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“ L ord Melrose was in a good humor for a gentleman who’s the talk of every gossip in London, wasn’t he, my dears?”

“Perhaps he’s in a good humor because he’s escaped Lady Christine Dingley’s clutches.” Juliet’s lips curved in a wicked grin. “That reminds me, my lady. I heard Lady Quigley whisper Lady Christine’s name to you at the linen drapers. What has she got to do with it?”

“Oh, I nearly forgot! My dears, it’s the most shocking thing! You won’t believe it.”

Emmeline said nothing, but she suspected she would believe it, every terrible word.

Juliet gave a bored shrug. “I can’t imagine it could be anything too shocking. I’ve never seen a more perfect belle than Lady Christine. Did she stumble during the cotillion?”

“Or step on her partner’s foot? Spill lemonade on her silk gown?

Would that be enough to earn the lifelong ire of the ton ?

” Emmeline tried to smile, but under her forced gaiety, her chest had gone as tight as a noose.

She’d made a dreadful mess of everything, and now her own lies were closing in on her like a snare around the neck of a helpless rabbit.

Lady Fosberry’s eyes were wide. “All of London is clamoring to know the identity of the Lady in Lavender, as you know, and the ton had it that it was Lady Christine in the library with Lord Melrose, if you can credit it.”

“Lady Christine!” Emmeline exclaimed. “I don’t see what reason they have to suspect her. There must have been two dozen ladies wearing purple gowns last night.”

“Not purple, dear, but lavender . You do recall that bit of silliness in The Times about Lady Christine squabbling with Lady Philippa over a length of lavender silk?”

Emmeline stared at Lady Fosberry, horrified. “Do you mean to say the ton would ruin a young lady’s reputation over some absurd bit of gossip in The Times ?”

“I’m afraid so. The ton doesn’t care one whit about accuracy when it comes to their gossip.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense it would be Lady Christine,” Juliet protested. “Why should she risk her reputation by trifling with a gentleman she’s likely to become betrothed to in a matter of weeks?”

“ If she can bring him up to scratch. She hasn’t so far, you know, and it’s only a few weeks until the end of the season. The worst of the gossips are saying Lady Christine will do whatever it takes to become the Countess of Melrose.”

“Even ruin herself?” Juliet’s face darkened. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

Emmeline pressed a hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes closed, but there was no shutting it out, no pretending it wasn’t happening.

She had to tell Lady Fosberry the truth at once.

She couldn’t allow an innocent lady to take the blame for her own disgraceful conduct with Lord Melrose.

“My lady,” she began, her voice trembling. “I must tell you?—”

“But you needn’t worry about Lady Christine,” Lady Fosberry went on.

“Lord Cudworth overheard Lord Quigley gossiping about Lady Christine at White’s—rascals, the lot of them—and declared it could not have been her, as he’d just been dancing with her, and had returned her to her father only moments before. ”

Emmeline released the breath she’d been holding, but her relief was short-lived.

Lady Christine’s narrow escape didn’t solve her own predicament.

If she didn’t tell Juliet and Lady Fosberry the truth—if she didn’t own up to her, er…

how had Lord Cross put it? Her amorous encounter with Lord Melrose—the noose would strangle her.

But if she did tell them, she’d find herself the Countess of Melrose before the end of the season. No doubt every other young lady in London would be thrilled with such an outcome, but not Emmeline. A match between them went against every logical principle in the scientific realm.

And that was to say nothing of the human realm.

She couldn’t imagine two people less suited to each other than she and Lord Melrose. It would be like pairing a sun- and heat-thirsty tea rose with a shade-loving climber, and expecting them to thrive in the same part of the garden.

“Whatever is the matter with Lord Melrose’s friend, Lord Cross?” Juliet asked suddenly. “He never smiled once during their call this morning. He seems determined to be displeased with everyone and everything. It makes one wish to tease a grin out of him.”

Lady Fosberry sighed. “Poor Cross is destined to die a lonely eccentric. He’s dreadfully clever, you know, but so somber! None of the young ladies can please him, and they’re all terrified of him.”

Juliet, who was terrified of no one, let out a derisive snort. “Pity. I rather fancied a dance with him last night.”

