And next week she would be off to London to be transformed into a lady of the /ton, /into a future viscountess and duchess.

Whoever could have predicted all this just a little over two weeks ago?

And then she heard the echo of words that had been spoken just a minute or two ago. /After sowing some very wild oats indeed for a number of years…/ And of course he had told her yesterday that he was very experienced indeed - /even though he had never been married./ Was /that /when he had learned to kiss…

But this was certainly not the time or place to be remembering the way Viscount Lyngate had kissed her.

Her future mother-in-law had said something else too. /I trust that you have spoken the truth about your feelings for him and your intention to make him happy. It is your best hope of keeping him./ Had he still not quite finished with those wild oats, then? Was there a chance that he would stray from her if she did not make him happy?

How terribly naive she was. She knew so little about this world she was entering. Surely society did not condone infidelity in its married members.

She would not be able to bear it if…

But how would she ever compete if…

Elliott spent almost the entire month before his wedding traveling between Finchley Park and Warren Hall. Normally he would have spent at least a part of March in London, replenishing his wardrobe, reestablishing himself at his clubs, exchanging news and views with his friends and acquaintances, attending any parties that had been organized this early in the year - and putting a glad end to an overlong celibacy with Anna.

But he had needed to spend only one day interviewing the prospective tutors George had lined up for his inspection and visiting his tailor and his boot-maker and dealing with a few other matters of business.

There was little else for which to prolong his stay. Anna had chosen to be mortally offended when informed of his imminent nuptials. She had hurled words and a few harder objects at his head. And when she had broken down in tears after a few minutes and would have taken him to her bed, he had discovered that he was not in the mood after all and had made a lame excuse about a forgotten appointment.

He was still not in the mood even later in the evening, when he might have gone back to her - from the house where his mother and betrothed were in residence to his mistress's house. It seemed ever so slightly sordid - a thought quite unworthy of his father's son or his grandfather's grandson.

Just two days after escorting his mother, his youngest sister, and his betrothed to town and settling them at the family town house on Cavendish Square, then, he left for the country again. He would have gone anyway, but his mother had made it clear to him that his presence would be decidedly de trop while she hurried to prepare two young ladies for the coming Season.

He was delighted to go. The conversation ever since they left home - the little he had heard of it anyway - had consisted of nothing but fashions and fabrics and frills and other such faradiddle.

Mrs. Dew's eyes had laughed at him every time he looked at her. He had taken leave of her after those two brief days in London with a bow and very unlover like haste.

And soon he was going to have to stop thinking of her and addressing her as /Mrs. Dew, /as if she were still someone else's wife. But he would be damned before he would call her /Nessie/.

He had written to his grandfather and had a reply from his grandmother.

They were coming to Finchley for the wedding.

It was beginning to feel disconcertingly real.

He rode over to Warren Hall most days, though it soon became apparent to him that he would not need to do so for all of the four years that remained before young Merton achieved his majority. The boy had been taken firmly under the wings of Samson and Philbin, the valet George Bowen had sent from London, a very superior gentleman's gentleman, who was quite prepared to condescend to give his master advice on all matters of appearance and fashion. And Claybourne, the new tutor who would teach him all there was to know about politics and the British aristocracy and what was expected of a member of it took up a large portion of the boy's time as did the thin, bookish, stammering Bigley, the classics tutor. And Miss Huxtable still kept a firm maternal eye upon her young brother.

Perhaps after the Huxtables had been presented in town and had taken their rightful places in society, Elliott sometimes hoped, he would be able to settle back to his own life and find that the whole business of guardianship had become a minor inconvenience of his life.

Except that there was no such thing as his own familiar life to settle back into any longer. He was very soon to be saddled for life with one colossal inconvenience.

He waited for the return of his bride.

In his memory she became thinner and more shapeless, plainer, and more totally insignificant physically every time he thought of her. Her tongue became more impertinent, her frequent smile and her laugh more irritating. Her kiss became more like a child's - or a nun's.

She became less and less appealing.

And he had only himself to blame for the fact that he was to be shackled to her. Good Lord, he could have said no, could he not, as soon as she had asked her preposterous question?

When had he /ever /allowed /any /woman to dictate to him? And about something as major as the rest of his life! /And you are stuck with me./ Never had she spoken truer words.

The wedding invitations were sent out, the nuptials and the wedding breakfast organized in lavish detail.

The new facts of his life had taken on a momentum of their own and all he could do was watch helplessly and count down the days.

Easter approached at an alarming speed. His wedding was set for two days after Easter Sunday.

Every night when she went to bed Vanessa expected to lie awake, her senses overloaded with so many new sights and impressions, her mind with so much information. And every night she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as soon as her head touched the pillow.

She was taken sightseeing and was awed by all she saw - the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. James's Palace, Carlton House, Hyde Park, and a whole host of other famous places she had heard of before but had only dreamed of seeing for herself. She was taken to dressmakers and glove makers and bonnet makers and jewelers and to dozens of other shops until she forgot where she had been and what she had been measured for.

Even what had been purchased. She often looked in the drawers and wardrobes in her room at Moreland House and wondered whose nightgowns /those /were or whose satin slippers or whose paisley shawl.

She never wondered about her court dress - the one in which she would be presented to the queen after her marriage. /That /was impossible to forget. For some bizarre reason, the queen insisted upon the fashions of the previous century, and so the dress had to be huge-skirted with an equally huge petticoat and a stomacher and a long train and tall feathers for her hair and other ridiculous accessories.

And Vanessa had to learn to walk in it and back up in it without tripping and toppling backward over the train - one was not, of course, permitted to turn one's back on the queen as one left her presence. And she had to learn to curtsy to the queen until her nose almost touched the floor - but with infinite grace.

She did a great deal of laughing - as did Cecily - while she practiced. Even Cecily's mother sometimes let go of her exasperation at Vanessa's frequent clumsiness and failures and laughed too. "But you must promise - you absolutely /must, /Vanessa," she said, "not to collapse with mirth if you make a mistake on the day itself, which heaven forbid you will do. But /if /you do, you must efface yourself and make your exit as quietly and unobtrusively as you possibly can." They all dissolved into laughter again then as they enumerated and exaggerated all the ghastly things that could possibly go wrong. "Vanessa," her future mother-in-law said, holding her side when they had finally run out of ideas, "I do not know when I have laughed as much as I have since you joined us." They laughed a great deal too over the dancing lessons that had been arranged so that Cecily could brush up on her skills but in which Vanessa joined too. She had to learn to waltz. It was a dance she had scarcely even heard of let alone seen performed. But it was not difficult once one grew accustomed to the fact that it was danced exclusively with one partner, whom one held - and who held one - the whole time.