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“Sometimes, they actually fit.”
    “I’ll pass, thank you,” she said with a smile.
    She was introduced to her host and hostess. Mr. Blake was sixtyish, heavyset and pleasant. His wife— his third wife—was barely forty, vivacious and dripping diamonds. Their daughter was in her early twenties but already married. Her husband, an executive type, was beside her, helping to receive guests.
    Fortunately no one asked if Eleanor was related to the Cape Cod Whitmans or the Palm Beach Whitmans, and she didn’t have to confess that her father was a carpenter on the Taber farm. That would have humiliated her beyond bearing. She hated being an outsider. But these people and their elegant furnishings graphically reminded her of what she would be going home to. They pointed up the difference between living and surviving. And she wondered if she hadn’t been better off not knowing that some people could afford trinkets like original oil paintings and velvet sofas and leather chairs and Oriental carpets and crystal chandeliers.
    She had only one glass of champagne, standing rigid beside Wade while he discussed money matters with acquaintances. Conversation seemed to center around good stocks, municipal bonds, money markets, income taxes and new investment opportunities. The only investments Eleanor knew about were the ones she made on her car and groceries. She smiled into herchampagne and nibbled on a delicate little puff pastry filled with chicken.
    “Well, look who’s arrived,” murmured the older man beside Wade, glancing toward the door.
    Eleanor followed his amused stare and found Keegan, in a black tuxedo, just entering the house with an elegant little black-clad brunette on his arm.
    Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat just looking at him. He was devastating in evening clothes, his red hair neatly combed, his patrician features alarmingly handsome. Lucky, lucky girl who had his whole attention, she thought miserably, then chided herself for the thought. After all, she was long over him.
    “Isn’t that the O’Clancy girl, the one who’s visiting them from Ireland?”
    “Yes, I think it is. Lovely, isn’t she? She and her parents are hoping to work a deal with Taber, or so we hear, on a Thoroughbred of theirs,” Wade murmured with a smile. “Trust Taber to come up with an escort like that. But what’s he doing here?”
    “He’s after that new colt of Blake’s—the Arabian out of Dane’s Grace by Treadway. Probably Blake decided they could discuss business here as well as at the golf course.” He chuckled.
    Watching Keegan with the brunette, Eleanor couldn’t help but wonder how many women he’d gone through since the night he’d seduced her. The thought made her go hot all over.
    “Why the long face?” Wade teased, whispering in her ear.
    “I don’t like him,” she blurted out.
    His eyebrows arched. “Why not?” he exclaimed.
    “He has freckles,” she muttered, glowering at the redheaded man, who seemed to feel her cold scrutiny and turned abruptly. He caught her eyes across the room, and she stood there dying of old wounds, feeling the floor lurch under her feet. Her body ached; it took her last ounce of willpower to jerk her gaze back to Wade and calm her wildly beating heart. “Don’t you think freckles are just horribly blatant?” she asked matter-of-factly. “I can’t think why anyone would want to have them.”
    He laughed helplessly. “I don’t suppose he can get rid of them, darling,” he said.
    “A likely story,” she returned.
    He laughed even harder and pulled her close against his side. “You bubbly little thing. I’d rather have you around than a magnum of champagne.”
    She knew. Oh, how she knew. She smiled up at him just as Keegan looked her way, intercepting her smile. He seemed to grow two feet and his eyes were suddenly darker, possessive. He let his gaze rove over her from head to toe, and even at a distance the look was powerfully narcotic. She avoided it this time,