He replied, "I am highly flattered, ma'am, but Laura has already agreed to stand up with me for the opening set."

"Laura? You two have become mighty close in a short time."

A pink flush crept up Laura's throat. Her first sensation was embarrassment; her second was a twinge of worry. The baroness in this mood held great potential for mischief. "Why do you not have the first set with Olivia, Hyatt?" she suggested.

He frowned at her seeming indifference. "Because I have already asked you, and you have accepted."

Looking from one to the other, it occurred to Olivia for the first time that her cousin had made a prize catch. The whole world doted on Lord Hyatt. Until that casual 'Laura,' the baroness had always assumed he was in love with herself.

"It is no matter," she said with a shrug. "I shall stand up with someone else." Her glittering eyes turned to Talman, who was leading Lady Elizabeth to the floor. There were other gentlemen aplenty in the room, but none of them was rushing in her direction, and it was vital that she have an escort to outshine Talman. Her lips thinned in vexation.

"You stand up with Olivia, Hyatt," Laura repeated. "We shall have the second set instead."

"You need not fear I have decided to set my bonnet at you," Olivia said bluntly to Hyatt.

He read the plea in Laura's eyes and reluctantly agreed. "I know very well why you have suddenly resorted to asking me to dance," he said. "You have disgusted Talman with your vulgar behavior and do not want him to see you in your disgrace, spurned by all the gentlemen. Let it be a lesson to you, milady. Even a baroness can go too far. You, I fear, have gone the length of your rope."

"If you're going to be horrid, you can stand up with Laura," she snipped.

"That is the end of my lecture. Just a word to the wise. And now we shall find a partner for Laura."

This was soon accomplished, and the two couples went to the floor to join a set. The baroness felt the full odium of her position. The guests noticed that Talman had deserted her. Ladies stared at her, wearing smug smiles or whispering behind raised fans. To show her indifference, she smiled and flirted with Hyatt, hoping the old gossips would think she had refused Lord Talman. What did she care for any of them? Talman was a dead bore. She preferred John Yarrow to any man in the room, and as soon as she returned to London, she would tell him so.

Re-established on her pedestal by Hyatt, Olivia soon found a partner for the next set. Talman came forward at its end and asked her for the third. Olivia agreed, but she agreed very coolly to show him how little she cared. Talman sensed that the baroness was angry, and to conciliate her advisers he stood up next with Laura.

The rout swelled to a fashionable squeeze as guests from the neighborhood arrived. Most of the new arrivals were strangers to Laura. It was not until the middle of the set that she saw a face she recognized very well indeed. Lady Devereau had landed in. How on earth had she finagled an invitation? She was the very sort Lord Talman would despise.

Her toilette, while attractive, bordered on the sensational. She was outfitted in violet lace, with two short ostrich feathers tucked into her raven hair. Diamonds glittered everywhere-in her ears, at her neck, and on her arms. A long expanse of white throat extended too low for modesty. The enticing conformation of her breasts had every eye in the room riveted.

Talman spotted her and gave a tsk of annoyance.

"Just look who Cousin Jerome has brought to call. Papa will be furious."

"Is the gentleman with Lady Devereau your cousin?" Laura asked. She had heard the name of Lady Devereau's new flirt in London. So that was how she got here!

"We all have a few dirty dishes in the family" was his curt way of acknowledging it. "Lord Jerome is ours. His father is Lord Syndel. Fortunately, Jerome is only a younger son. He cannot mortgage the Grange to buy diamonds for his lightskirts. I wager the hussy talked Jerome into visiting the Grange for the weekend on purpose to come to this rout and annoy Hyatt. She has taken Hyatt in aversion since he refused to take her under his protection. He made the mistake of painting her earlier on. She is very lovely, of course," he added. "I daresay there was something between them. God, I hope she doesn't plan to make a scene."

Laura made note of Talman's information. She knew that Hyatt was not responsible for the lady's presence, yet in a way he was. If there had not been "something between them" she would not have come. Like Talman, she hoped the lady would not make a scene. She garnered up the baroness and fled the room.

Hyatt also noted Lady Devereau's arrival. His heart clenched in anger when she smiled across the room at him. He knew that smile! It was the same glittering smile she had worn when she barged into an ex-lover's box at the theater and returned the man's nightshirt-to his wife. It was the smile she had worn when she had another married lover's crest painted on the carriage he had give her and drove to call on his wife. And it was the smile she had worn when he refused to paint her again, as Venus rising from the waves. He had kept the first portrait; she wanted another for herself. "You will live to regret it, Hyatt," she had warned then.

The woman was incorrigible. Across the room, he caught her eye and glared. Then he turned his back on her and strode out of the room. If she meant to humiliate him, she would at least not do it in front of the entire assembly. This was just the sort of contretemps the duke hated. Mind you, the duchess would be vastly amused.

He decided to take a glass of punch to the library, feeling in his bones that Lady Devereau would not be far behind. Nor was she. She shot out after him like an arrow from the bow. Hyatt went straight to the punch bowl in the refreshment parlor. To his chagrin, Laura was there, with the baroness and their escorts. Hyatt just smiled and snatched a glass of punch, planning to flee at once to the library.

He wondered why Laura was staring in such a wild-eyed way. Then a whiff of violet perfume assailed him, and he knew. Marie Devereau always drenched herself in the sickening scent. He turned to confront her and saw a drift of violet lace swing past him, toward Laura. He put down his glass and followed her. His heart was in his mouth.

Lady Devereau ignored everyone in the room except the baroness. "You must be Baroness Pilmore," she smiled sweetly. "I have heard so much about you. I am Lady Devereau." She shook Olivia's hand.

