"I should run straight off the path and into the trees," Emily assured her. She pushed the offending spectacles more firmly onto her nose. "Come along, Araminta. I see Celeste up ahead and I cannot wait to show her my new mare."

"A moment, if you please, Emily. It is not like you to change the subject so quickly. What are you planning? I can tell you are up to something."

"Nothing significant, Araminta. I believe I shall invite Lady Canonbury and Mrs. Peppington to tea as soon as possible, however. Will you join us?"

"Good lord." Araminta stared after Emily. "I most certainly shall. The experience should prove interesting."

The salon held in Lady Turnbull's drawing room the following afternoon was not at all what Emily had expected. She had been exceedingly anxious ever since receiving the invitation because she knew she would be meeting and mingling with some of London's most sophisticated literary intellectuals.

She had spent hours choosing the right gown and the right hairstyle. In the end she had opted for the serene, classical look, on the assumption that a crowd of people interested in romantic poetry and other intellectual matters would favor the style.

She had arrived at Lady Turnbull's in a severe, high-waisted, modestly cut gown of fine, gold muslin, trimmed with black dragons. She'd had Lizzie do her hair a l'antique.

Emily had discovered immediately upon being shown into Lady Turnbull's drawing room, however, that all the other ladies were wearing gowns cut with fashionably low decolletage and had frivolous little hats perched rakishly on their heads.

Two or three of the women tittered as Lady Turnbull came forward to greet Emily. As she took her seat, Emily was painfully aware of the curiosity and amusement of those around her. It was as if she had been hired to entertain them with her eccentric ways, she thought in annoyance.

She began to wonder if she had made a serious mistake in accepting the invitation to join the group. At that moment Ashbrook flicked shut an elegant enameled snuffbox and straightened away from the mantel against which he had been leaning with negligent grace. He came forward to kiss Emily's hand, thereby bestowing instant cachet upon her. Emily smiled back gratefully.

Emily was further disappointed, however, when the conversation turned straight to the latest gossip, rather than the latest romantic literature. She listened impatiently to the latest on dit and wondered how soon she could leave. It was obvious she was not mingling with a group of clever intellectuals, after all. It was true everyone in the room had a marvelously fashionable air of ennui and every word spoken was laden with world-weary cynicism, but there was no interest here in literary matters. Across the room Ashbrook caught her eye and winked conspiratorially.

"By the bye," a gentleman who was introduced as Crofton drawled, "I have recently had the pleasure of playing cards with your father, Lady Blade."

That caught Emily's full attention. She glanced at him in surprise. She was wearing her spectacles, so she could see Crofton's cruel and dissipated face quite clearly. She guessed he had once been a handsome man, with his bold, saturnine features. But now he appeared jaded and thoroughly debauched. Emily had not liked Crofton from the moment she had been introduced to him.

"Have you, indeed?" She took a noncommittal sip of her tea.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Quite a neck-or-nothing gamester, your father."

"Yes." Emily prayed for a change of topic.

"His spirits seem a bit depressed of late," Crofton observed. "One would think he would be bursting with enthusiasm over your excellent marriage."

"You know how fathers are," Emily said, feeling desperate. "I was his only daughter."

"You were, I gather, extremely important to him," Crofton murmured. "One might even say vital to his well-being."

Emily looked at Ashbrook, smiling hopefully. "Have you read Mrs. Fordyce's latest effort, my lord?"

"Mrs. Fordyce is a silly frump of a woman, sadly lacking in intelligence and talent." Ashbrook volunteered the sweeping pronouncement with an air of complete boredom.

Emily bit her lip. "I rather enjoyed her new novel. Very strange and interesting."

The small group laughed indulgently at this display of rustic taste and went back to a discussion of Byron's latest antics. Emily risked a glance at the clock and wished it were time to leave. She listened to the prattle going on around her and decided that the literary society of Little Dippington accomplished far more in its Thursday afternoon meetings than this elegant salon ever would. As she always did when she was bored or unhappy, she mentally went to work on new stanzas for The Mysterious Lady.

A ghost was indeed called for, she decided. The poem needed more melodrama. Perhaps she could have the heroine encounter a phantasm in an abandoned castle. She must remember to tell Ashbrook she intended to add a ghost. She had brought the manuscript with her in her reticule this afternoon but she wondered if she should turn it over to him so soon. It might be better to wait until she had added the ghost.

Conversation in the drawing room drifted into a new channel.

"If we are speaking of likely investments," one foppish gentleman said portentously, "I don't mind telling you about a new venture I am looking into at the moment. Canal shares for a project to be built in Hampshire."

Emily reluctantly let her attention snap back to the present. She raised quizzical eyes toward the gentleman who had just spoken. "Would that be the Kingsley Canal project, sir?"

The gentleman's glance swung immediately toward her. "Why, yes, it would. My man of affairs brought it to my attention recently."

"I should have nothing to do with that venture, if I were you, sir," Emily said. "I know something about the previous financial ventures arranged by the gentlemen behind the Kingsley Canal project and it is a record of failure and loss."

The man gave Emily his full attention. "Is that a fact, Lady Blade? I am most interested in hearing more about the project, as I am on the brink of putting quite a large sum into it."

"If you want to invest in canals," Emily said, "I would suggest that you first investigate coal mining areas. Or look into the potteries. I have found that wherever one finds a product that needs an economical path to market, one finds a need for canals. But one must consider the people behind the venture as carefully as the venture itself."

At that casual pronouncement, all male eyes in the room were on Emily, the women soon taking their cues from the men. Emily blinked owlishly under the unexpected scrutiny. She had continued her investment work here in town. After all, the ladies of the Little Dippington literary society still depended on her. But Emily had not expected to find herself discussing such topics today. She had come here to talk of higher matters.

"I say," one of the men began, instantly casting aside his carefully cultivated attitude of ennui, "Do you favor any particular projects?"

"Well," Emily said slowly, "I have several correspondents in the midland counties and two of them have recently written to me concerning a new canal project. I confess I have not been paying a great deal of attention to financial matters lately but I am rather intrigued by this arrangement. I have had successful situations with this group of investors in the past."

All pretense of a literary discussion was dropped as Emily became the focus of everyone's attention. She found herself inundated with questions and demands for more information on investment projects. It was all familiar territory, if unexciting, and, anxious to make a pleasant impression, she concentrated on her answers.

An hour and a half went by before she chanced to glance at the clock. She gave a start when she saw the time.