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T o Lucy’s surprise and reluctant pleasure, when she was shown into the drawing room of her friend Jane and her husband Lord Adrian Fielding the next evening, it was only to find Gilford was already there.

But why wouldn’t he be there, she reminded herself. Before her marriage to Lord Adrian, and before she became a celebrated author of suspense novels, Jane had served in the Gilford household as Meg’s governess. And Lord Adrian had been the late Lord Gilford’s right-hand man in the Foreign Office, so would have had a long acquaintance with the siblings.

Before she could speak to Gilford, however, Lucy’s hands were gripped in Jane’s. “My dear girl,” said her hostess, concern in her searching gaze, “Will told us what happened at the Leighton-Childe ball last evening. I am so pleased to see you in person, but you must be exhausted. I thought you might cry off tonight.”

“Of course I wouldn’t miss it.” Lucy squeezed her friend’s hands and offered her a grateful smile. “I’ve been looking forward to this dinner party for weeks.”

She knew that Jane, more than anyone, understood just how upsetting it could be to witness violence in a place where one expected to be safe. She’d been the one to discover the late Lord Gilford’s body when he’d been murdered.

Jane slipped her arm through Lucy’s and escorted her around the room to present her to those guests she might not have met before now. Lord Adrian’s position with the Foreign Office meant that the events they hosted often included visiting dignitaries and colleagues who were rarely in England.

When they reached Gilford, who was in conversation with a handsome American, Lucy noticed that he looked none the worse for wear after last night’s contretemps.

“Mr. Woodward,” said Jane as that gentleman turned his attention their way, “I believe you and Miss Penhallow have already met?”

“Indeed we have, Lady Adrian,” Woodward, whose dark good looks and easy manners made him a favorite at society functions, offered his hostess a smile. Taking Lucy’s hand, he bowed over it with a warm smile and said, “Miss Penhallow, I’m so pleased to see you again. You’re looking particularly lovely this evening.”

Woodward sent a quick glance to Gilford before returning his gaze to hers and continuing in a flirtatious tone, “I hope you will think of me when you wear that particular shade of blue from now on. For I assure you I will think of none but you whenever I see it again.”

To Lucy’s astonishment, when she turned to greet Gilford his eyes were shooting daggers at his friend. And after he rose from bowing over it, he kept her hand in his.

“Miss Penhallow,” the viscount said as he scanned her face, “I hope you are not any the worse for wear after last night’s trouble. I know it was distressing for you to witness your friend’s abduction.”

“I am as well as can be expected, my lord,” she told Gilford, wishing they could return to the ease of the way they’d talked in the Leighton-Childe drawing room. “Certainly, in better shape than poor Vera, who must be terrified, wherever she is.”

Feeling the eyes of Jane, Woodward, and every other guest in the room on her, Lucy pulled her hand a little. As if he’d only just that moment recalled that her hand was in his, Gilford let go at once. “Have you learned anything new from your cousin? From what he said last night, the police were dispatched to the home of Miss Blackwood’s father to inform him of what happened.”

“I haven’t spoken to him in person,” she said, aware that the whole room was listening to her now, “but he did send a note around this morning informing me that he’s put his best detectives on the case. Also, that the searches conducted last night of the likeliest places where she might have been taken yielded nothing new. He did promise, however, to update me as soon as there is news.”

“If this had happened in my day,” said Lord Adrian’s grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Langham, from her thronelike chair near the fire, “the fiend would already have been rounded up and put on a ship bound for the Antipodes. I disapprove of this new generation. The entertainments are infinitely duller, and despite this newfangled police force, innocent young ladies are being snatched up in the streets.”

To punctuate her disapproval, she brought down her walking stick in a resounding thud on the carpeted floor.

Despite herself, Lucy felt a lift in her spirits. She might not agree with the dowager on everything, but she hoped at Her Grace’s age she was half so full of spirit.

Before there could be more discussion, dinner was announced, and to Lucy’s pleasure, she saw that she’d been seated between Jane’s editor, Mr. Archibald Chase, on one side, and Gilford on the other. After she’d exchanged greetings with the editor, however, Mr. Chase seemed intent upon maintaining a conversation with the lady on his other side.

