Rex wasn’t the sort for high society parties. Given his rather wicked sense of humor, he found low society far more entertaining. Nonetheless, he was Viscount Galbraith, the only son of the Earl of Leyland, and with that position came certain social obligations, most of which involved his great-aunt Petunia. Auntie held not only Rex’s sole source of income at present, but also his deepest affections, and when she decided to open the season by holding a ball, he knew his presence was de rigeur.

Which was why Rex allowed his valet to put him into a white tie and tails, capped his head with one of those ridiculous top hats, and trundled off from his own modest town house in Half Moon Street to his great-aunt Petunia’s lavish and fashionable home in Park Lane, and braced himself for at least two hours of having his toes smashed and his ear talked off by nervous debutantes.

His aunt’s ballroom was only somewhat crowded, for his familial obligation demanded a punctual, rather than fashionably late arrival. But he wasn’t, he soon discovered, punctual enough to suit Auntie.

“Well past eleven before you finally decide to make your appearance, I see,” she said as he paused where she stood just outside the ballroom doors. “I feared I’d die of old age waiting for you to arrive.”

Anyone else might have thought such a greeting denoted a coldness of feeling, but Rex wasn’t fooled, and he leaned close to buss her wrinkled cheek with an affectionate kiss. “Past eleven, is it? A most uncivilized hour for you to still be awake, Auntie Pet.” Pulling back, he pasted on a look of concern. “Perhaps you ought to have a dose of cod liver oil and go to bed? At your age, you can’t be too careful, you know.”

“Impudent cub.” With a toss of her head, she gestured to the opened doors of the ballroom behind them, where people were milling about in anticipation of the dancing soon to begin. “Your reward for your saucy tongue shall be to open the ball.”

He groaned. “Must I? Can’t Uncle Bertie do it? Where is the old boy, by the way?” he added, glancing around for his uncle.

“My nephew caught a bit of a chill this afternoon and he’s gone to bed. He’ll be all right in a day or two. My dear Lady Seaforth,” she added, looking past Rex to the next arrival and giving him a pointed nudge with her foot.

Appreciating what would be required of him in Uncle Bertie’s absence, Rex moved to stand beside his great-aunt and offer his share of the required greetings to Lady Seaforth and her daughters, both of whom—thankfully—had husbands, and were, therefore, unavailable as fodder for Petunia’s favorite hobby.

Auntie, being unmarried with no children of her own, had a very romantic nature and had made it her main ambition in life to arrange matches for all six of her as-yet-unwed grand-nephews and nieces before she departed this earth. Because he was heir to the earldom, Rex was of particular interest to her in that regard, and she proceeded to underscore that fact the moment the Seaforth contingent had passed into the ballroom.

“You needn’t worry about finding a partner for the opening dance,” she said. “I’ve chosen one for you.”

That bit of news was no great surprise, but he decided to pretend obtuseness. “Is it Hetty?” he asked, turning to glance over the crowd as if searching for his favorite cousin. “How marvelous. I shan’t mind opening the ball if it’s with Hetty.”

“It is not Henrietta,” Auntie informed him in a dampening tone. “You are free to seek a partner for life amidst a much wider circle than your own cousins.”

He’d already made it clear many times that he wouldn’t be seeking a partner for life anywhere, ever, but such assurances never seemed to put the slightest dent in Petunia’s resolve.

“Really, Auntie, I don’t see why you should be so against Hetty marrying me,” he said instead, keeping his expression earnest and sincere even though his tongue was firmly in his cheek. “You’d get two of our lot married off at once. And marrying one’s cousin was good enough for the Queen, wasn’t it?”

Her answering look was wry, showing she knew quite well he was teasing. “Victoria, being royalty, was forced to matrimonial considerations that do not bind the rest of us.”

“That’s one way of calling a goose a swan,” he said with a grin. “But you needn’t worry about Hetty ever making a match with me. She’d scream with laughter at the very idea.”

“And yet, I fear you are the one who refuses to take matrimony seriously.”

