Miss Dunaway cleared her throat, hiding her unsubt l e amus.e.m.e.nt beneath a delicate handkerchief that suddenly softened the warm dust-moted air with the barest hint of summer roses.

"I have a question, my lord!" A younger woman in the second row was waving her hand at him. "How does all this Parliament stuff work?"

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, now there was a question for the ages.

"What I believe Mrs. Morriston wants to know, my lord," Miss Dunaway said, turning back to him with an unreadable glint in her eyes, "is how would a proposed measure which would, for example, grant women their G.o.d-given right to vote, become a law?"

Well, he'd walked right into that one.

The vixen was smiling at him in triumph.

"That's an excellent question, Miss Morriston," he said to the eagerly grinning young woman. "And an excellent example, Miss Dunaway."

Because the Government that seriously proposed "votes for women" to this august body would be laughed out of Westminster. The Government would crumble on a no-confidence vote and a new prime minister would be sitting on the Treasury Bench the very next morning.

But he could hardly burst the bubble of the ladies' success with an explanation as cold as that. Though Miss Dunaway was eyeing him as if she believed that was his intention.

Instead, he turned away from her silent defiance to the room below. "To begin with, ladies, the rows of benches on the left of the Secretary's bench are occupied by members of the current government in power. And you probably recognize Lord Aberdeen, the prime minister, there on the front bench."

"My my, his lordship's gone gray since last I saw him."

"Thinner too."It was no wonder. These were trying times for the man and his cabinet."Now, ladies, can any of you tell me what party Lord Aberdeen belongs to?"Mrs. Ni l es snorted in derision. "I don't see a devil's tail sticking out of the man's coat, so he can't be a Liberal, can he?"

The women laughed their approval.

"Lord Aberdeen is a Tory," Miss Dunaway said. "But he has actually formed a coalition government. One party working in concert with another, for the single purpose of running the government."

Leave it to Miss Dunaway to already know the details of her own personal opposition.

"Exactly right, madam. Last year, Lord Aberdeen, a follower of John Peel, joined his majority party with a smaller faction of Whig 's -"

"Excuse me, Lord Blakestone, but whatever is that man doing?"

He'd suddenly lost the attention of the women. They were staring at something in the back benches behind Aberdeen.

"That's no man, Mrs. Deverel, that's my husband." The woman sniffed toward the man at the very back of the benches who was waving both arms directly at her, glaring up into the gallery, his face blotched with red fury.

"I didn't know your husband was a member of Parliament, Mrs. Sayers."

"He is indeed, Mrs. Ni l es. My husband is the Conservative member from Nesbit Grange."

Now the man was gesturing toward the entrance to the Commons.

"I think he's trying to tell you something, Mrs. Sayers."

"Seems so, Mrs. Barnes."

Miss Dunaway's brow was a wing of troubles. "Didn't you tell him you'd be here today?"

"Why should I?" She snubbed her chin at her husband. "I decided that if Mr. Wilton Sayers wanted to make a fool of himself by telling me that I shouldn't be here, he was going to have to do it in front of all his friends."

The ladies actually applauded.

The very quiet Miss Dunaway merely arched a bemused brow up at Ross, unapologetic about the poor clod's reaction.

All the while Mrs. Sayers was the image of calm, ignoring her husband entirely, though he'd begun to make enough noise that the other members were now staring at him as though he had gone mad.

"You heard me, Vita Marie!" Sayers's strangled voice ricocheted off the benches and rattled around in the vast, vaulted ceiling.

But stubborn Vita only tilted her chin higher.

With another shout, Vita's husband dashed out of sight beneath the gallery for a moment then reappeared at his bench, shaking his fist at them.

"Well, now, ladies"- M iss Dunaway turned back to her distracted grou p - "would anyone like to ask Lord Blakestone another question?"

"I was wondering, my lor d -"

The rest of the woman's question was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the gallery stairs, followed an instant later by two men in police uniforms who burst into the Public Gallery. They drew their nightsticks with great drama, then began striding toward them.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! What the devil was going on here?

"I'll take care of this, madam," Ross said quietly to Miss Dunaway.

Feeling suddenly protective of his horde and in a fighting mood himself, Ross blocked the way of the policemen in the aisle, aware that Miss Dunaway was also on her feet now, arms spread to protect her charges.

"That's enough, fellows," Ross said, meeting the men two steps up. "There's nothing here. Leave them alone."

"Sorry, your lordship, but the ladies are gonna have to leave." The older sergeant-at-arms wagged the stick toward the horrif i ed women. "They're disturbing the proceedings."

"You're b.l.o.o.d.y wrong, sir. Now get on with you." Ross ba l led his fists at his sides, a natural reaction to an unjust claim, ready to take on both men, ready to let them retreat from this outrage.

"Your pardon, Sergeant," Miss Dunaway said from behind him, remarkably evenly, slipping her hand into the crook of Ross's elbow, "but we have every right to be here."

The man ignored Miss Dunaway completely and leaned in to Ross as though they were fellow conspirators. "It's for the best they leave, sir," he whispered with a debasing nod toward the women.

Ross wanted to plant his fist in the middle of the man's nose. But now the sounds from below had grown immensely, a chorus of bellowing voices, the Secretary shouting, banging the gavel against the podium.

"Let it be, Sergeant." Ross gestured to the wide-eyed women. "Sit down, ladies. You're staying here."

But then a shrill voice came barreling up the gallery stairs.