“Well, dearest, better Lord Cross than Lord Boggs.” Lady Fosberry settled her skirts with an offended sniff.

Juliet smiled. “Ah, but Lord Cross never asked me, did he?”

“He never asked anyone, the blackguard, and you were right to scold him for it. But never mind Lord Boggs and Lord Cross. Gentlemen are tiresome creatures, are they not?” Lady Fosberry peered out the window as the carriage turned and made its way up the drive toward the house.

“Now, Juliet, I advise you to retire to your bedchamber and rest this afternoon, before Lady Emory’s ball this evening,”

“Yes, my lady,” Juliet said, meekly enough.

The carriage came to a stop and the driver appeared at the door and handed Lady Fosberry out. Emmeline slid across the bench to follow her, but before she could accept the coachman’s hand, Juliet wrapped her fingers around Emmeline’s wrist. “A word, Emmeline?”

Emmeline fell back against the seat, her heart suddenly racing at the uncharacteristically serious expression on her sister’s face.

Juliet waited until Lady Fosberry was out of sight before she turned to Emmeline, then she paused, as if choosing her words carefully. Finally, she asked, “Is there something you wish to tell me, Emmeline?”

Something? There were a hundred things, each more worrying than the last. Emmeline’s kiss with Lord Melrose, the unexpected emotions that had overwhelmed her since that kiss, the dozens of lies she’d told, and those she had yet to tell—lies that threatened to trap her as surely as a fly in a spider’s web, as lies always did.

Emmeline’s mouth opened, all of these confessions rushing to her lips, but only one word emerged. “No?”

Juliet gazed at her for a long time while Emmeline squirmed under that penetrating stare. “Are you quite sure?”

“Er…yes?”

“Because it occurs to me you were wearing a lavender gown the night of Lady Fosberry’s?—”

“No, I wasn’t. It was amethyst .”

“Amethyst,” Juliet repeated flatly.

“Yes, and it wasn’t a ball gown at all, but a day dress.”

“I see. You happened to be wearing an amethyst dress on the same evening you mysteriously disappeared from our bedchamber, and Lord Melrose is said to have been cavorting with a young lady in a similar gown at that very same time, and when you returned you were flushed and breathless, and the two things having nothing to do with each other?”

Emmeline swallowed. “I wouldn’t say cavorting, exactly?—”

“Now Lord Melrose has just happened to come upon you at Floris, and invited you to visit Lady Finchley’s rose garden, all while he was staring at you the way Tilly stares at sugarplums? You’d have me believe all of this is merely a coincidence?”

Lord Melrose, staring at her? Surely not.

“I…” Emmeline began, then fell silent.

She longed to confide everything to Juliet—to lay her head on Juliet’s shoulder and let the truth spill out of her until she’d exhausted herself, but she held her tongue, even as her throat ached with the effort to keep from blurting out the truth.

If Juliet discovered Emmeline was indeed the Lady in Lavender, it would be the death knell to any possibility of a marriage between Juliet and Lord Melrose, and Emmeline didn’t intend to let that happen.

Emmeline and Phee had been wrong about Lord Melrose’s pattern. He’d proven to be far more adventurous than either of them had anticipated, and Phee’s original reasons for pairing him with Juliet were as sound as they’d ever been.

Emmeline may have managed to make a dreadful mess of things, but a few ill-advised kisses in a dark library didn’t make Juliet and Lord Melrose any less suited to each other than they’d been before.

It wasn’t just that Juliet was uncommonly pretty, and Lord Melrose uncommonly handsome.

If matchmaking were simply a matter of pairing the handsomest gentleman with the prettiest lady, there’d be no challenge to it at all.

After all, Lady Christine was a fair, delicate beauty, and she was still a poor match for Lord Melrose.

Phee liked to talk about patterns and number sequences, but matchmaking wasn’t just about mathematics.

It was human psychology as well, and statistics and philosophy.

Even zoology was part of it, when one considered the ways in which human behavior mimicked animal behavior, and anthropology too, given the evolution of norms regarding mating and marriage as civilization advanced.

And of course, there was botany.

Matchmaking was no different than choosing an ideally matched pair of roses, and breeding or grafting them together to create a perfect bloom. Indeed, the two things were so remarkably alike, she wondered why everyone didn’t see it, but then not many people saw things the way she did.

