When all else failed, Cassandra thought, one smiled.

She smiled.

And then Wesley was out on the balcony, having pushed his way past everyone else, and he stood in front of them, fury turning to an almost comic bewilderment.

"Cassie," he said, "is this /true/?"

What else could she do but lie?

"It is true, Wes," she said, and realized as she spoke that she could not after all have simply walked away from that very public kiss and so have averted disaster. Wesley had just rediscovered her. He had just atoned for his own cowardice in ignoring her when she needed him most, and now he had taken on the role of her self-appointed protector. There would have been a nasty and very public scene if Stephen had not spoken up as he had. Wesley would probably have punched him in the nose or slapped a glove in his face – or both.

It hardly bore thinking about.

Wesley smiled abruptly. Perhaps he too had realized the necessity of acting out this charade. He drew her into a hug.

"I misunderstood at first, Merton, I must confess," he said. "But I am delighted by the truth even if it seems to me you might have consulted me first. Dash it all, though, Cassie is of age."

He stretched out his right hand, and Stephen shook it.

The audience did not disperse quickly despite the fact that supper awaited everyone. There was a buzz of conversation, most of it sounding pleased, even congratulatory – or so it seemed to Cassandra, though she did not doubt there were plenty among the spectators who would be horrified to learn that the very eligible and beautiful Earl of Merton had allied himself with an axe murderer.

Many young ladies would be inconsolable tonight, she did not doubt.

Stephen's sisters all converged on him from various directions, and all hugged first him and then Cassandra with apparently warm delight. Their husbands shook his hand and bowed over hers. So did Mr. Huxtable, though it seemed to Cassandra that his very dark eyes penetrated through to the back of her skull as he did so.

It was hard to know how pleased his family really was. They could not /be/ pleased, surely, but they were polite and gracious people – and they were being forced to deal with the shock of such an announcement under the interested gaze of half the beau monde.

They really had little choice but to appear delighted.

"My love," Stephen said, smiling down at her and drawing her hand through his arm again, "we must speak with Lord and Lady Compton-Haig."

"Of course." She smiled back at him.

Must they? /Why/? For the moment she could not even remember who those people were.

Most of the other guests had either lost interest at last or, more likely, chose to discuss the whole salacious incident over supper. The crowd had thinned. Lady Compton-Haig was standing with her husband at the ballroom doors, and Cassandra recalled that – of course! – they were the hosts of this ball.

"Yes, of course," she said again.

They had been kind enough to send her an invitation – her first apart from the verbal invitation to attend Lady Carling's at-home last week.

"Ma'am." Stephen took the lady's hand in his after they had crossed the room, bowed over it, and raised it to his lips. "I do beg your pardon for using your ball as the forum for my announcement without even consulting you first. I did not intend it to be tonight, though the beauty of your ballroom and the loveliness of the music did prompt me into making my offer this evening. Then, when Lady Paget accepted, I – well, I lost my head, I am afraid, and then had no choice but to explain to everyone exactly /why/ I was kissing her out on your balcony."

Viscount Compton-Haig pursed his lips. His wife smiled warmly.

"But you must not apologize, Lord Merton," she said, "for making the announcement tonight. I am vastly pleased and honored that you /did/. We have no children of our own, you know, though Alastair does have two sons from his first marriage, of course. I never expected to have such an announcement made in my own home. I intend to make the most of it.

Come, Lady Paget."

And she linked her arm through Cassandra's and led her off in the direction of the dining room, nodding and smiling about her as she went.

She seated Cassandra at the head table, next to herself. Stephen, who had come along behind with the viscount, sat beside her on the other side.

Most of the guests seemed intent upon their supper and their own conversations, Cassandra noted in some relief. It did seem, though, that the buzz of conversation had a higher, more animated tone than usual.

And there were a number of people who looked their way and smiled or nodded or simply stared. On the whole, the atmosphere did not seem unduly hostile, though the mood of the /ton/ might well grow more ugly tomorrow when everyone had had time to digest the news and realize that a widow who was still something of a pariah – she had received only this one invitation, after all – was about to walk off with one of the most eligible, most coveted matrimonial prizes in all England.

The funny thing was that since that kiss, she and Stephen had scarcely glanced at each other. They had not exchanged one private word. Although they were sitting next to each other at supper, they were each kept busy talking with other people. And smiling – eternally smiling.

He was going to have to suffer some acute embarrassment for a while when no notice of their betrothal appeared in the papers and when it became clear to everyone that they were not in fact engaged at all.

But men recovered easily from such embarrassments. And the female half of the human race would rejoice and quickly forgive him.

Oh, she wished she had not come tonight. Or agreed to dance the waltz with him. Or allowed him to twirl her out onto the balcony. Or allowed him to kiss her there.

Though that was unfair. She had not /allowed/ anything. She had been a full and willing participant.

But not in the announcement he had then felt obliged to make.

Though honesty forced her to admit that he had had very little choice but to do exactly what he had done.

She hoped the lawyer had not exaggerated when he had said /two weeks/.

