"A vicar and a vicar's daughter," she said dreamily, winding her arms around his neck. "A match made in heaven."

"Just as are you and I," he said sleekly. "Will you forgive me, then, for the impertinence of inviting guests to your ball?"

She smiled at him, a smile that combined chastisement and permission.

"After tonight, Lady Godwin will be received in every house in the land,"

she assured him. "And the Scottish girl as well. I think we know each other well enough, Garret, that I might allow a few... impertinences?"

"Just what I longed to hear," he said. His smile, in the mirror, was meant both for her-and for his conscience.

Chapter Forty.

Come to the Ball.

Elsewhere in London, others were preparing for the same occasion. Lady Griselda Willoughby was delicately applying a black patch to the right of her cherry-colored mouth; she had decided that her newest fashion would be to ape the ornaments of her Jacobean ancestors. She wore a gown with a small train, and the tiniest suggestion of a ruff. The Duchess of Girton was having a rather less peaceful time dressing, as her little boy kept wandering through her dressing room. He had just learned to climb down stairs backwards, and therefore he spent most of his time eluding his nursemaids and unerringly finding his way to his mama's chambers. Lady Esme Bonnington was even further behind in the process, as her husband Sebastian had appeared in her room with an urgent request, and what with one thing and other (some of which involved unbuttoning rather than buttoning), she hadn't even put on a stitch of clothing yet.

But the most assiduous preparations were taking place at Number Fifteen, Rothsfeld Square. Monsieur Olivier had been to the house and left again: Lina's glossy brown curls were now a shadow of their former self, thinned, curled and starched into rigid little ringlets that dangled about her ears.

"I'm so sorry!" Helene said again, staring at the glass. "He went too far! What will Tom say?"

But Lina couldn't stop smiling. She didn't give a fig for the demise of her hair. "It will grow back," she said.

"Do you think I ought to add more freckles, or am I overdoing the effect, Madam?" Saunders asked, stepping back.

Helene looked at the mirror and gave a faint shudder. Lina had sprouted a multitude of freckles. First Saunders painted them over the bridge of her nose, which was all very well. But then she went farther afield and now there were battalions of brown speckles marching along Lina's forehead, making her look far older than her years.

"I'm sorry!" Helene said again.

"Don't be," Lina replied. Their eyes met in the mirror and Lina knew that she didn't have to say the rest of it out loud. She would never stop being grateful for the gift of Tom.

Saunders was mixing a little red sandlewood with chalk. As she painted it onto Lina's lips they took on a slightly palsied air, as if the color had leached out of them.

"Well, that should do it," Lina said cheerfully. "No self-respecting opera singer would look like this."

"No, indeed," Helene said with some satisfaction. "You look-you look-"

"A proper fright," Lina finished.

"Not so terrible. Countrified, perhaps?"

"I am a country vicar's wife," Lina said, and there was a note of joy in her voice.

"Now for the gown," Saunders said. She returned from the wardrobe with a gown reverentially laid over her arms.

Two minutes later, Lina was swathed-positively swathed-in white lace.

"Perhaps it's overpoweringly innocent," Helene said dubiously. She had picked out the pattern and fabric herself, ordering it from a modiste, Madame Pantile, whom she'd long heard was liable to make ill-fitting and over-trimmed clothing. And Madame Pantile had certainly lived up to her reputation. Every inch of Lina's gown was trimmed with blonde lace, or point lace, or bunches of white ribbon.

"Are you certain that the wreath isn't too much?" Lina said, showing the first signs of uneasiness.

"Oh no!" Helene said. "I consider the wreath a stroke of genius! Who but Madame Pantile could have designed a wreath made of silver oak leaves ornamented with heron's feathers? At least... that's what she told me they were. Who would have thought that heron's feathers were quite so tall?"

"My head will topple to the side if I'm not very careful," Lina said, demonstrating her predicament.

"Excellent. You need to look awkward while dancing."

"That won't be a problem," Lina commented. "Wearing shoes that are too large makes it extremely difficult to be graceful."

Helene beamed. "That was a clever notion of Esme's, was it not?"

The night was going as well as Felicia could possibly have hoped. Mayne was at her side just enough so that her friends and her enemies couldn't help but notice his devotion, and yet he wasn't there so much that she felt constrained in recounting every detail of his physique and technique to her friends. Her husband was off in the card room, apparently acting in an appropriate manner. The ballroom was an utter crush. In all, the only thing missing to make her ball discussed throughout those boring fall months was a Sensation. Something had to happen. An elopement, a betrayal, an argument. Something! She glanced around the room. What a pity it was that Esme Rawlings had married Lord Bonnington. Infamous Esme could always be relied upon to create some sort of a sensation, but now she had dwindled into positive respectability. There she was, dancing with her husband and it must be for the third time, at least. That was a scandal, to Felicia's mind, a scandal of hideously boring proportions.

At that moment there was a bit of a flurry at the door, and Felicia turned with relief. Perhaps the Regent had decided to-no.

Who on earth could it be?

A grotesquely bedizened girl, with plumes so high they were likely to be set alight by the candelabra hanging from the ceiling, had appeared at the top of the short flight of stairs leading to the ballroom. Felicia didn't recognize her escort but there, behind her, was Earl Godwin so that must be- There was a titter in her ear. "Famous, my dear! Your ball is going to be notorious!" The Honorable Gerard Bunge suddenly appeared, for all the world like a jack-in-the-box in amethyst stockings, if such a thing existed. "That must be the vicar's daughter, or rather, the strumpet as Mayne had it!" He reeled slightly from the force of his own giggles. "Could be Mayne's going blind if he mistook that one for a Bird of Paradise!"

