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Violet Goodwin stood in front of the mirror at Madame Tremaux’s, the shop of London’s most fashionable modiste. Her mother and aunt were seated behind her, and Catherine stood to her side, her eyes dancing with the same glee she’d had earlier in the Crystal Palace.

“I cannot believe I let you drag me here,” Violet muttered.

“You told Lord Alistair we had an appointment,” Catherine said innocently. “So, I sent a note right away to Mother to be sure Madame Tremaux could fit us in. You would want to be true to your word, wouldn’t you?”

Violet glared at her. “Of course, I would.”

Catherine smiled as the modiste held up a neckline for Violet to inspect. It was low—not so low as to be scandalous, but far more risqué than Violet wore these days. She’d not worn anything that clung to her figure so directly since the evening James had died.

“It’s beautiful,” Violet said, “but it is not for me.”

“Why not?” Catherine asked. “This rose color looks gorgeous on you, and the cut is wonderfully flattering.”

Catherine looked at Madame Tremaux, who nodded her elegantly coiffed head. “Of course, it flatters,” she said in her inimitable French accent. “You do not come to my shop to be dressed in,” she eyed Violet’s modest day gown, “anything that does not suit.”

“You see? And you will need something to wear to the Waverly Ball. Your blue gown will not do.”

“The cut is too risqué for me,” Violet said.

“It’s hardly risqué, cousin. And aren’t you knickers or whatever you call yourselves supposed to be fearless? Unlike us prim English ladies.”

Violet laughed. “A knickerbocker,” she corrected. “Knickers are your drawers.”

“A knickerbocker then. Which means you can wear whatever you want to, because no one here knows what that means!”

“That is an odd logic, cousin,” Violet said. “And besides, as I told you, I want to be a nurse.”

“So?”

“So, a risqué neckline would be better suited to you and not to me. Nurses are meant to be useful, not risqué.”

“Are you planning to be a nurse the evening of the Waverly Ball? Because it seems to me that you could still plan to be a nurse and wear a lovely dress. One ought not to be exclusive of the other.”

“It’s easier to maintain my spinsterhood,” Violet said, keeping her voice low so her mother would not hear, “if there are no suitors.”

“I see,” Catherine said and smiled sweetly. “Madame Tremaux,” she asked the modiste who was taking Violet’s measurements, “what are your thoughts on the matter?”

The French woman shrugged one shoulder in a particularly Gallic manner. “I believe it is easiest to say what you feel rather than to hide away in a bushel, or however you say.”

“Hide your light under a bushel,” Catherine replied. “And I completely agree.” She turned back to Violet. “It’s your choice what you wear, cousin, but one day someone will see right through your defenses, and then where will you be?”

“Ensconced in my very own medical clinic?” Violet asked hopefully.

“Oh, Violet. Not that talk again. I wish you would put that kind of nonsense behind you,” her mother said, rising to join her daughter at the dais. She had clearly been listening more closely than Violet thought.

“I know you do, Mother,” Violet answered as Catherine and Madame Tremaux took their leave, “but I am one and twenty now and here only as a companion for Catherine. I know you may have had other hopes for my time in England, and I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

Her mother’s eyes held a look that Violet couldn’t read. “Your father and I,” she began, “we gave you freedom after James. I know how much his death hurt you. But he wouldn’t have wanted for you to be alone, and we don’t want that either. What happens when we’re gone?”

“I’ll have Catherine,” Violet said, eyeing her cousin in animated conversation with the modiste over her own beautiful ball gown.

“Perhaps,” her mother agreed. “But likely you will not. Catherine will marry. And she will almost certainly reside here in England.” Her mother cast a glance at Aunt Lydia.

“I never thought when Lydia married that I wouldn’t see her for twenty years.

It’s a lifetime, Violet. Distance is a harder thing to overcome than you might think. ”

Violet grasped her mother’s hand. She had never considered how much her mother might have missed her sister all these years. “Why didn’t we visit?”

“It is six weeks at sea,” her mother said, “as you know. But more than that, Lydia didn’t invite us until I requested we come for your petite season. I believe her marriage was not what she hoped, and instead of reaching out, she shrank into herself.”

“That is exactly why I don’t wish to marry.”

Her mother reached up and cupped her cheek. “Is it? Or is there another reason? I recall you enjoyed your season before James’s death.”

Violet closed her eyes as the memories came rushing back to her of her brother lying in his sickbed, the heat of his fever soaking his brow. The panic she felt when she watched pain wrack him. He’d been her best friend, and she had been desperate to help him, then crushed when she could not.

“I’m not that girl any longer,” Violet said and lifted her chin in a stubborn tilt.

“And I truly am sorry to disappoint you, Mother, but I won’t marry.

