Jennifer, who had designed her own costume as Queen of the Night, gave a sigh of pure pleasure when she was dressed at last and turned to survey herself in the glass. It had succeeded à merveille. If Pamela’s white tulle confection, which she had designed with equally loving care, only made her as striking a figure, they should indeed be the belles of the ball. She reread Pamela’s note which had just been brought to her by a footman. It was disappointing that the Beresfords had to go first to Lady Cowper’s and that she and Pamela could not, therefore, make their complementary entrance together. But no matter for that. They would meet soon enough once there. She smiled her thanks to her adoring maid, Betty, picked up her mask and hurried along the wide corridor to the Duchess’s boudoir.

Marsham met her at the door, finger on her lip. ‘Hush, Miss Fairbank, the poor lamb is asleep. Look,’ standing aside, she pointed to the still form of the Duchess, recumbent, deep breathing, on an unwonted sofa.

‘She is not well?’ Jennifer would have hurried into the room, but Marsham stopped her.

‘No, no, it is nothing. She falls, sometimes, into this exhausted slumber. She has been wakeful, you must know, these many nights past, the poor lady. I doubt she is vexed at Lord Mainwaring’s silence and such worries always prevent her from sleeping. She is sound, now, till morning and it is best for you to go happily off to your masquerade with Lady Beresford who is doubtless calling for you.’

‘No.’ In her anxiety for the Duchess, Jennifer had not thought how her indisposition might affect her own plans. ‘No. I had just now a note from Miss Beresford. They are to go first to Lady Cowper’s and cannot therefore take me up. Nothing for it; I must go alone. I will hit upon them soon enough when once I am there.’

Well coached by Lady Beresford, Marsham was loud in protest against the impropriety of this plan. The argument was interrupted by a footman who announced that Mr Mandeville was below to attend upon her grace.

‘Tell him her grace is indisposed,’ began Marsham, then turned in well-simulated inspiration to Jennifer, ‘but stay, he goes, no doubt, to the masquerade. Why not request his services as escort? For to let you go unattended is what I know her grace would never countenance.’

Jennifer made a moue. She did not like Miles Mandeville’s looks, nor his license, nor his language, and would infinitely have preferred to go alone than in his company. But she could see that Marsham was set upon the point, and after all the drive to Devonshire House was a matter of but a few minutes. It would be refining too much to object to Mandeville’s company for so short a distance.

‘Very well,’ she said to Marsham, ‘I will go down to him.’

She found Miles Mandeville resplendent in a sky-blue domino and was so absorbed in her own embarrassment at having to ask a favour of someone she disliked that she quite forgot to enquire what was his business with the Duchess. As he, for his part, had equally forgotten to invent any, this was just as well for the success of his plan.

When she put her difficulty to him and requested the favour of his escort to Devonshire House, he agreed at once with the greatest gallantry, but stipulated that they must go in his carriage rather than the Duchess’s. ‘Damme, Miss Fairbank, I’ll not have it said that Mad Mandeville is dependent on any old dame for his transport. You shall come with me and ride behind such a pair of greys as you never had the good fortune to see. Never fear, I’ll drive you home after, or’—he saw that this was going too far, ‘I have no doubt that Lady Beresford will set you down.’

This was true enough, and so was his argument that he would need his own carriage to take him home when the masquerade finally ended in the small hours of the next morning. Jennifer yielded with the best grace she could muster. After all, time was running on, the main thing was to get to the masquerade.

Mandeville handed her into his carriage with a flourish, gave an unintelligible order to the coachman and sat down himself rather too close beside her. He had his plan of campaign well worked out: ‘Rattle the girl badly enough and she’ll be so glad to arrive, she’ll not notice if it were Old Bailey instead of Devonshire House.’

So, he took her reluctant hand and began an impassioned speech. ‘Charming Miss Fairbank, how I have longed for this opportunity…’

She pulled her hand away and interrupted: ‘Indeed, sir, you much mistake the matter if you think my most unwilling request for your company licenses this familiarity.’

‘Oh, so it was unwilling was it? There’s a fine sweetener for a cavalier. You shall pay for that Miss Fairbank.’ He again secured her hand and tried to pull her towards him, but she dealt him a resounding blow on the cheek with her free hand, and, as he let her go with an oath, retreated to the farthest corner of the carriage.

