But that look poured down through her like hot honey and fanned out through her veins and she knew she was flushing.

"Thank you," she said, finally, as surely as if he'd spoken.

He laughed again, sounding delighted.

It turned heads, that laugh.

He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "The redoubtable Mrs. Sneath is watching. I just saw her turban twitch. I believe it's because her eyebrows went up."

Olivia laughed, too, charmed to her toes, then stifled the sound, too conscious that the two of them ought not be enjoying themselves so instantly and thoroughly.

"She is redoubtable, isn't she? And fearsome. I spend a good deal of time with her on the Society for the Protection of the Suss.e.x Poor. My job is to take a basket of food for the Duffy family once a week. On Tuesdays."

"The Duffys . . ." he frowned faintly. "They live in the house at the south end of town, beyond that big double elm tree. The house that's all but falling down."

"Yes!" She was peculiarly delighted that he knew this. The elm had been split by lightning and had gone on growing as if it hadn't noticed.

"Mrs. Sneath certainly accomplishes things. And has since I was a boy."

She was suddenly sorry she'd seen him only from a distance when she was a little girl, or the back of him when she was in church, and that she hadn't h.o.a.rded every single glimpse to pore over in her mind later.

It occurred to her that they likely knew all the same people and all the same places, but had seen all of them from different perspectives. Their families included.

"I should like to be like her when I am older," she said.

"You haven't a prayer of being her when you are older," he said instantly.

She bristled. "And why? I admire her immensely. She does so much good."

He was unmoved by her little flare of ferocity, when she'd seen other men blink in the face of it.

"Oh, I think she's remarkably, admirably effective. Like a general, she identifies needs, rallies the troops, and goes after addressing them quite unsentimentally. But I think it's in part a redirection of her energies due to disappointment. Her boys are mostly grown and I think her husband bores her. I do not believe for an instant, Miss Eversea, that you are destined for that sort of boredom."

She smiled slowly. The observation about Mrs. Sneath's marriage seemed faintly scandalous, but it reminded her that for all her intelligence, he was still older and more seasoned and he'd seen more of people and the world. She had never thought about it in such terms, and she suddenly wanted to think about every adult she knew in a new light.

Poor Mrs. Sneath.

Lucky her, to have a thrilling life ahead of her.

Lucky her, to be claimed by Lyon Redmond.

"A prophet, are you, Mr. Redmond?"

He smiled again, and his smile made her breath catch in her throat. "Merely very observant."

They were silent again for a time.

"Speaking of investing, Miss Eversea, I think I'll go to Tingle's Bookshop tomorrow at about two o'clock to see if he's got in any books about Spain. Tingle keeps them near the history section, which, as you may know, is the remotest, dustiest part of the store. In the very back. I suppose it's because many of his customers don't often venture toward those shelves."

She understood at once.

"Spain is sunny," she said inanely.

"Yes," he said shortly. She sensed he'd unnerved even himself.

They were quiet a moment, and then: "I hate waltzes," he finally said, so darkly she gave a start.

He noticed her widened eyes and smiled faintly, tautly. "It's just that they are far, far too short."

She was suddenly too shy to answer.

The music ended.

But her heart was still waltzing.

He bowed, and she curtsied.

He led her off to the edge of the ballroom, returning her to her friends, as if restoring a figurine he'd stolen to its proper shelf.

Chapter 5.

The next day . . .

AT TWENTY MINUTES TO two o clock, Lyon all but flew from his bedroom.

He halted in his doorway, yanked open his desk, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a sheet of foolscap he kept under the rosewood box, the one with the false bottom, a delightful puzzle of a box. He scrawled two short sentences, sprinkled it with sand, willed it to dry immediately, which it mostly did, and then folded it and shoved it into his coat pocket.

He paused in a mirror to ensure his cravat was straightened, which proved to be a mistake. Just as he had one hand on the banister-he liked to use it to launch himself a few stairs at a time-a voice stopped him like a wall.

"Lyon . . . a word, if you please?"

Lyon glanced over his shoulder and saw just his father's hand and forearm. Both were thrust out the door of his study and making beckoning motions in the air.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. Summoned to the Throne Room, as he and his siblings liked to call it. He often had pleasant enough visits with his father, but an actual summons seldom boded anything good and was rarely comfortable, particularly for poor Jonathan, who could, rather amusingly, do no right, and not even for Lyon, who could generally do no wrong but was as conscious of the need for rightness as a horse is of its harness.

He inhaled deeply, exhaled gustily, resignedly pivoted, and strode into the room, aware he was usually a welcome presence and his father sometimes merely liked to beam proudly at him and discuss the latest work of the Mercury Club, which Lyon usually rather enjoyed.

But as he entered, his eyes avoided the clock.

It was his enemy right now, and perhaps time would slow if he pretended it did not exist.

"Good afternoon, Father," he said cheerily.

