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She watched Susannah and Catherine turn to ascend the stairs.

She knew they could be cruelly ignored in favor of the spoiled twins.

Twin cats, that’s what they were. Still, Catherine did not seem to be as drab a little thing as they had all supposed, and it appeared she had a quick wit as well as a kind heart.

It really is too bad that I must leave tomorrow , she thought. I would be willing to wager that Catherine will prove to be a more beautiful flower than either Lady Iris or Lady Dahlia .

Well, she would return to London for the ball Alicia would be giving later in the Season in the debutantes’ honor. It was an event she was beginning to anticipate.

Susannah led Catherine to her room, then stood uncertainly in the doorway.

She was lonely in Aunt Alicia’s household, and she had hoped Catherine and she could form a friendship, for Iris and Dahlia were neither friendly nor kind.

She felt she was suffering through each day until the Season was over and she could return to her parents’ home in Portsmouth.

She shifted nervously from foot to foot, her large brown eyes wide, as she watched Catherine warmly greet a smiling, frizzy-haired maid.

In awe, she watched them giggle together like school friends.

Then she witnessed the strangest thing of all.

Catherine removed her dowdy bonnet, tossing it carelessly into a corner of the room before she reached up to the tight bun at the back of her head and rapidly pulled out a handful of hairpins.

A glorious tumble of wavy auburn hair fell past her shoulders.

Catherine leaned forward to shake her head then flung her head back, raking her fingers through the thick auburn waves as they settled back away from her face.

“What a relief!” Catherine massaged her scalp, her eyes half-closed, and a smile of sheer bliss curving her lips upward, her face aglow.

“But—but—you’re beautiful!” Susannah blurted out.

Startled, Catherine turned toward the doorway. She had forgotten all about her cousin. Truthfully, she assumed she’d want to leave her presence as quickly as the others did.

Behind her, Bethie giggled again.

She cast a glance of reproof at her maid before crossing the room to take her cousin’s hands in hers.

She looked into her eyes, mentally framing a careful reply when she noted the shy vulnerability in Susannah’s wide-eyed gaze.

Impulsively, she squeezed her cousin’s small hands reassuringly, a bright smile sending sparkle to her eyes and dimples to her cheeks.

“Can I trust you to keep a secret?” Catherine asked.

“Of course,” Susannah said, puzzled.

Catherine hooked an arm around Susannah’s waist and drew her into the room, seating her on a brocade-covered bench at the foot of the bed. Catherine studied her shy cousin a moment, then nodded and began to pace the room.

“I came to London under duress. I never desired a London Season. I was coerced into coming by my well-meaning family.”

“Family? But Aunt Alicia said you were all alone, except for your mother.”

“Hardly,” Catherine said drily, coming to sit next to Susannah on the bench. “My mother and I live with my grandmother, and a few miles away live my uncle and his wife. Shortly, if my Aunt Deirdre's predictions are true, I will also be acquiring a stepfather and two stepbrothers.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind that, for Mother is lonely and too cowed by my grandmother. And Squire Leftwich does care for her. He and his sons need her, whereas Grandmother and I don’t,” she finished ruefully.

Catherine stared into the dancing flames in the fireplace.

“Unfortunately,” she said slowly, “Mother has this notion that she cannot look to her happiness until she knows I am comfortably situated. Such nonsense. Anyway, Aunt Deirdre and Grandmother felt the squire might be more inclined to press his suit, and Mother more inclined to accept if I were not around.”

“I see.”

Catherine glanced at Susannah’s serious expression before turning back to her contemplation of the flickering flames in the hearth. “Then there is the matter of my inheritance,” she added, frowning at her thoughts.

"Inheritance?” Susannah asked, then blushed, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what. . . .Really, it is no business of mine.”

Catherine returned her full attention to her cousin, laughing at Susannah’s evident confusion.

“Do not be embarrassed. I know Aunt Alicia has painted a gloomy picture of my life, but her renderings are without basis. They are cut from the cloth of her imagination. That is what bothered me the most about coming to London--the knowledge that Aunt Alicia considered me a nothing.”

“Well, you are not alone there, for she does not think much more of me if she thinks of me at all!”

“Ah, but by your looks alone, you are a true Shreveton. But I digress. Let me tell you about my inheritance, for it lies at the base of my presence in London. Have you ever heard of Burke horses?”

“Yes, of course. Father would love to own one but says it wouldn’t be fair to the animal because he is at sea so much, you know, and no one is about to exercise it. Mother said she would, for she loves to ride, but Father told her that no woman can control a Burke horse.”

“Fustian,” Catherine said and rose from the bench. “I school Burke horses.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s true, I assure you. My uncle is Sir Eugene Burke, and I shall be his heir,” Catherine added with pride and satisfaction.

At Susannah’s shocked expression, Catherine laughed and went on to tell her enthralled cousin about the events leading up to the start of her sojourn to London and her reason for the dowdy disguise.

“It is how Aunt Alicia expected me to appear. Why should I disappoint her?”

Susannah laughed, feeling more at ease with her cousin though vestiges of awe remained.

“I must admit, however, that last evening I had cause to regret my attire,” Catherine said ruefully.