‘Shame on you, sir. If I had a father or a brother to protect me, you would not use me thus.’ She looked in vain, as she spoke, for the check string. It was on his side of the carriage; quite out of her reach.

He was still swearing to himself. Her father’s signet ring, which she always wore, had cut open his cheek and it was bleeding profusely. ‘Damme, you have no need of protection, Miss Fairbank. I’d sooner have to do with a wildcat or an amazon. But here, at last, we are.’

And indeed, Jennifer felt with relief that the carriage was stopping. A liveried footman flung open the door and she glimpsed a brilliantly lighted entrance hall, and, by the light of the flambeaux on either side of the door, a small crowd gathered to watch the arrivals. She was aware of a faint feeling of surprise. Did not Devonshire House stand in its own grounds? Was the Duke so liberal-minded that he allowed the mob inside his gates?

But Mandeville’s unwelcome hand was under her arm urging her forward. As he guided her up the carpeted steps, she heard a cockney voice exclaim, ‘There’s another on ’em. Only see how innocent the drab looks.’

Blushing, she hurried inside. How could Lord Mainwaring maintain his radical opinions in the face of such mob crudity? But this was no time to be thinking of him. Mandeville was muttering an angry apology. He must attend to the cut on his cheek. She proceeded, alone, into the crowded rooms. For the first time, as she looked at the masked and dominoed crowd, she began to think it might be no easy matter to find Pamela and Lady Beresford. But surely Pamela’s white tulle would be conspicuous enough, for the ladies of this assembly were clad in what seemed to her a garish motley of brilliantly coloured silk and satin. There was a something, too, about the noise of the crowd that she found disconcerting. She was used, by now, to the babble of society; here, surely, the note was higher, the voices shriller. But then, this was her first masquerade. No doubt the knowledge of anonymity brought with it a relaxation of decorum. Just the same, she would be glad when she found Pamela and her mother.

Eagerly searching for them, she made her way through several crowded rooms where dancing and cards were in lively progress and was surprised, as she went, by the freedom of the remarks addressed to her by many of the dominoed figures she passed. A gaudily costumed pirate seized her hand as she brushed by him.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘it must be, by this tiny hand I swear it. You are the divine Harriette herself.’ And he printed a damply burning kiss on her hand and would have continued up her arm if she had not snatched it away with such obvious indignation that he drew back in surprise.

‘Damme, such airs and graces here?’ He would have caught her hand again but to her relief he was suddenly surrounded by a bevy of young women costumed as gipsies who claimed him as their lord and master—being a pirate—in language that amazed Jennifer by its freedom. Hurrying away, she was relieved to find herself in a rather quieter room where hangings of pale green satin set off a profusion of hothouse flowers. She sat down on an ottoman, determined to wait there until she should be so fortunate as to recognise someone she knew and could ask their safe conduct to Lady Beresford. If she had had any idea what a masquerade was like, she would certainly not have ventured here with no more reliable companion than Miles Mandeville. She saw him now in the next room, in animated conversation with a nun and a country girl in an Indian glazed gown. Anxious to avoid him, she got up and hurried into a further room which she was surprised to find quite empty. But she had been followed.

The pirate who had previously molested her came up behind her and seized her in his arms. ‘Divine Harriette, so you have led me here at last. I should have known that your coyness was but feigned.’

And to her speechless and enraged astonishment, he took her in his arms, forced her mask over her chin and kissed her fiercely through his own mask of black crape.

This was too much. ‘Is all the world gone mad?’ She tore herself away from him and hurried back into the next room, only to be seized upon by Miles Mandeville’s two companions.

‘Here she is at last,’ said the nun. ‘Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, Harriette, my love?’

‘Here is some strange mistake,’ she tried to free herself. ‘My name is not Harriette, I assure you.’

‘Excellently feigned,’ said the country girl. ‘Even the voice is missish. But we have smoked you, Harriette, through all your airs. Now come, take a turn of the room with us and tell me who you will have home with you tonight.’ And, forcing her along between them, they began a discussion of the good and bad points of the men they passed which made her blush hotly behind her mask.

‘But here,’ said the nun, as Miles Mandeville approached them again, ‘here if I mistake not, is a gallant of yours. We’ll not spoil sport.’ And she detached her arm from Jennifer’s, gave a bold laugh, and moved away, arm in arm with the country girl.

