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surely you cannot be referring to—’

      He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘She was one of the few who were kind to you three years ago, when Bancroft first introduced you to the ton as his wife, was she not?’

      ‘You do mean her, then!’ Dolly breathed softly. ‘I would never have thought …!’ She eyed him speculatively. ‘Sebastian, you must be aware of the unpleasant gossip that has circulated about her since the untimely death of her husband?’

      ‘Of course I am aware of it,’ he said dismissively. ‘It only makes the lady more … intriguing.’

      The Countess of Banford frowned. ‘There is often some truth to such rumours, you know.’

      Sebastian shrugged. ‘And what if there is? I told you—I intend seducing the woman, not marrying her!’

      She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I am just concerned for you, Sebastian …’

      He gave a grin. ‘There is no reason to be, I assure you.’

      ‘Your intentions really are not honourable, then?’ Dolly gave him another of those shrewd glances.

      ‘I have just told you they are not,’ he reiterated. ‘I am a bachelor by choice, Dolly—and I assure you, no matter what a lady’s charms, I intend to continue in that enviable state!’

      Dolly nodded. ‘You do realise this particular lady has not been seen at all since moving to the estate left to her in Shropshire?’

      ‘I would not be asking you to issue this invitation to her if I thought there were any other way in which I might be introduced to her,’ Sebastian reasoned wryly.

      Dolly’s eyes widened. ‘The two of you have never even been introduced?’

      ‘Not as yet.’ Sebastian grinned wolfishly. ‘Her husband and I, for obvious reasons, did not share the same circle of friends.’

      ‘He was rather a pompous bore, was he not?’ Dolly conceded. ‘So, the two of you have never actually met ….’

      ‘I have merely gazed at her once or twice from afar,’ Sebastian admitted.

      ‘And now you wish to gaze at her more intimately?’ Dolly teased. ‘Poor Juliet will not stand a chance!’

      ‘You flatter me, Dolly.’

      She shook her head. ‘What woman could not be flattered by the attentions of the handsome but equally elusive Lord Sebastian St Claire?’ She eyed his roguish good looks and the strength of his leanly muscled body appreciatively. ‘It so happens, Sebastian, that I have already issued an invitation to the lady in question.’

      ‘Better and better,’ Sebastian murmured appreciatively.

      Dolly gave an elegant inclination of one eyebrow. ‘We were friends before her husband’s death, and despite the gossip I have decided she cannot continue to languish in Shropshire.’

      ‘Has she accepted the invitation?’ Sebastian asked eagerly.

      ‘Not yet. But she will,’ Dolly assured him with certainty. ‘Really, Sebastian, how could you possibly doubt my powers of persuasion?’ Dolly rebuked as she saw his suddenly sceptical expression.

      Indeed …

      ‘What do you make of this, Helena?’ Juliet Boyd, Countess of Crestwood, finished reading the printed invitation she had just received before passing it frowningly to her cousin as the two of them sat together in the breakfast room at Falcon Manor.

      Helena gave Juliet a quizzical glance before taking the invitation. Her pale blonde hair was pulled back from her colourless face, her figure thin as a boy’s in one of the dull brown gowns she always wore. A frown marred her brow when she looked up again. ‘Shall you go, Juliet?’

      Ordinarily Juliet would have left the Countess of Banford’s invitation, and its envelope, on the table to be disposed of along with the other debris from breakfast. She hesitated now only because there had been a letter enclosed with the invitation. A handwritten letter that she also handed to her cousin to read.

      ‘“My dear”,’ Helena read. ‘“You were always so kind to me in the past, and now I take great pleasure in returning that kindness by the enclosed invitation. It is only to be Bancroft and myself, and a few select friends.

      ‘“Please, please do say you will come, Juliet!

      ‘“Your friend, Dolly Bancroft”.’

      ‘It is very thoughtful of her to write to me so kindly, but of course I cannot go, Helena,’ Juliet said softly.

      ‘But of course you must go!’ Her cousin contradicted impatiently, the sudden colour to her pale cheeks giving a brief glimpse of the beauty that was otherwise not apparent in the severity of her hairstyle and dress. ‘Do you not see that this could be your door back into Society?’

      A door Juliet would prefer to remain firmly closed. ‘I want no part of Society, you know that, Helena. As Society has made it more than plain this past year and a half that they no longer wish to have any part of me,’ she added dryly.

      Her time of mourning had been difficult enough for Juliet to bear when she felt relief rather than a sense of loss at Edward’s death. But the cuts she had received from the ton as early as those who had attended Crestwood’s funeral, had only served to show her that Society now felt well rid of her.

      She sighed. ‘It is very kind of Dolly Bancroft to think of me, of course—’

      ‘And were you not kind to her before she became Society’s darling?’ her cousin reminded her tartly. ‘Before Banford’s connections and his prestige in the House caused them to forget that she was nothing more than a mistress who married her lover before his first wife was even cold in her grave!’ Helena added, in her usual forthright manner.

      It had been her cousin’s down-to-earth practicality that had helped Juliet endure this past year and a half of virtual ostracism, and she smiled at Helena now. ‘It was a good nine months after his wife’s death, actually. And Society was not so kind to me either twelve years ago, when Miss Juliet Chatterton married the retired war hero Admiral Lord Edward Boyd, Earl of Crestwood, member of the House of Lords, and adviser to the War Cabinet. I felt offering my friendship to Dolly Bancroft three years ago was the least I could do if it helped to ease her own path into Society even a little.’

      Juliet had only been eighteen when she had married a man thirty years her senior. As was customary, the match had been made and approved by her parents, but nevertheless Juliet had begun her married life with all the naïve expectations of lifelong happiness that were usual in someone so young and unknowing.

      She had quickly learnt that her husband had no interest in her happiness, and that in the privacy of their own home he was not the same man his peers and the country so admired.

      Juliet’s only consolation had been that her parents had not been alive to witness such an ill matched marriage as hers had turned out to be, Mr and Mrs Chatterton having drowned in a boating accident only months after Juliet had married the Earl of Crestwood.

      The unhappiness of Juliet’s marriage had been eased a little when her cousin Helena, then sixteen years old, had escaped from France six years ago and come to live with them, becoming Juliet’s companion. Crestwood, it seemed, had been coward enough not to reveal the cruelty of his true character in front of a witness.

      ‘Then you must let her do this for you, Cousin.’ Once again Helena was the practical one. ‘You are still far too young and beautiful to allow yourself to just wither away in the country!’

      ‘I assure you I am not yet ready for my bath-chair, Helena!’ Juliet gave an indulgent laugh, revealing straight white teeth between lips that were full and unknowingly sensual.

      Now aged thirty, Juliet knew she was no longer in possession of the youthful bloom that had once caught Crestwood’s eye. Instead, she had

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