“Loweston can’t afford five hundred pounds per annum to a steward,” Percy said. “Not with the lesser estates sold off and a jointure to pay.”

Well, it was good to know the money wouldn’t go entirely to waste. Percy knew what he was about. “It’s my father’s money.”

Percy flashed her a look of intense dislike. “Then, no. I can’t walk away from an offer like that.” He pulled out a chair and sat down.

She wanted to protest that this wasn’t her, that she wasn’t the coarse, flashy Cit he thought her. But who would that fool? Of course she was.

“Penelope, don’t.” Nev’s voice was like a lash.

Penelope finally turned to look at him. He looked angry and betrayed, and his eyes kept straying to Percy. “Come and talk to me in the hall,” she said softly.

“No, I will not come and talk to you in the hall! He doesn’t want the position, and we don’t have the money, and I-let him go!”

Percy half rose from his chair, and Penelope remembered that crate from Paris and Edward’s angry letter. Percy was angry too. No doubt poor Nev had cast him aside as clumsily and cruelly as Penelope had Edward.

She did not always understand Nev; she knew that. But in his expression now, with blinding clarity, she recognized her own emotions as she had stared at the wreckage of her closest friendship.

No. Nev was not going to lose this, and there was no time-no time for gentleness or cajoling or anything that would have saved Nev’s pride. “I have the money,” she said. “And I don’t intend to see Loweston ruined for your sensibilities, not after I pulled you out of the River Tick.”

His face went blank with shock, and inwardly she shrank back-but there was no way out of this but forward. Her father had told her once that if you bullied a man into a deal, you’d better get the papers signed straightaway: give him time to think it over and he’d weasel out somehow.

He had also said that you should never expect to deal with that man again. Penelope didn’t think about that. “Do you think he can’t do it?”

“That’s not the point!”

“What else is the point? Do you think he can’t do it?”

“He can do it.”

“Do you think he’ll cheat us?” Penelope pressed him.

Percy sucked in his breath. She saw with surprise that he was not sure of Nev’s answer.

Nev heard it too. “No. He’d never cheat us.”

Penelope wanted to put her arms around him, but he would have pushed her away. “Then we have to hire him. It’s the responsible thing to do.”

Nev and Percy locked gazes. “Fine,” Nev said.

“When can I get my money?” Percy asked in a strained voice, as if he couldn’t wait to have this over with.

“If you stop by here tomorrow, my father will give you a bank draft,” Penelope said. “How soon can you be at Loweston?”

“Within a few days. Where do you want me to stay?”

“You’ll stay in the steward’s room, of course,” she said, pretending there had never been any question. Nev said nothing.

Percy got up and walked out; Nev abruptly started forward and followed him into the hall.

“Are you all right?” she heard him say in a low tone. “I know you never wanted to be a steward. If you need help-” His concern was clear through the stiffness, and Penelope was violently, nauseatingly jealous.

“You’re my employer, but that doesn’t give you the right to pry into my affairs,” Percy said.

“I’m not your employer. She is.”

Percy spoke so low she almost didn’t hear it. “Indeed. You traded us in for that?”

Penelope sat at her father’s desk, where she had once been so comfortable, and tried not to cry.

They still weren’t speaking when the Browns picked them up for the promised evening at the theater. By tacit agreement, they pretended cordiality in front of her parents, but Penelope’s laugh was brittle and her fingers were stiff on his arm. Nev had not realized how friendly, how almost comfortable he and Penelope had become together until now, when it was gone.

He thought she would have apologized given an opening, but he did not want to hear it. He did not understand what had happened that afternoon. He did not want to.

Of course it had been a shock to see Percy, a miserable shock, but oddly, it hadn’t been that which had lingered with him throughout the day. Rather, it had been the harshness of Penelope’s voice and the cold, insulting logic of her words.

He and Penelope didn’t know each other well; they had had to struggle to get along together. But they had been patient with each other. She had been patient with him-with his mother’s insults and his poor head for business and his ruined estate. And in that room, at that moment, it had seemed as if all at once she had lost patience, and all that had been left was someone who resented and despised him. I don’t intend to see Loweston ruined for your sensibilities, not after I pulled you out of the River Tick. Nev did not know how he would live for the rest of his life if Penelope thought of him like that.

He was barely listening to the play when a very familiar voice echoed through the theater. He looked at Rosalind, and sure enough, the actress was Amy.

His first anxious thought was whether the Browns would recognize her. They had seen her with him at Vauxhall-at least Penelope had. Would they say anything? Of course a lady or a gentleman wouldn’t, but the Browns might. Would Penelope think he had arranged this?

Nev was so tired of worrying. He looked at Amy, standing in the footlights reciting in her clear voice, and thought, A year ago I would have been here with Percy and Thirkell. Now there would be no celebration with Amy and his friends after the show. Instead, there would be more awkward small talk with his mother- and father-in-law, and then he and Penelope would go back to their hotel room and not speak to each other. Tomorrow he would go back to Loweston and not speak to Percy and watch people who depended on him starve by inches, and Penelope would watch it too and hate him. He stared at Amy, and was seized with such a violent longing for his old friends, his old life, that it almost choked him.

Penelope could barely believe it. She ought to have known, she ought to have prevented this somehow-but how could she have? She hadn’t even known the girl’s name (Amy Wray, her program told her). She looked at Nev. He was staring at Miss Wray with an expression of hopeless yearning. Penelope’s stomach twisted viciously.

She darted a glance at her parents; she could not bear it if they saw her humiliation. But her mother was absorbed in the play, and her father had settled in for a nap. Penelope was fiercely relieved that she hadn’t pointed out Nev and his mistress that night in Vauxhall. That night had seemed so far away the day before; now it was apparent that nothing had changed.

Every minute of the play was a torment. Penelope longed for it to end, and yet she could not bear to think that it would end, and she and Nev would go back to their room and not speak and not make love, and Nev would be silently longing for Miss Wray. Then, as if Hell felt it necessary to devise yet another torment for her, Miss Wray opened her mouth and a pure, lovely soprano came forth. Penelope thought she would cry. Penelope had told Nev she had got over wanting to be a soprano; it had been a lie.

After a moment, Penelope admitted that Miss Wray’s voice was not well trained, nor powerful enough to fill the house. The girl had an unfortunate tendency to embellish the melody, and she did it without real taste. In fact, Penelope noted with mean satisfaction, as the song went on, the actress’s voice lost body and she began to pause awkwardly to draw breath.

Penelope started forward-this was more than poor singing. The actress’s voice trilled high on the last line-and cut off abruptly. Miss Wray fell to the ground in a dead faint.

Nev shot to his feet, leaning over the balcony and craning his head out to try to see closer. Fortunately, people all over the theater were doing the same thing. Penelope hoped her mother had not heard him cry “Amy!” in tones of shock and fear as he rose.