ITH BRIGHT, ARTIFICIAL SMILES AFFIXED TO THEIR FACES, Diana's family and two of her friends stood off to one side of the Balmoral's crowded lobby, struggling valiantly to appear to everyone as if everything were perfectly normal while they watched the revolving brass doors at the main entrance for a sign of Diana. "The decorations are certainly lovely!" Diana's mother remarked halfheartedly.

The others glanced with forced interest at the Balmoral's lobby, the grand staircase, and the mezzanine. The main lights had been dimmed, and the entire hotel seemed to have been transformed into a dense forest of shadowy trees with tiny twinkling lights glittering among branches covered with artificial snow. Ice sculptures depicting medieval knights and their ladies adorned snow-covered "ponds," and waiters dressed in medieval attire, bearing pewter goblets of wine, skirted snowdrifts and moved among the crowd, while the Houston Symphony Orchestra played "I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight."

"It does look a lot like the opening scene from Camelot, " Corey put in. She glanced at her husband. "Doesn't it?"

Instead of replying, Spence slid his arm around her waist and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, honey."

"Diana said she'd be here at seven-fifteen and it's seven-thirty," Corey told him, "and Diana is never late." Corey's mother looked around the lobby and saw that the crowd was beginning to drift toward the mezzanine, where the main events were to take place. "Maybe she decided she just couldn't come, after all," Mary Foster said.

Corey's fixed smile gave way to alarm. "Canceling out at the last minute is the worst thing she could do."

"She'll be here," Spence reassured both women. "Diana's never run away from anything in her life."

"I couldn't blame her if she ran away from this," Corey said. "Diana values her privacy and her dignity above everything, and as a result of what Dan did, her dignity has taken a public flogging. In her place, I don't think I'd have the courage to show up here tonight."

"Yes, you would," Spence said with absolute conviction.

She shot him a startled look. "Why do you think that?"

"Pride," he said. "Outraged pride would force you to appear here and face them all down. Pride is all she has left right now, and her pride will demand that she appear at the ball with her head high."

"She'll be here," Doug Hayward agreed.

"As a matter of fact," Spence said suddenly, "Diana has just arrived." He looked at Corey with a smile and added, "And she's done it in grand style."

Baffled, Corey turned. She saw Diana walking calmly through the crowd with her head high, seemingly unaware of the people who turned to stare at her. Corey was so proud of her sister, and so startled by her appearance, that she temporarily forgot about Dan Penworth and the broken engagement.

Normally, Diana opted for subdued elegance rather than glamour at formal affairs, but not tonight. With a stunned smile of admiration, Corey took in the full impact of Diana's ravishing purple gown. Fashioned like a fitted sarong with a deep slash at the side, the gown fell from narrow straps at the shoulders into panels of purple that clung gently to her graceful hips and ended in a narrow swirl just above her toes. Instead of the sleek chignon she normally wore her hair in, she'd let it fall in a cascade of waves that ended at her shoulders—its lustrous simplicity providing an enticing contrast to the sexy sophistication of the gown. Corey gave Diana a fierce hug. "I was so afraid you'd decide to stay home tonight," she whispered.

"I never considered it," Diana lied, returning Corey's hug and smiling reassuringly at her mother and grandparents. She was so nervous and so unhappy and so touched to see her family and Doug and his date waiting for her like an honor guard to see her through the ordeal that she felt perilously close to tears, and the evening wasn't even underway yet.

"You're gorgeous," Spence decreed gallantly, giving her a brotherly hug, "and so's the gown."

"It's lucky that your meetings in New York ended a day early so you could go with us tonight."

It wasn't luck at all that had brought Spence back to Houston in time for the ball; it was Diana's plight that made him cancel the last day of meetings, but Corey wisely chose not to add to Diana's concerns by telling her that.

Doug Hayward stepped away from his date and studied Diana with unabashed admiration. "You look fantastic," he said. He pressed a kiss to Diana's cheek, then clasped her hands in his and stepped back, his smile giving way to a troubled frown. "Your hands are like ice," he said. "Are you sure you want to face everyone, including the media, in one big group tonight?"

