She was surprised by this small rebellion, because her eyes widened before she smiled again, slow and appreciative. “You keep me at a distance, Mr. Middlebrook. How am I ever to learn anything of you?”

“Simply ask me, Caro, and I’ll tell you all his secrets,” Emily said. “For one thing, he’s a rotten caretaker of a carpet.”

“That’s one fact,” Mrs. Whittier agreed. “And we know he has two occupations: soldier and painter.”

Lady Stratton coaxed her fan closed with careful fingers. Her golden hair glinted, pale fire under the crystal-spun light of the chandelier. “I’ll grant that,” she said slowly. With a quick snap, she flicked the fan open again. “Very well, you’ve revealed three inconsequential facts about yourself. Perhaps you’ll call on me tomorrow and share a fourth?”

“Inconseq—” Henry’s brows shot up. “My lady, you are hard to please indeed if you think I’ve revealed nothing of consequence.”

“I’m not always hard to please,” the widow said with another of those veiled smiles. “It simply depends on what’s being revealed.”

“Honestly,” said Emily sotto voce. “It almost makes me wish to be widowed so I could be such a scandalous flirt.”

“She’s got a rare gift,” Mrs. Whittier replied. “I am widowed, and I couldn’t possibly manage it.”

The mischievous Mrs. Whittier seemed entirely capable of managing a scandal if she wished, but Henry dutifully pretended not to hear her aside. He considered her words, though. Yes, Lady Stratton did have a rare gift. She had already conquered society; if he could conquer her, then her triumphs would be his as well.

Emily thought they would suit one another; after all, she had said he would meet his future wife tonight. And Emily was usually fairly astute about such matters.

Very well. “Lady Stratton, I’d be honored to call on you and reveal as many inconsequential facts as your heart desires.”

She pursed her lips in a cherry-ripe bow. “Excellent. Perhaps I’ll reveal a bit more about my heart’s desires when you do. After all, a woman can’t live by facts alone.”

The hairs on Henry’s left arm prickled. Possibly on the right too, though he couldn’t tell. It only hung numb and useless at his side, as it had since Quatre Bras six weeks before.

Jem shoved his way back through the pressing crowd just then, trailed by a red-faced footman in a crooked wig. The footman hefted a tray of beverages, which Jem handed around their small party.

Emily held up a glass of cloudy, pale liquid. “If this is wine, there was a serious problem with the grapes.”

“It’s orgeat,” Jem stated proudly. “Delicious.”

Henry took his own cup and gave it a sniff. It smelled syrupy, like almonds boiled with sugar. Emily looked faintly nauseated as she handed the glass back to her husband, who drained it in one swallow.

Just then, a young man with a determined expression and a still more determined cravat, striped and starched up to his cheekbones, poked his face into their little gathering. “Lady Stratton? Our dance is about to begin.”

Lady Stratton—Caro, as she would have it—turned to him. “Oh, Hambleton, thank you for fetching me.” She stood and shook out the heavy silk of her gown, sunny and bright as gamboge pigment. “I must leave you all now. I’ve enjoyed our little tête-à-tête very much.”

Henry received a proper nod as the countess accepted the arm of her new suitor. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Middlebrook.”

And with a parting smile, she allowed her escort to pull her into the crowd.

So. She was a strategist too, as determined as he to set the pace for their flirtation or… whatever it might become. She would have him know she was quite willing to exchange his company for that of another. Even with Emily’s encouragement.

It was time he formed another alliance, then. The companion, Mrs. Whittier—she would be best, if only he could remove the audience to their conversation.

Emily sighed and stretched out her arms. “Jemmy, care to have a seat? If you aren’t going to bring me wine, you must amuse me in some other way.”

“Why not have a dance?” Henry encouraged. “I know you’d like to, Emily.” Indeed, the toe of her slipper was peeping from under the hem of her gown, wiggling in time to a sprightly scrape of strings.

Jem and Emily both regarded him with that bizarre expression he’d seen so often on their faces lately: half hope and half apprehension, with a seasoning of worry. “Are you certain? You won’t mind if—”

“Go on, enjoy yourselves. I’m sure Mrs. Whittier won’t eat me,” he replied.

“Don’t assume too much,” that lady said with a shrug. “All the world has told you how terrifying I am.” Her cheeks darkened from rosy madder to velvety alizarin, Henry’s favorite reddish pigment. A lovely effect with the fair olive of her skin and the stark, earthy brown of her hair, the ink-dark blue of her gown.

He regarded her closely as the chairs around them emptied, as the cream of London society crammed onto the dance floor.

“Mrs. Whittier, you might be surprised by what terrifies me.”

***

Frances studied the face of this man who regarded her with unnerving seriousness. His brows were determined slashes over eyes of a startling blue, his hair as fair as Caroline’s. Faint lines had been burned into the corners of his eyes, no doubt by months under the sultry sun of Spain or southern France. So faraway and lovely that a shiver ran through her body.

He had been a soldier, just like Charles.

“I reckon I have a fair idea of what terrifies you,” she said smoothly, slinging a friendly smile onto her face. “As you’re a soldier, it must be eminently practical—a boggy field or an empty powder horn.”

His mouth curved. “You give me credit for more sense than I actually possess. I’m no longer a soldier, for I’ve already begun the process of selling my commission, so I can no longer have a soldier’s fears.”

“Ah, but you must have good sense all the same, or perhaps a remarkable persuasive ability. After all, I know you’ve staked your claim to a room of Tallant House, and somehow you managed to paint one of Lady Tallant’s carpets without incurring her anger.”

