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lady.”
    “Are you enjoying the play, Mrs. Westfield?”
    “Oh, yes, my lady. I find it quite riveting.”
    “There’s no place like London for the arts. Even Paris cannot surpass London.”
    She wasn’t sure what to say to the viscountess. “I’ve never been to Paris.”
    “A pity! It’s quite divine, or at least it will be when Napoleon is defeated.”
    Claire thought of Penelope’s husband Theo.
    The viscountess looked her up and down with her quizzing glass. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before, dear . . . do you often frequent Town?”
    “No, my lady. But I confess, I find it quite charming.”
    “Charming?” The viscountess laughed. “Perhaps not the word I would use, but life in London is certainly lively.” They chatted a few minutes more. Claire discovered she quite liked his mother—and wished she didn’t. It was going to make her mission . . . more difficult. She wished fervently that the woman would leave.
    Charlotte Sutherland finally tapped her son’s forearm with her fan. “Come visit, boy. It seems I see you at these affairs and never at home. Indeed, Gray, I do hope you’ll make time to come to your birthday fete next week.”
    “Mama—”
    “Oh, it has just now occurred to me.” Her smile was vivacious. “Mrs. Westfield, you must come too! I am hosting a birthday celebration for Gray next week. Please, join us. I vow you’ll enjoy it.”
    For all her fragile appearance, Claire sensed that Charlotte Sutherland could be a woman of icy disdain. She had an impression of ever-abundant energy. It struck her that the countess was also a strong-willed and knew what she wanted. Somehow, she knew that Gray was equally as willful. She wondered if perhaps he and his mother ever butted heads.
    Claire shook her head. “My lady, I’m flattered at the invitation, but—”
    “I insist, Mrs. Westfield. You simply must come, mustn’t she, Gray darling?”
    “Mama, it may well be that Mrs. Westfield has a prior engagement.”
    “Do you, Mrs. Westfield?”
    “Well . . .”
    “No? It will be a delightful affair, I promise you.” She gave Claire no time to respond. “Now then, do enjoy the rest of the play, Mrs. Westfield. And I trust that you’ll see that my son behaves.”
    “Oh, rest assured that I will,” Claire said promptly. Too late she realized how that sounded.
    Charlotte laughed. “Yes, child, I believe you will.”
    She bade them good evening.
    Claire felt she’d been weighed and measured—and apparently passed muster. Why it mattered, she had no idea. Gray—drat, why did she now think of him as Gray?—kissed his mother’s cheek.
    Claire’s head was still whirling. “I daresay your mother is a bit of a whirlwind.”
    “At the very least,” he said dryly.
    “She’s very beautiful.”
    “She is.”
    “Is your father here tonight?”
    Gray shook his head. “My father is dead.” There was a pause. “A gentleman asked for my mother’s hand last year. She refused. She never said why, but . . . somehow I think she felt that marrying again would be a betrayal to my father’s memory,” he said softly. “But I think my father would have approved.”
    All at once Claire wished she had never come. Something inside her twisted. She wished violently that she’d never met his mother. Seeing her . . . it made him too . . . human. Too vulnerable. She didn’t want to think of him as a man with a family, a mother who loved him and who he loved in return. He was a cold, heartless killer! Had he cared about Oliver? Had he cared that Oliver had a family who loved him? That he was forever lost to his family?
    There was a touch on her arm. “Shall we return to the box?”
    “I hated to see it end!”
    Claire sighed and settled into the sumptuous cushions of Gray’s carriage with genuine regret. It rumbled through the cobbled streets, a carriage lamp casting a golden haze into the velvet interior of Gray’s coach, while a warm cocoon surrounded her. The