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anyone so thoroughly terrorize a room. Everything about the earl suggested experience of a life lived close to the edge and in full acceptance of any and all consequences. No telling what he might do.
    Fitzalan cleared his throat. "Fine weather we're having, don't you agree? I'm sure in London it's nothing but ice and snow the color of ash."
    The others stole surreptitious glances at Tiern-Cope. They probably didn't speak for fear they would suffer Olivia's fate and be smartly slapped down. Still, Olivia could not, in good faith, leave the viscount dangling. She cleared her throat and plunged into the fray. "For the time of year, the weather is fine indeed, my Lord."
    "I wonder, Miss Willow, if we will have new snow." Fitzalan drank the rest of his sherry. "Do you think we shall have snow, Miss Cage?"
    "I'm sure I don't know." Most brave of Miss Cage, Olivia thought, to speak at all.
    The earl left his chair for the fireplace where he stood with his hands tucked into the small of his back. He studied Diana with what Olivia found an unsettling gleam of possession. Like a wolf stalking its prey, Olivia thought. Now there was another apt comparison. The man was a wolf playing at domesticity. He'd come into this room decided on Miss Royce for his bride. That he wasn't capable of self-doubt was plain. She wondered why he hadn't brought the vicar and married Diana on the spot. The notion of Mr. Verney hiding behind the door, ready to spring out Bible in hand brought a smile to her lips. The earl's attention shot to her. Just in time, she hoped, she smoothed her expression and let the smile drain of all but the pretense of emotion. His look left a wake of shivering anticipation that did not quickly dissipate. He was, after all,
the
Captain Alexander. Andrew's brave and daring younger brother.
    "Miss Diana Royce," the earl said. "I trust you had a pleasant journey to Pennhyll."
    Diana's fan waved a hurricane beneath her chin, and she giggled, which gave a measure of the earl's effect on everyone. Olivia watched him, gauging his reaction to the girlish sound, but she could divine nothing from his expression. "I must say, my Lord, that I despise nothing more than traveling, and, I daresay, the roads could do with some improvement."
    "No doubt," he said.
    "The country," she said, "is not at all like Town."
    "Which do you prefer?"
    "Oh, Town, of course. All the best people are in Town. There's ever so much to do there."
    Tiern-Cope refused to smile, and poor Diana, breaker of countless hearts, wilted under that basilisk stare. None of the young ladies were in any way prepared for a man like he. The earl might have begun life as privileged as any nobleman, but he'd been a dozen years at sea, commanding the elements, not catering to feminine sensibilities.
    This time Fitzalan leapt to fill the breach. "Now that Tiern-Cope is with us, we must think how we will entertain him."
    "What else but a ball?" said Miss Cage. She brushed a hand over her curls and fluttered her eyelashes. A waste, a sad, sad waste, for the earl took no notice whatsoever of her effort. Nor Fitzalan either. A few of the young gentlemen added their approval of the idea. Brave souls. And what a pity they faded into the background, spaniel puppies in the presence of a full-grown wolf.
    "A ball," Fitzalan said. "In celebration of your recovery, Sebastian."
    "I am not in a condition for dancing. Not yet. Nor," he added, "would I be able to organize such an affair. Unless, of course, you wish to dance upon a ship. With a ship under my feet, nothing is impossible." He swept the room with that cold and barren gaze and settled on Diana with the same passion a man might have for assessing the state of a fence. "Until I have a suitable hostess to guide me, social niceties must continue to escape me."
    "Miss Willow," said Fitzalan, desperate appeal in the loft of his eyebrows. "What is your opinion? Shall we have dancing?"
    "Oh," Olivia said with a jaunty wave of her gloved hand