he strange thing was, Sarah thought she was angry.

She thought she was furious with Iris, who ought to have been more sensitive to the feelings of others. If Iris had felt the need to call her selfish, at the very least she could have done so in a more private setting.

And then to abandon her! Sarah did understand the need to intercept Lady Edith before Daisy descended upon her, but still, Iris should have said she was sorry.

But then, as Sarah stood in her corner, wondering how long she could pretend that she had not noticed Lord Hugh’s arrival, she took an unexpected breath.

And choked back a sob.

Apparently she was something other than angry, and she was in grave danger of crying, right here in the crowded Fensmore drawing room.

She turned swiftly, determined to examine the large, gloomy portrait that had been keeping her company. The subject appeared to be an unpleasant gentleman from Flanders, seventeenth century, if Sarah’s eye for fashion was correct. How he managed to look so proud in that ridiculous pleated collar she would never know, but he was staring down his beaky nose in a manner that told her clearly that none of his cousins would dare to call him selfish to his face, and if they did, he would not cry about it.

Sarah curled her lip and glared at him. It was probably a testament to the skill of the artist that he seemed to glare right back at her.

“Has the gentleman done something to offend?”

It was Hugh Prentice. Sarah knew his voice well enough by now. Honoria must have sent him over. She could not imagine why he might seek out her company otherwise.

They had promised to be civil, not eager.

She turned. He was standing about two feet from her, impeccably dressed for supper. Except for his cane. It was scuffed and scratched, the wood grain dull from overuse. Sarah wasn’t sure why she found this so interesting. Surely Lord Hugh traveled with a valet. His boots had been buffed to a high shine, and his cravat was expertly tied. Why would his cane be denied the same careful treatment?

“Lord Hugh,” she said, relieved that her voice sounded almost normal as she offered a small curtsy.

He didn’t say anything right away. He turned back to the portrait, his chin tilted up as his eyes swept over it. Sarah was glad he was not looking at her with such examination; she was not sure she could manage another dissection of her faults so soon after the first.

“That collar looks most uncomfortable,” Lord Hugh said.

“That was my first thought as well,” Sarah replied, before she remembered that she did not like him, and more to the point, he was her burden for the evening.

“I expect we should be glad that we live in modern times.”

She did not respond; it was not the sort of statement that required it. Lord Hugh continued to scrutinize the painting, at one point leaning in, presumably to examine the brushwork. Sarah did not know if he’d realized she needed time to compose herself. She could not imagine that he had; he didn’t seem the type of man to notice such things. Either way, she was grateful. By the time he turned to face her, the choking feeling in her chest had eased, and she was no longer in danger of embarrassing herself in front of several dozen of her cousin’s most important wedding guests.

“The wine is very good tonight, I’m told,” she said. It was an abrupt start to conversation, but it was polite and innocuous, and most importantly, it was the first thing that had popped into her head.

“You’re told?” Lord Hugh echoed.

“I haven’t had any myself,” Sarah explained. An awkward pause, and then: “Actually, no one told me. But Lord Chatteris is renowned for his cellars. I cannot imagine the wine would be anything but good.”

Good heavens, this was a stilted conversation. But no matter; Sarah would soldier on. She would not shirk her duties tonight. If Honoria looked her way; if Iris looked her way—

No one would be able to say that she had not kept her promises.

“I try not to drink in the company of the Smythe-Smiths,” Lord Hugh said, almost offhandedly. “It rarely ends well for me.”

Sarah gasped.

“I jest,” he said.

“Of course,” she replied quickly, mortified to have been revealed as so unsophisticated. She should have got the joke. She would have done, if she weren’t still so upset about Iris.

Dear Lord, she said to herself (and Anyone Else who might be listening), please bring this evening to an end with uncanny speed.

“Isn’t it interesting,” Lord Hugh asked slowly, “all that is wrought by societal convention?”

Sarah turned to him, even though she knew she’d never be able to discern his meaning from his expression. He tilted his head to the side, the movement rearranging the shadows on his impassive face.

