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her hair unkempt, but her clothes were inappropriate. There she sat, brazenly swathed in a frilly morning robe meant only for the bedroom, with, undoubtedly, nothing underneath but her nightclothes. “Isn’t it time you were dressed?” he asked plaintively.
    “I’m in no hurry,” the girl responded without a trace of embarrassment. “I don’t expect my caller until two this afternoon.”
    “Hummmph” was her father’s only comment as he barricaded himself behind the Times. He knew the identity of his daughter’s “caller,” and he had no intention of entering into another argument over the fellow. If Cleo wanted to attach herself to a country bumpkin, it was her own affair. He was not the sort of father to lay down the law. And even if he were, it would do him no good. Cleo had a very decided mind of her own.
    He rattled the newspaper, trying to concentrate on the news of the opening of a new bridge across the Thames, which was named Waterloo in honor of Wellington’s triumph. But he could not concentrate on it; thoughts of his obstinate daughter kept intruding themselves on his consciousness. The girl was a charmer, that much was true. Any gentleman of the ton would agree. Tall and lithe, she had her mother’s laughing eyes, a taunting smile, dimples that would come and go at unexpected times and a head of short, curly hair that set her apart from all the other girls with their loose curls or thick chignons. Her hand had been sought by at least three of the most desirable men in society, one a duke. Several others with lesser qualifications would have liked to ask, but they knew they would be refused. Why this most desirable creature should show a preference for the undistinguished newcomer Sir Tristram Enders was more than her father could see. “I don’t understand you, Cleo,” he muttered, unable to prevent himself. “Your mother, if she were alive to say it, would call you a fool.”
    “No, she wouldn’t,” Cleo declared firmly. “Mama understood a woman’s nature. She knew what love is.”
    Lord Smallwood sighed. “Yes, she did, bless her soul. She would have known as well as I that what you feel is mere puppy love.”
    Cleo, completely unperturbed, continued to smooth the butter on her muffin. “If it is mere puppy love, my dear,” she said complacently, “then it will fade in time. So why don’t we just wait and see?”
    “But if you go ahead and wed him and then learn it was only puppy love, it will be too late.”
    “I’m not marrying the fellow tomorrow, you know,” his daughter laughed. “Besides, he hasn’t asked me yet.”
    “But he will,” Lord Smallwood muttered. “They all do, as soon as you give them the least encouragement.”
    Cleo smiled with only her green eyes, like a cat in the cream. “Yes, they do, don’t they?”
    Lord Smallwood was accustomed to her immodesty and took no note of it. “If you must be infatuated with someone, why did you choose Enders? The fellow is nothing more than a baron. You could have a duke for the asking.”
    Cleo nibbled at the edge of her well-buttered muffin. “The duke did not have Tris’s charm. Nor his dimple. Nor his thick black hair. Nor his interesting blue eyes that show everything he feels. Nor his—”
    “Enough!” Lord Smallwood retreated behind his paper. “Dimples, indeed. A good reason that is for choosing a mate.”
    “It’s as good as any other,” Cleo murmured absently, her mind already dwelling on the ride through the park she would soon be taking in Tris’s ancient phaeton. Her father, taking another glance at her from above his newspaper, noted that she’d already left her muffin discarded and forgotten. After liberally covering it with butter, she was leaving it uneaten. It was typical of her. She would cover a vegetable with hollandaise or a cutlet with sauce and then push it aside after only a bite. He would never understand her.
    But Cleo, if she’d been asked, would have explained that she could