Page 35

As the supper hour approached, she stood between one of the massive gold candle stands that lit the long gallery, and a tall, thin-shouldered young man with curly brown hair, whose attention had focused on Jane after the duchess’s introduction. He extolled the antiquities of the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. “You’ll not have more fun for a shilling anywhere else in town.”

Jane liked him, but she knew in some perplexing way that she had no interest in him as a husband. It was strange to have such certainty in the matter on her first night of husband hunting. She kept her smile in place and told herself that her lack of interest must be because she was not truly hunting a husband, but searching for a father.

“Do you have a supper partner, Miss Fawkener?” her companion asked.

“I thought I did.” She looked for Hazelwood among the shifting groups of guests in the vast hall. She had come to expect him to be at her side, and now he’d simply vanished.

“Lost him in the crowd?” her companion asked.

She ventured another glance down the room. “It’s just that…” Her voice trailed off as a tall, stately white-haired gentleman in black approached the duchess.

“My dear, how is your party going?” He bowed over the duchess’s hand.

She smiled up at him. “It’s a success as you see.”

The gentleman gave no answering smile. A single round glass dangled from a pale blue ribbon around his neck. He lifted it to his eye and scanned the room. He turned back to the duchess with a little crease between his brows. “I understand Hazelwood is here.”

The voice was mild, but there was no mistaking the rebuke. The duchess smile died. “He is.”

“Ah, is that wise? You do not want to squander your influence on such a man, I think.”

The duchess’s fan fluttered. “You don’t think anyone regards such old scandals, do they?”

The tall gentleman appeared to consider the idea, looking at the glass in his hand. “Ah but they do, my dear. Several of his mother’s friends are here.”

The duchess cheeks reddened, and she gave a quick look around. Her eyes failed to meet Jane’s. She bowed her head.

“I’ll have a word with him, shall I? We can’t be seen to take in every stray, after all.” The tall man patted the duchess’s arm and turned toward the crowd.

“Who is that gentleman?” Jane asked her companion.

“His Grace, the Duke of Huntingdon.”

Jane understood at once. Hazelwood was about to be humiliated in the most polite but devastating way. It would be public, too, unless there was another way out of the vast gallery.

She turned to her companion. “You’ve been here before?” she asked.

“Yes, of course, my sister and the duchess—”

“Where would one go to hide?”

“Hide?” He looked utterly perplexed.

“Be…private?” She had to find Hazelwood before the duke did.

His eyes widened.

“I need a moment to myself,” she told him, glancing after the unhurried figure of the tall duke.

“Follow me, then.” Her companion caught her sense of urgency, and taking Jane’s arm, he led her across the gallery, around a pair of velvet settees, and through an arch wide and tall enough for a Roman emperor’s chariot to pass. He pointed to a door just beyond the arch. Jane thanked him, and passed through the door into a cool, dark dimly lit space that smelled of damp and earth. Its inner wall stretched the length of the gallery. Its outer glass wall was frosted over. She looked to her left at a series of alcoves furnished with benches and lit by candles in glass lanterns.

“Found a husband already?” Hazelwood’s voice came from the shadows.

She moved toward its low rumble. “You knew you would be shunned tonight.”

He came to his feet in the darkness. She could see the white linen at his throat and the faint gleam of his eyes. “The potted palms made no objection to my presence.”

She assumed they were alone in the long room, but she moved close enough to speak softly. “How long have you been here?” It was cold enough that the flesh on her arms puckered.