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Surely he could have managed somehow. He could have started up his law practise again, drunk less, worked hard. It was greedy folly to pin his hopes on one soft-headed girl.
    He worried and worried, and the sight of Fiona when she knocked and entered his room jabbed his conscience afresh. She was wearing her other wool gown, which was of a dull crimson colour and old-fashioned cut. The sleeves were long and tight to the wrist, which at least made up for her lack of gloves.
    To his surprise, she had piled the masses of her black hair up on top of her head, letting only a few stray curls dangle from the knot on top. She looked quite regal and Mr Sinclair began to hope that her outstanding beauty would stop the members of the dinner party from noticing the poverty of her dress. Good God! They might think him a miser!
    ‘You look very beautiful, Fiona,’ he said, patting her arm before drawing it through his own.
    She smiled at him, but there was a flicker of something in her large grey eyes that looked almost like cynicism. It was so fleeting, darting as it did like a gleaming fish in the shallows, that Mr Sinclair thought he must have been mistaken.
    A footman was waiting in the passage outside to escort them downstairs. The guests, he said, had already taken their places at table.
    Pardon, thought Mr Sinclair again. There was something about him not so long ago . . . something involving a servant girl found dead in odd circumstances.
    The footman held open a door, and the noise of voices gusted out into the rich quiet of the house. Mr Sinclair entered the dining room with Fiona on his arm. There was a sudden hush. He was aware of two rows of staring eyes, and his arm tightened on Fiona’s.
    ‘I told you so,’ said Mr Pardon to the world at large. He walked forward. ‘Mr Sinclair, you take the seat over there next to Mrs Hudson. Miss Sinclair, beside Lord Harrington if you please.’
    Mr Sinclair groaned inwardly. He would have liked to have kept Fiona next to him.
    He sat down next to a richly dressed buxom matron and prayed for a quick thaw so that the coach might be able to leave early in the morning.
    There were twelve people including himself and Fiona. The men were beautifully tailored, and the women blazed with jewellery. Their eyes were hard and assessing. There was no way in which he was now going to find courage to apologize for his dress.
    This, then, was the world into which he, Roderick Sinclair, planned to make his debut. He took only a small sip of excellent claret and left the rest in his glass. Had he drunk less, he might not be in this predicament. People such as these would never accept him, beautiful ‘daughter’ or no. Mrs Hudson had given him one cold, raking look and then had turned to the gentleman on her other side. The lady on his right had not even favoured him with so much as a glance.
    He looked down the table to where Fiona sat next to the Earl of Harrington, and took small comfort from the fact that the earl in his way did not belong to this decadent company either.
    He was a tall man in his thirties with a high-nosed handsome face. The exquisite line of his tailored coat and the snowy intricacy of his cravat made every other man look overdressed. He had a tanned face and hair as black as Fiona’s, only his eyes were like those of a hawk, a peculiar yellowish topaz. He was talking politely to Fiona in a bored sort of way.
    Mr Sinclair thanked God for small mercies. Lord Harrington was obviously the only man in the room who was completely unaffected by Fiona’s beauty. The rest were frankly goggling, and the ladies were sulking and bridling as they failed to claim the attention of their dinner partners.
    Mr Pardon’s eyes, thought Mr Sinclair, were like two snails. It was as if they crawled all over Fiona’s body, leaving a slimy trail. Pardon had a lady on either side of him, but he never once took his eyes from Fiona’s face and figure. Mr Sinclair could only be glad she was at the