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quietly, listening to Edward instruct her parents on some aspect of life he apparently considered essential knowledge. The countess was engaged in a brief consultation with the butler.
    James stared out of the window at the gathering dark, but he turned and walked toward her when she came in. She tried to ignore the way her pulse fluttered as he bowed over her hand.
    No one, she hoped would notice the heat coloring her cheeks, making her pinching redundant, or overhear James’ murmured comment.
    “Why did you run away earlier?”
    Checking to see nobody was paying any attention, she whispered back, “My parents would not have approved of my being in the kitchen.”
    “Must your fun always be curtailed by your parents’ disapproval?” He arched an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth quirked upward.
    If her pulse had fluttered before, it now hammered, and she looked around fearfully, sure others could hear the thunder.
    At that moment the butler earned Lucinda’s eternal gratitude by stepping forward and announcing dinner. James drifted away without an answer.
    Their entrance into the dining room was much more ordered than the previous evening. No ambulant flora disturbed the calm, and everyone was seated around the table in the conventional fashion.
    James sat across the table from her mother, polite usage therefore barring him from conversing directly with Lucinda. In any other home, with such a small family gathering, she would have assumed such a stricture could be ignored, but the formidable weight of Edward, the countess and her parents’ disapproval was more than she felt capable of withstanding.
    Surprisingly, James, too, conformed to convention, conversing quietly with Mrs. Demerham on his right, and with his mother at the head of the table to his left. Only when the meal finished, and the ladies rose to withdraw, did James introduce a change.
    “Let us forgo the brandy tonight, gentlemen. Instead, to celebrate the season, we might indulge in a little entertainment.” So saying, he stood, and by virtue of placing himself beside Mr. Demerham’s chair, obliged him to rise too.
    He herded them all into the drawing room.
    “Miss Demerham, shall we play charades?” he asked.
    “Certainly not,” huffed Edward, forced by the actions of his guests to fall in with his brother’s manipulations. “Charades are a game for children and I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Demerham and my mother would have no interest in such things.”
    “Very well then,” said James, unperturbed. “Miss Demerham, do you play the piano?”
    “I do,” she replied.
    “Then perhaps you will agree to play for me, while I sing.” He looked at her with a distinct twinkle and she had the feeling perhaps this was what he had been angling for all along. “Unless of course, you, too, sing, in which case I would be honored if you would join me in a duet.”
    She nodded and accompanied him to the corner of the room where the piano was located. Under cover of looking for musical arrangements they both knew, he whispered, “Thank you. I couldn’t stand another boring evening stuck in that room, drinking dreadful brandy, smoking inferior cigars and listening to Edward drone on and on and on.”
    Aloud he said, “Ah, here we are.” He dragged out a folio, opened it and said, “Will this one suit?”
    Lucinda nodded and sat down, spreading her fingers upon the keys. Like all accomplished young women, she had been taught to play and sing, as well as paint, and in the absence of much else to occupy herself, had devoted long hours to the practice of these arts. She knew she was considered more than competent.
    But tonight, the thought of being so close to James, of mingling her breath with his as they hit the higher notes, left her unaccountably nervous. The tightening in her chest made her wonder if she’d be able to force out any notes at all.
    The piece James had picked had a long musical introduction, followed by a chorus sung only by the male