"I'm certain you'll be wildly popular," she assured the child, "if only you'll get rid of the snake."
"Mama and I found baby Herman in our garden," Emily told Juliana for perhaps the hundredth time. "She said we could keep him and watch him grow."
Emily's mother had been dead some four years. Having lost her own mother three years prior—although, thankfully, at age nineteen, not age four—Juliana felt for the young girl.
"Your mother would understand," she told her gently. "Surely she didn't intend to keep Herman long. I'd wager she hadn't an inkling that little baby snake would grow to be five feet long, and I'm certain she didn't make a habit of carrying him around. Why, I'd warrant she's looking down on you right now, waiting for you to grow up and stop toting that horror-inducing creature everywhere."
"Herman isn't a creature. He's a pet."
"A cuddly kitten is a pet. A rambunctious dog is a pet. A snake isn't—"
"Are you ready yet?" Corinna arrived in the doorway and frowned. "A Lady of Distinction doesn't hold with wearing rouge."
Juliana's gaze flicked involuntarily to a book on her bedside table, The Mirror of the Graces by A Lady of Distinction. Their brother had given them both copies, hoping that learning deportment would help them find husbands more quickly.
"A Lady of Distinction is a twit." To emphasize her point, Juliana brushed more color on her cheeks before rising. "Yes, I'm ready. Have a spice cake while I deliver Emily home."
Corinna took one. "Aunt Frances is already waiting in the carriage. You know she abhors being late to balls."
"Aunt Frances abhors being late to anything." Aunt Frances liked everything just so. But she was an endearing lady nonetheless, and it was quite kind of her to act as their sponsor and chaperone for the season, so Juliana didn't grumble. She took Emily by the hand and led her downstairs, Corinna following in their wake.
It was raining—it seemed to rain every day this summer—but a quick walk next door brought Emily safely to the house she usually shared with only her father and a gaggle of aging servants. Emily had two older brothers, products of two earlier marriages, but one was married and the other was away at Cambridge most of the year.
Their gaunt butler, a man who must have been eighty if he were a day, swung the door open as they arrived.
Emily stepped inside. "When shall I see you again, Lady Juliana?"
Who could deny that adorable, pleading face, even if it was framed by a snake? "Monday," she promised the girl. Rain pattered onto her parasol and puddled at her feet. "I'm sure your father is looking forward to being with you tomorrow, but on Monday the two of us shall visit the shops and choose fabric for the baby clothes."
"Will Lady Corinna wish to come, too?"
"I believe she'll prefer to paint." Corinna always preferred to paint; she was happiest when filling her days with color, oils, and turpentine. "I shall see you Monday," Juliana promised softly and headed through the drizzle to the carriage.
Inside, Corinna waited with Aunt Frances, their matching deep-blue eyes impatient. The women's eyes, however, were their only similarity. Aunt Frances's peered from behind round spectacles in a face surrounded by clouds of soft, gray hair—prematurely gray hair, considering she was still in her forties. Corinna's hair was a swing of wavy brown, her face as fresh as only a twenty-one-year-old woman's could be. She had no need of cosmetics.
Juliana, on the other hand, figured she needed all the help she could get. Due to circumstances beyond her control—namely, several successive deaths in the family, which had kept her in mourning for several years—this was her first season. At twenty-two! And the season was more than halfway over already, yet she'd failed to find a man to catch her interest.
Not that her brother hadn't been trying his damnedest to locate one.
He was waiting at the ball when they arrived, looking over the crop of men. Unfortunately, this far into the season, Juliana had already met nearly everyone there was to meet. The ton comprised all the people who mattered in society, but that was a limited social group, after all. Yet he'd managed to line up candidates for her first three dances and was keeping an eye out for more.
Griffin was leaving no stone unturned in his quest to marry her off. Though she had no objection to marrying—or dancing, for that matter—she wasn't sure she appreciated her brother's efforts. But she knew his heart was in the right place, and she did enjoy dancing, so she dutifully danced with the three men, smiling and chatting pleasantly, even though none of them was even remotely what she was looking for.
Lord Henderson was too tall. Lord Barkely was too dark. And Mr. Farringdon was kind but a mite dim, not to mention he had a most unfortunate, distracting tic. She could hardly keep her eyes off his twitching cheek.
The spice cakes weren't going to help her choose wisely, she thought with a sigh, if no acceptable men bothered to attend this ball.
JAMES TREVOR, the Earl of Stafford, hadn't been to a ball in years. And he hadn't particularly wanted to come to this one. However, being a man who liked to look for the good in things, he'd decided to regard tonight as an opportunity to renew a few acquaintances. Griffin Chase, the Marquess of Cainewood, was one of them.
But his old chum didn't look very happy.
"Whom are you glaring at, Cainewood?"
"My sister." Cainewood's frown deepened. "She's not dancing."
James's gaze followed the marquess's across the ballroom, landing on what looked like a dainty sprite. He lifted his quizzing glass and squinted through it. "That wheaten-haired little thing?"
"Wearing yellow? Yes, that would be
