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Thea spent the entire week waiting for Jasper’s response. And for an entire week she received nothing.

Clearly, he didn’t harbor a doubt over his decision to avoid her.

The twinge of hurt she initially felt transformed multiple times. At first, when she believed he was cross with her for the

rumor they’d spoon-fed to the ton , she began to eat everything in sight—much like a caterpillar—until her corset left her unable to breathe.

Then when she was convinced he hated her, she’d burrowed indoors during the gloomy wet days that followed, grousing at anyone

who dared look at her the wrong way.

But when seven sparkless days and nights had passed without a word from him, she emerged from her self-imposed chrysalis,

unfurling wings of glorious vexation. How dare he ignore her!

So she decided to make him regret his choice. It was time to prove herself the ton ’s enchantress.

Garbed in Madame LeBlanc’s latest creation—an ethereal moonlight satin gown with velvet-lined pockets—she squared her shoulders and approached the doors to the Buxton ballroom.

This was it, she thought on a breath.

She had prepared herself for this night, assured that her anger would be the perfect armor against seeing Kellum.

His opinions had no hold over her. And from the gasps she received when guests saw her with her shoulders bare and her coiffure accented by silver and glittering gems, she knew that not even he could find fault in her appearance.

“Miss Hartley, as I live and breathe,” Lord Buxton said when she reached him. His voice had a booming quality as if the camel

satin waistcoat, stretched taut over his rotund belly, was the skin of an enormous drum. Taking hold of her fingertips, he

leaned forward and offered a wink. “Dare I say, you look enchanting this evening?”

“You are too kind, my lord.”

She expertly concealed any lingering disquiet with a ready smile. Beside her, Lady Broadbent issued an almost laugh to Lady

Buxton, likely encountering a similar greeting.

“My wife and I were only too delighted to learn that you’ve returned for another Season. Back to have another go at it, hmm?

I’m sure you’ll find there are an ample number of gentlemen who’ll...”

As her host rattled on with a sweeping gesture toward the crush below, she caught sight of Kellum at the bottom of the stairs.

The instant their eyes clashed, a clutch of icy dread gripped her heart. A sudden barrage of inadequacies flooded her and

her smile froze, feeling brittle around the edges.

“I say, Buxton,” came a familiar voice behind her. “You’re holding up the line.”

Thea spun on her heel to see her brother standing there. “Truman!”

His returning grin stopped at the thin scar he refused to talk about, but there was warm affection in his gaze. “Hullo, imp.”

He looked ever so dashing dressed in black superfine with a high snowy cravat, his skin still retaining a lingering tan from his years as a merchant sailor. And there was no taming the barley and gold feathering of his hair that had earned him the moniker of Hawk.

Buxton gripped Truman’s hand, shaking it like a pump handle. “Hartley! You have just made my soiree a tour de force. Why,

no one has seen much of you in society for nigh on—”

“Tell you what,” Truman interrupted, clapping their host on the shoulder, “let’s meet up at Stirling’s one night and we’ll

have a chat over cards and whisky. But now, I have two beautiful women to escort down the stairs.”

“Of course, of course,” Buxton said, his jowls quivering with the thrill of having his party being the pièce de résistance in tomorrow’s scandal sheets.

As Truman turned away, there was a certain stiffness in his posture that made it clear he wasn’t altogether comfortable with

being out in society. At least, not any longer.

Before the scandal, he’d been a man-about-town, attending parties and stirring up mischief as any gentleman of two and twenty

would. He was apprenticing to become an architect and had even been set to marry. But, like a house of cards, his betrothal

and dreams of the future he’d envisioned toppled beneath the weight of the scandal.

Thea loved him all the more, knowing that he’d come out, willing to endure dredging up those memories, just for her.

“You never attend these gatherings. I have to wonder what Lady Broadbent said in the missive she must have sent you to persuade

you here.”

“Whatever could you mean?” He blinked, feigning ignorance. “I’ve been planning to attend Buxton’s ball for weeks now.”

Her smile twisted wryly at the lie and she rolled her eyes as she threaded her arm through his. “Well, no matter the reason,

I am glad you’re here.”

“As am I,” Lady Broadbent chimed in, taking his other arm as they descended the stairs. “There are sure to be a number of young ladies who’ll catch your eye.”

He squinted, tilting his head. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I could not hear you. I’m a trifle deaf in both ears.”

