Viola laughed. “Oh, Birdie.” She hugged her sweet friend. “I wish it was all true. But it’s not. Those kinds of things only happen in fairy tales.” Viola pasted a smile on her face. “Come, let’s go and join the others.”

The ladies were discussing an outing to Hyde Park tomorrow.

“You’ll come with us for a promenade tomorrow, won’t you, Viola?” asked Belinda.

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want to promenade in Hyde Park,” West barked. “If you don’t go, I won’t.”

“West,” Blanche remonstrated. “You have to go. Viola, please say you’ll come.”

“Oh very well,” Viola said. She knew better than to argue with a roomful of Delamars.

“Splendid!” Belinda clapped her hands. “I’m to wear my new promenade dress. It’s a robe of dove-colored gros de Naples, and the border is finished with three rows of pointed blond lace netting . . .”

Belinda waxed eloquent about her new costume. Birdie ran to the pianoforte and began accompanying her sister with a lively tune while Betsy and West danced a galloping reel.

Order had been restored. Tender, intimate moments in rose bowers with West were forbidden. She and her father would leave soon.

Life didn’t always give you what you wanted.

And that was that.

Chapter Twenty

A month ago, West would never have been caught dead doing something so prosaic and dull as promenade in Hyde Park of a Sunday afternoon with the fashionable set who owned splendid equipages and hailed from ancient and honorable families.

Yet here he was, ambling down the wide gravel path surrounded by a surfeit of sisters, followed by liveried footmen resplendent in Delamar blue and gold, with powdered hair and crisp white gloves.

“Everyone’s saying that you’re going to propose to Lady Winifred today,” Belinda reported. “I think it’s her mother spreading the rumor.”

West shrugged. “We’ll see.”

The problem was that he didn’t want to propose to Lady Winifred. She was a lovely young lady but she didn’t have alluring green eyes and a smile that he’d do anything to see.

Viola hadn’t smiled yet this morning. She hung back, walking behind the group.

Blanche walked a little ways ahead of them, flanked by Lord Middleton and Lord Flanders. From the snippets of conversation that West overheard, Middleton was boring her with talk of stable bloodlines, and Flanders wasn’t doing much better, having decided to explain his scientific experimentation with electricity.

“It’s a perfect day for seeing and being seen,” said Belinda. “I’m in love with my new promenade dress. Isn’t it simply exquisite?”

“I think we’ve heard enough about that blasted promenade dress,” grumbled Betsy. “I say, is that a cricket match going on over there? Wish I could join.”