Darby stopped and chose a coral bud to put in his buttonhole. He was wearing a morning costume of bronze broadcloth. The rosebud looked strawberry-pink against his chest, perhaps just a shade pinker than he would have desired.

"I don't know," Rees said. Darby wasn't looking at him, just shaking back his deep lace cuffs and examining all the rosebuds on the bush, so Rees knew he was burning with curiosity. You couldn't be friends since you were both in short coats without being able to read each other's minds. "The prospect simply isn't appealing anymore. I'd move her out, but I need her voice to help me with this opera."

"Appealing? Just when does making love to a woman with a body like Lina's lose appeal?"

"I must be getting old," Rees said, kicking a stick off the path. It hit a mulberry tree that dropped a glossy spray of water over them.

"For Christ's sake, Rees," Darby said, examining his shoulders to see whether the water had left stains. "Why we can't take a civilized promenade around the duck pond, I'll never know."

"I like it here. At least we don't meet any simpering matrons." They walked on.

"How's Henrietta?" Rees asked, after a bit. He liked Darby's wife immensely. In fact, now that he thought about it, his disinclination to knock on Lina's door had started around the time that Darby found Henrietta. Not that he desired Henrietta for himself, not that. He just wanted... he wanted the fire that burned between Henrietta and Darby.

Sure enough, a smile curled on his friend's lips. "She is being very cool to me at the moment."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a dandified fool," Darby said, without any sign of regret. "I wouldn't pick up Johnney after he'd been sick all over his crib and was wailing."

Rees gave an involuntary shudder. "Why on earth would she wish you to do such a thing?"

"The nursemaid had her half-day," Darby explained. "You know Henrietta dislikes allowing the servants to care for the children. So she was bathing the girls and we heard Johnney being sick. So I went to have a look, but of course I didn't pick him up, not while I was wearing velvet. I was just taking off my coat when she came running in, acting as if a few screams from the lad would be mortal."

Rees couldn't think what to say to that. He'd rather slay himself than pick up a child covered with vomit. "Doesn't Johnney seem to cast up his accounts rather frequently?" he inquired, more to be polite than anything else.

"Too much," Darby said. "He's seven months now. He'll never get married at this rate."

"Fortunate for him."

"So have you seen your wife since your near encounter in Madame Rocque's establishment?"

"No. But I gather I'll see her tonight."

"Don't tell me that you are venturing into polite society?" Darby asked, greatly entertained.

"Lady Hamilton's ball."

"Why are you going there? Debutante sort of affair, isn't it? We've declined."

"Because that wretched friend of Helene's, the one who married Sebastian Bonnington, wrote me a note and said that my wife intends to go to the ball specifically in order to acquire an heir, and that if I wish to join in the competition, I should make an appearance."

There was a moment of stunned silence. A chestnut tree dropped cream-colored petals on their hair and Darby didn't even notice. "What?'

"You heard me. Helene told me she wanted a child, but I had no idea that she would go to such lengths."

"She told you that she wanted a child? What did you say?"

"I told her that she ought to resign herself to the truth of the matter, which is that our marriage is not going to produce offspring," Rees said irritably. "It never occurred to me that Helene would decide I had given her carte blanche to put a cuckoo in my nest! This is Helene we're talking about here. From the way she's harped at me over the years, you'd think reputation was the most important thing in the world."

"My God," Darby said slowly. "She must have a crack in the upper story."

"She had that years ago."

"But she'll be ruined!"

"I can only think that she doesn't care about her reputation anymore."

Rees kicked a rock across the path. "Perhaps I should have shown her more consideration. I would have divorced her, if she had made a convincing case for it."

"So you're going to Lady Hamilton's ball..." Darby said, clearly still in shock.

"Have to, don't I? I've been thinking about it for two days, ever since I

got the note from Esme Bonnington."

"And that's an odd thing," Darby put in. "Why on earth did Esme let you know of Helene's plans?"

Rees shrugged. "She didn't explain herself. But I can't let Helene bed just anyone and make the child into my heir. Tom is my heir, obviously, and while he seems to be rather slow in the marital department, presumably he'll get around to producing a child at some point."

