Lady Freyja poked her finger, like a blunt dagger, into Joshua's chest.

"I warned him that I would discover his identity and expose him to Bath society for the villain he is. I vowed I would have him ejected from the society of decent people." She poked him with her finger again. "If you thought I was bluffing, my man, you were sorely mistaken."

"Again," he said, smiling sheepishly and calculating that the expression would further enrage her. "I really ought to know better by now, ought I not?"

There was no further pretense of anyone's strolling. Even the water tables had been deserted. Joshua realized that he and his grandmother and Lady Freyja Bedwyn had become isolated in the middle of a rough circle that had formed about them. Their audience seemed about equally divided between those who were acutely embarrassed that a lady should behave with such lack of decorum and those who gazed with hostile eyes at the man who preyed upon innocent, helpless women.

But someone was coming to their rescue-or to join the fray-a man with self-important air come to deal with the sudden crisis. Joshua recognized him as James King, the master of ceremonies at the Upper Assembly Rooms, who had called upon him two afternoons ago at Great Pulteney Street. It was the man's job to maintain Bath's gentility and see to it that every visitor was welcomed and properly entertained-and that every visitor kept the strict rules of decorum.

Even marquesses and the daughters of dukes.

"My lady," he said, addressing Lady Freyja, "surely you are mistaken. This gentleman is the Marquess of Hallmere and grandson of Lady Potford, a longtime resident of our city. Perhaps this slight misunderstanding can be cleared up quietly outside?"

His voice was courteous, but it held a thread of steel. He took Lady Freyja by the elbow, but she shrugged him off and looked at him along the length of her nose as if he were a worm.

"This slight misunderstanding?" she said with haughty emphasis. "A peer of the realm assaulted a poor serving girl on a lonely stretch of lawn in Sydney Gardens yesterday despite her piteous screams for help and was about to drag her off into the bushes to complete his wicked designs on her while I witnessed all, and it is a slight misunderstanding? It is something to be hushed up discreetly beyond the confines of this room? I do not believe so. This matter will be cleared up here and now and before the respectable citizens of Bath. Have the courage to perform the duty for which you are employed and expel this man from Bath without further ado."

There was a smattering of applause from the gathered spectators.

Joshua grinned at Lady Freyja, who was looking magnificent enough to be a queen of the Amazons. He even made a slight kissing gesture with his lips.

Mr. King sighed and turned his attention to Joshua.

"Do you have anything to say on this matter, my lord?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed," Joshua said. "The lady has a vivid and lurid imagination."

She looked at him with haughty contempt. "I might have predicted," she said, "that you would deny it all."

"Did you see Lady Freyja in Sydney Gardens yesterday, my lord?" the master of ceremonies asked.

"Most certainly I did," Joshua said. "She was alone and wearing a dark green walking dress with a feathered hat. And she punched me in the nose."

There was another gasp from the spectators, followed by a buzzing, followed by the inevitable shushing noises.

Mr. King looked pained.

"For nothing at all, my lord?" he asked. "You expect us all to believe that she struck you, a stranger to her, for no reason whatsoever?"

"She came rushing upon me when I was holding a serving girl in my arms," Joshua explained. "Probably she had heard the girl scream a few moments before. She appeared to have concluded that I was about to-ahem!-have my wicked way with the wench."

"But you were not, my lord?" the master of ceremonies asked.

In the short pause Joshua allowed to fall before he replied, he could see the suddenly arrested look in Lady Freyja's eyes, the dawning realization that perhaps she had made a ghastly mistake. That she had just made a prize ass of herself, in fact.

"A squirrel had stepped into the girl's path as she crossed a lawn in the park," Joshua explained. "It startled her and she stopped abruptly. But instead of bounding away as any sensible squirrel would have done under the circumstances, it attempted to take refuge under her skirts and she screamed. By the time I hurried to the rescue, having witnessed the whole catastrophe, the poor girl was hysterical, though the squirrel had long ago recovered its wits and made off for the nearest tree. I, ah, gathered her into my arms to steady her."

He had, of course, been about to kiss her too, with her full and enthusiastic compliance, but there was no need to add those incriminating details.

"It was at that moment," Joshua added, "that Lady Freyja Bedwyn rushed onto the scene, frightened the poor serving girl into screaming again and taking flight, and punched me in the nose."

Mr. King transferred his gaze from Joshua to Lady Freyja. So, Joshua estimated, did everyone else in the Pump Room.

"Could this be the explanation of what you witnessed, my lady?" he asked.

To do her credit, she did not crumble or look as if she were searching the Pump Room floor for a deep hole to crawl into. Neither did she bluster or make a further idiot of herself by trying to insist upon the truth of her story. Her eyes narrowed and she continued to stare haughtily at Joshua.

"Why did you not explain all this to me yesterday?" she asked imperiously.

"Now let me see." He lifted one hand and stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "I asked if I might be permitted to explain, and you replied to the effect that you knew perfectly well what you had seen and what you had heard. You added, I believe, that you were not stupid. It would have been quite ungallant of me to contradict you."

There was a titter from some members of their audience.

Her eyes grew steely again. "This was deliberate," she said. "You led me into this quite deliberately."

"I beg your pardon for contradicting a lady." He made her an elegant half-bow. "But I believe it was you who approached me this morning."