For that, he received a swat with the fingers she had curled over his arm, but there was a grin tucked into the corner of

her mouth. “Cheeky, scamp.”

Nevertheless, Lady Broadbent took every opportunity to ensure that he was introduced to any debutante who happened to be standing

near, whenever Thea was stopped by a gentleman to add a dance to her card.

When her card was as full as she wanted a short while later, the countess retired to the upper gallery to watch the dancers

from a comfortable chair or as she preferred, “a worthy vantage point.”

To appease the lady, Truman accepted her cajoling and agreed to dance the first set with Thea. When it ended, he embraced

the Hartley acting prowess in his blood and affected a limp.

“You are abominable,” Thea whispered with a laugh as he pretended to lean on her arm. “All this to avoid dancing with a woman

who may strike your fancy?”

“It’s not the women I mind, it’s their matchmaking mamas. They’re wily creatures. First you agree to a dance, then to a tour

of the park on Sunday and, before you know it, you’re attending picnics and buying flowers and...” He shook his head. “I’ve

no stomach for that.”

“Surely you don’t intend to remain a bachelor. You are Father’s heir, after all.”

She often wondered if his heart had been irrevocably broken when his fiancée had married another, following the scandal. More

than anything, she wanted to believe that hearts could be mended.

He slid her a look. “So, your third Season, hmm? Surely you don’t intend to become a spinster.”

“Point taken,” she grumbled. “Even so, you are nearly ten years my senior. Why is the insulting title of spinster only applied to women who are unwed?”

He shrugged in that “I don’t make the rules” sort of way, but there was a smug tilt to his lips as they paused near the terrace

doors.

A cool breeze filtered in, stealing across the skin of her nape. She felt as though she were being watched and quickly surveyed

the room to see if Kellum was nearby. He wasn’t.

Sir Archer was standing through the doorway of an adjacent room, gesticulating as he told a story. The women around him were

clearly enraptured by his handsome features, the resonant sound of his voice and the graceful movement of his hands. Then

he must have made a quip because he laughed in that superior way of his.

The sound of it had always grated on her nerves. It was part scoff, part chuckle. A scuckle.

As his scuckle, scuckle, scuckle drifted into the ballroom, she wondered how she’d ever been able to bear that annoying sound.

He was just so pompous. Why hadn’t she seen that from the beginning?

Irritated with herself, she lifted her gaze to the gallery to find Lady Broadbent shaking her head at Truman, who made a poor

show of clutching his side and wincing.

“She is leaning heavily on her cane,” her brother said as they stepped outside and walked toward the stone balustrade. “I

imagine this will be the last Season she will be able to chaperone.”

Thea blew out a slow breath, the chill in the air turning it to vapor in the fan of light spilling from the ballroom. “I know.

She has been more than generous. I could never thank her enough, and all she asks in return is...”

“For you to be swept off your feet and fall happily into the shackles of wedded bliss?”

“Precisely,” she said dryly.

“Well, you are either here to find a husband or”—he widened his eyes in mock horror—“to escape a life with our parents.”

At the moment, she didn’t particularly like either option. “Did you hear how they scandalized Reverend Tobias when they thought

they could cavort like the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream after they’d sent all the servants on a picnic for the afternoon?”

He nodded gravely. “Ben Lawson wrote to me about it. According to him, it wasn’t the nudity that bothered Tobias, it was finding

them in the middle of some rather acrobatic”—he stopped and cleared his throat as if he’d just remembered his audience—“activities.”

“I’m not a child. I’ve known for most of my life that our parents are abnormally passionate,” Thea said with a long-suffering

sigh.

And yet, now she had a much better understanding.

The mere thought of St. James sent a rush of heat to the surface of her skin, and she was glad to be standing in the cool

night air.

Although, she wished he was here. Her gaze had skimmed the crowd at least a hundred times, but he wasn’t in attendance. At

least, not yet. She still had hope that he would decide that he couldn’t stay away from her like he’d vowed he would.

“You think you’ve been embarrassed?” her brother asked, drawing her back to their conversation. “Imagine being their firstborn. I had no one

to shield my eyes.”

“Imagine being their last born and hearing Mother giggling as Father promises to reenact their scandalous courtship once their

children are no longer at home.”

In their defense, they didn’t know that Thea had been passing by the parlor on the way to the library for a book late one

night when she’d overheard their conversation.