That party included an elderly dowager and her two unmarried granddaughters, a middle-aged matchmaking mama and her unmarried daughter, and St. Clare’s friend Lord Mattingly and Mattingly’s younger, unmarried sister.

“Sorry, old chap,” Mattingly muttered from his place near St. Clare in the earl’s theater box. “You’re the matrimonial prize of the season, you know, and my mother would insist that I throw Astrid in your path.”

The young lady sitting on the other side of his friend was just out of the schoolroom, and at present, all arms, legs, and blushes. A child, merely.

She looked up from her program, caught his eye, and promptly turned crimson. “Have you seen Mr. K-Kean perform before, my lord?”

St. Clare offered her a smile. “Only last week. And you, Miss Mattingly?”

“Oh, no! This is my first t-time at the theater.”

St. Clare arched a brow in Mattingly’s direction.

Mattingly had the good grace to look sheepish. He mouthed another apology.

St. Clare didn’t regard it. The truth of the matter was that Astrid Mattingly was the least offensive female in the box. The dowager’s granddaughters were a pair of giggling henwits, and the other young lady, a Miss Louisa Steele, had all the charm of a viper that had once crawled into his tent while camping in the Egyptian desert.

According to Miss Steele’s mother, who’d been extolling her daughter’s many virtues since the moment they arrived at the theater, Louisa was humble, sweet, and kind. As skilled at the pianoforte and harp as she was at riding and dancing. And so far superior to other young ladies in both looks and accomplishments that she’d often been the target of spiteful, jealous gossip.

The bulk of this chatter was directed to the old dowager who sat beside her, but St. Clare was in no doubt that Mrs. Steele’s words were meant for him alone.

“A diamond. That’s what the duke called her at her come-out ball. He said that Louisa was the most beautiful girl anyone had seen in five seasons. Can you imagine?”

“No,” said the dowager frostily.

Miss Steele herself, who was sitting at an odd angle in front of him, turned in her chair and whispered, “You must ignore Mama. I’m not interested in the duke.”

St. Clare refrained from asking which duke.

“Although it’s true that he said I was the most beautiful girl he’d seen in years,” she continued. “I don’t know why he would. I see nothing out of the ordinary in my appearance. Do you, my lord?”