Susannah encouraged Catherine to tell her the story. Catherine tried to give her a summary; however, Bethie, methodically unpacking Catherine’s trunks, continually threw in elaborations that forced Catherine to elaborate in kind.

“And you say Sir Philip Kirkson gave your Mrs. Dawes that black eye? And that Cousin Stephen was involved? Aunt Penelope will be mortified to learn that.”

“Which is precisely why we won’t tell her.”

“But what about this gentleman who tried to warn Sir Philip to leave you alone? Who was he?”

Catherine quickly turned away from Susannah to hide the telltale blush that flared brightly on her cheeks.

“Um, I think he was called Stefton,” she managed, fighting down the strange surge of tingling that rippled through her body at the thought of his dark satyr visage and black locks that curled across his brow.

“Stefton? The Marquis of Stefton? He actually intervened?” Susannah asked, rising and crossing to Catherine’s side to place a hand on her shoulder.

“Ultimately, yes,” Catherine said, puzzled by her cousin’s reaction.

Susannah shook her head, her hand falling from her cousin’s shoulder. “How odd,” she said softly, a pensive expression in her eyes. “From what I’ve heard of him, he’s more inclined to pull up a chair to watch than to lift a finger to defend anyone.”

“Well, he very nearly did just stand back, and truthfully, in the end, he found the whole quite comical, for he laughed heartily.” The memory of amusement glinting in his silver eyes coupled with his rakish, thoroughly masculine smile set her limbs quivering.

Angrily she banished the image from her mind.

“I believe he took the entire incident as a sideshow for his enjoyment,” she said firmly.

“I am convinced the only reason he did anything at all was because he and Kirkson have some great dislike for each other, and he knew it would be the perfect way to nettle Kirkson. Of course, he waited until mere moments before Mr. Dawes burst into the room,” Catherine finished waspishly.

Then she paused for breath and grinned. “But enough of what has gone before.

You and I need to plan for what we must do in the future. "

“Do?” Susannah asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Catherine said, coming to sit by Susannah on the end of the bench, “for unless I miss my guess, the two of us will have to band together so our more illustrious cousins don’t ride roughshod over either of us.”

“That is true,” Susannah declared fervently.

“How is it that Aunt Alicia invited us to come to London for the Season? She doesn’t seem the type to open her doors so readily.”

Susannah laughed. “Now that is a tale, and it owes its beginning, I believe, in her son’s self-exile.”

“Exile!”

"Self-exile. Aunt Alicia has been after her son, Justin, to marry for two or three years now. Claims it is his duty. She tries to promote a match by throwing countless suitable young women at him during dinner parties, house parties, and balls everywhere. To escape his mother’s matchmaking propensities and hopefully teach her a lesson against meddling, he left England for a protracted visit to some family properties in the West Indies. ”

“Wise man.”

“I’m not so sure,” countered Susannah. “Justin—Viscount St. Ryne—is a prime catch in the marriage mart, and for years Aunt Alicia has been asked to every social event because she is the mother of a prime catch. Only she didn’t know that was the reason until Justin was out of the country and the invitations to her began to fall off drastically.

It’s perfectly understandable. That incident at tea was not unique.

Aunt Alicia is clumsy. Frightfully clumsy.

Who would invite a walking disaster to a party if they did not need to? "

“I’ll bet I’ll hear some blisterin’ stories belowstairs then,” Bethie said eagerly while placing Catherine’s stockings in a dresser drawer.

Susannah laughed. “I’m sure you will.”

“How did Aunt Alicia go from dwindling invitations to presiding over the coming-out of four nieces?”

“It started with Lady Iris and Lady Dahlia. Evidently, they wrote a very heartrending letter to our aunt, lamenting how they would not be able to use some Norwich silk shawls she sent them for Christmas because their stepmother would not bestir herself to present them or take them to places where they could wear the shawls and show them to advantage. Aunt Alicia hates the new countess, for she is middle-class and makes no excuses for it. And because she bore Uncle Aldric three male babies, whereas Lily Abshire, who was the Earl’s first wife and mother of the twins, died in childbirth.

And the first countess was a great friend of Aunt Alicia’s too. ”

“So in a fit of pique at her sister-in-law, Aunt Alicia decided to present the twins,” Catherine said. “But why are we here?”

“I believe that was Aunt Penelope’s doing. She realized the twins were trying to play off Aunt Alicia’s dislike for their stepmother, so she thought she’d help them succeed well beyond their expectations.”

Catherine nodded in understanding. She rose from the bench to pace the room as she listened.

“She somehow planted the idea in Aunt Alicia’s head that she would be readily admired for presenting four nieces in a single Season,” Susannah explained. “Making a grand gesture. She was correct.”

“So, enter Susannah and Catherine.”

“Yes,” Susannah replied quietly. She folded her hands in her lap and leaned back against a bedpost.

Catherine stopped her pacing by the window.

Outside, the rain continued, a steady patter against the glass obscuring the street below.

“Well, I believe it is obvious that our cousins are still simmering about our encroachment on their Season. They wished to be the only flowers in the Shreveton bouquet; instead, the Shreveton arrangement contains flowers and thorns.”

“But sometimes, Miss, it’s the plants wot have thorns that have the prettier flowers,” Bethie said sagely, tucking the last of Catherine’s things away in a drawer.