"She's rather an eyesore, is she not?" Felicia said with amusement. "Come along, Bunge. I must greet her, you know."

At the tap of a hostess's fan on their shoulder, her guests fell away before her, leaving Felicia a full view of the uncultivated lass whom Mayne, her darling Mayne, had insulted. And what a mistake that was! Felicia had rarely seen such an ungainly, rustic girl as the one clumsily curtsying before Lady Bonnington.

"You'd better make haste," Bunge said in her ear, as they expertly made their way through the crowded room. "She just poked the Duke of Girton in the eye with those plumes. How could Mayne ever have thought this one was a fashionable impure? They wouldn't have let her in the door of the opera house!"

Felicia held out her hand languidly. The country miss bobbed an inept curtsy and gabbled something. Felicia backed away as quickly as she could, to avoid being struck in the face by her waving plumes.

"I must say, this is quite a surprise, to see you in the presence of Lord Godwin," she said aside to the countess. "I thought you two were quite, quite adverse to being in each other's company."

"Oh, we are," Helene Godwin said cheerfully. "But I couldn't allow Mrs. Holland to come to town without a chaperone."

"Mrs. Holland!" Felicia exclaimed.

Lady Godwin clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh no, I let the truth out! Well, the fact is that Mr. Holland, my brother-in-law, married his fiancee this morning. But we didn't want to announce the news until the happy couple has informed her father, in Scotland. He is a vicar, you know, and I believe he hoped to marry them himself. So you must promise not to tell anyone, Lady Saville!"

Felicia nodded, already planning the three or four acquaintances who would be lucky enough to hear the news first.

Lady Godwin drew a little closer. "The dear girl was so devastated to hear of the rumors flying around London- you do know what I mean, don't you?"

"A crime!" Felicia whispered back, ignoring the fact that she herself had been instrumental in spreading most of those criminal rumors.

"Yes, I do agree," Lady Godwin said. "You know, Lady Saville, you or I may chat about a matter of interest that occurs in the ton, but we would never make something up out of whole cloth! And I'm afraid that is just what the Earl of Mayne must have done. Why, everyone in London knows that my husband dismissed his mistress months ago."

Felicia nodded vigorously. "I had heard the same myself, from a number of people," she assured the countess. "Mayne has much to answer for!"

"Dear Mrs. Holland is happy now," Lady Godwin said. "All's well that ends well, after all. And who could possibly think her a woman of ill repute after seeing her endearing little face?"

"Who indeed?" Felicia murmured, suppressing a shudder as she watched the new Mrs. Holland stumble her way through a country dance.

"Marriage solves so many problems, " Lady Godwin commented. "Now she and my dear brother-in-law can go back to the country, and she can simply forget this unpleasant little episode."

"And you, my dear?" Felicia said, returning to a more interesting topic. "Do you think to remain in your husband's house, or will you return to your mother?"

"Well... just for your ears only, Lady Saville-"

"Do call me Felicia!"

"Felicia," the countess repeated. "What a lovely name. The truth is, I haven't quite made up my mind! For some things, you know, husbands are a necessary evil."

Felicia nodded, although to be sure, she couldn't think of a single one of them.

Chapter Forty-one.

The Seduction.

Floating through the house, up the stairs, came fragments of melody. He was playing the same piece over and over, the madrigal from Act Two, she thought.

Finally Helene got up and put on her serviceable dressing gown, tying it tightly around her waist. It was a good thing there were so few servants, given the number of nights she had spent tiptoeing around the house inadequately dressed.

The candelabra on the piano were burning quite low. They cast a pool of light that made the polished surface of the piano look clover-yellow, and tipped Rees's eyelashes and curls with fire. She walked forward. Her robe made a gentle hushing noise as it dragged through the sheaves of paper that had again accumulated around the piano.

His head jerked up immediately. Without speaking, without taking his eyes from hers, he rose from the piano.

Helene was experiencing, for almost the first time in her life, the heady intoxication of being a siren, a seductrice. She pushed the ugly, white dressing gown from her shoulders as if it were made of flowing silk, let it catch on her elbows so the fabric framed her body. She'd left her night rail on her bed.

Rees took one step toward her and then Helene started to walk toward him.

It was as if the candlelight drew her into its circle; as she came closer to him, her body turned to flame itself, heat racing up the back of her legs.

He seemed mesmerized. She slowly walked forward until she stood in the circle of light that made the rest of the room fade away into obscurity, as if there were only the two of them in the world.

Still without saying a word, he wrenched off his shirt. The swirl of air made the candles bend and dance. Golden tongues of fire swept over her

body, over his chest. She couldn't remember why she thought chest hair was so revolting, years ago. Compared to Mr. Fairfax-Lacy's hairless chest, Rees looked ruggedly masculine, with a kind of burly strength that made her feel weak in the knees. His heavily muscled chest rippled when he moved, making her breasts tingle to be crushed against him.

She let a little smile play on her lips, and then she dropped the dressing gown entirely, allowing it fall to her feet.

The next second he was there, one arm under her neck and another under her knees, scooping her up and taking her over to the sofa. With a terrific swirl of paper, all the drafts and parts and pieces of the opera swooshed to the floor.

"I don't want to be treated like a lady," Helene said, but he was kissing her.