It was about character, temperament, intellect, instinct and…

oh, very well, the fact that both Juliet and Lord Melrose were exceedingly beautiful didn’t hurt matters.

They were each perfect in their own way, but they’d be even more stunning together than they ever could be apart, just as a perfect hybrid was.

Still, there was one thing that concerned Emmeline about this endeavor, and that was that even attempting a match between them went against every conceivable scientific principle.

An immutable rule of experimentation was that the greatest risks yielded the greatest reward.

The most adventurous scientist didn’t shy away from a challenge—not if the reward was great enough—but the wisest among them were cautious with their research and attempted to achieve a balance between risk and reward in their experimentation.

There was no greater reward this season than Lord Melrose, and no greater risk than stealing the Nonesuch from the Incomparable in order to wed him to one of the infamous Templetons, especially with the Lady in Lavender scandal hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.

The trick would be in getting Juliet and Lord Melrose to fall in love with the least amount of risk possible.

There was no question of lying to Lord Melrose about the Lady in Lavender, or attempting to persuade him it had been Juliet he’d kissed in the library. Emmeline would never lie about such a thing, or try to trick a gentleman into marriage.

But she wouldn’t need to lie to anyone. Juliet and Lord Melrose were predisposed to become enamored of each other. Once they did, everyone would forget all about this foolishness with the Lady in Lavender.

Really, when one looked at it scientifically, wasn’t a match between Juliet and Lord Melrose simply setting things back in order, so they might progress as they were meant to from the start?

It should have been Juliet in that library with him, not Emmeline.

She was an anomaly, a mutation, a flaw in the experiment that should have been corrected before it could happen.

And it wasn’t as if Lord Melrose had a particular longing for her . He’d cast her more than a passing glance at Floris, yes, but he still hadn’t the vaguest idea she was the lady he’d kissed last night. He wasn’t likely to ever figure it out, nor did Emmeline wish him to.

She wasn’t destined to become a countess. She’d never flourish in the brightest patch of sunlight in the garden. She was meant to remain at Hambleden Manor, digging in the dirt for the rest of her days and breeding her father’s roses.

She’d never minded being alone, but Juliet couldn’t be happy with such a solitary existence.

She must have people around her, a life filled with sound and color and romance.

With every lonely day that passed at home, Juliet grew more despondent, her plans for the life she’d always dreamed of withering on the vine.

She deserved happiness far beyond what she could ever find at Hambleden Manor—far beyond what she could hope for from a marriage with Lord Boggs.

If Juliet married Lord Melrose, she’d have all the society she could ever wish for, and a doting husband besides, and it would put a quick end to any possibility of a match between Juliet and Lord Boggs.

“Is that what you’d have me believe, Emmeline? That this is all a coincidence?”

Emmeline dragged her attention back to her sister. “I…yes, I suppose it must be.”

Her cheeks heated with shame at the lie, and she had to look away from the disappointment in Juliet’s eyes.

“Very well. If you change your mind and decide you do wish to tell me something, I’ll be more than happy to hear it.” Juliet reached for Emmeline’s hand, squeezed it, and without another word, quietly withdrew.

Emmeline remained alone in the carriage for a long time after that, thinking.

When she did rouse herself to go inside and passed the round gilt table in the entryway, she came to a stop.

There, right in the center of the marble top sat an enormous spray of pink hothouse roses that had arrived while they were out.

She plucked up the card from the table.

They were for Juliet, from Lord Boggs, with a request that she save him her first two dances at Lady Emory’s ball that night.

Juliet, and Lord Boggs.

No. It was out of the question. A marriage between them would be as much of a disaster as a marriage between Emmeline and Lord Melrose.

The card fluttered from her fingers and fell to the floor. She slid it under the table leg with her foot, then turned and slowly mounted the stairs.

Tomorrow, they’d all visit Lady Finchley’s rose garden, the ideal setting in which to nurture a fledgling romance. Emmeline would find the rose she needed to complete the perfume, and Juliet and Lord Melrose would discover they were meant for each other.

Everyone would get what they wanted.

For two people as perfectly matched as Juliet and Lord Melrose, falling in love would be the easiest thing in the world.