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lake, pristine and coldly beautiful, much like the famed lady herself.
    She turned to face him, a smile of delicate chagrin on her fine-boned face, her dark eyes sympathetic. Did the daughter look like the mother?
    He had seen her once or twice, at the opera, on Bond Street, but that was all. He knew her name: Caroline. He knew her lineage: questionable. He knew her dowry: substantial.
    And he knew her mother. Or of her, be it better said.
    Who lived within Society who did not know Sophia in one manner or another?
    She had arrived in London in 1781, from the American colonies it was rumored, though he had trouble believing that. Sophia Grey had charmed and beguiled the most sophisticated, the most debauched men of her day, and a girl from a colonial backwater could hardly have done that. Others said that she was Parisian, the daughter of an old aristocrat fallen into bad ways and hard times. That he could more readily believe because her French was flawless and her manner continental. There was about her that inbred arrogance of the aristocrat, a bone-deep belief in her own superiority and her own sublime worth. It was that arrogance, coupled with her aristocratic beauty, which had resulted in her fabled price.
    His father had sent her a sapphire bracelet for the privilege of an introduction. Westlin had been allowed fifteen minutes in her salon before being ushered to the door by Fredericks. She had kept the bracelet.
    That had been just the beginning.
    Her daughter now was playing the same game, using the same tricks? He was not good enough for her ? That was not how this game would play. He would make certain of it.
    “She says she won’t have you, Lord Ashdon,” Sophia repeated softly. “I cannot explain it for it defies explanation, does it not?” Sophia sat down on the small white sofa and bid him do the same with a graceful gesture of her hand. He remained standing. “You are released from your obligation.”
    “What do you mean, she won’t have me?” Ashdon asked.
    Sophia raised one silken eyebrow slightly. “She refuses the match, sir. I do not know how to put it more plainly. Indeed, it is quite plain enough. I would avoid the vulgarity of plain speaking if I could, but I would not have you exist on false hope. A diet of false hope inevitably turns bitter on the tongue.”
    “Other things also taste bitter on the tongue, madam. Rancor. Revenge.”
    “You think I have set my table for revenge? You are wrong, sir. I seek only my daughter’s security and happiness.”
    “Security and then happiness. In that order?”
    “What other order is there? How to find happiness without security?”
    “And your daughter, your Caroline, does not seek either happiness or security?”
    “On the contrary, sir, she seeks them both. Though not, I fear, in you.”
    He could indeed feel the gall of bitterness roiling in his mouth, but he kept his tongue tamed and commanded himself to swallow his outrage whole. That he did not gag on it was a minor miracle.
    “What did you tell her?” he calmly asked.
    “Tell her?” Sophia poured out the tea into delicate black Wedgwood cups. She poured for him, though he had not been invited to stay to tea. “I simply told her that a marriage had been arranged for her. I told her your situation and your name, that is all. What happened next is hardly to be credited.”
    “If you don’t mind, madam, just what did you tell her of my situation?”
    “Only the truth, Lord Ashdon, which certainly should never cause harm, yet in this case …” She shrugged and handed him his cup. He sat stiffly opposite her and took it. “She did not react with either maturity or sophistication, I’m forced to admit. A negligence in her upbringing, I don’t doubt. She has no desire to marry a man who, according to her words, I had purchased for her use.”
    That Ashdon managed to keep his cup from clanking against his saucer he considered remarkable. High points for poise were surely his.
    “In