“That was no triumph of my own. My sister-in-law happened to be distracted by a scheme.” He took a breath as though he was going to continue, but nothing else followed. The dark lashes of his eyes lowered, shadowing his face.

For a long moment, Frances studied him in silence, then began to tease apart the cracked sticks of Caroline’s fan. This former soldier was pleasant to look on—more than pleasant, to be honest. But his pause wasn’t for Frances’s benefit. If her guess was correct—which, after years of observation, it usually was—the scheme in question involved matchmaking Mr. Middlebrook with Caroline.

Frances wasn’t sure if Lady Tallant had done him a service. Caroline was eager to flirt but little interested in allowing anyone to achieve a conquest.

“Anything you care to discuss?” she finally asked.

“Actually, yes.” Once again, he gathered his stiff right arm into his left hand, shielding himself behind a wall of limbs. “I want to court Lady Stratton.”

Ah. So she’d been correct. It ought to feel gratifying; there was no sense in a little pang of disappointment.

After all, this was to be expected. Everyone wanted Caroline. Though there was something painfully deliberate about the way Middlebrook spoke that simple sentence, as though he’d clipped a long list down to its bare essential.

While Caroline was a virtuoso of flirtation, Frances was a conductor, orchestrating social interactions so that they ran smoothly and pleasantly. “If you only want the opportunity to court her, then you’ll be very easily satisfied. As she’s invited you to call tomorrow, all you need to do to achieve your heart’s desire is accept the invitation.”

He shot her a sharp look. “I didn’t say it was my heart’s desire. It’s simply something that I would like. After all, she’s not Caro—or rather Cara—to me yet.”

Not yet his dear one. His tone was tinged with dry humor, and Frances smiled, though she knew he would care little for the smile of a passably attractive widow of twenty-nine. When a man had Caroline’s fair flawlessness on his mind, passably attractive was nothing of the sort.

“She’ll probably become so,” Frances said. “She does to everyone.” Her voice sounded weary rather than confident, and she batted her own hand with the cracked fan. Though Mr. Middlebrook wanted what everyone else did, that didn’t mean his desire was any less sincere.

And it was not Frances’s place to question it. It was her place to ensure that he called tomorrow.

“Excuse me,” she murmured. “What I mean is, I’m sure you’ll enjoy her company if you call.”

Middlebrook leaned back as much as his frail chair would permit, narrowing his vivid blue eyes. “If you’ll permit me to be frank, Mrs. Whittier, I would rather have her enjoy my company. And I ask for your help ensuring that she does so.”

Frances twitched. “You—what?”

He shrugged, a lopsided gesture as he still held his right arm tight. “You are her cousin and friend as well as her companion, are you not? You live in her house, sit at her side. You must know her better than anyone else. I would like your help as I…” His straight brows yanked into a vee as he searched for a word. “Pursue her.”

Frances could only stare. “No one’s ever asked for my help before.”

Now he looked surprised. “Really? But it seems so obvious.”

A brittle laugh popped out. “To you, perhaps, but not to the ton. I assure you, Mr. Middlebrook, there’s nothing obvious about looking to the right hand of the most sought after woman in London.”

She realized her blunder at once, and her cheeks went awkwardly hot. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have referred to… oh, that wasn’t well done of me.”

The earl’s brother tilted his head, then shook it. “Please don’t feel you must avoid common figures of speech. I’m well aware that our language includes many references to right hands and arms.”

Frances drew in a long breath. “Thank you for that. I must say, your manners are quite as pretty as anyone could hope.”

His mouth curved on one side, denting his cheek. “It’s not good manners, but frankness. I’d much prefer not to have people ignore my injury. I won’t be able to rejoin society if others pity me.”

Pity. The word was so small yet so terrible. Frances had met pity before, and the two had parted as enemies. “I understand. And I assure you I meant only to apologize for something that might have seemed unfeeling. I’ve known other soldiers before you. None of them wanted pity as much as they wanted a good meal and a quick tumble.”

He choked. “You really are a little terrifying.”

“Am I wrong?”

She had thought his face stern, his smiles carefully measured. But now it broke into a grin, quick and sunny and full of mischief, and she caught her breath at the sweet suddenness of it. “No, you’re quite right,” he said. “Add a soft bed, and I do believe you would capture every soldier of my acquaintance.”

“A good thing you’re not a soldier anymore, then, as London offers beds and meals and tumbles aplenty.”

His shoulders shook. “I hadn’t expected such plain speech in a ballroom, I admit.”

Her stomach gave a sweet little flip. He hadn’t exactly given her a compliment, but it was a tiny triumph to surprise this man. She was beginning to find him intriguing, with his wounds and his frankness, his humor and determination.

And intriguing was not something she came across very often when talking with Caroline’s suitors. Frances was famished for intriguing. Especially when intriguing had intent blue eyes and captured her in conversation.

She dragged her thoughts back into crisp order. “Caroline tolerates it, fortunately. As a companion to a countess, frankness serves me well. I am her second set of eyes and ears, and if I do not report accurately, I cannot help her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Will you be reporting on me, then? Perhaps I ought to fetch you some wine instead of the orgeat my brother inflicted upon you.”

“You needn’t get me inebriated in order to get a favorable report.”

“Oh? What must I do?”

Nothing more than you already have. She flexed the sticks of her fan again, far too hard, and the cracked ivory snapped. “You’ve told me the truth about what you want, and you’ve asked for my help. That’s singular enough.”