Olivia recognized the beautiful face before her but was only vaguely aware of the lady's awful reputation. She accepted the offered hand. "I am happy to meet you, Lady Devereau. This is my cousin, Miss Harwood," she said. The ladies exchanged a stiff curtsy. "I have admired your portrait at Somerset House," the baroness said politely.

"And your portrait, I hear, will soon be joining it. You will quite put me in the shade.”

Olivia was accustomed to this sort of toad-eating. "Not at all. You are very pretty for an older lady," she replied, with no intention of giving offense.

Lady Devereau laughed gaily. "Out of the mouths of babes," she said. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the flicker of a black arm and turned to cast a defiant eye on Lord Hyatt. "As an older lady, I shall give you a word of advice, Baroness. You must be wary of fortune hunters. I have heard the on-dit that that scoundrel, Yarrow, nearly succeeded in raping you this afternoon." She lifted her infamous eyes to Laura and added, "You are the baroness's chaperone, I believe? You ought to keep a closer eye on her, instead of flirting with Hyatt."

Laura felt as if she were in a nightmare. This conversation could not really be taking place. An awful silence had fallen on the room, as necks craned and ears stretched to hear such farcouche words as "rape" strike the air.

"You are quite mistaken," she said weakly. "Yarrow did not try to… he only met her by chance. And I am not the baroness's chaperone, but her cousin," she added more firmly.

"It was my understanding that you are battening yourself on the baroness, in payment for looking after her. Is that not the case?"

Hyatt had heard enough. He put his arm on Lady Devereau's wrist to try to lead her away. She shook him off as if he were a gnat. He read the determination in her stare and looked helplessly at Laura, for he had deduced that Marie was taking her revenge on him through Miss Harwood. Marie had not been fooled that the baroness was his choice.

"One can understand why you were so diverted," Lady Devereau continued. "Hyatt is an amusing rattle, to be sure, but you mistake your quarry if you think to bring this sly dog to the sticking point. Many Incomparables have caught cold at that." Her scathing glance told Laura that she was no Incomparable.

"You would know about that, Lady Devereau," Laura replied, stunned at her own daring.

"A provincial miss might not recognize it, but Hyatt is a gazetted flirt, my dear. It is here today, gone tomorrow-with only a painting and a ruined reputation for a memory."

Laura was aware of the staring eyes and the listening ears. Her quaking insides froze to ice. How dare this creature barge in and ruin the party! She adopted her ironical smile and said, "But it is a beautiful painting, Lady Devereau. It makes you look so lovely I scarcely recognized you in the flesh. And I am sure Lord Hyatt's reputation will recover, for he now behaves with perfect propriety."

A gasp from the audience stabbed the air. Lady Devereau knew she had been bested-and by this country bumpkin who looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. "His might, but will yours?" she retorted, and swept from the room.

Lord Jerome had come looking for her. She grasped his arm and said in a carrying voice, "Take me back to the ballroom, Jerry. I am bored to tears. I feel like waltzing. Tell the dear duke I must have a waltz."

In a refreshment parlor, a loud buzz rose up to the rafters as the guests realized it was over and they could now begin discussing it. "Outrageous," "hussy," and "the outside of enough" were some of the more polite comments.

The baroness was enjoying herself hugely. "Bravo, Laura!" She laughed. "I never knew you could be so rude."

"Why not? I am your cousin, after all," Laura said, and whisked Olivia off to the library to escape the prying eyes.

Hyatt followed them, wondering what words he could possibly say to mitigate Marie's insults. He snatched a tray from a passing waiter and carried a bottle of wine and glasses to the library. A smile lurked on his lips. He was pleased with Laura's attack. He knew she had breeding but was surprised that she possessed such sangfroid under fire.

Now that her moment had passed, however, Laura felt quite faint and collapsed on the nearest sofa. "You were splendid!" Hyatt smiled, passing the wine. "This calls for a toast."

"To Lady Devereau!" Olivia said, lifting her glass.

"No, to Miss Harwood," he parried, and quaffed the wine, for he felt the need of it himself. "I am most dreadfully sorry, Laura. I would not have brought this down on your head for the world. What must you think of me?"

"It is not your fault, though I think you might have stood up for me and told her I was not flirting with you."

"But you were! In fact, you are," Olivia pointed out.

"I am not!"

"You told me it was vulgar to roll my eyes at my beaux. You have been rolling your eyes at Hyatt all day."

"This is all your fault," Laura said, realizing instinctively that offense was her only defense. "You see now what your clandestine meeting with Yarrow has accomplished. Talman is disgusted with you. Lady Devereau is no doubt making your name a byword this very instant."

"We were only kissing," Olivia pouted.

"I cannot imagine what Talman will say when he hears of this altercation."

"I can," Olivia laughed. "He will pull his stiff face and say that Lady Devereau is 'not the thing.' I must own, I liked her.”

Talman soon came pouncing in. "I have just heard! Baroness, Miss Harwood, you must allow me to apologize. How Jerome ever allowed that creature to talk him into bringing her here-not the thing, that woman."

Olivia uttered a faint giggle to hear her prediction come true.

"It is my fault, and I am very sorry," Hyatt said. "I have just been apologizing to the ladies."

"I have no doubt you were her target, but it was unladylike of her to take out her spleen on my guests."

"Where is she now? What is she doing?" Hyatt asked.

"She asked for a waltz. I told the musicians not to play any. She took a miff and has claimed a sick headache. Instead of asking Jerome to take her away, she insisted she was too upset to travel and went up to bed. I shall have her breakfast sent to her room tomorrow to keep her away from the invited guests. I shall have Jerome remove her as soon as she has eaten. Really, she is impossible. I had the butler put her in the east wing, where she shan't bother anyone. In the yellow room," he added, and smiled at Hyatt.