He gave her a speaking look. "I'm not quite past that point, ma'am," he said dryly. "But if you mean to talk in this shockingly forward manner to a gentleman of my advanced years, while sitting up in your morning negligee, then you'll find yourself swept off your feet and carried directly to your sickbed."

"Bien," she said with a sigh. "You may carry me, so that Nurse will not scold, but do not disturb the Runner with a great noise on the stairs."

"I doubt a full cannonade would disturb him," Trev said and gave his hand to help his mother from her chair. "But what's this, Mademoiselle?" As she stood up, he noticed a pair of billowy yellow trousers that had been lying folded over the chair back. "Have you been cheating on me?"

"Never!" she declared, placing her arms lightly about his neck as he lifted her. "It is most mysterious. Nurse found them hung over a rafter in the attic, and we have no notion how they arrived. I meant to have Lilly put them in the rag bag."

"The rag bag! I'll have you know those cossacks cost thirty guineas."

Her fingers tightened as he mounted the stairs. "Assure me that they can't be yours, my son."

"Hmmm," he murmured. "I may have to discover if they fit me now."

"S'il te plaît!" she begged. "Spare my frail health."

Callie tried to make a daydream for herself. It was what she always did when she could not quite bear what was real. She was, as most of those who knew her had informed her with some exasperation at one time or another, quite capable of becoming so lost in her thoughts that she did not hear any words spoken to her. But this time she could find no way to lose herself in any reverie—or delusion, as they all seemed.

So she heard her sister clearly when Hermey came to her door, but she didn't rise from her place on the window seat in answer to the knock.

"At least the sky has cleared," Hermey was saying to Anne as she came in without waiting for a reply. "The mud will be horrid, but—" She stopped on the threshold, a vision in pink in her costume of Venus rising from the waves, a necklace of seashells about her throat and a foam of sparkling net and lace at her hem. "My dear sister," she said with gay reproof, "it's nearly half past six—haven't you begun to dress?"

Callie bit her lip and shook her head. "Not yet."

"Callie!" Hermey came forward. "What is it? Do you feel quite well?"

"Oh yes." She summoned a smile. "I'm all right."

Hermey reached for the bell pull. "We'll have something to eat. The Lady's Spectator strongly advises that one should always eat before a ball and take a short nap. Come and sit down, I've brought some plumes to try in your hair."