"It would appear," the master of ceremonies said, raising his voice slightly, looking about him with genial affability, and speaking with firm finality, "that this altercation has been over a slight misunderstanding. We must have you shake hands, my lord, my lady, so that all will see that there is no remaining rancor between the two of you."

Joshua, with a deliberately courtly gesture extended his right hand, palm up. He smiled. He was enjoying himself enormously. He was very glad she had not collapsed into an ignominious heap of feminine mortification-that would have lessened his pleasure in besting her. Her nostrils flared again, her chin came up and with it that splendid aristocratic nose, and like a queen conferring a favor on some poor inferior mortal, she set her hand on his.

He closed his own about it and raised it to his lips.

Again there was a smattering of applause, and then everyone got back to the serious business of strolling and gossiping or-for the intrepid few-drinking the waters.

"I will get you for this," she murmured.

"The pleasure will be all mine, I do assure you, my lady," he murmured in return-and smiled at her with the full force of his considerable charm.

Lady Holt-Barron was so severely discomposed by the scene in the Pump Room that she was quite unable to go shopping after breakfast. Indeed, even her breakfast had to be reduced to dry toast and weak tea, the only items she thought herself capable of digesting. She retired to her room afterward to lie quietly upon her bed.

"Oh, dear," Freyja said to Charlotte when they were alone in the morning room, "I forget that there are ladies with such inconveniences as delicate constitutions. Ought I to apologize to your mama, do you suppose?"

But Charlotte had turned purple in the face and was attempting to stuff her linen handkerchief into her mouth. Nothing, though, would stifle the laughter that came bubbling out of her.

"Oh," she wailed, "if Mama hears me she will have a major fit of the vapors and we will end up having to send for the physician."

She stifled further whoops as best she could.

"It might all have seemed like the farce at the end of the drama to you," Freyja complained. "I could cheerfully have died."

"If you could just have seen yourself," Charlotte said. "Stalking across the Pump Room like an avenging angel while all the dowagers gaped after you. And then speaking to the marquess just as the headmistress at my school used to talk to us when we were in major trouble. And jabbing at his chest with your finger."

But the memories were too much for her composure. She spread her handkerchief over her face and rocked with merriment.

"He knew that I would do it," Freyja said, thinking with indignation of the grinning marquess, whose immaculate good looks had only fueled her wrath. "That was why he did not insist upon telling me the truth in the park."

"And if you could have seen Mama trying to make herself invisible," Charlotte continued, "and that horrid Mrs. Lumbard swelling to twice her size and Miss Lumbard's eyes fit to fall out of her head and-oh, everyone." She went off into whoops again.

"At least," Freyja said, "I have given everyone enough to talk about and write home about for a month or more. The letters will all be book-length, I daresay."

"Oh, don't!" Charlotte rocked back in her chair.

"The Pump Room is going to seem deadly dull forever after," Freyja said, "even to those who have never realized that it always is. They will all be looking to me for an encore. I will be famous."

Charlotte giggled.

"Actually," Freyja admitted, "I would have loved nothing better, Charlotte, than to have punched the Marquess of Hallmere in the nose again for leading me into that trap. But I really thought I had better not. Perhaps he will offer me some provocation to do it tomorrow."

She looked at her friend with a frown for a few moments before her lips twitched at the corners and she first chuckled and then laughed aloud.

He was a worthy foe. She must admit that much about him.

Lady Holt-Barron left her room sometime after noon, looking pale and martyred, though she smiled cheerfully and assured her daughter and Freyja that she was quite rested and had only the smallest of headaches remaining. She did not believe she would go out calling on anyone during the afternoon, though, and she did not advise the younger ladies to go out walking. She rather fancied it was going to rain, and they would both catch chills if they were caught out in it.

She looked sharply at Freyja for a moment.

"My dear Lady Freyja," she asked, "what on earth were you doing alone in Sydney Gardens yesterday? Why did you not wait for Charlotte to accompany you? Or why did you not at least take your maid with you?"

"I felt like air and exercise, ma'am," Freyja told her. "And I am far too old for chaperones."

Lady Holt-Barron looked somewhat shocked, but she did not pursue the matter. Freyja rather suspected that her hostess was a little afraid of her.

"Perhaps," Freyja continued, "you would be happier if I left Bath, ma'am. I can see that I embarrassed you this morning." And that was doubtless a massive understatement, she thought. She had embarrassed even herself, and she did not embarrass easily.

"Oh, no, Freyja," Charlotte cried.

"It is a generous offer," her hostess replied. "But I will not accept it, Lady Freyja. Within a few days the unfortunate incident will have been forgotten, I daresay. Tomorrow morning we will put a brave face on it and make our usual appearance in the Pump Room. Perhaps the Marquess of Hallmere will be tactful enough to remain at home."

"I am certainly not afraid to face him," Freyja said. "And of one thing I am quite convinced. He was about to steal a kiss from that serving girl. I would like to hear him deny that."

"Oh, my dear Lady Freyja," Lady Holt-Barron said, her voice faint with anxiety again, "I beg you not to confront him with any such accusation."

She jumped with alarm at the sound of the door knocker coming up from below, and she stood up to do a hasty hand-check of her dress and hair.

"I do hope this is not a caller," she said. "I really do not feel up to entertaining today. I expected all our acquaintance to leave us in peace until tomorrow."