“It’s babble.”

“I take extreme umbrage to such slander, Caro!” Charlotte exclaimed, stung by the unfair accusation.

“Well you shouldn’t,” Caroline replied somewhat crossly. For some reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint, lengthy conversation with Charlotte always left her feeling thickheaded and dense. “I was merely correcting you. The word is babble, not rabble. I should cease this babble about wedding guests and focus.”

“Well I’m glad you see that at last!” Charlotte cried, at the end of her patience. “Now, if you are finished baring your soul and admitting your sin of inattention, we can get back to the important issue of my future.”

“I must admit that I don’t quite see the fiendishly cunning element of your plan,” Caroline interrupted. “You’re a married woman—well, you were—and although I agree people would talk if they were to find you secreted away together, I cannot see how being seen alone in a room with Lord Carlisle will result in his offering for you.”

Charlotte’s exasperated frown disappeared and her dimples dimpled. “Not even if I was found naked with him?”

Lady Caroline’s jaw dropped, so complete was her surprise. Wordless with shock, she stared at her friend.

“I told you it was fiendishly cunning,” Charlotte answered the silent look of horror. “I would never make such a claim lightly! Now, we have much to discuss, so close your mouth. I must have a suitable costume made up quickly—one that will not reveal who I am, since that fusty old Lady Jersey refuses to recognize me—and we must go over the plan of just how you will smuggle me into the ball, and then there’s the crowd you must gather to witness Lord Carlisle’s attempted debauchery of my naked person, and many other items. I have my memorandum paper here. I shall make a list for you so you won’t forget your tasks.”

“But…but…Charlotte! Such a daring, heedless, bold plan—is it prudent?”

“Prudent?” Charlotte scoffed at such a notion. “Caro, in all my three and twenty years, has anyone ever called me prudent?”

Caroline, her eyes still wide with disbelief, shook her head. “But—without any sort of clothing—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Charlotte said kindly, patting Caroline’s cheek. “After all, they say that ‘faint heart never won bare lady,’ and Alasdair’s heart is anything but faint, so how could the plan fail?”

“But surely Lord Carlisle should have some say in the matter—”

“I will make him an excellent wife, have no fear of that. And he, himself, said he is not looking for a wife, which means he’s not given his heart to anyone else. Plus you know he had a tendresse for me before I married. It shall all be as it was, so cease fussing. Now, let me tell you the details of my brilliant plan…”

***

Four nights later the moon was rising full, shedding its cold, mercurial light down upon the city of London, setting a ghostly glow upon the lamplighters who clambered up and down their short ladders as they lit the new gas lamps along the Pall Mall, casting the paving stones into variegated pools of black and silver through which carriages and horses plodded heedlessly as they went about their way, washing pale the portly figure of a man dressed in early Elizabethan garb as he climbed over the solid stone and wrought-iron fence surrounding the garden belonging to Lady Jersey. The moon, had she been able to express an opinion about what she saw from on high, would have no doubt commented that the portly man in costume was by his very actions suspicious. Rather than entering the garden through the gate as most people chose, the gentleman straddled the fence, vaulting down to the soft flowerbeds below with a distinctly heard, “Damnation! I’ll get Caro for this!”