Hermey had taken a place near the door with Sir Thomas, enjoying her time in the sun, accepting felic itations from some of the new arrivals who had been invited for the music after dinner. Callie had found her own brief betrothals and the attendant ceremonies to be excruciating, but clearly Hermey loved it. She readily offered her cheeks to be kissed and her gloved hands to be pressed. Her eyes sparkled when she looked toward the staid figure of Sir Thomas. It was pleasing to see. Her sister's evident happiness put Callie in such an expansive humor that she even exchanged a few words about the weather with the viscount.

He answered courteously as he seated her on the small sofa in the corner, screened as close behind one of the Corinthian columns as she could manage. His attention then being engaged by a fellow hunting-man regarding the condition of the coverts in the Cotswolds, and how it would affect the Beaufort pack, he forgot all about her. Callie accepted a cup of lemonade from a footman and sat looking at her toes, still drifting in her mind with Trev amid gilded towers and silken bedsheets, waiting for the first moment she could excuse herself to go out and feed the orphan calf.

"But where is your handsome French beau, le duc très bon?" a female voice murmured coyly. "Monceaux, was it? He didn't linger the other day. I had so hoped to have an introduction to him."

Callie's head came up in startlement. But no one was speaking to her—it was a lady on the other side of the column talking to Lady Shelford. Callie could just see the spangled train of Dolly's gown lying across the fringe of the India carpet.

"Oh, he sent his regrets tonight," Dolly said, with a low laugh. "How he regrets! His tiresome mother is ill."

"A dutiful son," the other voice said. And then, softer: "But that is so charming, n'est-ce pas? No doubt an attentive lover too."

"He's French, is he not?" Lady Shelford murmured.

"Let us pray his dear mother recovers sufficiently that he can leave her side," her friend said sugges tively, "while I'm yet here at Shelford to offer him my sympathy."

"Indeed. But I fear I must claim precedence there, Fanny darling, as your hostess."

"No, it's too ungenerous of you!" The other woman had a smirk in her voice. "Didn't we always share everything at school?"