“On the contrary,” he replied at once, “I take it very seriously—the avoidance of it in particular.”

“Really, Galbraith, you make me so annoyed. You’ll be thirty-two this autumn. How much longer do you intend to circumvent the most important responsibility of your position?”

“Until I’m in the ground. Even longer, if possible.”

“With no consideration of what happens to the title and the estates. Your father expects you to wed, and rightly so. You’ve no brothers, and your uncle Albert, being my late sister’s son, can’t inherit. If you don’t marry and have sons of your own, everything goes to your father’s third cousin once removed.”

As if he didn’t already know all this. Rex repressed a sigh as Auntie went on, “Thomas Galbraith is a man neither of us has ever met in the whole of our lives. He’s older than you and yet he has no heir. In fact, he’s not even married, so—”

“Then perhaps you should have invited him to your ball, eh?”

She ignored that bit of raillery. “He owns a boot-making establishment in Petticoat Lane. Boot-making, I ask you—is that any sort of preparation to be the next earl?”

“A boot maker as the Earl of Leyland?” He pretended horror. “Heavens, what an idea.”

“I’m not referring to his profession. It’s his lack of knowledge and preparation that are of concern. Thomas Galbraith knows nothing of running a great estate like Braebourne.”

“What’s to know? Dane’s a capable steward. And since Papa’s moved to London and leased the house—”

“Only until you marry.”

This time, his sigh would not be suppressed, but when he spoke, he worked to keep his voice as gentle as possible. “That isn’t going to happen, Auntie Pet, as I’ve already said many times. And if we intend to quarrel about it again,” he added before she could reply, “I shall need a drink.”

With a glance down the main corridor to verify that the next guests were still removing their wraps in the foyer, he excused himself and walked into the ballroom. He made for the nearest footman with a tray of silver mugs, keeping his eye on the door as he pretended vast indecision over whether to choose a claret cup or rum punch.

He loved Petunia dearly, and he knew she was equally fond of him, but there was a steely glint in her eyes tonight that told him the evening ahead—and the entire season, for that matter—might be especially trying for both of them.

Any other time, he could have avoided any possibility of a row by going off to mingle, but with his uncle unable to act as host, duty required him to stand by and help his great-aunt greet arriving guests until the dancing began. So, when the newest arrivals started down the corridor toward the ballroom, he plucked a mug of rum punch from the tray and returned to Petunia’s side. Once those guests had moved on, however, his aunt returned to their previous discussion, seeming not to care if a row resulted.

“Both your parents are quite disappointed, I daresay, by the utter disregard for duty that you display.”

He gave a bark of laughter at that declaration and took a hefty swallow of his drink. “Mentioning my parents is hardly likely to spur me to the altar, Auntie Pet.”

“Your parents’ marriage has always been . . . difficult, I grant you, but at least they fulfilled their primary duty. And,” she added before he could reply, “their situation does not provide you with any excuse to ignore yours. Nor, I might add, is their unhappiness a reasonable basis on which to condemn the entire married state.”

“I’m not sure our general acquaintance would agree with you there.” He turned, gesturing with his glass to the crowd in the ballroom behind them. “Thanks to Mama and Papa’s deep mutual loathing and complete lack of discretion, the gutter press was able to keep all of society au courant regarding the miserable state of their marriage, from Mama’s first affair, through every scandal and every retaliation, all the way to the final legal separation. Given the misery they managed to inflict upon each other during their fourteen years of cohabitation, I think our friends fully appreciate my contempt for matrimony.”

“That all ended a decade ago when they separated. Everyone’s quite forgotten about it.”

He turned his head, meeting his great-aunt’s exasperated gaze with a hard one of his own. “I haven’t.”

Her expression softened at once. “Oh, my dear,” she said with a compassion in her voice that impelled him to look away and divert the conversation from himself.

“It’s not as if Mama and Papa have forgotten either,” he said. “They have not, I assure you.”

The moment those words were out of his mouth, he regretted them, for Petunia pounced at once. “And how would you know that?” she asked.