It would be an odd husband indeed who wanted a nurse for a wife.

The earl wouldn’t even let Aunt Lydia mention the company, much less work in it. You said so yourself.”

“Not all men are like your uncle, Violet.” Her mother smiled at her. “At least take the gown. Catherine is right, the blue one will not do for the Waverly Ball.”

“I’d rather not,” Violet said, but her mother was already waving back over the modiste, and she knew there was nothing to do but acquiesce.

And after all , she thought, what harm can a single ball gown do ?

“What will you wear, Mother?”

“About that. Your Aunt Lydia and I will be otherwise engaged that evening, so you’ll have to escort Catherine yourself. As her companion.”

Violet squashed the roll of her eyes. It was clear to her that her mother hoped that by sending her alone she might give in to the urge to mingle or flirt or dance from sheer boredom, if not for any other reason.

She would not. No amount of time spent on the sidelines of the Waverly Ball while her cousin danced and made merry would change her mind. Violet Goodwin would not marry.

“She’s not here,” McGann whispered to Alistair as he fidgeted in the slightly too-tight evening clothes he had borrowed.

Alistair was not a small man, he was far from it, but McGann was even larger still, and the borrowed suit strained against his broad shoulders and threatened to burst the seams with his every movement.

“Stop fidgeting,” Alistair whispered. “You’re like a child.”

“I’m not fidgeting,” McGann said but settled down all the same. “You said they’d be here.”

“They will be. You said you had evening attire.”

“I did,” McGann replied. “I do. I just haven’t brought it out in a while. Turns out, it wasn’t acceptable.”

“Surely anything cut to you is better than wearing another man’s jacket.” He eyed the straining seams across the shoulders of his coat. “Another man’s jacket that is too small.”

“Moths got in. Wreaked havoc, the wee bastards. Are you sure Miss Goodwin will arrive?”

“I’m certain.”

Alistair endeavored to keep his voice from reflecting his foul temper, but every mention of Violet Goodwin made by Andrew McGann rendered his reaction harder to control. He wished he hadn’t left his pocket flask at home. But he’d done so on purpose, and there was no remedying it now.

He’d promised himself he would cut back on his drinking so that he could concentrate on building his partnership with McGann.

The two had met several times over the last weeks, and they’d hammered out a plan.

Now, they just needed the capital. McGann had his idea to marry it and Alistair his to get his father to invest. One of them, surely, would come through. Both, if they were lucky.

Alistair and McGann took another step forward toward the side entrance where they would enter the ball. Like a great many other gentlemen attending, they had no intention of being announced by the majordomo and thrown into the fray of marriage-minded mothers.

They were instead sidling in through the side door, where they could partake in the gentlemen’s smoking rooms before they entered the ballroom for the requisite tittering and promenades.

The line inched forward, and Alistair felt McGann’s eyes on him.

“Why do you look like a storm cloud has taken up residence on your face?” McGann asked.

“I can’t even imagine what you mean.”

“Aye, you can. You look like you’re sucking on a lemon every time I mention Miss Goodwin. Is there anything you want to tell me before we go inside to meet the lass?”

“Other than the benefit of keeping your metaphors straight? No.”

There was nothing to tell, except that he couldn’t eradicate Violet Goodwin from his mind no matter what he tried.

And he’d tried everything. Unfortunately, cards no longer held his interest, drinking too much gave him a headache like Satan’s own the next morning, and he found himself wholly apathetic toward the women in his favorite brothel, so much so that he left without partaking of their offerings.

Miss Goodwin had gotten under his skin, and he could not get her back out again.

Not that the botheration of Miss Goodwin, with her blue eyes and rough hands and feisty temperament, would change his plans.

He would still introduce her to McGann this evening.

He would just have to find some other way to take his mind off her than what he’d already tried.

Some activity he hadn’t discovered yet. Fencing perhaps. Or grouse hunting.

Anything .

These last two weeks had only served to remind him that nothing good would come of his time in town, and the sooner he could be away from it the better.

“I don’t think she’s coming,” McGann said again, causing Alistair to turn to him, angrier than he ought to be.

“She will be here. No one having a season will miss the Waverly Ball, and last I checked, Catherine West was indeed having a season. If she’ll be here, Violet will be with her. I suggest you find another lady to dance with while you wait. I daresay you need the practice.”

“Sod off,” McGann muttered. “I’m an excellent dancer.”

Alistair shrugged as the line moved forward. “Do as you wish, but to my understanding, heiresses dislike having their toes crushed by overly large Scotsmen.”

“Fine,” McGann acquiesced. “I’ll give another lass a whirl when we’re inside. But, Crawford, I’ll have that introduction.”

Alistair grimaced. “I know you will. It’s the only reason we’re here.”