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Anne made a delicate curtsy, wondering how she’d been described to her ladyship’s friends.

Not with the highest praise, she gathered from the curious, evaluating way Mrs. Hawkins studied her.

But then, gentlewomen always did that, trying to place another in birth, station, wealth, accomplishments, and comparative influence.

Hoping that the one being evaluated would come out a little less in the equation, leaving the other an advantage.

Anne had youth, beauty, all the customary feminine graces, and a good family to count in her favor. But her lack of money wiped her attractions off the board. A lack of secure dowry meant she had no value as a marriage prospect. And Lady Vaughn knew this.

“So you are the girl who has enchanted Calvin? A good match, I’m sure.

All the more since I do not think Winifred will let her eldest go to any mortal woman.

She speaks as if Hewitt walked on water over there in the Holy Land.

” Mrs. Hawkins smiled, though Anne wondered if a veiled taunt lay in her words.

Her ladyship tightened her lips in a frown. “Calvin and Miss Sutton have been promised for years. I am sure Anne would not like how it would reflect on her were she to jilt him now, after all this time.”

Anne gaped at her ladyship. “Calvin,” she repeated, as if she were a bird learning speech.

Lady Vaughn turned to her friend with a thin smile. “Young people these days are so headstrong. Not like you and I, Florence, who went where our parents bid us.”

A cold draft crept up beneath Anne’s tunic, clutching her arms. Lady Vaughn could not think, after all this, Anne could still be pressured into marriage with Calvin.

No, it must be she was taking care to keep a cap on any gossip.

Hew and Anne could be cut throughout the neighborhood if their indiscretion made the rounds.

Anne had been trained to learn the family associations of an area and she’d gleaned the knowledge she needed over those many teas when Lydia and Prunella, the dowager viscountesses, called at Greenfield.

Florence Hawkins was a Seys, a family who had been high officials under the reign of the great Elizabeth, and her father had been High Sheriff of Monmouthshire.

Her husband’s family were burgesses of Newport and touted their connection to a French duke who had somehow escaped the scythe of the guillotine.

Florence Hawkins would be one of those Anne must impress and not offend.

“I was fortunate that my parents gave me to a man I found I could love,” Mrs. Hawkins said mildly. “I wish you the same good fortune, Miss Sutton.”

Anne nodded and gulped back the sudden clot of rage in her throat. She could not love Calvin Vaughn. She had tried to escape him. She knew all the more surely, after Mair’s divulgence, that Calvin Vaughn was not a man she could tolerate. What more must she do to be free of him?

“My dear Eleanor.” Lady Vaughn greeted another lady who joined them, an older matron with a majestic turban and a modish silk gown, a saffron open robe over a petticoat of butter yellow. On her head sat some combination of a silk cap, gauze ribbon, and feathers, all mixed together.

“Mrs. Kemeys, this is Anne Sutton.” Lady Vaughn made the requisite introductions with a wave of her gloved hand. “Anne, Mrs. Kemeys, wife of George Kemeys of Malpas. Her brother-in-law, William, owns Newport Castle.”

Anne dipped another curtsy. The Kemeys were one of the oldest families in the area, hailing back to the Norman kings and their barons. This evening wasn’t an introduction; it was a gauntlet.

“Calvin’s intended, are you?” Mrs. Kemeys smiled. Apparently all of Lady Vaughn’s friends labored under the same misconception. “I admit he’s a fine-looking boy, but this Hewitt of yours is rather splendid, Winifred. I do so adore a man with that military physique.”

All four women turned to regard Hew, who had managed to draw another gentleman into his circle.

Hew had swapped his tall boots for white silk stockings and black pumps.

His long-tailed coat of dark checked olive green cut away to show a golden waistcoat with a light but intricate embroidery along the hem.

A white cravat billowed at his neck, and his jaw was freshly shaven around the slightly rakish slant of his sideburns.

Anne did her level best not to stare at the cut of his coat, the fit of his breeches, but she knew the power and heat that lay beneath the correct appearance, and the secret was a lava pit opening up within her.

“Eleanor, since Anne knows so few people here, you might introduce her to your nephew, Robert,” Lady Vaughn prompted.

Mrs. Kemeys nodded. “Robert is studying to be a surgeon in Bristol. Isn’t your Anthony studying medicine also, Mrs. Hawkins?”

