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managed to spit out, finally bringing her tea to her lips. It tasted like tar and betrayal.“We’re just jolly good friends. I don’t know that I believe in matrimony.” She took a long sip. “And if I were to marry, it certainly would not be to Kit.”
    She set her tea down and gave a hollow laugh. She fixed Kit with a stare. “I’m sure he feels the same way. Why, we’re practically brother and sister. More tea anyone? . . . No? Very well. I apologize for my appalling manners, but I’m afraid I must be going. I have to go see my solicitor about signing the papers on my lady-bachelor flat.”
    She stood, and next to her Kit popped up like a jack-in-the-box.
    “I’ll see you out,” he said, tripping over the carpet in his haste to escape.
    After bidding farewell to the women and wondering how long it would take the story to reach her aunt, Victoria followed Kit. Once they were away from the sitting room, she doubled up her small fist and punched him in the arm. Hard.
    “Ow!” Kit clutched his arm. “What in the devil was that for?”
    “That was for setting me up!”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
    She went to hit him again, but he caught her hand midair. He held her easily as she struggled.
    “You told your mother you wanted to marry me ? After I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t want to marry? Did you tell her to corner me in front of those women to humiliate me? Or worse, to apply pressure? What kind of friend are you? What kind of man are you?”
    “Of course I told my mother I wanted to marry you. That’s certainly no secret, though why I would want to spend the rest of my life with a lunatic is suddenly beyond me,” he spat back, unwilling to back down.
    Stung, she jerked her arm away. She would absolutely not give someone control over her life or abdicate all of her freedom to appease social custom. Especially not just as she was about to escape her uncle’s authority. “It doesn’t matter if you want to marry me or not because I’ve already told you, very definitively, no !”
    Kit’s jaw tightened and her stomach clenched at the pain she glimpsed on his face. She couldn’t help but soften, suddenly longing to reach her hand out and touch his face just to make the look go away.
    “You have made that abundantly clear. I just happen to think you are going to change your mind.”
    She gasped, all sympathy forgotten. “You, sir, are the one who is deranged. Of all the egotistical blather!” Her hand itched to slap the smug look off his face, but instead she turned on her heel and stalked away.
    “Does this mean we’re not going to see the Russian ballet tomorrow night?”
    Outraged, she whirled around, only to find him leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His blue eyes were an-noyingly amused. He was such an insufferable tease! He recited:
    What’s friendship? The hangover’s faction,
    The gratis talk of outrage,
    Exchange by vanity, inaction,
    Or bitter shame of patronage.
    Alexander Pushkin! How dare he use her own trick against her, quoting the celebrated words of another to add punch to his own argument. She turned and stalked out the door.
    “I’ll have the motorcar pick you up at seven,” he called.
    “Don’t bother. I have my own!”
    Of all the conceited . . . she wouldn’t go, of course. She wouldn’t. But she already felt herself weaken as the driver opened the door for her. Of course she would go. He had box seats and she did so love the Russian ballet.

chapter
four

    R owena kept her eyes closed against the morning sun. She lay on a chaise lounge on the vast Summerset lawn, sipping an iced tea and reflecting on the many things she had yet to do to prepare for the wedding.
    After her and Sebastian’s interlude, the wall of lethargy she had built up around herself had come tumbling down. Shaken out of her previous trance, she felt ready to begin the next chapter of her life. Maybe her aunt was right. Maybe the only true freedom a