He was handsome, Sarah realized in a strange burst of awareness. It wasn’t just the color of his eyes. It was the way he looked at a person, unwavering and sometimes unnerving. It lent him an air of intensity that was difficult to ignore. And his mouth—he rarely smiled, or at least he rarely smiled at her, but there was something rather wry about it. She supposed some people might not find that attractive, but she...

Did.

Dear Lord, she tried again, forget uncanny. Nothing less than the supernatural would be speedy enough.

“Here we are,” he continued, motioning elegantly with his hand to the rest of the guests, “trapped in a room with, oh, how many others would you say?”

She had no idea where he was going with this, but she hazarded a guess. “Forty?”

“Indeed,” he replied, although she could tell by the quick sweep of his eyes across the room that he disagreed with her estimation. “And their collective presence means that you”—he leaned in, just an inch—“whom we have already established finds me loathsome, are being quite polite.”

“I’m not being polite because there are forty other people in the room,” she said, her brows arching. “I’m being polite because my cousin requested it of me.”

The corner of his mouth moved. It might have been amusement. “Did she realize what a challenge this might pose?”

“She did not,” Sarah said tightly. Honoria knew that Sarah did not care for Lord Hugh’s company, but she did not seem to comprehend the extent of her distaste.

“I must commend you, then,” he said with a wry nod, “for keeping your protestations to yourself.”

Something lovely and familiar clicked back into place, and Sarah finally began to feel more like herself. Her chin rose a very proud half of an inch. “I did not.”

To her great surprise, Lord Hugh made a noise that might have been a smothered laugh. “And she saddled you with me, anyway.”

“She worries that you might not feel welcome here at Fensmore,” Sarah said, in just the sort of tone that said this was not a shared concern.

His brows rose, and again he almost smiled. “And she thinks you are the person to welcome me?”

“I never told her of our previous meeting,” Sarah admitted.

“Ah.” He gave a condescending nod. “It all begins to make sense.”

Sarah clenched her teeth in a largely unsuccessful attempt to keep from snorting. How she hated that tone of voice. That oh-I-see-how-your-pretty-little-female-mind-works tone of voice. Hugh Prentice was hardly the only man in England to employ it, but he seemed to have honed the skill to a razor-fine edge. Sarah could not imagine how anyone tolerated his company for more than a few minutes. Yes, he was rather nice to look at, and yes, he was (she was told) exceptionally intelligent, but by God, the man was like fingernails on slate.

She leaned forward. “It is a testament to my love for my cousin that I have not found some way to poison your tooth powder.”

He leaned forward. “The wine might have been an effective substitute,” he said, “were I drinking. That was why you suggested it, was it not?”

She refused to give ground. “You are mad.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug and backed away as if the charged moment between them had never occurred. “I’m not the one who brought up poison.”

Her mouth fell open. His tone was precisely the one she might use while discussing the weather.

“Angry?” he murmured politely.

Not so much angry as baffled. “You make it very difficult to be nice to you,” she told him.

He blinked. “Was I meant to offer you my tooth powder?”

Good heavens, he was frustrating. And the worst part was, she wasn’t even sure if he was joking now. Nevertheless, she cleared her throat and said, “You were meant to have a normal conversation.”

“I’m not sure the two of us have normal conversations.”

“I can assure you, I do.”

“Not with me.” This time he did smile. She was sure of it.

Sarah straightened her shoulders. Surely the butler must be calling them in to supper soon. Perhaps she ought to start offering her prayers to him, since the other Him didn’t seem to be listening.

“Oh, come now, Lady Sarah,” Lord Hugh said. “You must admit that our first meeting was anything but normal.”

She pressed her lips together. She hated to acknowledge his point—any of his points, really—but he did have one.

“And since then,” he added, “we have met but a handful of times, and always in a most superficial manner.”

“I had not noticed,” she said tightly.

“That it was superficial?”

“That we had met,” she lied.

“Regardless,” he continued, “this is only the second time we have exchanged more than two sentences with each other. The first I believe you instructed me to remove the world of my presence.”

Sarah winced. That had not been her finest moment.

“And then tonight...” His lips moved into a seductive smile. “Well, you did mention poison.”