“Such accomplished young men,” Lady Vaughn simpered. “They will turn Miss Sutton’s head from my Calvin, I fear.”

Anne’s chest ached, as if she’d been given a sharp rap on the ribs.

It appeared her ladyship wished both her sons could be free of Anne.

She wouldn’t be trying to protect Anne from Calvin, as Mrs. Harries tried to protect her maids.

Lady Vaughn was one of those species of women who agreed that men were meant to do as they wished and women were meant to hold the world together as best they might, bearing the consequences to home and family when a man went astray.

Lady Vaughn would never choose Anne for Hew.

But Hew hadn’t exactly chosen Anne, either.

“Anthony has just received his medical diploma after rigorous study in London,” Mrs. Hawkins said with the complaisance of a doting mama whose son was a source of pride. “I am so pleased he has agreed to establish his practice here in Monmouthshire. He intends to become an accoucheur.”

Anne’s ears pricked. A man midwife. She wondered what Mrs. Lambe would think of having a medical man for a rival, and if she would account this doctor’s practices any better than others she had known.

“I would adore meeting them both,” Anne said absently, wondering how soon she could make her way to Hew and pull him aside. Their scandal wasn’t yet known; to this crowd, Anne was still betrothed to Calvin. She must ask Hew what to do.

Robert Allard, would-be surgeon and the Kemeys heir, was shy and perfectly unobjectionable.

He regaled Anne with accounts of recent surgeries he had attended, and she wondered at her own strong stomach as she smiled and nodded along.

A week ago, she would have fainted at the account of a man having his leg taken off.

Now, compared to childbirth, amputation of a limb seemed a less painful ordeal, and far quicker.

Anthony Hawkins was a fine-looking young man who carried himself well and was devoted to his studies.

He spoke of his mentors until Anne knew all their names, Dr. Baillie and Dr. Fordyce and the anatomist, Dr. John Hunter, and knew every anecdote from his time studying at the University of Douai in France.

He was earnest, an advocate for reform, and Anne thought he would have a soothing manner for a physician.

No doubt he would have a long and profitable career.

She couldn’t summon the least bit of interest in him.

William Griffith was barely eighteen years of age, and showed it in his puppyish manner.

Henry Powell, apprenticed to an attorney, was very grave.

John Jones had an extremely high opinion of his own cleverness for having been born to Mr. Jones, Esq.

, of Llanarth Court, a stately manor house to the north of Newport and a fixture on tours of picturesque Monmouthshire.

Uninterested in Mrs. Jones’s discussion about how much he had won in a recent cockfight in Bristol, Anne finally drifted over to Hew’s group, hoping to insert herself at his side.

The two young women, introduced as Margaret Griffith and May Powell, greeted Anne with hostile civility.

Like Mrs. Kemeys, both young ladies wore yellow, one a cotton round gown with a spotted print and the other a delicate muslin with a gathered bodice and small train.

Apparently yellow was the color of the season, and Anne hadn’t known.

The other women dotted the room like daffodils in bloom, and here she was with scarlet touches on her white, like the whore of Babylon, or a blood-spattered sacrificial lamb.

The golden sunbursts that had called to her in Shrewsbury now put her behind the current mode.

What was she doing here? In these rooms, in this house?

Once, presiding over a party was the sum and pinnacle of Anne’s identity.

She lived for the compliments of admiring gentlemen, the envious gazes from other girls, the covetous glances of matrons who wished their daughters as graceful and cultivated as Anne.

Now it struck her as simply an elaborate show.

The inane conversation, the efforts of the gentlemen to display their wit and stature, the efforts of her fellow young ladies to depress or outmatch her.

The heavy scent of perfumes and cologne and expensive wax candles.

The display they made of themselves in expensive fabrics and jewels, bought by the toil of others.

At St. Sefin’s, Anne had fallen easily into the rhythm of small but necessary tasks and the gentle flow of conversation about the matters of the world.

They had, through no virtue of her own, given her a place in their community.

Ifor knew her scent. Tomos had let her pet his chicken, which she’d later learned was the highest honor he could extend.

Here, she was an insect trapped to a board, flung open to everyone’s inspection without the thin barrier of glass to defend her.

Lady Vaughn watched her like that sheepdog from earlier, as if she were guarding her flock.

As if Anne were a scarlet temptress set loose in Greenfield’s decorated rooms, or a donkey who had wandered into a paddock of well-bred racehorses.