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Lucy gave Stella a grin. “Men like to be listened to, and they all think they have something worth saying.” She tossed Stella’s robe onto a chair and dropped a billow of sweet-smelling silk over her head.

“They want to be charmed,” Merry said, unsurprisingly. “The easiest way to do that is to convince them that they are charming. Watch Miss Fitzwilliams for a few minutes. She’s adorable. Tedious, but adorable.”

Stella was not adorable.

“Adorable” came from the Latin word adorabilis, which meant “worthy of worship.” Stella knew that because the summer before her debut she had read straight through the first four volumes of the 1773 Encyclopedia Britannica.

The definition might seem irrelevant, but it wasn’t.

Gentlemen entered ballrooms looking for a woman to adore.

To worship.

Stella didn’t qualify.

Back in the ballroom, Stella saw Julia Fitzwilliams bouncing across the floor with Lord Mornay, snaring his attention with shyly admiring glances. Stella had danced with him earlier, but she had been riveted by his toupee and hadn’t exchanged more than a greeting.

“Julia’s waltzing with Mornay,” Merry said, sotto voce. “What is that toupee made from? It’s the mystery of the evening!”

“Horsehair,” Stella whispered back. “I couldn’t take my eyes from his forehead throughout our dance, so I’m fairly sure that he didn’t find me charming.”

“You don’t want him,” Merry said. “Oh, there you are, dear.” Her husband bowed before them and said something in a low, rough voice.

Merry laughed. Later, when Stella was standing with her aunt’s cronies, learning about rhubarb purgatives, she puzzled over his comment. He was leaving in the morning for Wales so he wanted his wife to—

Suddenly she caught the word “spectacles” and realized that a cluster of people nearby was discussing her vision, as if blindness was a reasonable choice.

She quickly looked the other direction. Her fingers curled tight in her gloves before she forced herself to relax. A rush of whispers followed, but she knew with sickening certainty that those voices would rise.

Sadly, she had come to understand that she was the real audience for discussion of her spectacles and other shortcomings. Ladies enjoyed enumerating her unlovable features, more so if she could overhear. Anticipation squirmed in her stomach, sending a pulse of misery up her spine.

The size of her dowry, combined with her noble grandfather, ensured she had many suitors. Unfortunately, as fortune hunters besieged her, prettier and sweeter ladies resented it.

Sure enough, Miss Brothy tittered something about “spots.”

Those would be her freckles.

Stella’s mouth had twisted, so she flattened it into a slight smile. Lack of reaction was the only claim to dignity she had left.

Behind her back, a male voice said firmly, “I find spectacles quite attractive.”

It took a moment to sink in.

Her aunt pinched her arm. “That was Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford!” she hissed. “Why didn’t I think of him? By all accounts, he’s intellectual, so he won’t mind your reading.”

Mrs. Thyme did not share Stella’s fondness for the encyclopedia, and had seriously entertained the idea that unladylike reading had leaked through her niece’s pores and alienated potential suitors.

Stella blinked at her. “Renwick . . . The same earl who gave that speech about habeas corpus last week?”

Her aunt rolled her eyes. “If my sister was alive, I’d give her a piece of my mind for having those spectacles made. If you’d never learned to read, you’d be betrothed already, freckles or no. I don’t know him well enough to introduce you, but I’ll ask our hostess to do it. Don’t you dare mention hibius cibius.”

Shortly thereafter, Stella found herself curtsying before a tall, serious man. Giles Renwick, the Earl of Lilford, had high cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, and a haunted expression. His eyes lit with interest when she brought up the impending act affecting judges’ use of habeas corpus in criminal trials.

When Mrs. Thyme moaned, his lordship courteously asked if she was feeling well before turning back to Stella. They discussed the law throughout the next dance.

The earl didn’t loathe her spectacles. He didn’t seem annoyed by her interest in jurisprudence. He could love her. Or perhaps—just perhaps—he was smart enough to realize that love was poppycock.

Perhaps he would choose a wife based on mutual respect and intellectual interests, rather than coy glances.