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is also in Devonshire.”
    Beyond Lord Rafael, other guests slowly circled closer to her. She rarely talked to any man alone for this long. Some guests could stay only twenty minutes before moving on to the next entertainment of the evening — they would want to court her favor before leaving. She should send Lord Rafael on his way and return to her party.
    But that was an excuse, even though it was a good one. She didn’t want to talk about the Maidenstone party. After all, it wasn’t just a party. Her grandfather had died the previous year. There was no heir to the title, despite the fact that he’d remarried — with a girl younger than Octavia — and attempted to make one. His will had stipulated that whichever remaining Briarley granddaughter made the best marriage by the end of the year after his death would win Maidenstone Abbey.
    That meant Octavia, Lucy, and their American cousin, Callista, were all in competition with each other. It was a very Briarley way of solving the problem, although Octavia would have preferred sabers.
    The party, nominally hosted by her grandfather’s widow but organized by the estate executor, was intended to provide the remaining heiresses with a chance to find husbands. From what she’d heard as gossip had swirled through the ton, the most eligible bachelors of the day had been invited.
    And the fact that Octavia wasn’t invited meant she couldn’t possibly hope to win the estate.
    It was supremely unfair. She had maintained good relations with her grandfather even after the scandal. Perhaps especially after the scandal. The old earl delighted in Briarleys behaving badly — so much so that Octavia had hoped he might leave the estate to her.
    But by putting the choice in the hands of an estate executor — the Duke of Rothwell, their second cousin on their grandmother’s side — her grandfather had almost certainly doomed her. From what she’d heard, the party was two months away. There was still a chance she might receive an invitation. But few men would let a woman with her reputation inherit anything at all. And she had never met Rothwell in London — if he didn’t wish to associate with her, he surely wouldn’t let her inherit.
    She didn’t know, yet, what to do about the party. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. But competing for Maidenstone would mean seeing Lucy again — and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that.
    Lord Rafael’s eyes were still sharp — he knew there was something she wasn’t saying. But he let the subject drop. “There are still several weeks of the season left. I hope we may see each other in London before we’re reduced to the crushing boredom of Devonshire. Would you care to accompany me for a ride in the park? Perhaps in two days?”
    He seemed to be asking her for her own sake, not because he wanted access to Somerville. That was a boundary she had never crossed before. She never showed favor to any other men, or encouraged them to see her as anything other than Somerville’s mistress.
    And that made Lord Rafael dangerous. But his grey eyes gleamed with humor — good humor, not malicious humor. She wondered whether it would be so bad to go to the park with him. Somerville wouldn’t stop her — their arrangement was purely for companionship, not sex. It was her own morality, twisted though it may have seemed, that kept her from pursuing other liaisons. And, of course, the knowledge that kissing had ruined her once before — it could easily change her life again, and likely not for the better.
    She wasn’t eighteen anymore. She was Madame Octavia, not Miss Ava Briarley. There would be no more illicit kisses in moonlit gardens — no chance to see whether a kiss could turn into love, the way she had always dreamed of.
    Which is not to say that she didn’t want kisses. But love made fools of women and men both — and women often paid a higher price for momentary insanity.
    She smiled, ready to thank him and send him on his