Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

Russian battle scene, and the fresh flowers gifted everyone with their heady fragrance. From the kitchen, delicious smells wafted through the house whenever a servant opened a door to bring in another serving dish or bottle of wine.

The first guests to arrive were Eleanor and Beatrice. Poppy sat with them to enjoy a comfortable coze.

Eleanor wore an exquisite pale blue satin gown with a wide ivory satin sash banded beneath her breasts. Her hair shimmered with little crystal butterflies pinned to her curls. “Your engagement is the talk of London,” she told Poppy.

Beatrice was stunning in her white Grecian sheath with gold trim and Grecian braid. “And you’re rather a reigning queen.”

“Am I?” Poppy laughed. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Well, you are, so enjoy every moment of it.” Eleanor hugged her.

Beatrice eyed her thoughtfully. “You already appear to be enjoying yourself. I’m rather intrigued by the spark of liveliness in your eye. I haven’t seen that in quite a while.”

“You’re right,” said Eleanor. “I wonder if you don’t like your duke, after all.”

“Of course not.” Poppy huffed.

“Have you kissed him?” Beatrice asked point-blank.

Poppy’s mouth fell open. “I—I—” But it was as if she had a piece of bread stuck in her throat.

Eleanor clapped her hands. “You have.”

“And apparently he’s a marvelous kisser,” said Beatrice with a mischievous grin.

Poppy finally recovered. “All right. I have kissed him. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does if it sends tingles to your toes,” said Eleanor. “It’s one of the requirements of the early dispensation clause, as you know.”

“Tingles … warm, heady feelings—” Poppy began.

“Warm, heady feelings?” interjected Beatrice.

“Whatever you want to call them,” Poppy said dismissively, “they don’t mean anything without the other requirements in the early dispensation clause.”

“True,” said Eleanor. “I can’t imagine he respects you the way Sergei must.”

“Or that he’s as interested as Sergei in what you have to say,” Beatrice said. “The prince was most attentive at the Grangerford ball.”

“No, I’m sure you’re right on both counts.” Poppy tried mightily to be annoyed at Drummond for not being a gentleman and for not hanging on her every word, but it was difficult when she couldn’t stop thinking about the daring and pleasurable way he’d nudged a knee between her legs and pinned her against the shed wall while he was kissing her after Lady Caldwell’s outdoor breakfast.

“But I have something to confess,” she told her two best friends. “I made a huge mistake with Sergei. He’s nothing like what I thought he was six years ago.”

Beatrice and Eleanor both widened their eyes.

“He’s not?” asked Eleanor, her strawberry-blond curls shaking.

Beatrice shook her head. “What a shame!”

Poppy bit her lip. “It’s worse, girls. He wants me to be his mistress. Can you believe it?”

“I despise him,” Eleanor sputtered.

“As do I!” Beatrice’s brows became slash marks above her dark almond eyes.

Eleanor drew in her chin. “Why on earth did you invite him tonight when he’s such a scoundrel?”

Poppy’s mouth fell open. Oh, dear. She couldn’t explain that, could she? She couldn’t reveal anything about Operation Pink Lady.

She supposed she shouldn’t have told her two friends about Sergei’s true nature, but they were her closest companions. She couldn’t have held that back. She needed their support.

But … how to explain his presence tonight?

She gave them a weak smile, hating to lie. “I, um, I invited him and his sister because of old times’ sake. I think it will bring Papa a great deal of comfort to have a Russian meal with Russian guests, don’t you? St. Petersburg was the last place he had fun with Mama.”

Beatrice nodded. “That makes sense.”

“It’s a tremendous sacrifice for you,” Eleanor said, “but very thoughtful.”

“And I believe I can handle the prince,” Poppy said, assuaging her guilt with a genuine smile of affection for her friends. “Especially with you two in my corner.”

“Exactly,” said Beatrice. “We’re Spinsters. He’s asked the wrong girl to be his mistress.”

“Speaking of which”—Poppy grabbed their hands—“I put you on either side of him at the table. We keep our enemies close. So do take good care of him. But never let him guess what you know.”

“Poor Sergei.” Eleanor giggled.

And Poppy breathed a sigh of relief. Everything she’d said about Sergei had been true, hadn’t it? She’d simply left out that one small bit about his involvement with the portrait she was trying to help Drummond retrieve.

Fortunately, Aunt Charlotte arrived just then, resplendent in her gold gown, and diverted the talk away from Sergei by passing out her new version of the Spinster bylaws for the ladies to place in their reticules, with a strict reminder that wisdom was imperative in all Spinsters and couldn’t always be accrued in sufficient amounts by age twenty-one without some effort at seeking it.

Which led her into a speech about acquiring as much experience as possible as soon as possible—from traveling to studying to flirting with interesting men … as long as that flirtation didn’t involve …

Disrobing.

“It leads to all sorts of complications,” their club advisor insisted. “Especially if the man in question is—how shall I say?—endowed with qualities you can’t really appreciate until you see them. Or, um, until you see it. It could be simply one quality. A very nice quality.”

Her brow puckered, and she trailed off.

“Do tell us more,” Beatrice insisted.

“Yes,” Eleanor agreed.

Poppy was highly intrigued, as well. She had a suspicion now what that one intriguing quality might be—after having pressed close to Drummond, she could hardly not be aware of it. In fact, the thought of that one quality in Drummond made her a bit weak in the knees.

But the shocking, titillating talk was interrupted by the arrival in the drawing room of Lord Derby, who greeted the party of ladies cordially. Only Poppy could tell that her papa wasn’t used to having guests for dinner. There was a certain endearing awkwardness in his manner that he usually lacked.

The next guests to arrive were Lord Wyatt and several of Papa’s old friends from his Cambridge days. Lord Wyatt kept the conversation lively with stories about his expansive castles in Devon and Cornwall, both on vast properties he’d recently acquired. Papa didn’t appear to know what to do with his old friends other than talk politics, which Poppy knew he could do in his sleep. Nevertheless, they seemed to enjoy his company, and he theirs.

“Good idea,” Aunt Charlotte whispered to her at one point. One of Papa’s friends had asked to bring his widowed sister. The woman was pretty and lively, with a tendency to laugh easily, and Papa seemed quite comfortable and jolly himself in her company.

But where was Drummond? And where were Sergei, Natasha, and the Lievens? Poppy could barely stand the suspense. She did her best to be a cheerful hostess, but her stomach was doing flip-flops.

Finally, a carriage was heard arriving out front.

Poppy was terribly excited. She stood, smoothed down her lovely gown, and waited.

Kettle appeared in the drawing room door, announced the party, and she saw—

Drummond and Natasha together.

Whatever for?

But before she could even wonder, she saw that Natasha was wearing her gown.

All of the blood in Poppy’s face rushed to her feet. She gulped, stung by the depth of her hurt.

How could she?