‘Sir,’ Jennifer turned to Mandeville with appeal in her voice. ‘I cannot find Lady Beresford anywhere and truly I cannot stay here alone. I must beg you to take me home.’

‘Home?’ He had taken her arm and was leading her through the crowd. ‘Do you jest? The evening is but beginning. And, moreover,’ here he whisked her through a doorway concealed behind some draperies, ‘you and I have a score to settle.’

She found herself alone with him in a small withdrawing-room whose most conspicuous article of furniture was a sumptuous ottoman covered with green satin and fringed with silver. He led her, resisting, towards it. What should she do? The noise of the party, and the music playing in the next room would drown her cries. And, even if she did manage to summon assistance, what an appallingly compromising position in which to let herself be found.

‘Mr Mandeville,’ she began to appeal to him when a voice behind her made her turn.

‘Miss Fairbank? Can it be?’

‘Lord Mainwaring!’ She snatched her hand away from Mandeville and hurried towards the tall figure in a black domino who had entered the room behind them. ‘Oh, I am so thankful. I beg you will take me home. I cannot find Lady Beresford anywhere and indeed I was mistaken to come alone.’

‘Mistaken?’ His voice was cold as ice. ‘So it would seem if you expect to find Lady Beresford. I am at a loss to understand what folly brings Miss Fairbank here.’

The doubt that had been gnawing away at the back of her mind came to the surface at last. ‘Is not this Devonshire House then?’

‘My poor child,’ his voice softened, ‘it most certainly is not. Who has beguiled you here?’

‘Why, Mr Mandeville brought me.’ She turned to where he still stood, rigid, in the middle of the room.

Now he came forwards with an uncomfortable assumption of ease. ‘Miss Fairbank is pleased to be forgetful, my lord. She begged me to give her a sight of the Cyprians’ Ball and—I own I am to blame—I thought I might harmlessly indulge her, since, you see, she is well masked.’

Jennifer gasped. ‘The Cyprians’ Ball?’ Her surprise and shock were so evident that Lord Mainwaring, taking her arm, softened still further towards her. ‘Come, Miss Fairbank, you have been here too long already. My carriage is without. We will not wait, now, to clear up this strange misunderstanding.’ He turned, without a word of farewell to Mandeville, and led her from the room.

Her confusion was such that she remained speechless as he led her back through the crowded rooms towards the entrance hall. Once there, she began to speak, to try and explain, but he silenced her by a warning pressure on her arm. ‘Wait,’ he said.

So, she waited, in silent agony, while his carriage was summoned. Fortunately, it was now late enough so that the crowd of arriving carriages had dwindled, while still so early that they were the first to leave. To her infinite relief, Lord Mainwaring’s carriage was soon announced, and he handed her silently in.

‘What must you think of me, my lord?’ She sank back into the corner of the carriage.

‘I think you very foolish, Miss Fairbank. Even your slight knowledge of the world must have taught you that Miles Mandeville is not a suitable cavalier for so very young a lady as yourself.’

The slight to her good sense was almost harder to bear than one to her character. She began a protest: ‘But Marsham urged it…’

‘Marsham?’ His voice was cold again. ‘An abigail’s advice? But where, pray, was my grandmother? I cannot believe that she had any part in this escapade.’

‘Oh, no,’ Jennifer hurried to explain. ‘If she had been able to come, none of this would have happened. But she fell fast asleep and Marsham said she must not be roused. And Lady Beresford could not come for me, so it seemed the only thing to go with Mr Mandeville. But I see now that I was wrong.’

‘You see it a little late in the day. We must earnestly hope that I was the only person who recognised your voice, which is indeed likely since it was your mention of Lady Beresford that raised my suspicions. Mr Mandeville, I apprehend, will be silent for his own sake, and thus all may yet be well. But it has been a most mismanaged business. I thought I might trust you with my grandmother, but I fear I overestimated both her vigilance and your prudence.’

It was too much. As if she had gone to the wrong masquerade on purpose! She blinked back angry tears and was about to protest when she observed that the carriage had turned in at a pair of ornamental gates. ‘Oh,’ a new and unwelcome thought struck her. ‘Are you not taking me home?’

‘Home?’ His voice queried her right to use the word, ‘I most certainly am not. We cannot be sure you were not recognised at Watier’s. You must, of course, appear at the Duke’s masquerade and you will be well advised to affect a calm enjoyment even if you cannot feel it. This night’s work might damage your reputation irredeemably.’

