Kate Moore by An Improper Widow

she was the only one interested in what Lord Atwell had to say. Juliet appeared not to notice when he left.
    Evelina greeted their next callers, three young gentlemen in elegant coats and ear-scraping collars, with more apparent delight, and they settled themselves in blue-cushioned gilt chairs for an extended visit. These were just the sort of young men who must please—handsome, well-born, and fashionable, her aunt confided to Susannah. Juliet cheerfully confused one with the other.
    “Mr. Garrett,” she asked. “Are you the hunting-mad gentleman, or is that you, Lord Eastham?”
    When Eastham acknowledged that he might be described by his passion for the hunt, she smiled at the third gentleman present and said triumphantly, “Then you, Sir Miles, must be the one who told me about his horses.”
    Sir Miles Newbury nodded. Susannah suppressed a sigh and prayed silently that Juliet’s directness would do her no harm in the eyes of her callers. However, when Juliet abruptly abandoned the gentlemen to greet the Phillips twins, two smart brunettes, who arrived with Mrs. Pemford, Susannah’s hopes for the morning dimmed. She smiled at the three astonished young men and quietly moved to Juliet’s side, suggesting that their new guests might wish to be presented to the gentlemen.
    The Phillips twins, when presented, showed a gratifying interest in Juliet’s visitors, and Susannah withdrew, picking up an embroidery frame and settling herself in the windowseat in a patch of pale sunlight. Tomorrow she would rise early and walk and clear her head and decide how to encourage Juliet’s notice of appropriate young men.
    In the center of the young people, Juliet offered her opinion that London was sadly flat, and her companions protested loudly. The squabble reminded Susannah of geese vying for a farmer’s wife’s attention. It stopped abruptly when Chettle announced the Marquess of Warne. Susannah lifted her head. His glance rested on her briefly before he turned to his hostess.
    ***
    The blue and gold drawing room was too fussy for Warne’s taste, and must explain why his gaze went first to the slim, straight back of Mrs. Bowen. Her gray silk gown had the dull sheen of pewter, and that delicate back moved him more than the round swell of breast displayed by the other ladies present. Her head was bent over some needlework, and the sheer fabric of her cap caught and held the light while the sun picked out fiery gleams in her dark hair. Her hands moved lightly as she set stitches in a frame. He felt he had not
seen
her properly before. She looked up, and with an effort he withdrew his gaze and greeted his hostess. He had come to find out more about Miss Lacy’s connection with his card thief.
    He allowed his hostess to present him to the other ladies as if he were a prize she’d captured, endured their appraising glances, accepted the lingering touch of several soft hands, and avoided looking again in Mrs. Bowen’s direction. If he must play the suitor to Miss Lacy, he would. The talk in the circle around Miss Lacy, and she was the center of it, was all of the delights to be enjoyed in London, yet the young lady seemed unconvinced. She turned to him, asking, “Have you ever done anything truly daring, Lord Warne?”
    Like hold up a coach on Hounslow Heath
? He held the words back and watched the girl. She colored as with some belated recollection of the unwisdom of putting such a question to him, and looked as if she might willingly unsay it.
    “You put me in an awkward position, Miss Lacy,” he said. “If I say yes, I appear to be boasting. If I say no, you will condemn me for dullness. Perhaps you should define what you mean by truly daring.”
    She smiled, too direct to conceal her relief that he had not made more of the opening her question had given him.
    “I merely meant the sort of doings one reads of. The Spanish brothers are forever tangling with . . . highwaymen and pirates and fighting desperate battles