As the minutes crept by, Michael mentally steeled himself for his next obligation, dinner with his sister and her doting husband. Dorcas had chosen well, and she set a fine table. Alasdhair MacKay, Michael’s brother-by-marriage, was a fine fellow with a sly sense of humor and a fondness for smooth whisky.

The drudgery though, of being polite and mannerly toward some pretty widow or spinster in training for three or four hours… The hope in the lady’s eyes, the determination in Dorcas’s, and the sympathy in MacKay’s…

The session came to an end, and Bertold passed Michael his robe. “Our thanks, as usual. We will see you again on Tuesday, sir.”

Michael donned the dressing gown and belted it loosely, then took himself to the changing room. Clothes maketh not the man, but rather, the masquerade. A priest wore sober attire, though he need not be shabby.

Michael enjoyed fine clothes. Perhaps if he showed up at Dorcas’s with a stain on his cravat and a smear of charcoal on his cuff… But no. Dissembling for personal gain would not do.

He was making his way through the academy’s grand foyer, wondering if he had time for a quick stop on Circle Lane before he was due for dinner. Just fifteen minutes, not really a visit, more of a sighting. He was too intent on his plans to watch where he was going, and thus he and Henderson collided right in the doorway.

“Beg pardon,” Henderson muttered, tugging down his hat brim. “Entirely my fault. Do go on.”

“My apologies,” Michael said, bowing. “I was pre-occupied. After you.”

Henderson bustled through the door and jogged down the steps, soon disappearing among the pedestrians thronging the walkway. Michael stood on the terrace, reviewing what he’d just learned.

Henderson, who preferred to sit in the studio’s most shadowed corners, who rarely spoke at all, and who never joined in the general jockeying for status with the other students, was apparently distinguished by more than talent and eccentricity.

Henderson had the unmistakable bodily endowments of a well-formed woman.

Order your copy of Miss Devoted, and read on for an excerpt from Yuletide Gems!

Worth More Than Rubies—Excerpt (from Yuletide Gems)

“Must you be so gracious to every dowager, beldame, and debutante we pass?” Tertius Dundee, eleventh Duke of Dunfallon, kept his voice down. A peer did not shout on a public walkway, particularly when he was determined to elude the notice of the ladies.

“Yes, I must,” Nicholas Haddonfield, Earl of Bellefonte, replied. “My governess pounded gentlemanly deportment into my hard little head before I graced the schoolroom, and the ladies enjoy my overtures. Besides, Yuletide approaches, and the season enhances my already-abundant good cheer.”

“You can afford good cheer,” Dunfallon retorted. “You’re married.”