‘Watier’s?’ she asked, puzzled, as the carriage came to a standstill in the long line of conveyances that was still setting down at the entrance of Devonshire House.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘you are just come from Watier’s Club. You must, I apprehend, be the first lady of any pretensions to respectability who ever set foot there.’

She was silent, enraged by that word ‘pretensions’. So that was what he thought her, a hoydenish country girl, always in scrapes, pretending to a respectability she could not compass.

If he was aware of her fury, he ignored it. ‘We must think of a story,’ he said, ‘to explain your late arrival. Trust no one with the truth. Not even Lady Beresford, nor Pamela, nor Marsham, though she is such a confidante of yours, nor your own maid. No one, I tell you. This is no subject for girlish confidences.’ She seethed, but he went on, ignoring her increasingly furious silence. ‘First, we must make some change in your costume. For many of the men at Watier’s will doubtless come on to Devonshire House before the night is out. If there was time, we should find you a new one altogether. But time is of the essence. What’s to be done?’

Jennifer thought rapidly. ‘My cloak,’ she said, ‘it is black, as you see, but lined with silver. It is but to turn it and I will present quite a different appearance.’

‘Excellent,’ he said, as she did so. ‘And if you will be ruled by me, you will discard that highly becoming headdress. There could be no mistake about that. No, give it to me.’ He took the coronet with a crescent moon on it which she had designed with so much pride, twisted off the moon, and returned it to her. ‘There, now wear it the other way round. And, remember, no word of the change to anyone.’

‘But Pamela will notice. We planned our costumes together.’

‘Pamela?’ He paused for a minute, thinking. ‘Pamela?’ he said again, a question in his voice, then went on. ‘No matter. Tell her you changed your mind before you left home. That will help to explain your tardiness. But not enough. No young lady would be wilfully so late as this for the greatest ball of the season.’ He paused, thinking, then, ‘I have it. We will say that I arrived unexpectedly at my grandmother’s…offered to escort you to the ball…had to procure a domino…and kept you, most ungallantly, waiting. You may be as angry with me about that as you please. It will, no doubt, be a relief to your feelings. But,’ the carriage was moving forward again, ‘here we are.’

‘But the servants?’ she asked as the carriage again paused for a moment. ‘Marsham?’

‘I will take care of them. And I trust, for her own sake, that Marsham is not so deeply involved in this night’s business as I find myself suspecting. Remember, not a word of Miles Mandeville. I have done myself the honour of bringing you here.’

‘I am vastly obliged to you.’ Fury trembled in her voice, and she could not prevent herself from adding, ‘I am sorry it is so distasteful to you. I apprehend you find the company at Watier’s more to your liking, since you went there first.’

He was about to make some reply, whether of explanation or, more likely, of rebuke when he was interrupted by the carriage’s stopping at last at the entrance of Devonshire House. He helped her to alight.

‘Remember,’ he said again. ‘You have been waiting this half-hour or more for me to bring you. You can be as much out of patience with me as you please.’

‘I do not think,’ she withdrew her hand from his arm, ‘that that will overtax my powers as an actress.’

‘Excellent.’ He took her arm more firmly and led her into the splendid entrance hall. ‘You do it to a nicety. And here, if I mistake not, is the Duke himself and with him,’ his arm tightened warningly on hers, ‘is, I fear, an acquaintance of yours.’

With horror, Jennifer recognised the pirate from Watier’s. Would he recognise her? Had she made a sufficiently drastic alteration to her costume? Too late now, if she had not. She went forward boldly on Mainwaring’s arm. Only he was aware how cold her hand was and could feel it tremble.

The entrance hall was so thronged with people that it took them some time to make their way to where the Duke and his companion stood. Watching them anxiously from behind her mask, Jennifer saw the pirate start at sight of her, turn and say something to the Duke, who was unmasked as were many of the other costumed figures. He turned at once to survey her as she approached.

‘Come,’ Mainwaring said, ‘no trembling now. Your only hope is to brave it out.’

The crowd parted. The Duke came forward and greeted them courteously.

‘But,’ he added, ‘you are come so late, I think I must ask you to unmask and make your apologies in person.’

This suited Mainwaring admirably. ‘With pleasure,’ he said, removing his mask. ‘I have but had it on these few minutes and I find it plaguily inconvenient. How does your grace?’

