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he handed her a champagne flute filled with the bubbly orange beverage.
    “Would you care to try one, Miss Holland?” Nick asked. “Or shall we have another dance?”
    “I’ve never been one to turn down a dance,” Carrie said, and the two of them disappeared once again into the throng out on the floor.
    “All right now, Miss Parker,” Drew said, raising his glass. “I would like to propose a toast to your lovely eyes, your fetching green frock, and your most subtle way of dealing with a cad.”
    She laughed. “It’s not green. Not really.”
    “No?”
    “According to Madame Giselle, it’s eau de nil .”
    “Ah, water of the Nile. Well, I’m certain Cleopatra herself could not have done it more credit.”
    He touched his glass to hers and then waited as she took a sip.
    “And?”
    “It sort of spoils the taste of the juice, doesn’t it?” she said, handing the glass back to him.
    He laughed heartily. “I expect it rather does. Well then, would you care for a dance?”
    She listened for a moment, hearing the words in the smoky, mesmerizing tune: “Mad about the boy . . .” Perhaps this wasn’t the song to choose for a first dance with a man as attractive as Drew Farthering.
    “Or shall we go out into the garden for a bit?” he asked. “We’re to have fireworks on the front lawn shortly, if you’d prefer that.”
    “I’d love to get away from the crowd awhile. I’d better tell Carrie and Muriel where I’ll be.”
    “Oh, they’re all right, aren’t they? Look. Nick’s looking after Miss Holland, and as for your Miss Brower . . .” He took a quick look around. “If she calls me Adorable Drew just once more—”
    Madeline laughed. “Why don’t you show me the garden?”

    They strolled out onto the back lawn. The windswept night was made for sweet talk and stolen kisses, and Drew realized he wasn’t immune to it. As they stood for a moment sheltered in the low-limbed wisteria, the music and the other guests seemed far away, not a part of their world at all.
    “I love the smell of night,” he murmured, breathing in the fragrance of the wisteria blossoms.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said, and seeing her standing there, nymphlike in her diaphanous eau-de-nil gown, he could only echo what she had said.
    “Beautiful.”
    She smiled and took his arm. “I was wondering, Mr. Farthering, if I could ask a favor of you?”
    “Certainly,” he said, putting his free hand over hers as they began to walk. “If it is in my power.”
    “I know we met just today, but we are family in a roundabout way.”
    “Yes. I suppose we are.”
    “Anyway, I was hoping you would start calling me Madeline.” There was sweet appeal in her half smile and in her periwinkle eyes. “If you don’t think that’s too brazen of me.”
    “Not at all. Not at all. And I’ll expect you to call me Drew, as well.”
    She laughed all of a sudden. “That was partly why I pouredmy drink down Mr. Lincoln’s front. He was being awfully familiar and pushy, calling me Madeline when I had hardly had three words with him and hoped to never have three more.”
    “I hope you and I shall have a great many words,” he told her. “And dancing and dining and—”
    With a thundering boom, a burst of white sparks illuminated the clouded sky.
    “And fireworks!” she cried, throwing her hands up in joyous abandon, making him want to romp through the grass alongside her.
    He caught her hand, and her fingers squeezed his at the next explosion, a shower of red, white, and blue. After four more red bursts, each more impressive than the last, Drew gestured toward a stone bench a little way ahead of them, and they sat down.
    “Having fun?” he asked.
    “Oh, yes. It’s been quite an exciting night.”
    “Sorry about that unpleasantness with Lincoln earlier. I should have warned you about him.”
    “I’ve already been—” The blast of another round of fireworks overpowered her words and rattled the panes in the greenhouse