"I read The Man of Mode last night," Lady Griselda said, bracing herself against the side of the carriage as they turned onto another road.

"What did you think?" Gillian asked.

"An inspired choice, my dear. My only question would regard casting. For you have cast Rafe as Dori-mant, have you not?"

"Yes."

"And his brother, Mr. Spenser, as Medley?"

"Dorimant is a rakelike creature, is he not?" Gillian's mother asked. "I'm ashamed to say that I keep trying to read the play and falling asleep. I thought Dorimant a very foolish fellow. Are you quite certain that the play is fit for representation, Griselda? It would seem to me to cast a dubious light on our host, if he plays a man who is dallying with three women, if I understood the plot correctly."

"Mama—" Gillian began.

But Lady Griselda interrupted her with a charming little wave of her hand. "Ancilla, dearest, your delicacy is much to be credited. These days what provokes innocent enjoyment in the theater is, on closer observation, rather warm indeed. But the truth of the matter is that you and I are creatures of another era." She gently waved an exquisitely embroidered handkerchief before her unlined face. "We must make way for the exuberancy of a new generation. What we might consider vulgar, they consider delightful."

Ancilla looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. "What a complete hand you are, Griselda! I've known you these twenty years—and may I remind you, my dear, that when I met you I was already married, and you no more than ten years old? But even at that age, you had all the hallmarks of a young lady who would get precisely what she wished. I take it that you like the play."

"I think it's funny," Griselda said, dropping the handkerchief and smiling at Ancilla. "I think it will be enjoyable to see Rate playing Dorimant—as far as I know the duke hasn't had a rakish thought in years."

Gillian thought the look on Rafe's face when he looked at Imogen spoke volumes, but she kept quiet.

"Now if you needed another male, and you wished me to summon my brother…" Griselda said, looking at Gillian.

"Lord Mayne?" Ancilla said. "I'll thank you, no, Griselda. The last thing I need, with Gillian's current situation, is your brother on the premises." She turned to Gillian. "Mayne is certainly handsome, my dear, but I'm sure Griselda won't mind if I point out that he is famously set against marriage."

"All true," Griselda said. "But I have hopes for him. He's getting long in the tooth. Perhaps you might change his mind as regards the state of matrimony, Miss Pythian-Adams!"

"And perhaps he might dent her reputation," Ancilla said. "As he has done with so many other women."

"Never with those who are unmarried," Griselda said. "But admittedly, he has inspired his share of unrequited sighs. I have high hopes that this will be the season in which he takes a bride. He said as much to me, when we returned from Scotland."

"That will be interesting to watch," Ancilla said, making it absolutely clear that Mayne would throw out his lures toward Gillian over her dead body.

Gillian decided to intervene. "I have met Lord Mayne, Mama, and he showed no interest whatsoever in sullying my virtue. Lady Griselda, may I ask you to reconsider your refusal to play a role in The Man of Mode}"

Griselda looked as surprised as if she'd been asked to fly into a tree. "I? If I remember correctly, there is not a single part for a respectable woman in the play."

"I think you would play the role of Belinda with eclat," Gillian said.

"She is the one who tricks her best friend, steals the woman's lover, and then ends up losing him to the country miss in the end?"

Gillian nodded.

Lady Griselda drew herself up. "Surely you do not think that I would betray a female friend, or allow a man in whom I had interest to flee to a country miss!"

Gillian wasn't sure which of these options Griselda viewed with more horror, but she decided on the second. "The man you chose would have no interest in a rustic maiden. But I think you would enjoy playing Belinda, Lady Griselda."

When Griselda seemed unconvinced, she added: "She is, of course, a most beautiful woman."

"Irrelevant," Griselda said. "With the amount of rouge worn even in amateur performances, beauty is a matter of art rather than life."

"You know, Griselda, perhaps it is you who should be thinking of the marriage market," Ancilla said. "There's the Duke of Holbrook, for example. He is quite a catch, to put it vulgarly, now that he's given up whiskey."

Gillian suddenly realized that she d forgotten to inform her mama of her own intentions toward the duke.

"Absolutely not," Griselda said with a small shudder. "While I view Rafe with great affection, he has been my brother's constant companion since their schooldays."

Ancilla raised an eyebrow.

Griselda opened her fan. "He calls me Grissie."

Ancilla's eyebrow dropped promptly back into place. "I see. What of another gentleman, my dear? You are still young."

"I am considering that possibility," Griselda said. "I shall reflect upon it further when the season opens."

Wonderful, Gillian thought gloomily. The few men not cornered by Imogen would be taken by Griselda.

Chapter 25

In Which Vulgar Behavior is Noted, Judged… and Punished

Of course, Imogen wasn't going to Silchester in the evening. Why would she wish to rub shoulders with women like Cristobel? The last excursion had sent her back to her chamber stinking of rotgut wine and tired to the bone, having made an exhibition of herself before most of the male residents of the county.

That must be why she was brushing black circles around her eyes with unsteady hands. Her mind kept throwing up tiny bits of reassurance.

Why shouldn't she go? It wasn't as if Rafe's kiss that afternoon meant anything. It didn't. It was a consolatory kiss, the kind of kiss anyone might bestow on an available female who happens to be snuffling into your shoulder.

Although her traitorous body didn't seem to recognize that commonsensical view and kept giving a little thrum every time she thought about it.

During supper she had met Gabe's eyes a few times, but he looked so uninterested that it almost made her shiver. How could she have kissed someone like that, whose eyes were patently unresponsive? It's merely that he's a good actor, she reassured herself. He hadn't been unresponsive in the carriage. His eyes weren't dispassionate when he was kissing her.

Yet there was a detached note to his voice at dinner—

The door opened. "Im-o-gen!" her little sister shrieked, closing the door quickly behind her. "What on earth are you doing?"

"I'm going out," Imogen said irritably, wishing that Josie had stayed in Scotland. "And you really ought to send your maid ahead of you and request permission, Josie."

"Well, if I'd known that I might catch you in illicit activities, I would have. I can only assume that you are returning to Silchester. I should have known the moment that you told Griselda you had a headache."

"In truth, I am returning to Silchester. I enjoyed my previous excursion."