“You can’t take Woodward’s flirtation seriously, you know.” Gilford watched her from the chair to Lucy’s right with all the leashed energy of a caged jungle cat.

Taking a spoonful of the soup that had just been set before her, Lucy glanced over at the viscount. “And why is that?”

She made every effort to maintain her composure under her dinner partner’s scrutiny, but there was only so much control she had over her body’s response to him. Even when he was being an overbearing ass.

“Because the man is not to be trusted where ladies are concerned.”

Lucy waited for some elucidation from him on the matter, but none came.

“That’s it?” she asked skeptically. “That is all you will say on the matter?”

She’d heard more fulsome arguments from schoolroom children.

Gilford’s only response was a shrug. “You’ll simply need to trust me on this. Men discuss things in private that are not fit for feminine ears. And I simply do not want you to get hurt by setting your cap for the fellow.”

“And yet, he is welcome in households all across London,” Lucy said, leaning back so that the footman could remove her soup bowl. “And you count him as a good friend, I believe?”

“What has that to do with anything?” Gilford gave her a disappointed look, as if he’d expected better of her. “Just because I enjoy an evening at the tables with a fellow doesn’t mean I’d wish him to court my sister. Or my sister’s friend.”

This last he said with a pointed look at her from over his wineglass.

“So you fear that I am such an easily influenced ninnyhammer.” Lucy spoke with studied politeness that anyone with a longer acquaintance with her would recognize as incipient fury. “That—let me get this right—I will be so overwhelmed with infatuation for Mr. Woodward after his uttering a single line of flattery that I will fall to the floor at his feet and beg him to ravish me on the spot.”

She watched in amusement as Viscount Gilford’s face gradually transformed from calm smugness to growing alarm. At the word “ravish” Lucy saw the tips of his ears go red, though whether it was embarrassment at having provoked her into saying it or at being made to think of the named activity in polite company she couldn’t be sure.

“Oh, come, your lordship,” she said, spearing a pea with her fork. “We are both mature enough to have plain speaking between us, are we not?”

Something in her words must have sent Gilford over the edge, however, for he lost all semblance of laziness and sat up straight, leaning toward her so only she could hear him. “You know I meant no such thing, Lucy. I meant only to give you some advice, given how bowled over you appeared in light of Woodward’s ham-handed attempt at flirtation. But I suppose there are those who cannot be persuaded to listen to good sense.”

Lucy gaped. Of all the arrogant…

“You seem to be in such heated conversation, Miss Penhallow, Lord Gilford, I simply must know the topic,” said Lady Fortescue from across the table with a sly smile. She knew full well it was considered rude not only to begin a conversation across the dining table but also to interrupt a private discussion. But the lively widow was, since the death of her elderly husband, no longer beholden to anyone else. And she frequently used that freedom to make mischief.

Gilford, to Lucy’s amusement, muttered a low curse before he spoke aloud so that both Lucy and Lady Fortescue could hear him clearly. “It is nothing so fascinating as all that, my lady, I assure you. Miss Penhallow and I have simply been discussing last night’s trouble at the Leighton-Childe ball.”

As distractions went, Lucy thought with reluctant admiration, it was a good one. After all, the kidnapping had been on the tip of everyone’s tongue earlier, and a gossip like Lady Fortescue could not possibly resist adding her own opinion to the talk.

And sure enough, the lady’s eyes narrowed with interest. “Oh, excellent,” she said with relish. “You must tell me everything about what happened. I read the newspaper accounts, but those are never as satisfying as a description from someone who was actually there. Do you think she’ll be rescued?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start, my lady, though I have every hope that the police will be successful in their search,” said Lucy without really relating the full story.

Before Lady Fortescue could form a response, however, a male voice rang out. “There is no need for you to tell the tale, Miss Penhallow,” said Mr. Chase from Lucy’s left side. “I’ve had the whole story from a friend at the Met. And much as we would all wish that your friend, Miss Blackwood, could be rescued from her captors, I’m afraid that seems a slim possibility indeed.”

“No,” he continued, looking as grim as any physician delivering a poor prognosis, “I’m afraid it’s too late. Miss Blackwood is, in all likelihood, dead.”