"Have a seat."

d.a.m.n. If sitting was required, then something serious was afoot.

Lyon did, pulling out a chair and arranging himself casually in it, crossing his legs and swinging one polished Hoby Hessian.

He could see the reflection of the clock in its toe. Its pendulum kept swinging traitorously.

"Did you enjoy your first ball in Suss.e.x?"

"It's definitely pleasant to be back. Very different from London. I should like to stay a bit longer and rusticate, if no one objects. I've missed the country a good deal, I realize."

It was his way of preparing his father for the fact that he didn't intend to leave Pennyroyal Green anytime soon.

"We always enjoy having you about, Lyon. Did anything else interesting happen last night?"

"Saw a few old friends."

"Such as young Cambersmith?"

"Yes."

All at once suspicion flared bright and hot and he was, in an instant, on guard.

"His father mentioned that you danced with Miss Olivia Eversea. Stole a waltz right out from under his nose." His father sounded faintly amused.

Just the very words "Olivia Eversea" made the back of Lyon's neck warm and tightened the bands of his stomach.

He would not look at the clock he would not he would not.

"Yes. I believe I did. Among other girls." Whose names he could not remember even if someone had pointed a pistol at his head. "Isn't it funny that Cambersmith would tattle?" He smiled faintly.

His father was silent. Never a good sign.

Lyon and his siblings had more than once jested about his father's green eyes. They suspected he could see like a cat right through to any secrets hiding in what he no doubt (affectionately, one hoped) considered the black little hearts of his sons, as well as his one quite lively daughter. He'd always seemed to know who'd gotten jam on the banister, or who had accidentally shot the foot off the statue of Mercury in the garden, or who had stolen a cheroot from the humidor.

His father steepled his hands and tapped the tips of his fingers lightly together.

Which was peculiar, as his father was neither a fidgeter nor a procrastinator. He preferred to deliver orders and news the way a guillotine delivers a nice sharp chop. Swiftly and surgically.

"Did one of your brothers or friends dare you to dance with her, or . . ."

Lyon blinked, genuinely surprised. "I'm sorry?"

"You're sorry for dancing with her?" His father sounded faintly relieved.

"Forgive me if I'm being obtuse, sir, but I don't understand the question. Why would anyone dare me to dance with a young woman who doesn't want for partners and would hardly be likely to refuse me? We are Redmonds, after all." He said this half in jest.

It was the sort of jest his father typically enjoyed.

It rang flatly in the room.

Lyon dancing with an Eversea was aberrant, and they both knew it. Because Lyon was dutiful, and he had been raised with the notion that the Everseas and the Redmonds quite simply did not dance with one another, any more than cats and dogs enjoyed a good waltz.

"Why, then, did you dance with her?"

Lyon stared back. He saw only his own reflection in his father's eyes.

He wickedly contemplated saying, Because she is my destiny just to see whether his father was too young for apoplexy.

He'd never even known he was capable of thinking such words. Let alone believing them.

And then all at once it wasn't funny.

He decided to try cajoling. "Come. You've eyes in your head, Father. And you were young once. It was an impulse, I suppose."

His father would likely disinherit him at once if he'd said, Because she reminded me of the first wildflower in spring. His father considered excessive use of metaphor a character flaw.

His father smiled, faintly and tautly, a smile in which his eyes did not partic.i.p.ate. "I was, indeed, young. Once."

It was as ironic a sentence as Lyon had ever heard.

Something about it stirred a faint memory, a suspicion he'd had for some time. Because he was, as he'd told Olivia Eversea, indeed observant, and he'd seen his father's eyes linger ever so slightly on a particular woman more than once.

He cautiously echoed his father's faint smile with one of his own. Over the years he'd learned to modulate his emotions, his expressions, his word choices, all in order to ensure his father remained indulgent and proud, because that's what ensured a comfortable life in the Redmond household.

"And yet you're not typically impulsive, Lyon."

"No. I suppose I'm not." He knew better than to expound.

Lyon was in fact demonstrably the opposite of impulsive. He hadn't squandered his allowance in gaming h.e.l.ls, impregnated the servants, or appeared in the broadsheets for cavorting on Rotten Row with notorious aristocratic widows.

Though he had indulged in an aristocratic widow or two. Sometimes he thought G.o.d had created aristocratic widows for the sole purpose of indoctrinating handsome heirs into carnal pleasures. But he was both discreet and discerning.

From the moment he was born Lyon's responsibility as future head of a dynasty had been impressed upon him, the way a signet ring grinds into hot wax.

He was coming to realize his learned carefulness was something of a useful skill.

He was also beginning to understand the grave cost to himself.

So he said nothing more.

But G.o.d help him, he darted a swift look at the clock.

His father usually missed nothing. But if he noticed that glance, he didn't remark upon it.

"Lyon . . . you should know how proud I am of you. A man could not ask for a better son."