"Yes, but-"

"I can't allow her to give me a cuckoo. But if she's that determined, I can"-he paused and considered his words for a moment-"be of assistance."

"So you'll-what are you going to do?"

"I'll tell her that if she wants a child that much, she'll have to take me. It's unfortunate that the process is going to be about as much fun as going to a tooth-drawer."

Darby blinked. "I didn't know it was that bad between you."

"In the bedchamber it was."

It was Darby's turn to stay silent. He couldn't imagine being married to someone under those circumstances. They walked along, and Darby decided that he would go home and lure Henrietta into their chamber for a little dalliance. They were in danger of forgetting how fortunate they were.

"I must be cracked myself," Rees suddenly said. "I'm actually thinking of trying to get her back in the house."

Darby gaped. "Going respectable in your old age?"

"Hell, no. I need help with the opera," Rees said grimly. "It's garbage. I was thinking of trading my assistance in creating offspring for Helene's help with the scores."

"Are things that bad with the current piece?"

"Worse. It's overdue by months, and I have nothing worth hearing. Nothing."

"Helene will murder you if you put it so bluntly," Darby said after a moment. "You'll have to emphasize the fact you want your children under your own roof. But what will you do about Lina?"

"She's bored to death with me. I'll give her an allowance so she needn't take another lover. She has a quite prudish streak, and I dislike the idea that she might have to take on a curmudgeon like myself."

One thing Rees hadn't told Darby was that he was going to the ball as much for Helene's sake as for his own. Who the hell would want to sleep with Helene? Likely she would be humiliated by discovering that gentlemen wanted a ripe little body and a come-hither manner when it came to dalliance. They didn't want a stiff scarecrow with a pile of braids bigger than a halo, and a reputation to match. True, Helene somehow inveigled Fairfax-Lacy to follow her about last summer, but then he'd up and married another woman within a few weeks. That can't have been easy for Helene.

It was almost amusing to realize that he was feeling both guilty and protective. Perhaps his wife's reckless wish to destroy her own reputation was his fault. If they were still living in the same house, this child business likely would have worked itself out in the normal way, years ago. And estranged though they might be, Rees couldn't stand the idea that his wife would be rebuffed at the ball. She was no Cinderella, after all, with a fairy godmother waiting in the wings.

He would just have to wave his own magic wand. He found himself grinning at that, and decided not to share the joke with Darby. They'd never been the kind of friends who sat around trading bawdy jokes and hawing with laughter. And it didn't seem polite, not in reference to his own wife.

Chapter Seven.

Undergarments Are Vastly Overrated.

Helene wasn't sure she could do it. It was one thing to stand half-naked in a small dressing room, with Esme, Monsieur Olivier, and Madame Rocque enthusiastically applauding. But it was quite another story to appear in public wearing a costume not much heavier than a nightrail. Although the bottom layer of rose silk was just slightly darker than the top, individually, each layer was transparent. Helene's entire body was on display. The silk was so fine that it clung and then swirled, just barely concealing her most private areas.

The only saving grace of the whole situation was that her mother was paying a visit to friends in Bath. Helene could just imagine her reaction to Madame Rocque's gown. She would have locked Helene in the wine cellar rather than let her be seen in such a state. This gown didn't hide her lack of breasts; it put that lack on display for all to see. Color rose in Helene's cheeks at the memory of the only person who had seen her unclothed, in her adult life. Her husband had laughed out loud the first time he saw her breasts.

Rees's laughter had been the beginning of a disastrous night. They were on their way to Gretna Green but had stopped at an inn, as Rees had pointed out that her father would never bother to chase them. Of course, he was correct. It wasn't every day that the heir to an earldom elopes with one's daughter, and Helene's father was likely swilling champagne at home while his daughter waited in a bedchamber, fairly trembling with adoration for her almost-husband.

She had waited, and waited, and waited. But Rees had apparently decided to loiter in the tavern, and when he finally appeared in her doorway, he had to catch himself against the door frame so as not to fall down. She had giggled, thinking it all romantic. There was nothing Rees could do wrong: not this big, beautiful man who thought about music as much as she did. When he kissed her, Handel's arias exploded in her mind, aching, arching waves of sound stretching to the very tips of her fingertips.

