"Ouch!" she had protested, and she imprisoned his fingers in hers and eased them away from the earring. And she had glanced across at her husband, a laugh in her eyes. It was only then that Brampton had realized that he had been staring, mesmerized.

He had discovered during the rest of that two-week honeymoon that his earlier opinion that she was dull was not correct. She was quiet. She seemed to have little sense of humor. And she made no attempt to use her femininity. But she had good sense and a bright mind. Her conversation was never silly or tedious. If she had nothing to say, she simply said nothing.

And for some very curious reason that he could not fathom, Brampton had come to look forward to the few minutes he spent in her bed each night. He had missed the ritual when, a few days before their return to London, she had had to inform him, blushing painfully (almost the only open sign of emotion he had ever seen in her) that he should not visit her room for the following five nights. She had even forgotten herself enough on that occasion to call him 'my lord" again. He had not drawn her attention to the lapse.

Lisa had turned her head into his shoulder and was muzzling his neck, biting the skin lightly with her small teeth. She purred like a cat.

"Richard, my love, I swear you are a wild animal today," she sighed contentedly. "I shall be covered with bruises tomorrow."

"My apologies," Brampton replied coldly. He pulled his arm from beneath her body and rolled off the bed. He stood up and began to dress, wrinkling his nose distastefully at the smell of her perfume on his skin.

"I shall not be visiting here again, Lisa," he heard himself saying. He had certainly not planned to say any such thing.

"What!" she exclaimed from the bed behind him.

"I am a married man," he said. "I owe my wife better than this. The house is yours, of course, and all its furnishings. I shall arrange with my man of business to make a settlement on you. I am sure you will find it satisfactory."

He dressed quickly and left the house while she was still crying and pleading. He did not feel very proud of himself.

Charlotte sat down beside Margaret on the drawing-room sofa. She stretched her legs out straight ahead of her and rested her head against a soft cushion.

"Oh, Meg," she sighed, "this is so exciting and so tiring, is it not?"

"Are you pleased, love?" her sister replied, smiling gently and glancing up from her embroidery. "You certainly seem to have made an impression. All the young men were clamoring to dance with you last night. I do believe Richard was almost disappointed. He was fully prepared to lead you out himself if there was any danger of your being a wallflower."

"And three calls from admirers this afternoon!" Charlotte exclaimed with an artless lack of modesty. "And all these flowers, Meg." She looked around at the posies and bouquets that had been delivered that morning, all from young men she had met the night before.

Margaret smiled again. "I am so happy for you, Lottie. I can remember how exciting my own first Season was."

Charlotte must have detected the wistful note in her sister's voice. She immediately sat up straight and regarded her sister intently.

"Meg, I wish you would not sit there so calmly at your needlework and wearing that oh-so-stupid cap, just like a-a-"

"Matron?"

"Yes, like a matron. You are a bride, Meg," her sister cried passionately. "What is the matter? You and Lord Brampton behave as if you have been wed for years. And I was sure that you would suit admirably. You aren't happy, are you, Meg?"

Margaret winced. Her sister had all the bluntness of extreme youth. "Of course I am happy," she said soothingly. "Why ever would I not be?"

"No, you aren't. You do not even try to make yourself pleasing to my brother-in-law," Charlotte accused. "I mean, really pleasing. Has he ever seen you without your hair braided? Has he ever seen you laugh? Oh, Meg, I love you dearly, but why must you hide your real self? I know you are the loveliest, sweetest, warmest person in the world." And she impulsively moved along the sofa and hugged her sister.

"It is no good, Lottie," Margaret said mildly. "You cannot turn this marriage into the grand romance. It is a marriage like most of the other marriages of people of our kind-no worse."

"Ah, but, Meg, you did love once, did you not?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes, once-when I was very young and very foolish."

"I do not believe you were ever foolish, Meg," her sister said, gazing at Margaret loyally. She hesitated a moment, then asked, "Do you love him still, Meg?"

Margaret's fingers paused over her work. "Yes," she said.

"Who was he, Meg?"

There was a longer pause. "Richard," Margaret said.

"What?"

Margaret resumed her sewing. "It was Richard I fell in love with six years ago," she said.

"But I do not understand," Charlotte said. "Did he not love you? But why has he married you now?"

"He did not know who I was," Margaret said with a sigh. "It was really all very foolish. And I do not know why I am telling you all this after so long." She proceeded to give Charlotte an edited version of what had happened that night at the Hetheringtons' masquerade ball.

"I think it was a great foolishness not to take off your mask when he begged you to," Charlotte commented. "Then he would have known you and he would have called on you as he said he would, and you would have been married years ago and it would have been a lovely marriage, full of love and romance."

"Perhaps," Margaret smiled sadly.

"But this is all foolishness," Charlotte exclaimed, leaping to her feet and pacing restlessly around the room. "You must tell him the truth."

Margaret laughed. "Do you suggest, my love, that I say to him at the breakfast table, 'Oh, by the by, Richard, do you remember the little girl dressed as Marie Antoinette at a masquerade party six years ago? The one you kissed in the garden and called your angel? That was me!' He would think I had taken leave of my senses, Lottie. He would not even recollect the incident."