‘Mainwaring!’ said the Duke. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure. I thought you still in the country a-wooing.’

‘I am but just now returned and would hardly have ventured here so soon, but I paid a visit to my grandmother and found her charge, Miss Fairbank, languishing for lack of an escort to your house. You must blame all our lateness on me, I promise you it was no wish of Miss Fairbank’s, but I had to procure myself a domino. I fear she is quite out of charity with me.’

‘Miss Fairbank?’ The Duke darted a questioning glance at the pirate, who had stood just behind him, an interested auditor of all that passed.

‘Yes. Your mask, Miss Fairbank.’

Jennifer, who had waited with unwonted docility for her cue, now unmasked and saw the Duke’s start of surprise.

‘Let me present my grandmother’s ward, Miss Fairbank,’ said Mainwaring, and Jennifer made her deepest curtsy in acknowledgement of the Duke’s low bow.

‘Remarkable,’ exclaimed the pirate behind him and the Duke turned.

‘It seems that you owe Lord Mainwaring and Miss Fairbank an apology, Lovell.’

He came forward. ‘I confess it freely. I am the victim of the most damnable coincidence—I beg your pardon Miss Fairbank. You must forgive me, Mainwaring,’ he turned a little away from Jennifer who was exchanging compliments with the Duke. ‘I am but now come from Watier’s where Harriette Wilson is peacocking it in a costume most remarkably like Miss Fairbank’s. Only, now I consider, the cloak was of a different colour and the crown another style.’

‘No small difference, surely,’ said Mainwaring dryly.

‘No, I apprehend it is not. And now I come to reflect, I see how I was mistaken. Harriette’s costume had not the—what shall I say—none of the distinction and elegance of Miss Fairbank’s. But you must forgive my mistake, Mainwaring. I truly believed you were some good friend of Harriette’s, passing her off here for a wager.’

‘You did me too much honour,’ said Mainwaring sardonically. ‘Harriette, I collect, is most particular in her affections. The Beau himself has sighed away many a night under her window, if she is to be trusted, and how should I be so honoured?’

‘Aye, but you see I did not know it was you, Mainwaring. To tell truth, I thought it some freak of Ponsonby’s.’

‘You are now the wiser. But, tell me, by what secret token did you recognise Harriette at Watier’s since, I apprehend, she must have been masked like the rest?’

‘So, she was indeed, and putting up a devilish good imitation of a prude, I assure you. But Mad Mandeville had smoked her and spoiled her game by whispering about the room who she was. After that, her protestations, of course, were useless.’

‘I see,’ said Mainwaring, and indeed he did, much more than Lovell could understand. He now realised the full extent of the conspiracy against Jennifer. Someone had seen to it that his grandmother was asleep when Jennifer was ready to go to the Ball. Someone, too, had arranged that Lady Beresford could not fetch her and had sent, instead, Miles Mandeville, who had not only lured her to the Cyprians’ Ball but had ensured that she would be molested as much as possible by putting it about that she was the notorious Harriette Wilson. He smiled grimly to himself. There would be a score to settle with Mr Mandeville. In the meantime, he found himself perturbed about his grandmother. By what means had she been put to sleep? Had she been drugged? He must lose no time in ascertaining. The Duke and Jennifer, he was pleased to see, were getting on famously. Jennifer, her first hurdle safely past, had recovered colour and composure and was blossoming under the Duke’s compliments. Lovell, too, seemed even more taken with her in her own character than he had been when he thought her London’s most famous courtesan. Under the balm of their admiration, she was visibly relaxing, soon she would be enjoying herself. He could safely leave her and take care of the loose ends of the conspiracy that still threatened her. Anyway, she was so visibly out of patience with him, so clearly preferring the Duke’s company to his, that there was little purpose to be served by staying here to dangle after her in hopes of a dance. And why should he wish to do so? Having gone so far as to ask himself the question, he wisely did not stay to answer it.

Hearing Jennifer accept the Duke’s hand for a forthcoming quadrille, he broke into the conversation to suggest that they should first find Lady Beresford.

‘Yes indeed,’ said Jennifer, ‘and Pamela. I long to see her costume, for I designed it as well as my own.’

This admission brought on a fresh spate of compliments from Lovell and the Duke, but Mainwaring took her arm and led her into the card rooms, in one of which he knew he should find Lady Beresford losing money as usual.

