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that ?”

    She looked a little surprised when they all burst out laughing, but then she joined them.

    “Poor man,” she said. “He probably didn’t have any choice with Sir Humphrey. And I suppose it is just as well if he does go to the dance. The inn would be pretty noisy for anyone trying to get some rest.”

    “There you are, Kate,” Stephen said. “If he has come looking for a bride, this is your chance.”

    “Or Miss Margaret’s,” Mrs. Thrush said. “She is as pretty as a picture. It is time her prince came riding by.”

    Margaret laughed.

    “But this man is only a viscount, ” she said, “and I absolutely insist upon waiting for a prince to ride by. Now move, everyone, or we are going to be late.”

    She hugged Vanessa as her sister prepared to leave the room.

    “Don’t change your mind about this evening,” she said. “Come, Nessie. Indeed, if you do not, I may well have to leave the inn and come to get you. It is time for you to enjoy life again.”

    Vanessa walked alone back to Rundle Park, having refused Stephen’s offer to escort her. She was definitely going to the assembly, she thought, though she had not been quite sure about it even when she had arrived at the cottage. She was going. And despite herself—despite lingering grief for Hedley and a certain guilt over even thinking of enjoying herself again—she was looking forward to the evening with some eagerness. Dancing had always been one of her favorite activities, yet she had not danced for more than two years.

    Was it selfish, heartless, to want to live again?

    Her mother-in-law wanted her to go. So did her sisters-in-law. And Sir Humphrey—Hedley’s father —had even told her she must dance.

    Would anyone offer to partner her, though?

    Surely someone would.

    She would dance if someone asked her.

    Perhaps the viscount . . .

    She chuckled aloud at the absurd thought as she turned onto the footpath that was a shortcut to the house.

    Perhaps the viscount was ninety years old and bald and toothless.

    And married.
     
     

    3

    “I WISH,” Louisa Rotherhyde said as she stood with Vanessa in the assembly rooms watching all the late arrivals and nodding and smiling in greeting at any acquaintance—at everyone, in other words—who passed close to them, “Viscount Lyngate would turn out to be tall, blond, and handsome and no more than twenty-five years old and charming and amiable and not at all high in the instep. And I wish he would turn out to like dumpy, mousy-haired females of very modest fortunes—well, no fortune at all, in fact—and marginally agreeable manners and years to match his own. I suppose I need not wish that he were rich. Doubtless he is.”

    Vanessa fanned her face and laughed.

    “You are not dumpy,” she assured her friend. “And your hair is a pretty shade of light brown. Your manners are very agreeable indeed, and your character is your fortune. And you have a lovely smile. Hedley used to say so.”

    “Bless his heart,” Louisa said. “But the viscount has a friend with him. Perhaps he will see fit to become passionately attached to me—if he should happen to be personable, that is. And it would help if he were in possession of a sizable fortune too. It is all very well, Nessie, to have dances and assemblies and dinners and parties and picnics galore, but one always sees exactly the same faces at every entertainment. Do you never wish for London and a Season and beaux and ... Ah, but of course you do not. You had Hedley. He was beautiful.”

    “Yes, he was,” Vanessa agreed.

    “Did Sir Humphrey describe Viscount Lyngate to you?” Louisa asked hopefully.

    “He described him as an agreeable young gentleman,” Vanessa said. “But to Father-in-law anyone below the age of his own sixty-four years is young, and almost everyone is agreeable. He sees his own good nature in everyone. And no, Louisa, he did not describe the viscount’s looks. Gentlemen do not, you know. I do