Sophie sat silently for a moment. “I still don’t know what else I could teach Madeleine,” she said.

“You can give her a top-up on the manners front,” Braddon replied. “My mother is a nasty old battle-ax. You know that. But she doesn’t deserve a dunderhead like me for a son, either. And if I try to pull the wool over the eyes of the ton, and it doesn’t work out, she’ll never be able to show her face again.”

Sophie had to acknowledge the truth of Braddon’s summary. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before,” she pointed out.

“I know it,” Braddon said wretchedly, “but I never was the best at thinking out schemes afore time.”

“Oh, all right,” Sophie finally said with a sigh.

The next morning she woke with a sense of happy satisfaction. Madeleine had appeared with Mrs. Trevelyan at a champagne musicale the previous evening, and no one could have missed the fact that the Earl of Slaslow was greatly taken with her. He sat next to Madeleine during the second half of the program and assiduously plied her with champagne. Given that the ton had been privileged to see Braddon single-mindedly pursue a suitable wife for some three years, no one had any difficulty in surmising that the pretty young Frenchwoman, Lady Madeleine Corneille, was now the target of Slaslow’s marital ambitions.

Bets were immediately laid in the betting book at White’s as to whether Madeleine would take him, and (for larger amounts of money) whether she would jilt him at the last moment and marry another, as Lady Sophie Foakes had done. Braddon read through the bets with a frown, but with secret relief. He hadn’t heard a shard of gossip suggesting that Madeleine Corneille was not exactly what she seemed to be, the daughter of a French marquis.

In fact—although the ton didn’t know this yet, of course—Madeleine and Braddon were planning to cause an even greater sensation tonight. They were going to a ball being held by Lady Eleanor Commonweal, in honor of her daughter Sissy’s engagement, and Madeleine was going to allow Braddon to take her in to supper.

By nine o’clock Patrick had not appeared to escort Sophie to the Commonweal ball, so she drifted around the house by herself until she finally summoned the carriage and went alone, head held high.

It happened just as she entered the ballroom. The Duke of Cumberland happened to be at the door. He looked at her with his usual lustful kindness. He was very much the royal duke this evening, wearing a large swath of royal blue wrapped around his shoulders and held in place by a medal of honor granted by the king some years ago.

“Hear you’re a duchess now, m’dear,” he said, plastering his wet lips against the back of her hand.

“Excuse me, Your Grace?”