Well, if their kisses were Handel, then the actual bedding was naught more than a Beggar's Opera. Because Rees pulled off her gown and then fell about laughing, finally asking whether her breasts had evaporated in the last rain. By an hour later, it was clear to her that the rest of her body was as unsuited to matrimony as was her chest. Helene dismissed the memory with a little shudder.

Saunders, Helene's personal maid, obviously didn't know what to make of her mistress's transformation. At the moment she was bustling about folding clothing, but she kept stealing glances over her shoulder. "Would you like me to make some nice curls in your hair, my lady?" she said now, waving a curling iron. "We could wrap a bandeau around your head and with just a few curls, it would look quite, quite-" Saunders couldn't bring herself to say fashionable. The fashion was for ringlets bobbing around one's ears, and Lady Godwin didn't have enough hair for even one ringlet.

Helene smiled and seated herself at her dressing table. "I like my hair as it is, thank you. Saunders, do we have any rouge?"

"No, my lady."

Helene bit her lower lip. Her cheeks were the color of a frightened ghost.

"Mrs. Crewe has a large collection," Saunders added. "Would you like me to fetch it?"

"Mrs. Crewe?" Helene said, picturing her mother's starchy housekeeper. "I don't believe I've ever seen Mrs. Crewe wearing face paints!"

"She confiscates them from the maids," Saunders explained. "No one is allowed to use paints in the house, of course. Once in a blue moon, when she's in a good mood, Mrs. Crewe takes out the basket and allows the downstairs maids to play about in the evening. Not that I've done so for years." Saunders had developed a strong sense of her dignity when she was promoted to personal maid five years ago.

A few moments later Saunders plumped a large wicker basket on the floor. "Oh my," Helene said, fascinated. She picked up a small tin box.

"Chinese colors," Saunders said importantly. "Too dark for you, my lady." She burrowed in the basket. "If I remember correctly, there's a box of red sandlewood in here. That Lucy, who only lasted a few weeks before she was let go for stealing Mrs. Crewe's own brooch, she had it. Likely nimmed it from her previous mistress, unless I'm much mistaken." Saunders held out a round box, enameled all over with pansies.

"The box is very pretty," Helene said uncertainly.

"I'll use a little on your cheeks," Saunders said. "We'll use the darker one, the Chinese colors, for your lips. And here's black frankincense. We can darken your lashes with this, and your eyebrows as well."

"My goodness, Saunders," Helene said, smiling at her maid. "I had no idea that you had so much facility with face paints."

Saunders was standing back and looking at her work. "I'm that used to seeing braids atop your head," she said slowly. "But shorter hair does make you look years younger. Everyone said so, below stairs."

"That's good," Helene said, cheered.

Saunders was expertly sweeping frankincense onto a brush. "Tomorrow you might wish to go to that perfumer, Henry and Daniel Rotely Harris, where all the ladies go. They'll make up colors just for you."

"Goodness," Helene said rather faintly, "I had no idea that was a possibility."

Saunders began wielding the tiny brush around Helene's eyebrows. Helene had to admit that the change was very dramatic. Her brows suddenly appeared as high arches, emphasizing her eyes.

"Now your lashes, my lady," Saunders said. "If you would just close your eyes, please."

Helene obediently did just as she said, and then almost gasped when she opened them again. Her ordinary gray eyes had been transformed into jewels: they looked green and seductive, like mermaid's eyes. And instead of her cheekbones sticking out like those of a hungry beggar, a delicate wash of color emphasized the heart-shaped triangle of her face.

"Oh, Madam," Saunders said, sounding awed by her own work. "You look ravishing!"

"Thanks to you," Helene said, smiling. She could do this. The face paints helped. The timid, skinny woman who wrote waltzes and was never asked to dance them was hidden behind the colors on her face. The pale, timid Helene who had cried when her young husband laughed at her breasts was behind a mask. This Helene had impudent, seductive eyes. This Helene wouldn't care a bit that her husband preferred women with udders rather than breasts. She walked across the room and the delicious feeling of thin silk made her feel like dancing. There was something about the way the silk caught between her legs as she walked and then swirled away that made her feel far more naked than when she rose from her bath.