"Phooey! I do see your point about not being able to broach the topic, though, Meg." Charlotte's brow puckered with concentration. "I am going to return to my room and think. We need a plan! I think it might be necessary to resurrect Marie Antoinette." And she skipped lightly from the room, closing the door behind her.

Margaret let her hands relax in her lap, her embroidery forgotten. Why had she told Charlotte? She was not sure. Some compulsion, perhaps, to share her pain. Or was it that Charlotte's come-out had reminded her so strongly of her own?

Despite what Charlotte had said, Margaret was not actively unhappy. After that first traumatic night of her honeymoon, she had gradually picked up the pieces of her dignity and retreated behind her usual facade of quiet serenity. Her husband was neither cruel not neglectful. For the two weeks of their honeymoon, she had spent much time alone or with the housekeeper. But she had also spent more time with her husband than she had expected. He had taken pains to show her his estate and to introduce her to all his tenants, as well as to his neighbors, the Northcotts.

Margaret had drawn a secret pleasure from the fact that he always introduced her not just as the countess, but as "my wife, the Countess of Brampton."

She found it very hard to adjust to her bitter disappointment over their sexual relations. Each night was an exact repetition of the first, except that there was never again the pain and that he never again made the almost tender gesture of touching her cheek. He never kissed her, never talked to her, never caressed any part of her, never lingered longer than one minute after his business had been completed.

She had to convince herself that most wives probably had little more than she had. Her mother, in fact, in a speech of advice on her wedding morning, had warned that marriage would be very pleasant if she were a dutiful wife. She must learn, in exchange for all the contentment, to endure her husband's "attentions" at night "for a few minutes only, my love." Margaret admitted that, had she behaved with propriety at the masquerade ball, she would not even know that physical contact with a man might be exciting.

She trained herself to enjoy those few minutes for what they were worth. For that short span of time each night, her husband was all hers. Sometimes, if he was later than usual coming to her room, she would find her body aroused from just thinking of what was about to happen. And then his arrival was an agony. She had to keep every physical sign of her arousal strictly concealed and she had to endure the terrible frustration of having neither the time nor the freedom to reach for the unknown something that the weight of his body and his brief lovemaking made her own body ache for.

No, Margaret was not unhappy. She resumed her embroidery.


Charlotte perfected the plan the next day while driving in Hyde Park with Devin Northcott. She had puzzled over it so much after leaving Margaret in the drawing room that she had given herself a headache. So quiet was she at dinner that night, in fact, that Brampton commented on it.

"Are you feeling quite well, Charlotte?" he asked with concern.

"What? Oh, yes, my lord," she answered. "Just a little tired, maybe, after last night's ball."

"And did you enjoy yourself?" he asked. "You most certainly did not lack for partners."

"Oh, it was ever so much fun, my lord," Charlotte began, her natural enthusiasm for life beginning to bubble again. But she was immediately struck by a thought that had her once more silent and dreaming.

Should she suggest that Lord Brampton give a masquerade ball in his home so that Meg could appear mysteriously as Marie Antoinette and bowl him off his feet? No, it would not work. How would anyone explain away the disappearance of the hostess?

"Northcott informs me that he is to take you driving tomorrow," Brampton commented. Having broken off his relationship with Lisa just that afternoon, he felt somewhat ill-at-ease with his wife, and was anxious to keep Charlotte talking. Usually she chattered on without any encouragement.

"Yes, my lord. He has a new high-perch phaeton, and I have a new bonnet," Charlotte explained, as if these facts justified the situation entirely. "And Meg says that it would be quite unexceptionable for me to accept the invitation."

"Oh, quite," replied Brampton, glancing down the table to his wife. She was smiling affectionately at her sister, her usual quiet, calm self.

Charlotte's thoughts were on the wing again. Could she ask Mr. Northcott to give a masquerade party? No, he occupied only bachelor rooms. Anyway, she was still a little shy of him because he was so old (somewhere in the region of Lord Bramp-ton's age, she guessed) and was so much the perfect gentleman of fashion. She had found it easy to converse with him during the two dances they had shared the night before and during his visit that afternoon, but she did not think she yet had the courage to ask so great a favor of him.

The London weather cooperated for the afternoon drive. It was a perfect spring day. Charlotte was able to wear her new apple-green muslin dress and the matching parasol with brown fringes. Her brown bonnet was trimmed with green, yellow, and straw-colored leaves and flowers that complemented her auburn hair. Devin Northcott thought she made a perfect picture in his new phaeton and told her so.

Charlotte admired his appearance no less. He wore biscuit-colored buckskins and white-tasseled Hessian boots that shone so brightly she felt she would be able to see her face in them if she leaned forward. His dark-green coat had the perfect cut that only the renowned Weston could have tailored; his snowy-white neckcloth had been arranged in complicated folds, though Charlotte could not put a name to the creation. Was it a waterfall? A mathematical? He wore a dark beaver on his fair hair. Devin Northcott was not a tall man, and he had a slight figure, but Charlotte concluded that she liked his air of kindly gentility.

They arrived at Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five o'clock. It seemed that half the haut monde were there, most people wheeling around slowly in carriages of various descriptions, some on horseback, a few on foot. Everyone was there to see and to be seen, to nod at acquaintances, to cut enemies, to exchange the latest on-dits with friends.