Touched by the depth of his concern, Diana pinned a bright fixed smile on her face. "I'll be fine," she assured her former childhood friend. "These things happen to lots of people. Engagements get broken and people marry other people instead. Although," she added with an attempt at humor, "it usually happens in that order instead of the reverse." Instead of amusing him, her joke made him wince, and she squeezed his fingers in a gesture of profound affection and gratitude. He hadn't intended to go to the Orchid Ball at all since, as the junior senator from Texas, he had his hands quite full, but when he discovered that Diana intended to brave it alone in what was going to be her first public appearance after Dan's defection, he'd insisted on going and being seated with the Fosters at their table. He was doing that, Diana knew, partly to lend her moral support and partly as a way of using his considerable social influence among Houston society to help negate the effect of Dan's humiliating actions. "Thank you for caring so much," Diana said with a catch in her voice. "It seems as if you're forever giving Corey and me advice and bailing us out of one jam after another."

"Most of the time it was my advice that got Corey into a jam in the first place," he teased. "You, on the other hand, rarely asked me for advice and never got into any trouble that I can recall."

The last part of that was true, but Diana refused to let him make light of the value of his friendship. "You are very softhearted and very sweet," she said with simple candor.

He dropped her hands and stepped back with an expression of comic horror. "Are you trying to ruin my carefully constructed tough-guy image? My political opponents will make me look like a wimp if they know how sweet and softhearted I really am."

Corey heard him, but she was worriedly studying Diana's face. At close range, she could see that despite Diana's artfully applied makeup and luminescent complexion, her face was abnormally pale and her eyes lacked any luster. They looked wounded and dull. Spence had evidently noticed it, too, because he waved off a passing waiter and walked over to one of the bars that had been set up. A minute later, he returned with two glasses. "Drink this," he instructed. "It will put some color in your cheeks and give you a little courage."

Diana accepted the glass and took a tiny sip, then shook her head, trying to force herself to face a problem she'd been avoiding. There was no way of knowing what was going to happen an hour from now, when she walked into the ballroom with her family and Doug and his date, Amy. Some of the people at the ball tonight would be friends of hers, and if they asked about Dan, their interest in Diana's plight sprang from genuine concern and affection. That was not going to be true in the majority of cases at the ball, however. There, she would be bound to encounter hundreds of distant acquaintances and curious strangers who would watch her every move, searching for something to gossip about with their friends tomorrow, and some of them would relish her misery.

Diana had tried very hard to avoid making enemies throughout her life, but she knew there were those who envied the Foster family's success, and there were those who simply relished other people's unhappiness.

"The press is going to be swarming all over you tonight," Corey said grimly.

"I know."

"Stay close to Spence and me. We'll shield you the best we can."

Diana gave a wan smile. "Does Spence carry a gun?"

"Not tonight," Corey joked. "It makes a bulge in his tuxedo."

Diana managed another smile, but she lifted her gaze to the mezzanine, surveying the crowd up there with all the enthusiasm of a woman facing a firing squad at the top of the stairs. "I wish I hadn't agreed to model that necklace for the auction, before all this happened," she said. "I'll have to go up there in a few minutes so they can put it on me."

"Oh, God, I forgot all about that!" Corey moaned. "I noticed you weren't wearing any jewelry tonight, but I was so pleased to see how glamorous you looked in that purple gown that I forgot you were scheduled to model those damned amethysts."

For over a hundred years, the White Orchid Ball, known sometimes simply as the Orchid Ball, and the charity auction that was a part of it, had been the most illustrious social event of the year for the Texas aristocracy. It was steeped in traditions that had originated when the invited guests were cattle-and-oil barons and prosperous industrialists who arrived in gleaming carriages and waltzed with their ladies beneath crystal chandeliers ablaze with candles. In its present form, it was no longer restricted to a few dozen of Texas's most fabulously wealthy and socially elite families, but its traditions had remained intact and it was widely acknowledged as one of the most successful and acclaimed charity fund-raisers in the world.

Diana had been invited to model one of the donated items to be auctioned, and having previously agreed to do it, that was an honor and ritual that she couldn't now reject without bringing even more gossip down on her head. Diana knew that. So did Spence and Corey.

"Finish your drink," Spence insisted. "Two more swallows."

Diana complied because compliance was easier and she needed to conserve all her strength to face the evening's ordeal.

Knowing how concerned Diana always was for his comfort, her grandfather deliberately tried to divert Diana's attention from her plight by bringing up his own. Running his finger around the starched collar of his tuxedo shirt, he said, "I hate wearing this damned monkey suit, Diana. I feel like a damned fool every time I have to put one on."

Diana's grandmother gave him a reproachful look. "Stop cursing, Henry. And your tuxedo looks very nice on you."

"It makes me look like a damned penguin," he argued.

"All the men are wearing tuxedos tonight."

