He looked at her sharply.

“I like them both,” he said. “They are Merton’s sisters, and they are genteel and charming, not to mention beautiful.”

“But I think you like Miss Katherine Huxtable,” she said with an impish smile from beneath the brim of her bonnet. “You scarcely took your eyes off her while we were walking back through the park.”

“We were conversing,” he said. “It is polite to look at the person with whom you are having a conversation. Did Miss Daniels never teach you that?”

But she only laughed.

“And I think,” she said, “she likes you, Jasper.”

“Never tell me,” he said, recoiling in feigned horror, “that she was looking at me too while we talked. How very brazen of her.”

“It was the way she was looking,” she told him. “But I daresay all ladies like you. Are you going to marry one of these days?”

“One of these very future days, perhaps,” he said. “Maybe. Probably. Possibly. But not in the foreseeable future.”

“Not even,” she asked him, “if you were to fall in love?”

“I would marry immediately if not sooner were that to happen,” he said. “I would be so startled I would not know what else to do. As startled as I would be if I were to hear that hell had frozen over.”

“I wish,” she said with a sigh, “you were not such a dreadful cynic, Jasper.”

“And what do you think of Merton?” he asked, smiling down at her.

“He is exceedingly handsome and amiable,” she said. “He looks like a god. I daresay everyone is in love with him.”

“Including you, Char?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she assured him. “I would not be so foolish. It would be like pining for the sun. I shall look for someone altogether more… possible with whom to fall in love. But not yet. I want to be at least twenty before I marry.”

“Elderly, in fact.” He grinned fondly at her. He had not realized how practical she was, how unsure of herself, how underestimating of her own charms. There was no reason in the world why the daughter of a wealthy baronet, sister of a baron, could not aspire to the hand of an earl.

But definitely not yet.

“Perhaps,” he said, “love will take you by surprise one of these days.”

“I hope so,” she said, smiling brightly at him. “When I am old enough to be quite sure that love is what it is. And I hope it happens to you too, Jasper. Falling in love, I mean.”

“Thank you,” he said, patting her hand again. “But let me see, is it a blessing or a curse you are bestowing?”

She laughed.

“I have an idea,” she said suddenly, gazing up eagerly into his face. “A wonderful idea. Miss Daniels says we should try to add a few more names to the guest list for my house party. I think we ought to invite Miss Katherine Huxtable, Jasper. Oh, and Miss Huxtable too. After all, you will need some congenial company as well as I will.”

“And since I am an elder and those two ladies are elders too,” he said, “we can congenially entertain one another? About a crackling fire to keep our aged bones warm in July, perhaps?”

“Miss Katherine Huxtable was twenty when her brother succeeded to the title,” she said. “She mentioned it when we were walking to the Serpentine. And that was three years ago. She is not so very old, Jasper, though it is surprising that she is not already married. Especially when she is so beautiful. Perhaps she has been waiting for someone special. I admire her for that.”

“Char,” he said, looking sidelong at her, “you are not matchmaking by any chance, are you? I warn you it is an impossibility.”

“Is it?” She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

He had, in fact, just got exactly what he wanted without having to try very hard at all. Katherine Huxtable still had to accept the invitation, of course.

“Then I will have to play this game too,” he said with a sigh. “If the Misses Huxtable are to be invited, Char, then it would be quite ill-mannered not to invite Merton too.”

She turned her head sharply to face front again until the poke of her bonnet hid her flushed cheeks.

“Oh, would it?” she said. “But I daresay he has far more interesting things to do.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

And to the devil with the fact that perhaps she really ought not even to be acquainted with Merton yet. What strange gothic notions some people had. Good Lord, Aunt Prunella and her ilk would probably have young girls locked in a high tower with their spinning wheels if they had their way.

9

JASPER’S visit to Lady Forester and Clarence the following morning proceeded much as he had expected. He was very careful to time his arrival so that he was knocking on their door at precisely four minutes after nine, and they kept him waiting in the visitors’ parlor for fifteen minutes.

Touche.

He was not invited to sit down when they did arrive.

There followed a tirade-delivered by the lady-in which Jasper was accused of every excess and vice known to man and a few unknown ones too and a demand that he relinquish control of Charlotte to her aunt before she was corrupted beyond hope of reform.

“If she is not already,” Clarence was unwise enough to add.

Jasper had deliberately armed himself with a quizzing glass for the occasion, an affectation with which he did not usually encumber himself since his eyesight was excellent. He raised it to his eye at that moment and directed it at Clarence, particularly his ostentatiously tied neckcloth. Good God, even a dandy would shudder.

“Perhaps it might be wise, Clarrie,” he said, “to allow your mama to do the talking for you. You would not particularly enjoy having me rearrange that knot at your neck, old chap, although it is in dire need of rearrangement, I must say.”

He lowered the glass before looking politely back at Lady Forester.

And she proceeded to tear apart the good name of Merton and his sisters, who might appear blameless in the eyes of the ton but who did not deceive her, the vulgar upstarts. They certainly did not know how to behave if they had all seen fit to be seen in public with him and-far worse!-in company with a young schoolgirl who had no business being seen in public at all until after she had made her curtsy to the queen.

“And for either one of the sisters to allow Charlotte to walk on the arm of the Earl of Merton was the outside of enough and merely confirms me in my conviction that they are brazen hussies,” she added. “I took quite a nasty turn at the realization that that very young girl in the park was my niece, my dear dead brother’s daughter. Did I not, Clarence? My maid was forced to burn feathers to revive me after we arrived home.”

“It is to be hoped that none of them were your best evening plumes, ma’am,” Jasper said, all concern.

“They are vulgar and quite long in the tooth,” Lady Forester said. “I suppose no real gentleman will have them. And the earl is doing himself no favor behaving as he does. And he is your friend, I understand.”

Jasper bowed and smiled.

“I really must be on my way,” he said. “This has been a delightful half hour, but I have other matters to attend to and so will not, alas, be able to sit down and take refreshments with you. No, no-you must not bother to offer them. Charlotte, by the way, will be remaining at my home and under my protection and her companion’s guidance. Good day to you both.”

He reached for his hat from the table where he had set it down since the servant who had opened the door and ushered him into the parlor had not offered to take it.

“She will not be there for long, Jasper,” Clarence said with spiteful relish. “I called upon Great-Uncle Seth yesterday afternoon after escorting Mama home.”