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her room.
    "Don't you want to open it, gel?" asked Mrs.
Marsh.
    She gave a tightlipped shake of her head.
What could it be, besides some of her valentines being returned to
her. Her heart sank. One of the merchants carrying them must have
had trouble selling them. She surely didn't want to open it in
front of Mrs. Marsh and Devin.
    Devin folded his newspaper. Cecelia could
tell that by the crinkling sound. He moved across the room and
Cecelia held her breath until he sat down by Mrs. Marsh. He leaned
forward and took her mittened hand in his. "I shall write a letter
to my mother this afternoon. Is there any message you wish for me
to relay to her?"
    Mrs. Marsh looked over at Cecelia where she
perched on the edge of her chair. She slowly turned her birdlike
head back in Devin's direction. "I should imagine your news is
enough. Time she came home."
    Cecelia wondered how those two comments fit
together. If she wasn't in such a stew about the contents of the
box that undoubtedly had found its way to her dressing table by
now, she would have paid better attention.
    "I can hardly read her letters anymore, my
eyesight is getting so troublesome."
    "If you should like to borrow my spectacles,
they might help," offered Cecelia.
    "Surprising a gel your age needs them," said
Mrs. Marsh.
    "I read too much, ruins my eyes," explained
Cecelia.
    Truth was she had plucked them off her
father's desk after his death and put them on trying to feel closer
to him. But they weren't going to make something happen that hadn't
happened in life.
    That was how Devin had found her, and she had
discovered it was much easier to view him through the distortion
the lenses caused, rather than stare at that perfect face, knowing
her plain face hadn't even inspired her father to love her.
    She suddenly couldn't stand delaying opening
the box any longer and fled the morning room.
    Sitting on her bed, she set the box down and
untied the ribbon. The box was wrapped fancily for a return of
merchandise. She would have expected brown paper and string, not
pink tissue and a blue satin bow. She opened the box, and as
expected, she saw one of her more elaborate valentines.
    An odd queasiness in her stomach kept her
from reaching inside. The lace and satin decoration on the card
seemed intact. The words she had penned in tiny letters on the
front, Faithfully yours, weren't smeared. There wasn't a
note explaining the return as she would have expected. As if her
hand could stand the suspense no longer, she watched herself reach
inside and lift the card and slowly turn it over to the blank back
side of the card. In a script, not her own, were the words:
    For the hands that hold my heart,
    From your Valentine
    The box yielded a pair of lavender kid
gloves. She gingerly touched the butter soft leather.
    This couldn't be right.
    She twisted, looking around until she found
the plain white card that had been tucked under the ribbon. She
scanned it, hardly believing her eyes. No mistake. She was the only
Miss Clemmons at this address. She was the only Miss Clemmons she
knew.
    Who could be sending her own valentines back
to her? Devin? No, he would never go to that much trouble. Besides
he wasn't enamored of her. He was far too good looking himself to
even think of her as a love interest. No, he simply thought she was
a problem he needed to solve.
    And yesterday—well he wasn't the kind to turn
away a gift thrown in his lap. She knew enough about his life and
had seen the way he'd been pursued by young women after
marriage—those he sidestepped quite adroitly—and young matrons
after something entirely different—those he didn't sidestep, but he
put out next to no effort in the chase. But then when all you
needed to do was flash that smile in the right lady's
direction—
    Cecelia cut off her thoughts about Devin. One
of the shopkeepers who was blown over by her merchandising efforts?
Possibly. But which one? One of the young men that she had met last
season before she had