"And we all look like penguins!" he countered grumpily, and to stop her from arguing about that, he turned to a more pleasant subject and looked hopefully at Diana. "I think we should do another issue featuring organic gardening. Organic gardening is always popular. What do you think about that, honey?"

Diana couldn't seem to concentrate on anything except the ordeal that loomed in front of her. "That's fine, Grandpa," she said, even though they'd featured organic gardening twice already that year. "We'll do that," she added absently, which made her mother and her grandmother look at her in amazement. "I'd better go and sign out that necklace," Diana said reluctantly. "It's a good thing I'm not in a spending mood tonight," she added with a lame attempt at humor. "First I forgot my purse and had to go back for it." She lifted up her small, oval Judith Leiber evening bag to illustrate. "Then, when I got here, I couldn't tip the parking attendant because I discovered I forgot to take any money with me. All I have is a driver's license and compact in here. Oh, and I remembered to take lipstick. But I brought the wrong color."

Everyone smiled at her predicament as she turned to leave—everyone except Rose Britton, who continued to stare at Diana's retreating form, her forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown. Finally she turned to the others and announced in a dire tone, "I think Diana has finally reached her limits, and I'm worried about her."

"What do you mean?" her husband asked.

"I mean that she has been acting very strangely," Mrs. Britton said in her blunt voice, "and she was doing it before Dan dumped her."

"I haven't noticed anything strange, Mother," Mrs. Foster said, wincing at her mother's choice of descriptions for what Dan did.

"Then let me give you some examples. Diana has always been the most organized, methodical, punctual, dependable person on God's green earth. Every Friday, at seven-thirty A.M., she has a massage and then a manicure, and every Thursday afternoon at four P.M., she has a meeting with the production staff." She paused to make certain that everyone was in complete agreement with what she'd said so far, and when she saw that they were all listening attentively, she presented her proof: "Two weeks ago, Diana forgot her massage appointment. The following week, she forgot about the production meeting and forgot to tell her secretary that she'd scheduled an appointment with one of our bankers instead! I know, because her secretary called me at home, looking for her."

Spence suppressed a grin at what he regarded as needless concern. "Everyone forgets an appointment now and then, particularly when they're very busy, Gram," he said reassuringly. "According to what Corey has told me, Diana has been under intense pressure trying to run the magazine and implement expansion plans and still stay ahead of the competition. Given all that, an unimportant thing like a massage and manicure would be easy to forget."

"Two months ago," Gram added doggedly, "she also forgot my birthday party!"

"She was working late at the office," Mrs. Foster reminded her mother. "When I called her there, she rushed right over."

"Yes, but when she got here, she'd forgotten my present!—and then she absolutely insisted on going to her apartment to get it."

"That's not unusual for Diana, Gram," Corey said. "You know how considerate she is and how much thought she puts into the gifts she buys for people. She insisted on going back to get your gift because she was determined to give it to you on the right day."

"Yes, but when she got to her apartment, it took her nearly an hour to find my present because she couldn't remember where she'd put it!"

Doug exchanged a look of masculine amusement with Spence before he said, "That's because she probably bought it for you a year ahead of time, Mrs. Britton. Last August, I bumped into her at Neiman's and she told me she was doing her Christmas shopping."

Corey smiled. "She always makes her Christmas list out in August and finishes her shopping in September. She says everything is picked over after that."

"She always comes up with perfect gifts," Doug put in with a reminiscent smile. "Last year I gave her a five-pound box of Godiva chocolates and a bottle of champagne, but she gave me a cashmere scarf that I'd mentioned liking. I'll bet that when she found your birthday gift and brought it over, Mrs. Britton, it was exactly what you wanted."

"It was a box of cigars!" she informed him.

Doug's eyes narrowed in sudden alarm, but Mr. Britton only chuckled and shook his head. "She'd ordered the cigars for me, to give me on my birthday. She always wraps her gifts as soon as she gets them, and she just grabbed the wrong present because she was in a hurry to get back to your birthday party."

Mrs. Britton shook her head, refusing to be pacified. "A few weeks ago, when Diana got back from that big meeting with our printers in Chicago, she took a cab straight from the airport to the office."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Her car was at the airport. If you ask me, she's been working much too hard for much too long," she said flatly.

"She hasn't had a vacation in at least six years," Mrs. Foster said, feeling guilty and more than a little concerned. "I think we ought to insist that she take a month off."

"Diana is okay, I tell you, but she ought to have a vacation, just on principle," Grandpa pronounced, concluding the worrisome discussion.