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frivolities.”
     
    Bertha clapped her hands. “We will have such fun, Harriet.”
     
    “You are so generous,” said Harriet. “I confess the fair Susan has dampened my independent spirits. I am aware for the first time of being old.”
     
    “Fiddle! You are the same age as I. By the time I am finished with you, Harriet, you may be married yourself.”
     
    “Now, what gentleman in his right mind would want a woman like me? But there are all sorts of things I must do. Meet the hostesses, find out the eligibles.”
     
    “You will come with me on calls. But if this Susan is such a dazzler, we will not initially take her about with us. Many of the hostesses we will be meeting not only have eligible sons, but they have daughters to puff off and might not take kindly to the competition offered by a diamond of the first water like your Susan. As to eligibles…”
     
    She crossed to a pretty little writing desk and took out a sheet of paper scrawled with spidery handwriting. “One of my friends who is bringing her daughter out this Season left this behind. I had been meaning to return it to her. It is a list of eligible men. Now, here is one, Charles Courtney. Quiet and stable and of good family, the Sussex Courtneys. And there is Jeffrey Bland, a bit wild, but marriage would no doubt settle him. Of course, the most marriageable of all has decided to grace us this Season, but quite wicked, my dear, and perhaps too much of a man of the world for a little miss.”
     
    “And which gentleman might he be?” asked Harriet.
     
    “Lord Dangerfield. The Earl of Dangerfield.”
     

Chapter Three
     
    Harriet went suddenly very still. Bertha rattled on. “Faith, he is a handsome creature.”
     
    “I… I met Lord Dangerfield.”
     
    “That must have been this age. He does not usually attend the Season.”
     
    “I met him when I journeyed to my sister’s to collect Susan.”
     
    Bertha’s eyes widened. “Tell me.”
     
    “There is nothing much to tell. I had booked a private parlor in a posting house to break my journey and, by some mistake, the same parlor had also been reserved for Lord Dangerfield. We ended up having dinner together.”
     
    “But this is wonderful! How romantic! How suitable for your Susan.”
     
    “He is a trifle old for Susan.”
     
    “Stuff. It never matters what age the gentleman is. A lady may be past any thought of marriage at his age. That is another matter.”
     
    There was a looking-glass behind Bertha. Harriet’s reflection stared back at her, a dowdy, unmarriageable spinster. For one brief, mad moment when Bertha had exclaimed “How romantic,” Harriet had thought that Bertha meant romantic for
her
, Harriet. But one look at her reflection showed her the folly of that thought. Not that she herself was in the remotest interested in such an uncomfortable man as Dangerfield. It was just that Bertha’s dismissal of her as a marriageable prospect had made Harriet feel older than ever.
     
    “I do not like the idea of Dangerfield for my Susan,” she said firmly. “Apart from any considerations about age or experience, he is much too intelligent for my dim-witted Susan.”
     
    “I think it is you who are sadly lacking in worldly wisdom, Harriet. When did any gentleman, no matter what his intelligence, fail to be seduced by the sight of a pretty girl?”
     
    “Perhaps you have the right of it,” said Harriet, “but I shall do everything in my power to find Susan a suitable gentleman, and I do not consider Lord Dangerfield at all suitable.”
     
    “He has the reputation of being a heartbreaker, but all gentlemen settle down sooner or later.”
     
    “I would rather not discuss him.”
     
    Bertha looked at her curiously, but then she said, “Perhaps the best thing I can do for you is to get my bonnet and go with you to see Susan.”
     
    “How good you are. And clothes! How much I need your advice on clothes.”
     
    “And you will have it.
En avant!
”
     
    The