Now embroiled in a volatile discussion he always took great pains to avoid, Rex knew he had to tread with care. “I called upon Papa when he arrived in town, whereupon he immediately began to expound on his favorite topic: my mother’s faithless character. My call, therefore, was brief.”

“I’m surprised you bothered to call upon him at all. He’s none too fond of you these days, you know, and in no mind to reinstate your income from the estate until you marry.”

“And yet I remain a dutiful son,” Rex countered lightly.

The irony of that wasn’t lost on Petunia. “Only in some ways,” she said, her voice dry. “Your father desires you to marry as much as I do.”

“Ah, but there’s a difference. Your greatest care is my happiness. Papa’s is the succession.”

“Either way, I wasn’t curious about your father’s opinion,” Auntie replied, wisely not bothering to assure him of his father’s questionable affections. “It’s your mother I’m thinking of. How do you know her present feelings on the subject?”

So much for treading with care. He grimaced and took another swallow of punch.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been in correspondence with her again?” Petunia made a sound of exasperation before he could decide how to reply. “His discovery of your communications with your mother—and the fact that you were giving her money—are the entire reason he cut off your income in the first place. It is fortunate for you that I have been able to replace it.”

“Very fortunate,” he agreed. “You’re a brick, Auntie Pet.”

“Why? For spiking your father’s guns, or for providing you a source of funds to spend on a bachelor’s shallow pursuits?”

He grinned at her. “That’s a no-win question if ever I heard one. I think I’ll refrain from answering.”

“Unlike your father, I recognize that attempting to force your hand only makes you more determined. Still, if he finds out you have been writing to your mother again, I can’t think what he’ll do. Disinherit you completely, I expect.”

“He’s bitter enough for such a course, I grant you, but I did not write to Mama. And if she chooses to write to me, what would you suggest I do about it?”

“Inform Mr. Bainbridge. Give him her letters.”

“Tattle on my own mother to the family solicitor?”

“By communicating with you, she is in direct violation of the terms of the separation decree.”

“Bainbridge would tell Papa, who would then take away what little income Mama receives from the estate. I am her son, Auntie Pet. Her only son. It was very wrong of Papa to forbid her to see me or write to me.”

“She’s fortunate Leyland granted her an income at all!” Petunia’s voice held some heat, reminding him there was no reasoning with her on the subject of Mama. “She shamed him and the entire family with her wanton behavior. And,” Petunia added before Rex could remind her there had been grievous wrongs on both sides, “nothing’s changed since, from what I hear. Her affair with the Marquis of Auvignon is over, and since he’s not supporting her, money must be what she’s after, though why she’d apply to you escapes me. It’s not as if you can afford to give her any, for you spend every cent I’m giving you as it is—Gaiety Girls, drink, cards, and heaven-only-knows what.”

“Quite so,” he agreed, managing to utter the lie without a blush, even though he hadn’t had a woman or a round of cards in over a year. His reputation as a wild-living bachelor had been well-earned, but nowadays, it was nothing more than a convenient way to explain his perpetual lack of funds. If Auntie Pet found out where the money she gave him was truly going, the fat would be in the fire. “And yet, my irresponsible spending habits don’t seem to be as great a sin as Mama’s.”

“If you married,” she went on, ignoring his point completely, “all this frivolous living would stop, of course—”

“And no frivolity at all would be better?” The question was incisive, his voice razor-sharp as his restraint began to crack. “I look at Papa, and I am inclined to doubt it.”

She sighed, studying him with a sadness that cut him to the heart. “You are made of stronger stuff than your parents.”

To his mind, that wasn’t much of a testament to his character, but he hated quarreling with Auntie, so he decided to change the subject.

“You’ve chosen my first dance partner this evening, have you?” He paused, drawing a breath and bracing himself for whichever young lovely was about to be thrust upon him. “Am I entitled to know who she is?”

“I wish you to open the ball with Miss Clara Deverill.”