Seeing Jennifer on Mainwaring’s arm, Lady Beresford paled, played the wrong card and burst into a flood of apologies to cover her confusion. But Mainwaring had noticed it all. Still, he thought, she had a right to be surprised, since everyone thought him still in the country and he knew well that if he had not told her he considered himself pre-engaged to Miss Purchas she would have hoped for his hand for his cousin Pamela. It must be more surprise than pleasure to see him with the unknown heiress. Her high colour and ill humour, too, might well be attributed to her invariable ill luck at cards. But was that all that discomposed her, he wondered. He had never loved his scheming aunt since he had caught her in a self-interested falsehood when he was a knowledgeable boy at Eton, and he was all too ready to believe that she was the mainspring of the plot against Jennifer’s good name. If so, let her beware. Of course, he assured himself, his concern for Jennifer was purely protective, for was he not in honour bound to that insipid white mouse of a girl in the country? But since he had taken Jennifer up, and had, indeed, put her in the position to be an object of Lady Beresford’s jealousy, he was bound to take care of her.

He greeted his aunt with his usual courtesy, explained to her that he had been the cause of Jennifer’s lateness, and added, for good measure, that he was anxious about his grandmother, who had been strangely fast asleep when he arrived at her house, and proposed, therefore, to leave Jennifer with her and go back to Grosvenor Square to make sure that all was well with the Duchess.

Lady Beresford, who had been alternately crimson and pallid around her rouge as he spoke, now exerted herself to greet Jennifer and wonder where Pamela was. ‘We have so longed and worried for you, my love, you can have no idea. Pamela was bound she would not dance till you were come, but then, of course, she was over-persuaded. The Duke, you know…’

Poor Lady Beresford. She had never been able to help lying, even when it was not strictly necessary. It was a pity for her story that the Duke himself appeared at this moment to claim Jennifer’s promised hand for the quadrille. Jennifer, who had been a silent audience to Mainwaring’s interchange with his aunt swept a haughty curtsy to them both and went away on the Duke’s arm, determined to enjoy herself if it killed her, furious that Mainwaring should insult her by leaving at once, without even doing her the common courtesy of asking her hand for one dance. Of course, if she could possibly have justified it, she would have taken great pleasure in refusing him, but that was nothing to do with the matter.

She was particularly charming to the Duke as he led her to the room where the quadrille was about to begin, and he found himself seriously considering her as a possible duchess. What matter that his heart had been broken by Caroline Lamb, his ambition thwarted by Princess Charlotte? Must he always remember them?

As they approached the set, Jennifer saw Pamela, on the other side of the room, drop her fan. It was picked up for her, with assiduous gallantry, by her partner—Miles Mandeville. Passionately Jennifer now wished that her own partner was Mainwaring instead of the Duke. He would know what to do, how to protect her from Mandeville. But, to her relief, she saw that the Duke was taking her to the very top of the set. Her normal bashfulness and uncertainty of her own capacity to support such an honour were quite lost in relief at seeing Pamela and Mandeville find a modest place at the bottom.

And, surely, she consoled herself, as she made her opening curtsy to the Duke, Mandeville would never try to shame her here. The risk to himself would be as great as that to her. And—she was dancing with the Duke. That, in itself, was considerable protection. She would do very well without Mainwaring. She flashed the Duke a particularly brilliant smile as they passed each other in the intricacy of the dance and for a moment Lady Caroline was forgotten, Princess Charlotte unimportant. When the dance was over, he did not offer to take her back to her aunt. The great doors of the supper room downstairs had been thrown open. She must be his partner, too, for this. So, over cold chicken and champagne, she forgot her terrors of Miles Mandeville. He could hardly touch her here.

And indeed, Mandeville had only summoned up courage to come to Devonshire House because he felt it imperative to explain his failure at once to Lady Beresford. But, arriving, he had found her immobilised at the card table; to approach her there would have made their meeting dangerously conspicuous. He had been obliged instead to find Pamela and lead her out to dance, telling her, as the opportunity offered, as little as he dared about the evening’s fiasco, urging her to forget the whole affair and accept whatever story Jennifer should choose to tell in explanation of her late arrival. The sight of Jennifer at the top of the set with the Duke at once enflamed his rage at her escape and increased his terror of the possible consequences to himself. He had not expected her to be so powerfully befriended.