She leveled a flat stare in his direction. “You should mind your tooth powder.”

He chuckled at that, and a little electric thrill jolted through her veins. She might not have got the best of him, but she had definitely scored an acknowledged point. Truth be told, she was starting to enjoy herself. She still disliked him, only partly on principle, but she had to admit that she was having, perhaps, just the tiniest amount of fun.

He was a worthy adversary.

She hadn’t even realized she wanted a worthy adversary.

Which did not mean—good God, if she was blushing at her own thoughts she was going to hurl herself out the window—that she wanted him. Any worthy adversary would do.

Even one without such nice eyes.

“Is something wrong, Lady Sarah?” Lord Hugh inquired.

“No,” she replied. Too quickly.

“You look agitated.”

“I’m not.”

“Of course,” he murmured.

“I’m—” She cut herself off, then said disgruntledly, “Well, now I am.”

“And here I hadn’t even been trying,” he said.

Sarah had all sorts of retorts to that, but none which would leave him without an obvious parry of his own. Maybe what she really wanted was an only slightly less worthy adversary. Just enough brains to keep it interesting, but not so much that she would not always win.

Hugh Prentice would never be that man.

Thank God.

“Well, this looks like an awkward conversation!” came a new voice.

Sarah turned her head, not that she needed to see the speaker to recognize her identity. It was the Countess of Danbury, the most terrifying old dragon of the ton. She had once managed to destroy a violin with nothing but a cane (and, Sarah was convinced, sleight of hand). But her true weapon, as everyone knew, was her devastating wit.

“Awkward, yes,” Lord Hugh said with a respectful bow. “But growing less so with each passing second now that you are here.”

“Pity,” the elderly lady replied, adjusting her grip on her cane. “I find awkward conversations to be very diverting.”

“Lady Danbury,” Sarah said, dipping into a curtsy, “what a lovely surprise to see you this evening.”

“What are you talking about?” Lady Danbury demanded. “This should be no surprise at all. Chatteris is my great-grandnephew. Where else would I be?”

“Ehrm,” was all Sarah got out before the countess demanded, “Do you know why I made my way across the entire room, specifically to join the two of you?”

“I cannot imagine,” Lord Hugh said.

Lady Danbury shot a sideways glance at Sarah, who quickly put in, “Nor I.”

“I have found that happy people are dull. You two, on the other hand, looked ready to spit nails. Naturally I came right over.” She looked from Hugh to Sarah and then said plainly, “Entertain me.”

This was met with dumbfounded silence. Sarah stole a look at Lord Hugh and was relieved to see that his usual bored expression had been cracked with surprise.

Lady Danbury leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, “I have decided to like you, Lady Sarah.”

Sarah was not at all certain this was a good thing. “You have?”

“Indeed. And so I will give you some advice.” She nodded toward Sarah as if granting an audience to a serf. “You may feel free to share it at will.”

Sarah’s eyes darted to Lord Hugh’s, although why she thought he might come to her aid she could not say.

“Our current conversation notwithstanding,” Lady Danbury continued imperiously, “I have observed you to be a young lady of reasonable wit.”

Reasonable? Sarah felt her nose wrinkling as she tried to figure that out. “Thank you?”

“It was a compliment,” Lady Danbury confirmed.

“Even the reasonable part?”

Lady Danbury snorted. “I don’t know you that well.”

“Well, then, thank you,” Sarah said, deciding this was an excellent time to be gracious, or at the very least, obtuse. She glanced over at Lord Hugh, who looked mildly amused, and then back at Lady Danbury, who was eyeing her as if she expected her to say something more.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Ehrm, was there any reason you wished me to know of your regard?”

“What? Oh, yes.” Lady Danbury thumped her cane on the ground. “Despite my advancing age, I forget nothing.” She paused. “Except occasionally what I’ve just said.”

Sarah kept her face fixed with a blank smile and tried to tamp down a gnawing sense of dread.

Lady Danbury let out a dramatic sigh. “I suppose one can’t reach the age of seventy without making a few concessions to it.”

Sarah suspected that seventy missed the mark by at least a decade, but there was no way she was going to make this opinion public.

