As she’d considered her dilemma, however, she’d realized it was unavoidable; she would be laughed at. If she left the dining hall without the shoe, a servant would find it and tell the other servants, who would tell their masters and mistresses, and then everyone would know.

Her toes had searched the floor frantically.

“Lady Cassandra,” Lord Foxhall had asked quietly, “is something troubling you?”

She’d looked into his friendly dark eyes and forced her lips into the shape of a smile. “I’m afraid I’m not one for these long dinners with no opportunity to move about.” Which hadn’t been true, of course, but she could hardly tell him the problem.

“Neither am I,” Foxhall had said promptly. “Shall we go for a stroll to stretch our legs?”

Cassandra had maintained her smile, her brain sorting through various responses. “How kind of you to ask—but the ladies will be gathering for tea, and I wouldn’t want my absence to cause comment.”

“Of course.” Foxhall had gallantly accepted her excuse and stood to help her from her chair.

With one shoe on and the other missing, Cassandra’s only recourse had been to proceed on her toes, ballerinalike, hoping her voluminous skirts would conceal that she was missing a shoe. Gliding toward the doorway, she’d tried to look composed while breaking out in a sweat of anxiety.

As she’d winced and cringed amid the chattering crowd of guests all making their way from the room, she’d felt a subtle touch on her bare elbow. Turning, she found herself looking up into Tom Severin’s face.

“What is it?” he’d asked in a low undertone. Ice-cool and steady, a man who could fix things.

Feeling hot and foolish and off balance, she’d whispered, “I lost one of my shoes under the table.”

Severin had registered that without even blinking. “I’ll meet you in the winter garden.”

And now she sat here, waiting.

Gingerly she pulled at the silk stocking where it stuck to the back of her heel. It smarted and stung, and came away with a little spot of blood. Grimacing, she rummaged beneath her skirts, unfastened her garters, and removed the ruined stockings. She compressed them into a wad and tucked them in a concealed pocket of her gown.

With a sigh, she picked up the discarded shoe and scowled at it. The pearls and intricate beading glittered in a slant of moonlight. So beautiful, and yet so incompetent at being a shoe. “I had such high hopes for you,” she said dourly, and threw it, not with any real force, but with enough strength to hit a potted palm and send beads scattering.

Tom Severin’s dry voice cut through the silence. “People in glass houses really shouldn’t throw shoes.”

Chapter 9

CASSANDRA GLANCED UP WITH chagrin as Tom Severin entered the conservatory. “How did you know something was wrong?” she asked. “Was I that obvious?”

Mr. Severin came to a stop a few feet away from her. “No, you hid it well. But you winced as you stood from your chair, and you walked more slowly than usual.”

Some part of her brain registered surprise that he’d noticed such details, but she was too preoccupied to follow the thought. “Did you find my missing shoe?” she asked apprehensively.

For answer, he reached to an inside pocket of his coat and pulled out the shoe.

Relief radiated through her. “Oh, thank you. How did you manage to retrieve it?”

“I told one of the footmen I wanted a look underneath the table, as one of the leaves wasn’t quite level.”

Her brows lifted. “You lied for my sake?”

“No, I noticed at dinner that the liquids in the wine and water glasses were slightly tilted. The leaf wasn’t set in properly, so I adjusted it while I was down there.”

Cassandra smiled and extended her hand for the shoe. “You’ve done two good deeds, then.”

But Mr. Severin paused before giving it to her. “Are you going to throw this one as well?”

“I might,” she said.

“I think I’d better keep it until I’m sure you can be trusted with it.”

Cassandra drew her hand back slowly, staring into his glinting eyes. As she and Mr. Severin stood there with moonlight and shadows playing around them, it seemed as if they’d stepped out of time. As if they were the only two people in the world, free to do or say whatever they pleased.

“Will you sit beside me?” she dared to ask.

Mr. Severin hesitated for an unaccountably long moment, glancing at their surroundings as if he’d found himself in the middle of a minefield. He gave a single nod and moved toward her.

She gathered in her skirts to make room on the step, but some of the glittering blue silk spilled over his thigh as he sat. The scent of him was fresh with soap and starch, and a wonderful hint of dry resinous sweetness.

“How are your feet?” he asked.

“Sore,” Cassandra replied with a grimace.

Mr. Severin examined the shoe critically, turning it this way and that. “Not surprising. This design is an engineering debacle. The heel is tall enough to displace your center of gravity.”

“My what?”

“Furthermore,” he continued, “no human foot is shaped like this. Why is it pointed where the toes should go?”

“Because it’s stylish.”

Mr. Severin looked sincerely perplexed. “Shouldn’t the shoe be made for the foot, and not the foot for the shoe?”

“I suppose it should, but one must be fashionable. Especially now that the Season has started.”

“This early?”

“Not officially,” Cassandra admitted, “but Parliament is in session again, so there’ll be private balls and entertainments, and I can’t afford to miss any of them.”

Mr. Severin set down the shoe with undue care and turned to face her more fully. “Why can’t you afford to miss any?”

“It’s my second Season. I have to find a husband this year. If I go for a third Season, people will think there’s something wrong with me.”

His expression turned inscrutable. “Marry Lord Foxhall, then. You won’t find a better prospect, this year or any other.”

Even though he was right, the suggestion nettled her. She felt as if she’d just been rejected and dismissed. “He and I don’t suit,” Cassandra said shortly.

“The two of you chatted all through dinner—you seemed to get on well enough.”

“So did you and Lady Grace.”

He considered that. “She’s an amusing dinner companion.”

Inwardly rankled, Cassandra said, “Perhaps you should court her.”

“And have Lord Westcliff as a father-in-law?” he asked sardonically. “I wouldn’t enjoy living under his thumb.”

Now feeling restless and glum, Cassandra heard the lush music of a chamber orchestra as it filtered through a wire mesh window screen. “Bother,” she muttered. “I wish I could go back to dance.”

“Change into another pair of shoes,” he suggested.

“Not with these blisters. I’ll have to bandage my feet and go to bed.” She frowned down at her bare toes peeking from beneath the hems of her skirts. “You should find Lady Grace and ask her for a waltz.”