Reaching behind her head, Alexandra unfastened her face mask and simultaneously pulled out the pins that secured her heavy hair. In one quick motion, she pulled off her face mask and gave her head a hard shake that sent dark hair tumbling down over her shoulders in a gleaming chestnut waterfall.

"I don't believe it!" the unshakable Sir Roderick uttered, staring at the laughing young woman before him, his expression almost comical as he tried to absorb the fact that the prim, proper peagoose Hawk had married was one and the same with the young woman standing before him, wearing tight buff breeches that were more physically alluring than the lowest-cut ballgown he had ever seen. Moreover, her blue-green eyes were dancing with laughter as she watched his shock register. "I'll be damned—" he began, but Alexandra's low, throaty laughter, which he had never heard before, interrupted his exclamation.

"No doubt you will be," she said with sham sympathy, walking toward him with the easy natural grace of a young athlete. "And if you aren't, you ought to be," she added, and then graciously extended her hand to him as if she hadn't just wished him to perdition.

Feeling as if some sort of trick—twins, perhaps—were being played on him, Roddy automatically took her hand in his own. "Why ought I?" he demanded, angry with himself for his inability to control his facial expression.

"Because," Alexandra said lightly, "you have made me an object of considerable ridicule here, which I partially deserved. However, perhaps you could consider making amends, so that you could spend eternity in a more comfortable climate?" One delicately arched brow lifted as she waited for his reply, and in spite of himself, Roddy nearly grinned.

Anthony stood back in pleased silence, watching Carstairs react to this lovely duelist exactly as he'd hoped when he instructed Higgins to send him to the ballroom as soon as he arrived.

"I gather you are blaming me for your lack of… er… shall we say, popularity?" Roddy Carstairs put in, beginning to recover his composure.

"I am blaming myself," the young beauty replied, her smile sweet, yet unconsciously seductive. "I am asking you to help me change matters."

"Why should I?" he demanded bluntly.

Alexandra lifted her brows and her smile widened, "Why, to prove you can, of course."

The challenge was thrown down as lightly as a glove, and Roddy hesitated before taking it up. From sheer perversity and extreme boredom, he had unscrupulously flayed the reputations of dozens of pretentiously proud females, but he had never once attempted to rebuild one of those demolished reputations. To try would be to put his influence with the ton to the acid test. Ah, but to fail… Still, the challenge was intriguing. The dowager duchess had enough influence to force the old crones to accept Alexandra, but only Roddy could make her popular with the younger set who followed his lead.

Glancing down at her, he noted that she was watching him out of the corner of her eyes, a tiny, irresistible smile playing about her soft lips. With a jolt of surprise, he noticed how incredibly long and curly her lashes were as they lay like dark fans, casting shadows on her high delicate cheekbones. Almost against his will—and against his better judgment—Roddy Carstairs offered his arm to her. "Shall we discuss our strategy later—say, tonight, when I arrive to escort you to the Tinsleys' ball?"

"You'll help me then?"

Sir Roderick affected a bland smile and answered with a philosophical quotation: " 'Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals— We storm heaven itself in our folly.' That is a quote from Homer, I believe," he added informatively.

The nineteen-year-old vixen at his side shook her head and sent him an impertinent, plucky smile. "Horace."

Carstairs stared at her, momentarily lost in thought. "You're right," he said slowly, and there was the beginning glimmer of admiration in his hooded eyes.

How easy it had been, Alexandra thought with an inward smile four weeks later as she stood, surrounded by a crowd of frends and admirers. At Melanie's advice, she had ordered a whole new wardrobe in bright pastels and rich primary colors—gowns that emphasized her figure to advantage and flattered her vivid coloring. Beyond that, she had only needed to ignore many of the duchess' strictures on appropriate demeanor and, instead, to say virtually whatever came to mind.

Roddy had done the rest, by appearing in public with her and putting his stamp of approval upon her, along with giving her some pithy advice that included instructing her to put herself on good terms with Jordan's former paramours, Lady Whitmore and Lady Grangerfield: "Given your excruciatingly naive remarks about your husband's imaginary virtues," he had informed her as he escorted her to the first ball, "and your absurd compliments to his former paramours' beauty, there is nothing for it but that you must be seen to be on friendly terms with those ladies. Society will then assume that, rather than being an utter nitwit—which you were—you are instead a young lady with a heretofore unappreciated, highly developed sense of humor."

Alexandra had followed that and all the rest of his advice, and in four short weeks she had become A Success.

Amidst young, blushing girls in their first Season, Alexandra's natural wit and innate intelligence made her seem more sophisticated and desirable; surrounded by truly sophisticated married women, her unaffected candor and gentle smile made her seem softer, more feminine, less brittle. Against a sea of blondes with milk-white complexions, Alexandra, with her vivid coloring and lush mahogany hair, glowed like a jewel against pale satin.

She was impulsive and witty and gay, but Alexandra's popularity wasn't due primarily to her beauty and wit, or the huge dowry Anthony had settled on her, or even the valuable connection to the Townsende family she would bring to her next husband.

She had become an exciting enigma, a mystery: She had been married to England's most desired, and most notorious, rake; therefore it was naturally assumed she had been expertly initiated into the act of love. Yet even when she was her gayest, there was a glow of freshness and innocence that made most men hesitate to take liberties with her, a distinct aura of quiet pride about her that warned a man not to come too near.

As one besotted swain, Lord Merriweather, described it, "She makes me want to know everything about her at the same time she makes me feel as if I never really could. I daresay no one truly knows the 'real' her, not really. Hawthorne's young widow is a mystery, I tell you. Everyone thinks so. It's damned intriguing."

When Roddy repeated Lord Merriweather's remarks to her, Alexandra's soft lips trembled as she valiantly fought back gales of laughter. She knew exactly why the elegant gentlemen of the haute ton found her "mysterious" and difficult to understand—it was because, beneath her carefully acquired veneer of sophistication, Alexandra Lawrence Townsende was a complete sham!