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daresay by now you know all about the village assembly the week after next?”
    â€œOf course,” she said.
    â€œI said we would attend,” he told her, “on condition that there be at least one waltz. The vicar has promised to see to it.”
    He grinned at her and she smiled back, her face alight with amusement, before turning to follow Miss Osbourne up the stairs.
    â€œRight.” Edgecombe turned his attention back to his visitors, rubbing his hands together as he did so. “Shall we step into the library? We will have some refreshments, and you can both tell me everything I missed in London during the Season. I
have
heard that you are finally betrothed to Miss Hickmore, Raycroft. My felicitations. A fine choice, if you were to ask me.”

3
    â€œI disliked him intensely,” Susanna replied bluntly when Frances
asked her what she thought of Viscount Whitleaf.
    â€œDid you?” Frances looked surprised. “But he is rather good-looking, is he not? And very charming, I have always thought.”
    Susanna did not comment on his looks, though it seemed to her that he was considerably more than just “rather good-looking.”
    â€œ
Calculatedly
charming,” she said as she removed her bonnet and fluffed up her curls with the visual aid of the mirror in her bedchamber while Frances stood in the doorway, twirling her own bonnet by its ribbons. “He does not utter a sincere word. I doubt he has a sincere thought.”
    â€œOh, dear.” Frances laughed. “He
did
make a poor impression on you. I suppose he tried to flirt with you?”
    â€œYou heard what he said when we first met,” Susanna said, turning from the mirror and gesturing to the chair beside the dressing table.
    Frances stepped into the room though she did not sit down.
    â€œI thought his words rather amusing,” she admitted. “He did not mean to offend, you know. I daresay most ladies enjoy such flatteries from him.”
    â€œHe is shallow and vain,” Susanna said.
    Frances set her head to one side and regarded her friend more closely.
    â€œIt might be a mistake to jump too hastily to that conclusion,” she said. “I have never heard of any vice in him. I have never heard him called a rake or a gambler or a ne’er-do-well or any other of the unsavory things one half expects to hear of a young, unattached gentleman about town. Lucius likes him. And so do I, I must confess, though I have never been an object of his gallantry, it is true.”
    â€œI do not understand,” Susanna said, “how those girls can be so taken in by him.”
    â€œMiss Raycroft and the Calverts?” Frances said. “Oh, but they are not really, you know. He is
Viscount Whitleaf,
high-born, enormously wealthy, and quite out of their orbit. They understand that very well. But they enjoy his attentions—and who can blame them? Life in the country can be exceedingly dull, especially when one rarely travels farther from home than five miles in any direction. And he is very skilled at flirting without ever favoring one particular lady above all others and therefore inspiring hope in her that can only lead to disappointment. Women understand him very well, I daresay, and look for husbands elsewhere. Society often works in such ways.”
    â€œI am very glad, then,” Susanna said tartly, “that I do not belong to society. It all sounds very artificial to me.”
    But as she caught her friend’s eye, she first smiled and then dissolved into unexpected laughter.
    â€œAnd just
listen
to me,” she said when she caught her breath, “sounding like a dried-up prune of a spinster schoolteacher.”
    â€œAnd looking like anything but,” Frances said, joining in the laughter. “I suppose he flirted on the way back to Barclay Court too, the rogue, and you responded with a sober face and a severe tongue? The poor man! He must have been utterly confounded.