The name was unfamiliar, and he gave his aunt a teasing grin. “Ah, trying new tactics this season, I see.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’ve never met this Clara Deverill in my life, and I can only conclude that having exhausted all possibilities amongst the young ladies of our own set, you are now attempting to cast your nets a little wider.”

“Miss Deverill is part of ‘our own set’, I’ll have you know. She is the granddaughter of Viscount Ellesmere. And she has other connections as well, for her sister married the Duke of Torquil earlier this year.”

Rex was not the least bit fooled by this mention of the girl’s connection to Torquil. “Ellesmere? Isn’t he the chap you almost married back in ’28, or whenever it was?”

“Heavens, dear, I’m not that old. It was 1835. More to the point, this is the girl’s first season, always a nerve-wracking time for a young lady. So, you see? This isn’t about you at all.”

He grinned. “Then it’s clearly about you doing Ellesmere a favor. Still carrying a torch for your childhood love, are you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” she remonstrated with a sniff. “Viscountess Ellesmere is alive and well, as you already know, and she asked my help in bringing her granddaughter out.”

“Why should a girl with such valuable connections need help—oh, God,” he added at once, dismayed as another possibility occurred to him. “She’s ghastly, isn’t she?”

“Miss Deverill is a nice, sweet girl.”

That description only reinforced his suspicions. “I knew I should have stayed away,” he muttered. “I knew it.”

“Miss Deverill,” Auntie went on, ignoring his self-recriminations, “has not had much opportunity for society. Her father’s family is in trade—newspapers, I believe. Naturally, Ellesmere was opposed to his daughter marrying the fellow—”

“Naturally,” he echoed, thinking of the mud the gutter press had slung at his parents years ago. “A newspaper hawker in the family? What an awful prospect.”

“But she was determined to have him,” Petunia went on, “and because of that, she became estranged from her parents and turned her back on good society. She’s gone now, poor dear, but Ellesmere wishes to mend the fences with his granddaughters.”

“Well, there is a duke in the family now.”

This rather cynical contention did not sit well with his great-aunt, who gave him a look of reproof. “That’s hardly in the girl’s favor at present. Torquil’s widowed mother married that notorious Italian painter last summer. It caused quite a stir, let me tell you. Harriet’s a fool. The fellow’s nearly twenty years her junior.”

“A younger man,” he murmured. “Oh, the horror.”

“My point is that Miss Deverill hasn’t been out for very long, and between her unfortunate background, the scandal in the duke’s family, and the fact that her father’s ill and she’s required to manage that newspaper business while her sister’s away on honeymoon and her brother’s in America—well, she’s in a most awkward social position through no fault of her own. So, I am determined that she have a successful launch into the season tonight and enjoy herself. As for you, do not think one dance with Miss Deverill fulfills your obligations this evening. Not only do I expect you to be amiable and entertaining company for Miss Deverill, but I also expect you to dance with at least six other unpartnered ladies as well. No dashing off when my back is turned to play cards at your club or to meet some Gaiety Girl.”

Resigned to his fate, he downed the rest of his punch, then set down the mug, straightened his cuffs, and nodded toward the ballroom. “So where is this Miss Deverill? Can I at least see what I’m in for?”

“Her physical appearance is hardly relevant.”

“On the contrary,” he answered with cheer, “I think it’s quite relevant, since she is about to be hurled into my arms. And the more you prevaricate about pointing her out to me,” he added as she gave a huff, “the more I imagine an Amazon of twenty stone with bad breath and warts on her nose.”

“Don’t be absurd. The odds of pairing you up with someone are bad enough as it is. I wouldn’t dream of making them worse.” Auntie moved through the doorway, and as he followed her inside, she took a glance around the ballroom. “To the right of the refreshment table, by that big vase of lilacs,” she informed him as he paused beside her again. “Brown hair, white gown.”

Rex’s gaze traveled to the appropriate spot, where a tall, willowy figure in filmy layers of white illusion stood against the wall. In that first cursory glance, he knew just why her grandmother had deemed her in need of some social help. The girl was, quite obviously, shy.