"Vita Sayers, what are you doing here with those"- a nd then Sayers himself appeared above them at the top of the stairs, standing spread-legged, jabbing a finger toward the beleaguered grou p -"those, those, those... women?"

Ross had never seen a man's face as molten red, or such hatred throbbing in a man's neck. Fearing what Sayers would do next, Ross tapped aside the two security officers and put himself in front of the man.

"Come on, now, Sayers," he said, approaching carefully, "let's you and I go on down to th e -"

"You're a woman, Vita! You don't belong here. Go home, do you hear me?"

"You don't scare me, Wilton."

Ashamed for his entire gender, Ross caught the man as he tried to plow past him to his wife, who was now frowning stubbornly at her husband, the other women filling in around her.

Sayers leaned hard against Ross, still trying to get past him, hissing his words through his teeth. "Are you deliberately trying to humiliate me, Vita?"

"Only you can do that, Wilton, dear."

"Vita!"

Again the Secretary banged the gavel from below, this time shouting, "Quiet up there! Do you hear me? Quiet in the house, everyone, or I'll have the hall cleared!"

But Sayers was nearly apoplectic at this point.

The women were calling down curses on the man.

And the gentlemen of the Commons had joined him in a clamorous protest over whatever trouble those d.a.m.ned women up in the Public Gallery were causing the honorable member of Parliament.

Furious at the lot of them, Ross himself was about to tackle Sayers and throw him over the railing, when he heard Miss Dunaway from beside him, her voice clear and in complete control.

"Please, everyone!" she said, raising her hand to the gallery, and then to the rioting below. "Stop this foolishness immediately."

The roar of outrage flared, then moments later the entire House of Commons and all its galleries fell to a breathless silence, every eye trained on Miss Dunaway.

"Come, ladies," she said, with confident dignity, taking up her wrap from the bench in front of her. "We know when it's time to leave."

Her ladies objected en ma.s.se.

"But, Miss Elizabeth-"

"I don't think we should g o -"

Vita pointed at Sayers. "Shut up, Wilton."

"Ladies, please." Miss Dunaway held up a gentle hand to her rowdy confederates. "I'm afraid we've reached the point of resentment and of diminishing returns. There's nothing more for us here."

She turned her quiet dignity to the enormous well of silent, upturned male faces below, ministers and peers, country squires and captains of industry, all of them staring up at her in what Ross could only interpret as awe.

Then, in perhaps the greatest show of statesmanship that he'd ever been witness to, the remarkable Miss Dunaway squared her slender shoulders and spoke an unerring challenge in a resolute voice that she surely meant to echo across the centuries from the diligent pages of the Hansard record.

"Make no mistake, gentlemen," she said, scanning the Commons with that utterly bewitching smile, "we'll be back. And one day we will stay."

B rava, madam.

"Good day to you, Blakestone."

Then she turned up her chin again and walked past him. She started up the aisle to the sound of a befuddled Commons, leading her proud band of women past the sagging jaws of the two sergeants-at-arms and then the stunned Sayers himself.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, what an exit! The woman was magnificent, from her gilded auburn hair to those lovely ankles. Doubtless right down to the succulent tips of her toes and all the luscious parts in between.

He let her go, though he desperately wanted to chase after her with his congratulations. But that would surely take away from her triumph. Besides which he didn't want to seem too approving of her impossible campaign. Didn't want her to hear the pride in his voice. Or to learn that her group would be followed by his operatives.

And most certainly didn't need her to catch on to how firmly she aroused him.

He would wait and see her tonight. All through the night. In her private sitting room.

With her private smile.

And that particular pleasure would have to carry him through a busy day of diplomatic jousting.

Feeling as though he'd just battled a bully in the street, he waited until the chaos in the main chamber below had settled and Sayers had slinked off. Then he dusted off his clothes and left the gallery himself, nearly late for a meeting with Lord Clarendon.

Only to be met at the bottom of the stairs by a familiar face and a familiar smile.

"There you are, Blakestone, old man!" Lord Scarborough clapped him on the back. "I thought that was you up there in the gallery, tussling with those disorderly women."

Ross felt himself bristle, his jaw tightened for another fight. "A lot you know about it, Scarborough. They were treated deplorably, from all sides."

"d.a.m.n, I guess I missed that part. Only just came in on the end of the fracas."

"They were merely a group of women from the Abigail Adams, interested i n -"

"Ah, yes, that new ladies' club." The man was grinning broadly, a cat with cream on his whiskers. "My wife joined up a few months ago. Takes cla.s.ses and goes to meetings of some sort."

"And, of course, you object to it." Taken aback by his own defensiveness, Ross waited for the usual diatribe against the very concept of a club for and by women.

But Scarborough only chuckled fondly. "Good G.o.d, no, Blakestone. I encourage the woman."

"That's very modern of you."

"To h.e.l.l with modern." The man sent a glance around the lobby as though ready to whisper a state secret. "Best thing that ever happened to our marriage."

"How's that?"

"Let's just say that I don't know what they do over there at the Abigail Adams, but ever since Arlene joined them, well, the nightly activities in our bedchamber have become more... well, exotic."

"More exotic?" Ross drew a complete blank. Though the image of a silvery warm beach in the South Seas shimmered before his eyes.

Naked love...

"You know..." Scarborough twitched his brows, then clicked his tongue twice. "... more romantic."

Ross was feeling thoroughly dense, because exotic and romantic couldn't possibly mean what it sounded like the man meant.

Not about the Abigail Adams.

Not about Miss Dunaway.

"I'm sorry, Scarborough, but I don' 't -"