“What I was going to say,” Lady Danbury continued, her voice dripping with the long-suffering tones of the endlessly interrupted (despite the fact that she was the only one who had been talking), “is that when you expressed surprise at my presence, which we both know was nothing more than a feeble attempt to make conversation, and I said, ‘Where else would I be?’ you should have said, ‘Apparently you don’t find polite conversation very diverting.’ ”

Sarah’s lips parted and hung there in an astonished oval for a full two seconds before she said, “I am afraid I can’t follow you.”

Lady Danbury fixed her with a vaguely aggravated stare before saying, “I had told you that I found awkward conversations to be very diverting, and you said that nonsense about being surprised to see me, then I quite rightly called you foolish.”

“I don’t believe you called her foolish,” Lord Hugh murmured.

“Didn’t I? Well, I thought it.” Lady Danbury thumped her cane on the carpet and turned back to Sarah. “At any rate, I was only trying to be helpful. There’s never any point spouting useless platitudes. Makes you seem a bit like a wooden post, and you don’t want that, do you?”

“It really depends on the location of the wooden post,” Sarah replied, wondering how many wooden posts one might find in, say, Bombay.

“Well done, Lady Sarah,” Lady Danbury applauded. “Keep sharpening that tongue. I expect you’ll wish to keep your wits about you this evening.”

“I generally wish to keep my wits about myself every evening.”

Lady Danbury gave an approving nod. “And you—” She turned to Lord Hugh, much to Sarah’s delight. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you.”

“I believe you said you forget nothing,” he said.

“So I did,” Lady Danbury replied. “Rather like your father in that regard, I expect.”

Sarah gasped. Even for Lady Danbury, this was audacious.

But Lord Hugh proved to be more than her match. His expression did not change in the least as he said, “Ah, but that is not the case at all. My father’s memory is relentlessly selective.”

“But tenacious.”

“Also relentlessly.”

“Well,” Lady Danbury declared, thumping her cane on the carpet. “I expect it’s time to call him off.”

“I have very little control over my father, Lady Danbury.”

“No man is without all resources.”

He tipped his head in a tiny salute. “I did not say that I was.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked back and forth so fast she was getting dizzy.

“This nonsense has gone on long enough,” Lady Danbury announced.

“On that point, we are in agreement,” Lord Hugh replied, but to Sarah’s ears, they were still sparring.

“It is good to see you at this wedding,” the elderly countess said. “I hope it portends peaceful times to come.”

“As Lord Chatteris is not my great-grandnephew, I can only assume that I was invited out of friendship.”

“Or to keep an eye on you.”

“Ah,” Lord Hugh said, one corner of his mouth sliding into a wry curve, “but that would be counterproductive. One would assume that the only dastardly deed for which I might need monitoring would involve Lord Winstead, who, as we both know, is here at the wedding.”

His face resumed its normal inscrutable mask, and he regarded Lady Danbury unblinkingly until she said, “I believe that is quite the longest sentence I have ever heard you utter.”

“Have you heard him utter many sentences?” Sarah inquired.

Lady Danbury turned to her with a hawkish expression. “I’d quite forgotten you were there.”

“I have been uncharacteristically quiet.”

“Which brings me to my original point,” Lady Danbury declared.

“That we are awkward?” Lord Hugh murmured.

“Yes!”

This, predictably, was met with an awkward pause.

“You, Lord Hugh,” Lady Danbury declared, “have been abnormally taciturn since the day you were born.”

“You were there?” he queried.

Lady Danbury’s face screwed up, but it was obvious she appreciated an excellent riposte, even when directed at her. “How do you put up with him?” she asked Sarah.

“I rarely have to,” Sarah replied with a shrug.

“Hmmph.”

“She has been assigned to me,” Lord Hugh explained.

Lady Danbury’s eyes narrowed. “For someone so uncommunicative, you’re quite pithy this evening.”

“It must be the company.”

“I do tend to bring out the best in people.” Lady Danbury smiled slyly and swung around to face Sarah. “What do you think?”