Her back was pressed flat against the wall, as if she wished the room behind her would open up and swallow her. She had fine eyes, large and dark, but they stared out at the crowd with the combination of dismay and anxiety shy people so often displayed at social gatherings.

Her hair, fashioned in an austere braided crown atop her head, was that indeterminate brown shade halfway between blond and brunette. Her figure was slender, but her face was round as a currant bun, with a pale-pink mouth that was too wide, dark brows that were too straight, and a nose so small it was barely there at all.

Many, he knew, would have deemed her plain. Rex wasn’t prepared to go that far, but in this room of glittering, bejeweled beauties, she did seem easy to overlook, rather like a bit of shortbread on a tray of French pastries.

As he studied her face, it struck him suddenly that she seemed familiar somehow, and yet, he was positive they’d never been introduced. He’d probably encountered her over the punch bowl at some previous affair, or sat next to her at a concert, but he found it a bit odd he should recall even that much about her, given that she was the sort who tried hard not to be noticed.

That thought had barely crossed his mind before someone in the crowd caught her attention, and it must have been someone she knew and liked, for she gave a little wave, and then she smiled.

In that instant, alchemy happened. Rex sucked in a surprised breath, for with one simple curve of her lips, the girl’s entire face was transformed. Her tension vanished, her face lit up like a candle, and those who might have dismissed her as plain would surely have had to eat their words. Whoever she was smiling at must have been a woman, for had she directed that smile at any man in the room, he’d have responded like a puppet pulled by a string. Even Rex, usually immune to the charms of young ladies, felt a bit dazzled by it.

“There, now,” Petunia said beside him. “Are you satisfied that I have not saddled you with a wart-faced Amazon?”

He didn’t reply, for he knew if he expressed an opinion of the girl that was even the slightest bit favorable, Auntie would be finagling invitations for her to every possible occasion, and his entire season would become a game of duck-and-hide.

“Oh, very well,” he said instead, and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s have this over with.”

Those words were scarce out of his mouth before Auntie was tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and pulling him toward the girl.

Miss Deverill looked up as they approached, and the moment she laid eyes on him, any trace of a smile vanished from her face and all her previous tension returned. Somehow, her appalled reaction to the sight of him made her seem even more familiar than before, and it was a good thing he’d already realized she was shy, for if he hadn’t perceived that, he’d be racking his brains now, trying to figure out where and how and under what unfavorable circumstances they had met before and what he’d done wrong.

“Miss Deverill,” Auntie said as they halted in front of her, “I should like to present my great-nephew, Viscount Galbraith, to you. Galbraith, this is Miss Clara Deverill.”

“Miss Deverill.” He bowed. “A pleasure to meet you.”

She clearly didn’t share this sentiment, for her face was as pale as milk. She didn’t smile a greeting or move to curtsy, but remained utterly still, so still, in fact, that he wondered in some alarm if she might have stopped breathing. She looked as if she might faint, and though there were men who would find that a most gratifying feminine response to an introduction, Rex did not. If she fainted, it would be terribly embarrassing and make him the butt of the most tiresome jokes amongst his friends. Worse, it would subject him and this poor girl to the wildest speculations, and that sort of talk was something they could both well do without. He was obliged to prompt her. “Miss Deverill?”

At the sound of his voice, she inhaled sharply and color flamed in those pale cheeks like spots of rouge. “L . . . likewise, I’m sh . . . sh . . . sure.”

Her eyes were now round as saucers, reminding him of nothing so much as a lamb about to be dispatched, and any momentary flicker of interest her previous smile might have evoked was snuffed out at once. He was, perhaps, something of a wolf, but defenseless little lambs had never held much appeal for him.

In desperation, he turned to Aunt Petunia, but he discovered at once that he would be receiving no assistance from that quarter.

Instead of jumping into the breach, Auntie murmured something about the orchestra, excused herself and walked away, leaving Rex on his own.

Cursing Auntie’s devilish matchmaking, he returned his attention to the girl, and the sight of her staring at him in mute agony was all the reminder Rex needed of just why he avoided high society parties.