“Maybe he just thinks you’re being devious,” Frances suggested.

“I usually am,” Caroline said, the lost-kitten expression now entirely vanished. “But in this case, you’re being far more so.”

“I’m not going to tell him the truth. I just told you why.”

“Then I pity you both, because one day he’ll find out the truth and he’ll hate you for lying to him.” Her hand fluttered to her mouth. “Oh, damn, and he’ll probably hate me too, for going along with it.”

“He won’t find out. And please don’t say that you pity either of us, Caroline.” Soldiers never want pity as much as they want a good meal and a quick tumble.

Or a not-so-quick one.

“All right.” Caroline slid to the floor. “The words will not come out of my mouth again. They might run through my thoughts, though.”

With a quick swoop, she grabbed the still-sealed letter from the chair where Frances had left it. She cracked the seal and flapped the paper open in front of Frances’s face. “Read it, you stubborn wench.”

Despite herself, Frances laughed, and she took the paper from Caroline’s outstretched hand.

Dear Caro,

Thank you for your letter. I was pleased to see you at the ball as well. It’s kind of you to write that you wished I had danced more. I found one minuet quite enough, though I hope in time to find other amusements that suit me just as well as dancing.

I shall call on you this afternoon—with violets, of course—and must speak to you privately. Would you grant me a few minutes of your time for a discussion of a highly secret but not at all improper scheme?

Yours,

Henry

Her fingers felt chilly, and they trembled. “Here.” She thrust the letter back toward Caroline. “I told you it was intended for you.”

As Caroline skimmed the lines, Frances made herself stand and roam around the room, tidying periodicals, folding up her sewing. If Henry intended to call today, he might be here in little more than two hours.

So. She had two hours to wrap her mind around the knowledge that Henry wanted a private interview with Caroline. The secrecy alone made it improper—just as was his supposed correspondence with Caroline.

Yet Frances was the one he had kissed and touched. Frances was the one who had made his breathing rush, who had roused his body.

Or had he only kissed her back? He was the one who had pulled away first, though he pretended it was for her own good.

She creased Caroline’s delicate handkerchief into a tiny square and crammed it into her sewing basket.

“A secret scheme,” Caroline murmured. She cast the letter onto the floor with her usual carelessness, and Frances snapped it up and tossed it onto the morning room’s small writing desk. “I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“Are you going to oblige him?” The tone of Frances’s voice rang falsely bright even to her own ears.

“I’ll see what he has in mind.” Caroline frowned. “You don’t think this is one of Emily’s matchmaking schemes, do you?”

“I really can’t say.”

Caroline chuckled. “No, I really can’t say what goes through Emily’s head either. But still, this doesn’t sound like one of her plots. If she had dictated the letter, I’m sure she would have been much more effusive about her ball.”

“No doubt.” Frances returned to her chair and folded her hands neatly, facing her cousin. “So. Violets. A secret scheme. Are you still willing to say he’s not besotted with you?”

Caroline clambered back onto her scroll-armed sofa, Lady’s Magazine again in hand. “I’m willing to hear him out. It might be something quite innocent. It could even be a surprise for Emily and Jem.”

She leaned back and flipped open the magazine, then laid it over her face. “Now do let me rest for an hour,” came her muffled voice. “If we’re to have a roomful of callers this afternoon, I need to prepare myself.”

She tugged the paper down for a second. “Have Millie lace you into that ravishable bronze-green gown again, won’t you? Just in case.”

And with a roguish wink, she vanished again under the pages of fashion, leaving Frances with Henry’s letter and far too many questions.

***

Frances fully expected to see some change in Henry’s face when he entered Caroline’s drawing room that afternoon.

From her customary seat in the corner, she could read each arriving man like a book. Bart Crosby was a sweeping romance, all courtly admiration and puppy love. Lord Wadsworth was rather gothic in the way he squinted at everyone else, as though they were family skeletons he’d intended to shove back in the closet. Hambleton and Crisp were a farce, as always, dressed in identical high-starched cravats and waggling ivory-headed swordsticks.

But when Henry was shown into the drawing room at last, he looked annoyingly normal considering he was plotting a secret. Which made him a mystery.

There were no such shadows under his eyes as there were under Frances’s: horrible gray-yellow circles that not even the bewitching bronze-green dress could banish. Henry’s smile was bright and confident too, nothing of self-consciousness in it. He strode into the room with his left arm crooked around a bouquet of violets and swept into a bow before Caroline, straightening before his stiffened right arm could swing out of place.

“For me?” the countess asked—rather obtusely, in Frances’s opinion.

“Somewhat.” Henry tumbled the violets into her lap, then retrieved what Frances now realized was one of two bouquets he’d been holding. “If you’ll excuse me?”

Caroline’s smile widened to a positive sunbeam. “Be off with you.”

As seemingly everyone in the room stopped talking, Henry strode over to Frances.

To her, he handed the violets with an entirely different gesture. There was nothing theatrical about the half smile, the simply outstretched hand. Frances sat dumbly, watching, as he waited for her to take the flowers.

“You deserve blooms of your own,” he finally said. “I would like you to accept these, if you’re willing.”

“If I’m willing?” She gave a little bark of laughter. “I’m shamefully willing. No one’s ever brought me flowers before. Thank you.” She took the bunch from him with a clumsy, overeager gesture.

