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had thought how very dull, how very unattractive.

    She had been wrong, of course.

    He looked sleek, elegant, and perfect.

    He looked like every woman’s ideal of a romantic hero. Like that Adonis they all dreamed of, especially on St. Valentine’s Day, come to sweep them off their feet and onto his prancing white courser and away to a happily-forever-after in his castle in the clouds—white, fluffy ones, not damp, gray, English ones.

    But Vanessa deeply resented him. If he despised them and their offered entertainment so much, he could at least have had the decency to look like a gargoyle.

    She heard the echo of the sigh that had wafted about the assembly rooms like a breeze and fervently hoped she had not shared in it.

    “Which one do you suppose is Viscount Lyngate?” Louisa asked in a whisper—necessary in the hush that had fallen over the room—as she leaned closer to Vanessa’s right ear.

    “The handsome one, without a doubt,” Vanessa said. “I would wager on it.”

    “Ah,” Louisa said, regret in her voice. “I think so too. He is impossibly gorgeous even if he is not blond, but he does not look as if he would be bowled over by my charms, does he?”

    No, he certainly did not. Or by anyone else’s from this humble, obscure corner of the world. His whole bearing suggested a man with an enormous sense of his own consequence. He was probably only ever bowled over by his own charms.

    What on earth was he doing in Throckbridge? Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere?

    The gentlemen did not remain long in the doorway. Sir Humphrey led them about, a broad smile of satisfaction on his face as if he were solely responsible for bringing them to the village on this of all days. He presented them to almost everyone present, beginning with Mrs. Hardy at the pianoforte, Jamie Latimer on the flute, and Mr. Rigg on the violin. Soon after, the gentlemen were bowing to Margaret and Katherine. And a few moments after that, they were nodding to Stephen and Melinda and Henrietta Dew, Vanessa’s sister-in-law, and the group of other very young people gathered with them.

    “I do think everyone ought to start talking again in more than whispers,” Vanessa whispered.

    The shorter gentleman exchanged a few words with everyone, she noticed. And he smiled and looked interested. The other gentleman—undoubtedly Viscount Lyngate—remained virtually silent and totally intimidated everyone. Vanessa suspected that it was quite deliberate. His eyebrows rose when he was introduced to Stephen, giving him a look of great aristocratic hauteur.

    And of course Melinda was giggling.

    “Why is he here?” Louisa asked, still in a whisper. “In Throckbridge, that is. Did Sir Humphrey say?”

    “They told him they were here on business,” Vanessa said. “They must not have explained what it was or Father-in-law would not have been able to resist telling us.”

    “Business?” Louisa sounded both puzzled and amazed. “In Throckbridge ? Whatever can it be?”

    Vanessa had, of course, been wondering the same thing ever since Katherine had brought word of his arrival this afternoon. How could she not? How could anyone not? Whatever business could anyone have in a sleepy backwater like Throckbridge, picturesque as it was, especially in the summer, and dear as it was to her?

    What business could a viscount have here?

    And what business did he have looking down upon them all as if they were mere worms beneath his expensive dancing shoes?

    She did not know the answers and perhaps never would. But there was no time for further speculation—not now anyway. Her father-in-law was bringing the two gentlemen their way. Vanessa wished he would not, but she realized that it was inevitable.

    Sir Humphrey smiled jovially from Vanessa to Louisa.

    “And this is the eldest Miss Rotherhyde,” he announced, and added, with a lamentable lack of tact and questionable truth, “and the beauty of the family.”

    Louisa hung her head in