Lord Trentham had left the ballroom ten minutes after the first set began. Gwen had known the moment of his leaving even though she had not been watching him directly. She had wondered if he would return. But of course he would. He had asked her to dance. Besides, he would want to keep an eye upon his sister.

He came back. Of course he did. And he did not even wait until the last moment before the fourth set began. He came to stand beside her as soon as the third set ended, and then he completely ignored her. He spoke instead to his sister, who was eager to give him an exhaustive account of every moment of the ball so far. She fairly bubbled over with excitement as she spoke. The girl knew nothing about fashionable ennui, Gwen thought—thank goodness. There was nothing more ridiculous than a young girl, fresh from the schoolroom and the country, decked out in virginal white, and looking bored and world-weary at yet another ball and yet another partner.

The Earl of Berwick joined them, and Miss Emes eyed his facial scar.

“You were an officer, my lord?” she asked. “And you knew Hugo in the Peninsula?”

“Alas, not, Miss Emes,” he said, “though I did know of him. There was not a soldier in the allied armies, from the generals on down to the newest recruit in the ranks, who did not know of Captain Emes, later Major Lord Trentham. He was what we all aspired to be and failed to become. We might all have hated him with a passion had he not been so dashed modest. I met him at Penderris Hall in Cornwall while we were both recovering from our war experiences, and I stood in speechless awe of him until he invited me not to be so daft. He did mention the existence of a sister. I am sure he must have. But he did not, the rogue, mention the fact that she was—and is—one of the loveliest ladies in the land.”

He had struck just the right tone with her. She gazed worshipfully at her brother for a few moments and then—with blushes—at Lord Berwick. How wonderful still to be so innocent, Gwen thought. He had spoken in such a way that the flattery appeared more kindly than flirtatious. His manner was almost avuncular, in fact, though he was surely only in his middle twenties.

He must have left his youth behind on a battleground in Spain or Portugal.

Lord Trentham was a silent member of the group, and he had still not even glanced Gwen’s way. She might have been exasperated had she not begun to understand him rather well. Ferocious and dour as he looked on the outside—and he looked both at this moment despite the fondness in his eyes when they rested upon his sister—he was very unsure of himself in a social situation. At a ton event, anyway. He might protest that he was middle-class and proud of it, and that might even be true. It probably was, in fact. But it was nevertheless true also that he was intimidated by the ton.

Even by her.

She had an unbidden memory of him wading out of the sea with unconscious grace in that cove at Penderris, water streaming from his almost naked body, his drawers clinging to his hips and thighs. And of his shedding those drawers later after he had carried her into the sea. He had not been intimidated by her then.

Couples were gathering on the ballroom floor for the waltz, and Lord Berwick bowed to Constance and extended a hand for hers.

“Shall we go in search of a glass of lemonade and a comfortable sofa from which we may observe the dancing?” he suggested. “Though it is probable that I will have eyes only for a certain nondancer.”

“Silly,” Constance said with a laugh as she set her own hand along the top of his.

Gwen watched them make their way toward the refreshment room and waited. She felt rather amused—and almost breathless with anticipation.

“I have waltzed on one occasion in my life,” Lord Trentham said abruptly, his eyes on the departing figure of his sister. “I did not squash my partner’s toes, and I did not go prancing off in one direction while she wafted gracefully in another. But my performance did incite laughter as well as derisive applause from everyone else present at that particular assembly.”

Oh, goodness. Gwen laughed and unfurled her fan.

“They must have been very fond of you,” she said.

His eyes snapped to hers and he frowned in incomprehension.

“Polite people,” she said, “do not laugh at someone or applaud him derisively unless they know he will understand their affection and join in their laughter. Did you laugh?”

He continued to frown at her.

“I believe I did,” he said. “Yes, I must have. What else could I do?”

She fanned her face and fell a little more deeply in love with him. How she would love to have seen that.

“And so,” she said, “you are now brimful of dread.”

“If you were to look down,” he said, “you would see that my knees are knocking. If there was not so much noise in the room, you would hear them too.”

She laughed again.

“I have danced three vigorous sets in a row,” she said, “and though my ankle is not aching, it will be if I do not use some common sense and rest it. I trust the Earl of Berwick. Do you?”

“With my life,” he said. “And with my sister’s life and virtue.”

“There is a balcony beyond the French windows,” she told him, “and a pretty garden below. It is not a very chilly evening. Walk out there with me?”

“I am probably depriving you of the pleasure of performing your favorite dance,” he said.

He was.

“I believe,” she said, “I will enjoy strolling with you more than I would waltzing with someone else, Lord Trentham.”

Unwise words indeed. She had not planned them. She was not a flirt. Or never had been, anyway. She had spoken the simple truth. But sometimes truths, even simple ones, were best kept to oneself.

He offered his arm and she slipped her hand through it. He led her across the floor and out onto the deserted balcony and down the steep steps to the equally deserted garden below. It was not totally dark, however. Small colored lanterns swung from tree branches and lit the graveled walks that meandered through flower beds bordered by low box hedges.