He gave her a searching look, suddenly a strategist. “Consider this an appeasement, to keep you from ripping my head off in the middle of the drawing room.”

Her fingers tightened on the ribbon-bound stems. “Why? Have you done something unforgivable?”

His mouth kicked up on one side. “I hope you don’t think so,” he said in a quiet voice.

Under the armor of the bronze-green silk, Frances felt suddenly conscious of every inch of her skin. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

The grin he shot her was pure mischief. “I am relieved to hear it.”

“I’m not relieved in the slightest,” she muttered, too low for him to hear. The tight, sweet tension of unfulfilled desire rippled through her belly at the sight of him, making her nipples harden.

Settle down, she told herself. These violets were meant to atone, their frail little blooms covering over a furtive interlude that should never have happened. He was too stubborn in pursuit of his countess, and she was too proud to throw herself at someone who didn’t truly want her.

Probably. She was probably too proud for that.

“Is that all, then?” Her voice sounded brisk, as if she were truly the teacher she’d once pretended to be. And why not? If he thought to buy her off with violets, he must not know how glad she was for even this sign of his regard. Which was really a dismissal.

“For now.” And with that brilliant grin that wiped her mind blank and muddled her thoughts into a froth of longing, he inclined his head to Frances and strode back to Caroline.

Only a few feet away, yet far enough that she had no idea where she stood with him.

Caroline had piled up cushions next to her to save a spot on the sofa for Henry. All the better to scheme with you, my dear. Wadsworth tried in vain to shoulder his way into their conversation, but every time he interjected something, Caroline found another small task for him to perform—a vase to relocate, a tray of dainties to pass among the guests.

Caroline was using him as a footman. It made a welcome distraction from Frances’s own uncertainty.

The viscount grew distinctly sour as Caroline’s indifference persisted through minute after minute. His courtly veneer thinned, then dissolved entirely as the other men ignored him, chatting about horses and boots and the cut of their coats, plucking sandwiches from the tray he held, granting him as little attention as they’d give a servant.

Finally, Wadsworth stalked over to Frances’s chair, tray still in hand, and leaned against the blue-plastered wall.

“So you’ve learned one of the cardinal rules of good society,” she said. “With the simple addition of a tray or a duster to one’s hand, anyone can become invisible.”

“You underestimate me, Mrs. Whittier,” he said with a lazy smile, leaning so close that she could smell the floral-citrus of the bergamot with which he evidently anointed his hair.

“I’m sure I don’t,” Frances muttered, clutching her violets more tightly.

Wadsworth pretended he hadn’t heard. “You know I am scrupulously conscious of manners. For example, I’m aware that I ought more properly to allow you to hold this tray. Since you are a servant.”

He held out the platter of tiny sandwiches at arm’s length. Before Frances could decide whether or not to take it from him, he released it.

Thump. The silver tray fell to the floor, sandwiches rolling every which way.

His expression was all solicitous concern; all except for the eyes. Those were cool and gray and sharp, like dirty icicles. “Dear me, Mrs. Whittier. What a state you’re in. Well, we all have our little accidents sometimes; no need to berate yourself. Do you require help clearing those? I’m sure another servant could come to your aid.”

Frances spared a quick second to glare at him before glancing around the room. Caroline and Henry were oblivious, talking head to head on the sofa. Caroline was grinning and nodding.

Bah. They didn’t even need the letters anymore.

She swallowed a sick little heave of her stomach, then caught the eye of Bart Crosby. The good-hearted young baronet was hovering behind Caroline and Henry, but he noticed the food scattered over the carpet and made a convulsive movement, as though ready to come to Frances’s aid.

With a quick shake of the head, she warned him back. Whatever Wadsworth meant by this game, there was room for only two to play.

“Since I’m Lady Stratton’s companion,” she said in her sweetest voice, “it is my responsibility to help her callers, even if their behavior is asinine and rude.”

She gave Wadsworth a bright, innocent smile, an expression she’d learned from Caroline. “Not that I refer to you, of course. I am sure in your mind, it’s perfectly normal to throw sandwiches onto the floor. Shall we leave them right there, or would you prefer to arrange them into a pattern? Do you mean to eat all of them? Shall I get you a cup of tea for you to wash down your floor sandwiches?”

Wadsworth’s eyes narrowed until they were little more than slits. “I pity Caro the companionship of such a jade.”

Frances narrowed her eyes right back. “If you mean to compare me to a precious stone, I thank you. And if there is anything else I can do to ensure your comfort, do let me know. I’ll be standing across the room, next to Caroline, in whose house you have made such chaos.”

She stood, savoring the luxuriant shushhhhh of the stiff silk skirts. She trod on the platter Wadsworth had dropped, then swanned across the room to stand by Bart Crosby.

It was a rather decisive exit, if she did say so herself. And just in time, because she could feel her face growing hot as if it had been slapped. Soon her throat would have closed, choking her, and she would have been unable to defend herself.

“Sir Bartlett,” she murmured by way of greeting.

“You did excellently,” he replied. His brown eyes squinted with suppressed laughter. “I’d never have thought of all that sympathetic tosh.”

“You’d never have needed to.” She could have sighed.

She was among the vulnerable now, the questionable fringe of society whose reputations hung upon the kindness—or unkindness—of others. After a single Season in London, she was accustomed to being seen only as an accessory to Caroline. But when she was singled out… well, that she was not accustomed to.