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way in which Thomas had spoken the word sir. The fact that he was standing so very near, however—right beside her, actually—was rather startling, since she’d thought certain he’d drift away once their dance was over.
    “How do you do, Lord Bartlett?” Granville nodded at the younger man. To Caroline, he said, “Lady Caroline. I trust you are feeling better than when we last met.”
    Caroline, feeling color creep into her cheeks, said quickly, “Indeed,” and, in an effort to keep herself from looking a bigger fool in his eyes than she was certain she already did, vowed to say nothing more. . . .
    Until, absolutely unbidden, the words, “I see you found the Lady Jacquelyn,” tumbled from her lips, almost before she’d realized she’d said them. Idiot, she berated herself. Why was it that sometimes she could not force her tongue to move, and at other times, she could not keep it still?
    “Yes,” Braden Granville replied, as his gaze followed Caroline’s to rest upon his fiancée, who stood chatting gaily with Dame Ashforth, looking coolly beautiful and not at all like a woman who’d rather recently been ravished. “I did, indeed. It seems she’d stepped out into Dame Ashforth’s garden for a bit of air.” “Granville” then added, noticing Hurst rushing toward them, “I see that you are being sought. I’ll keep you no longer.”
    “Oh,” Thomas began, “but it’s only Slater. . . .”
    His protest came too late, however, since Braden Granville had disappeared back into the throng of revelers. Hurst, his handsome face a mask of concern, burst urgently upon them.
    “Carrie,” he cried. “What’s this I hear about your leaving, and so early? I won’t hear of it!”
    Thomas, put out at his tête-à-tête with his hero being interrupted, rolled his eyes. Caroline shot him a disapproving look. Sometimes it was quite hard to remember that only six months earlier, her brother had been on the brink of death.
    “Our mother isn’t feeling well, Hurst,” she said. “We’ve got to go. But please, you must stay.”
    Hurst heaved a dramatic sigh. “If you insist, my sweet. Until tomorrow, then.” He leaned down as if to kiss her. Caroline just barely kept herself from averting her mouth. The thought of those lips, which had so recently been on Lady Jacquelyn’s, touching her own filled her with revulsion—almost as much as the thought of Braden Granville kissing her had earlier filled her with such inexplicable excitement.
    But she needn’t have worried. Hurst didn’t attempt to place his mouth anywhere near hers. Instead, he kissed her lightly on the forehead. Caroline’s relief was such that she was halfway down the steep steps that led from Dame Ashforth’s townhouse to the carriage waiting on the street below before she even realized it.
    “Good Lord,” she heard her brother cry just as one of Dame Ashforth’s footmen was handing Caroline into the carriage.
    Caroline, thinking that her brother must have forgotten-something inside, and dreading the thought of spending another minute more at this house that would forever hold such unhappy memories for her, settled herself onto the seat beside her mother before asking, “What is it, Tommy?”
    “That phaeton that just pulled up behind ours.” Thomas, leaning over them for a better look, jostled Caroline and her mother dreadfully. “That’s Braden Granville’s phaeton. Look at the team he’s got pulling it, Caro. Perfectly matched bays. We wouldn’t have been able to drag Pa away from them.”
    Caroline, despite her impatience to get away, turned in her seat to look. Their father had been a great horse lover and had passed his passion on to Caroline—somewhat to the embarrassment of her mother, because Caroline was as incapable as her father had been of remaining silent while a horse was being shabbily treated by its owner. This led to frequent and sometimes quite vocal arguments with the drivers of hackney cabs and coal carts, and