“Without a doubt you bring out the best in me,” Sarah proclaimed. She’d always known when to say what someone else wanted to hear.

“I must say,” Lord Hugh said in a dry tone, “I find this conversation diverting.”

“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” Lady Danbury retorted. “It’s not as if you’ve had to tax your brain to keep up with me.”

Sarah felt her lips part again as she tried to sort that one out. Had Lady Danbury just called him clever? Or was she insulting him by saying that he hadn’t added anything of interest to the conversation?

And what did it mean that Sarah had to tax her brain to keep up with her?

“You look perplexed, Lady Sarah,” Lady Danbury said.

“I find myself fervently hoping that we will soon be called in to supper,” Sarah admitted.

Lady Danbury snorted with amusement.

Emboldened, Sarah said to Lord Hugh, “I believe I have begun to pray to the butler.”

“If there are to be replies, you’ll certainly hear his before anyone else’s,” he said.

“Now this is more like it,” Lady Danbury announced. “Look at the two of you. You’re positively bantering.”

“Bantering,” Lord Hugh repeated, as if he could not quite grasp the word.

“It’s not as entertaining for me as an awkward conversation, but I imagine you prefer it.” Lady Danbury pressed her lips together and glanced about the room. “I suppose I shall have to find someone else to entertain me now. It’s quite a delicate balance, you know, finding awkwardness without stupidity.” She thumped her cane on the carpet, hmmphed, and departed.

Sarah turned to Lord Hugh. “She’s mad.”

“I might point out that you recently said the same thing to me.”

Sarah was sure there were a thousand different responses to that, but she managed to think of precisely none of them before Iris suddenly appeared. Sarah clenched her teeth. She was still very annoyed with her.

“I found her,” Iris announced, her face still grim with latent determination. “We are saved.”

Sarah could not find enough charity within herself to say something bright and congratulatory. She did, however, nod.

Iris gave her a queer look, punctuated with a tiny shrug.

“Lord Hugh,” Sarah said, with perhaps a bit more emphasis than was strictly necessary, “may I present my cousin, Miss Smythe-Smith? Formerly Miss Iris Smythe-Smith,” she added, for no reason other than her own sense of annoyance. “Her elder sister was recently wed.”

Iris started, clearly only just realizing that he’d been standing next to her cousin. This did not surprise Sarah; when Iris had her mind set on something she rarely noticed anything she deemed irrelevant.

“Lord Hugh,” Iris said, recovering quickly.

“I am most relieved to hear that you are saved,” Lord Hugh said.

Sarah took some satisfaction in the fact that Iris did not appear to know how to respond.

“From plague?” Lord Hugh inquired. “Pestilence?”

Sarah could only stare.

“Oh, I know,” he said in quite the jolliest tone she’d ever heard from him. “Locusts. There’s nothing like a good infestation of locusts.”

Iris blinked several times, then lifted a finger as if she’d just thought of something. “I’ll leave you, then.”

“Of course you will,” Sarah muttered.

Iris gave her an almost imperceptible smirk, then made her departure, snaking fluidly through the crowd.

“I must confess to curiosity,” Lord Hugh said once Iris had disappeared from view.

Sarah just stared ahead. He wasn’t the sort to let her silence stop him, so there didn’t seem much need to reply.

“From what dreadful fate did your cousin save you?”

“Not you, apparently,” Sarah muttered before she could control her tongue.

He chuckled at that, and Sarah decided there was no reason not to tell him the truth. “My cousin Daisy—that’s Iris’s younger sister—was trying to organize a special performance of the Smythe-Smith Quartet.”

“Why should that be a problem?”

Sarah took a moment to phrase her query. “You have not attended one of our musicales, then?”

“I have not had the pleasure.”

“Pleasure,” Sarah repeated, tucking her chin back toward her neck as she tried to choke down her disbelief.

“Is something wrong?” Lord Hugh asked.

She opened her mouth to explain, but just then the butler came in and called them in for supper.

“Your prayers are answered,” Lord Hugh said wryly.

“Not all of them,” she muttered.

He offered her his arm. “Yes, you’re still stuck with me, aren’t you?”

Indeed.