From the ballroom above came the strains of a lilting waltz.

“I must thank you,” he said stiffly, “for what you have done and are doing for Constance. I do not believe she could possibly be happier than she is tonight.”

“But I have been at least partly selfish,” she said. “Sponsoring her has given me great pleasure. And we have, I am afraid, spent a great deal of your money.”

“My father’s money,” he said. “Her father’s money. But will she be as unhappy in the near future as she is happy now? She surely cannot expect many more invitations to balls or other events, and she surely cannot expect any of the gentlemen dancing with her tonight to dance with her again. Her mother, Lady Muir, is sitting at home with her mother and sister. They make a modest living from a small grocery shop and hardly qualify even as middle-class people.”

“And she is the sister of Lord Trentham of Badajoz fame,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her in the near darkness.

“You probably have not even noticed that the ballroom is buzzing with your fame,” she said. “For years people have waited for some glimpse of you, and suddenly here you are. Some factors transcend class lines, Lord Trentham, and this is one of them. You are a hero of almost mythic proportions, and Constance is your sister.”

“That is the daftest thing I have ever heard in my life,” he said. “It is that drawing room at Newbury Abbey all over again.”

“And for your own part,” she said, “I suppose it would be enough to send you scurrying back to the country and your lambs and cabbages. But you cannot scurry, for you have your sister’s happiness to consider. And her happiness is of greater importance to you than your own.”

“Who says so?” he asked her, scowling.

“You have said so by your actions,” she said. “You have never needed to put it into words, you know, though you have come close on occasion.”

“Damnation,” he said. “God damn it all.”

Gwen smiled and waited for an apology for the shocking language. None came.

“Besides,” she said, “even apart from your fame, rumor is also making the rounds that Miss Emes is quite fabulously wealthy. A pretty and genteel young lady who is properly chaperoned will arouse interest anywhere, Lord Trentham. When she is also richly dowered, she is quite irresistible.”

He sighed.

There was a wooden seat at the far end of the garden beneath the shade of an old oak tree. It faced across the flower beds toward the lighted house. They sat down side by side, and for a few moments there was silence again. She would not be the one to break it, Gwen decided.

“I am supposed to be courting you,” he said abruptly.

She turned her head to look at him, but his face was in shadow.

“Not supposed to,” she said, “only invited if you wish to do so. And with no promise that your courtship will be favorably received.”

“I am not sure I do wish to,” he said.

Well. Blunt speaking as usual. She should be relieved, Gwen thought. But her heart seemed to have sunk down to the soles of her dancing slippers.

“I don’t think I want to court a murderess,” he said, “if that is what you are. Though why I should object, I do not know, since I could myself be accused of multiple murders without too much of a stretching of the truth. And I have entrusted my sister to your care.”

Well. So much for romance and light conversation suited to the festive occasion of a ball during the Season.

He had no more to say. There were a few more moments of silence between them. This time she was going to have to break it.

“I did not literally kill Vernon,” she said. “Neither did Jason. But I feel as if we both did. I feel that we caused his death, anyway. Or that I did. And my conscience will always be heavy with guilt. You would indeed do well not to court me, Lord Trentham. You carry around enough guilt of your own without having your soul darkened with mine. We both need someone to lift us free of such heaviness.”

“No one can do that for you,” he said. “Never marry with that hope. It will be dashed before a fortnight has passed.”

Gwen swallowed and smoothed her fan over her lap. She could see the shadows of dancers through the French windows in the distance. She could hear music and laughter. People without a care in the world.

A naïve assumption. Everyone had a care in the world.

“Jason was visiting, as he often did when he had leave,” she said. “I hated those visits as much as Vernon loved them. I hated him, though I could never explain quite why. He seemed fond enough of my husband and concerned about him. Though he did go too far at the end. Vernon was in the depths of one of his blackest moods and he had gone to bed early one night. He had excused himself from the dining table, leaving Jason and me together. How we ended up out in the hall talking instead of being still in the dining room I cannot remember, but that is where we were.”

It was a marbled hall, cold, hard, echoing, beautiful in a purely architectural sense.

“Jason thought Vernon should be committed to some sort of institution,” she said. “He knew of a place where he would get good care and where, with a bit of firm, expert handling, he would learn to pull himself together and get over the loss of a child who had never even been born. Vernon had always been a bit weak emotionally, he said, but he could be toughened up with the proper training. In the meantime, Jason would take a longer leave and manage the estate so that Vernon would be free of worry while he recovered his spirits and learned how to strengthen his mind. The army would have been good for him, he said, but that had always been out of the question because Vernon had succeeded to the title when he was fourteen. Even so, his guardians ought not to have been so soft with him.”

Gwen spread her fan across her lap, but in the darkness she could not see the delicate flowers painted there.

“I told him,” she said, “that no one was putting my husband in any institution. He was sick, but he was not insane. No one was going to handle him, firmly or expertly or any other way. And no one was going to strengthen his character. He was sick and he was sensitive, and I would nurse him and coax him into more cheerful spirits. And if he never got better, then so be it.”