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any event were not his lordship’s strong point. “I want you to leave London,” he announced.
    Whatever she had expected, it was not this; nor that her churlish ex-husband still had the power to deal her a crushing blow. Jess blinked. “Leave London?” she echoed.
    Nor had Lord Pennymount anticipated that sight of his dissipated ex-wife’s distress would affect him like a hand clutching at his heart. “Yes!” he snapped, not at all reconciled to the inspiration of his discomfort. “I am about to marry a young lady of breeding, and it would be highly distasteful for all concerned were the two of you to accidentally meet. Which reminds me, Jess: I will not tolerate your renewing your acquaintance with my aunts. They are unworldly old biddies, and cannot be brought to realize that you are not quite the thing.”
    Jess had already decided that she must not meet with his lordship’s aunts, for their own sake; now, faced with his lordship’s implacable disapproval, she decided that she must. “You are so certain that I will put my foot wrong!” she marveled. “Considering the very different circles in which we move, I think it most unlikely that I shall encounter your bride.”
    Lord Pennymount had no such faith in the benign workings of providence, or in his bride’s good sense. “You will leave London!” he repeated. “As soon as possible. Where you go, I will leave up to you, so long as it is at a large distance. I will arrange for you to receive your allowance there. And of course I will stand the expense.”
    Jessabelle looked not at her odious ex-spouse but at her worn and mended gloves, and thought of the little house in Park Lane that she’d purchased with the proceeds of the discreet sale of her jewels. She thought too of her friend Michon, and of the general quality of her existence. If not precisely happy in London, she was a great deal more so than she could be elsewhere. Yet Vidal would for his convenience uproot her without so much as a by-your-leave. Wearing a very contemplative expression, she raised her head.
    Once more Lord Pennymount misinterpreted her response. “You have reached a decision. Excellent. Where is it you wish to go?”
    Anticipating the immediate deflation of his lordship’s air-dreams, Jessabelle smiled. “Not I, Vidal. You.”
    Suspiciously, he scowled. “I? Where am I going, pray?”
    “To the devil, and with my blessing!” retorted Jessabelle.
    Lord Pennymount grappled with his temper. “Does this mean that you will not oblige me?” he inquired.
    “Oblige you!” Jessabelle laughed bitterly. “That is a damned silly question, Vidal!”
    Lord Pennymount was a proud gentleman, and one unaccustomed to laughter, especially laughter directed at himself. One way and another, Jessabelle had caused him on countless occasions to be made a laughingstock. For that, he would never forgive her. Nor would he forgive her for catching his appreciative eye in the first place, the beginning link in a chain of disastrous events.
    “So be it, then!” he snapped, snatching up his curly-brimmed beaver hat and striding toward the door. “You will live to regret your folly, ma’am!”
    Regret it, would she? Perhaps Jess might. Vidal was in a position to make her life exceedingly difficult. But before she was vanquished, she would put up a good fight.      
    Lord Pennymount was embarrassed by the presence in London of his ex-wife? Lord Pennymount’s embarrassment had just begun.
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    “Good gracious! Mercy! And then what did he say?” Lady Dimity plucked anxiously at her mourning brooch. “I have always known Vidal was prone to be a little hasty — Papa was always used to call him a hothead, which struck me as very apt!—but this utterly sinks my spirits. That my nephew offered you violence—My dear, what happened next?”
    With the utmost satisfaction, Jessabelle replied: “I bit him. On the wrist. It was shocking in me, I know.  But Vidal is