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much talent for hospitality.”
    “Forgive me.” He rose to his feet, trying desperately to think of some way to be rid of her quickly. “I wasn't expecting company today.”
    “Of course you weren't. That's why you were trying to read Keats upside down. Thinking of your coming betrothal to the lovely Lady Sybil Somerville, no doubt. No, don't bother to deny it. The ton talks of nothing but who intends to do what to whom.”
    He choked out a startled laugh. “Still, I apologize for making you wait.”
    “Think nothing of it, my dear boy. I will forget it in a trice if you ring for tea and do your best to entertain me forthwith.” She floated across the room with grace and settled into the chair Eddleton had just vacated.
    "Of course," he said, jangling the bell that called Wigram to the doorway. He sent his butler a look of alarm over Lady Darvish's ornately decorated bonnet.
    Good Lord! Is that a stuffed pigeon wedged amid the lace and other folderol?
    “Wigram will be right back with our refreshments, Madam.” And, he hoped, a manufactured emergency that required Eddleton's immediate presence elsewhere.
    “Oh, that will never do! 'Madam' sounds so old.” Lady Darvish laughed gaily as she removed her hat, signaling that the visit would be an extended one. “You must call me Leticia for I predict we will be great friends. May I call you Bertram?”
    Eddleton's mouth opened and closed wordlessly several times before he managed to sputter, “But my name is George.”
    “Oh! How deplorably dull and unimaginative of your parents.”
    He blinked in surprise. “May I remind you George happens to be the Christian name of our king?”
    “And I can't imagine why anyone would want to share a name with a halfwit or his pudgy son. Besides, George is far too ordinary to stick in my head. Every other titled gent in London is called George these days! Bertram suits you, so Bertram you shall be.” Leticia flashed a toothsome smile. “Sit down, Bertie. You're wobbling a bit.”
    Eddleton sank into the other wing chair and said the first bland pleasantry that came to his mind. “You're looking fit. I trust you're well.”
    If he bored her with polite tedium, perhaps she'd leave sooner.
    “Coming out of mourning will do that for a body,” she said, spreading her bright yellow skirt across the red leather to good effect.
    Lady Darvish's smart ensemble must have come in on the latest boat from Paris. The baroness was well moneyed and, if Eddleton were being honest, he'd have to admit he found her surprisingly easy on his eyes for a woman of her age. The high-waisted fashion of the day suited her. She was attractive in a long-toothed, too-thin-for-comfort sort of way.
    “I'm ever so glad to be wearing color again,” she said. "Unrelieved black is rarely becoming to anyone and that pale laven der makes even the hardiest miss appear lifeless.”
    “My condolences on your loss.”
    Lady Darvish had buried four husbands. Burying one husband might be chalked up to bad luck. Eddleton thought burying four smacked of skullduggery.
    “Water under the bridge,” she said with a wave of her ringed hand. “Bert was never the robust sort.”
    “Bert? Your husband's name was Bert?”
    “I called all my husbands Bertram. It kept things uncomplicated.”
    So, the rumors were true. Lady Darvish, the Black Widow of Wembley Street, was on the prowl once again. Eddleton had no desire to be Bert Number Five.
    “LadyDar—”
    “Leticia,” she corrected.
    “Leticia,” he repeated. Bugger him, if the woman didn't dimple almost prettily when he said her name. “I confess myself at a loss as to the point of your visit today. Of course, we know each other in the most oblique man ner, but you and I rarely move in the same circles—”
    “Ah, but we do have acquaintances in common,” she all but purred. “And my particular friend Lady Martin-Featherwight assures me that, unlike my dear departed Bert, you are the robust sort.”
    He