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cares nothing for convention. And I’ve remembered where I’ve seen your face. On a theatrical broadsheet. Does Lady Keswick know your true calling?’
    The idiot had mistaken her for her mother. Her chest tightened. If he thought her an actress, would he refuse to listen to her objections? ‘You are mistaken, sir. And you will unhand me.’
    ‘Now here’s a pretty picture,’ a darkly dangerous voice said from the doorway. ‘Plaguing the hired help now, Hapton? Not getting anywhere with Mrs Mallow?’
    Hapton cursed softly and turned to greet the newcomer. ‘Am I treading on your turf, Stanford? Sorry, old chap, the last I saw you were hard on the heels of Lady Smythe. A little greedy, even for you.’
    Stanford merely cocked a brow. ‘Lady Smythe is in the library along with Bannerby, Mrs Mallow and Mrs De Lacy. It appears you have wandered off course. Unless I am mistaken and Mrs Travenor has changed her mind about joining us?’ He cocked a questioning brow in her direction.
    Rosa glared at him. ‘As I told Mr Hapton, I am not a participant, Lord Stanford.’
    A cool smile curled his lips and made him look darker and less friendly than she could have imagined. ‘If that is the case, do feel free to be about your business, Mrs Travenor.’ His ice-cold stare moved to Hapton and he stepped back with a gesture inviting them both to depart.
    She had never felt so mortified in her life as she followed Mr Hapton into the corridor. There was something in Stanford’s mocking gaze that made her feel like a scullery maid caught with her skirts over her head, instead of a victim of a man who ought to know better.
    But then she could hardly expect him to fight a duel for her honour. He also saw her as ripe for amorous adventure.
    Face scalding, she glared at both of them. ‘You were given the run of the second floor by your hostess. Please do not come down here again.’ Shoulders straight, she spun away and marched through the door leading to the basement, slamming it pointedly behind her.
    Horrid men. Just because they had the morals of tomcats on the prowl, did they have to assume everyone else was the same?
    And if Mr Hapton told his tales to Lady Keswick, he would catch a cold. While she hadn’t given the lady any names, the dowager countess knew about Rosa’s family connections to the opera. It was how she had secured this position. Lady Keswick liked to help those in the theatre down on their luck.
    She took a deep breath and realised she was trembling from head to toe. Hapton had made her afraid. And Stanford’s considering gaze had made her angry. Both for the same reason. No matter how drably she dressed or how prim and properly she behaved, men took one look at her foreign appearance and decided the worst.
    Luckily, her two younger sisters took after their father, neither of them having their Italian mother’s dark complexion or jet-black hair. Neither of them, as her grandfather was fond of saying, looked like dirty gypsies.
    Heart still pounding, face still full of heat, she headed for the kitchen in search of Jonas.

Chapter Three
    R estlessness felt like maggots under Garth’s skin. Watching Penelope playing the harpsichord, while a solicitous Bannerby turned the pages of her music, was enough to turn his stomach.
    After hours of ridiculous games in the afternoon and a dinner consisting of inane conversation, he really had to wonder if he’d survive the next few days without calling someone out. Someone like Hapton. He glared across the drawing room at the languid dandy and his fingers curled into his palms. He’d wanted to choke the life out of the ageing tulip of fashion this afternoon, and he would have, if he’d been certain Mrs Travenor hadn’t welcomed the man’s advances.
    They’d looked very cosy in the linen cupboard. And she’d looked devastatingly flustered. Much as she’d looked the previous evening trapped in the passage. She’d certainly been angry when he interrupted them, but