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but she bobbed a quick curtsy and said neutrally, “Miss Ginevra, your father told me I was to attend you.”
    Ginevra exhaled with a shudder and retreated from the window. ‘Thank you, Emma, but I am finished in here now.” She bowed formally to the marquess. “My lord, if you will excuse me, I will send a footman to show you to your room, and I shall see you again at dinner.”
    Chadwick nodded. “Miss Bryant,” he murmured, and Ginevra wondered if she was imagining the faint mockery in his voice.
    After the meal Ginevra left the men to their port and retired to the drawing room, where she and Emma worked quietly at their sewing. Emma was piecing a small quilt, patchwork after the American fashion, a gift for the cook’s daughter, who expected her first child soon. Beside her Ginevra worked apathetically, stitching an intricate pattern of yellow roses in silk on a piece of fine white cambric. The fabric was destined for the yoke of a new nightdress, part of her trousseau, and since Tom’s death she had lost all interest in it, continuing only because she had already invested too much time in the piece to discard it. Now she laid the embroidery in her lap and stared blindly at it as an unwelcome and disturbing picture slowly formed in her mind: herself chastely adorned in that demure white gown, her dark gold hair tumbling loose over her shoulders, as she waited, waited, for Lord Chadwick to come to her ... Her hand trembled, and the silk floss tangled almost magically into a knot Gordius himself would have admired. Ginevra regarded it with disgust and pushed her sewing aside.
    Emma glanced up from her own work and noted with concern, “You seemed very agitated tonight. Is there any way I may help you?”
    Ginevra shook her head. “No, Emma. I am caught in a coil like that thread there, and I fear there is no escape. I’ll know better after I’ve spoken to my father.”
    Emma studied the girl’s pale face and said kindly, “Perhaps something to drink would soothe you. May I bring you some tea? Ratafia, if you prefer?”
    Ginevra shook her head again. “No, thank you, but I should like that book I was reading, the one by Mary Wollstonecraft. Do you know where I left it?”
    “I believe I last saw it on the stand beside your bed. Shall I fetch it for you?”
    “Please.” Ginevra watched her maid leave the room, and she wondered just how much of the situation Emma was aware of. Probably a great deal. Servants had the uncanny knack of knowing everything. Emma might even know what had caused Sir Charles to force Ginevra into this awkward and impossible situation in the first place.
    Ginevra’s ruminations were interrupted when Lord Chadwick came into the room. Unlike Ginevra, he had changed for dinner, and the unrelieved black of his evening clothes only emphasized his height and the excellence of his tailor. The coat was styled along the vaguely military lines fashionable since the onset of the French wars, and Ginevra recalled that when Lord Chadwick was very young, he had been for a time an officer in the Navy, serving under Parker and the great Nelson himself, until he was wounded at the Battle of Copenhagen and invalided from the service. She wondered if he ever regretted leaving the Navy. He was probably a good officer. He had the air of a natural leader.
    Chadwick coughed, and Ginevra suddenly realized that she had been staring. Blushing furiously, she tried to hide her discomfiture by asking, “Was your meal satisfactory, my lord? Is there any other way I may serve you?”
    “Thank you, Miss Bryant, no. Everything was excellent. I hope you will extend my compliments to your cook—unless I have you to thank this time?” She shook her head, and he added in a low voice, “Your father wishes to speak to you now, Ginevra. In his study.”
    Ginevra sighed and rose reluctantly from her chair. She smiled bleakly at the marquess. “Thank you, I’ll go at once.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Please make