscount Kersey had been to tea once. Once! He had come with his mother and had sat drinking tea and conversing for half an hour—with Jennifer, Samantha, and Aunt Agatha. He had smiled just for Jennifer as he took his leave and had kissed her hand.
    But that was all she had had of the first two weeks ofher official betrothal. Yes, it was all very frustrating. And all very proper, of course. And there had been the excitement of everything else that was happening.
    But at last the evening of the ball had arrived and Jennifer felt almost sick with excitement. She despised herself heartily since she was twenty years old and long past the age for such girlish reactions. But she was excited and there it was. She was not going to pretend otherwise.
    She had not realized there could be so many people in all London as the numbers who passed along the receiving line into the ballroom in a seemingly endless stream. Young ladies all in white, like Samantha and herself, older ladies in brighter colors with