Lord Compton-Haig, at the prompting of his wife, rose to propose a toast to the newly betrothed couple, and everyone rose and clinked glasses and drank before heading back to the ballroom and a resumption of the dancing. Stephen led out the Duchess of Moreland, his sister, and Cassandra danced with the duke. Fortunately it was a rather intricate country dance and did not allow for much private conversation. From the sober look on Moreland's face, Cassandra guessed that he would have had a great deal to say to her if he had had the opportunity.

He had, once upon a time, she remembered, been Stephen's official guardian.

He said only one thing of a personal nature, and it somehow sent shivers along Cassandra's spine.

"You must come to dinner one evening soon, Lady Paget," he said. "I shall have the duchess arrange it. And you may tell us at your leisure how you plan to make Merton happy."

She smiled back at him.

"You must not concern yourself about that, your grace," she said, noticing his very blue eyes, the one distinguishing feature between him and the dark-eyed Mr. Huxtable. "My hopes and dreams for the Earl of Merton must be very similar to your own."

He inclined his head and moved off to dance the next figure with another lady.

After that set, Cassandra really wanted nothing else than to beg Wesley to take her home. It could not be done, however. She could not so publicly abandon the man whose marriage offer she had supposedly accepted just this evening.

But that thought gave her another, better idea. The duke had returned her to Wesley's side, but her brother was busy conversing with a group of friends and did no more than flash a smile in her direction. She opened her fan and looked about the room. It was easy to spot Stephen – he was striding toward her, a warm smile lighting his face.

Oh, how he must resent her!

And how she resented him. There /must/ have been another way to deal with that crisis. Heaven alone knew what it was, though.

"The final set is about to begin," he said, "and it is mine, I believe."

"Stephen," she said, "take me home."

His eyes searched hers, his smile arrested. He nodded.

"A good idea," he said. "We will avoid the crush after the set is ended.

You came with your brother?"

She nodded.

"I will tell him I am going home with you instead," she said. "He is just here."

Wesley turned away from his group even as she spoke.

"Wesley," she said, "Stephen is going to take me home in his carriage.

Do you mind?"

"No," he said. He held out a hand to Stephen. "I will expect you to treat her kindly, Merton. You will have me to answer to if you do not."

Oh, men! They were such ridiculous, possessive creatures. Sometimes it seemed they believed women could not breathe without their assistance.

But there was some comfort in knowing that Wesley was now a man. /You will have me to answer to if you do not/. There had been no one to say those words to Nigel before she married him, except her father, who had been too genial and too trusting for his own good.

She kissed his cheek.

"I do not expect, Young," Stephen said, "ever to have the need to answer to you. Your sister will be in good hands."

They found the Compton-Haigs and asked to be excused from participating in the last dance. Lady Compton-Haig appeared charmed more than offended, and she and her husband accompanied them downstairs and waved them on their way after Stephen's carriage had been brought up to the door.

Cassandra set her head back against the soft upholstery of the carriage seat as the vehicle rocked into motion and closed her eyes.

Stephen's hand found hers in the darkness, and his fingers curled about it. She was too weary to withdraw it.

"Cassandra, my dear," he said, "I am so very sorry. I ought to have wooed you more privately and far less recklessly. I certainly ought to have made you a marriage proposal before announcing our betrothal to all the world. But disaster loomed for you, and it was all I could think of to do."

"I know that," she said. "I was furious with you for only a very short while. We were incredibly indiscreet – /both/ of us. I do not blame you, and I do assure you that I was not involved in any deliberate seduction.

It was just – indiscreet. Unfortunately, your response will make tomorrow and the days following it uncomfortable for you as people look for the official announcement in the papers and do not find it. But they will recover. People always do. They even started sending out invitations to an axe murderer after a scant week."

"Cass." He squeezed her hand. "There /will be/ an announcement. Not in tomorrow's paper, it is true. It is too late for that. But it will appear in the morning after's. And we will have to decide when the nuptials will be and where – either here at St. George's with half the /ton/ in attendance, or somewhere more private. Warren Hall, perhaps.

People will want to know either way. They will shower us both with questions."

Ah. She might have guessed that he would take gallantry to the extreme.

"But Stephen," she said without opening her eyes or turning her head,

"you did not make me an offer, did you? And I did not accept. And /would not/ accept even if you were to make one now. Not tonight, not ever. Not you or anyone else. One thing I will never do again in this life is marry."

She heard him draw breath to reply, but he said nothing.

They rode the rest of the way to her door in silence.

He vaulted out of the carriage as soon as it had rocked to a halt, set down the steps, and assisted her to alight. Then he put the steps back up, closed the door, and looked up to instruct the coachman to drive home.

"Stephen," she said sharply, "you are not coming inside with me. You are not invited."

The carriage rumbled off down the street.

"I am coming anyway," he said.

And she realized, as she had done last week after she had chosen him, that there was a thread of steel in Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, and that in certain matters he could be quite inflexible. This was one of those matters. She might remain out here arguing for an hour, but he was coming inside at the end of it. She might as well let him in now. A few spots of rain were falling, and there was not a star in sight overhead. There was probably going to be a downpour in a short while.