Several people sniffed, and one man gave a bark of harsh laughter. “Thank you,” Gillian said, confused by the innuendoes. Had she done something to make Noble an outcast? She snuck a glance down at her blue palms and was horrified to see a blue smear on the countess’s lovely pale apricot and gold gauze gown. She tried to edge backwards, but a cluster of people waiting to greet their hostess kept her captive.

“Your support will mean a great deal to Lord Weston, Countess. And to me, of course.”

“And with regards to that other unpleasant situation of which the little bird spoke”—the countess tipped her head to the side, her ostrich plume swaying gently in the breeze from the open windows—“you must always think of me should you need respite from your…troubles.”

Gillian smiled and tried to turn her face away from the sweep of the long ostrich feather. “That’s most generous of you. I shall remember your kindness always.”

The countess smiled again and, with one last pat to Gillian’s arm, she moved off to greet the new arrivals.

Gillian gave in to the eye-watering itch the feather had started and rubbed her nose quickly before turning around to face Charlotte.

“What the devil was all that about?” Gillian asked her cousin.

Charlotte took one look at her and rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, Gilly,” she said as she grabbed her cousin’s arm in a grip that never failed to command respect, pushing her to a small room at the back of the long hall. “You’ve got a blue nose! I’ve never seen anyone who has the propensity you have for getting into trouble at a ball. If you’d only kept your gloves on, none of this would have happened.”

“I don’t like wearing gloves,” Gillian complained; she tried to explain about her desire to see the colored lamps but was summarily hushed and turned over to the waiting, if less than enthusiastic, hands of the ladies’ maids.

Half an hour later she reappeared, minus a blue nose, but with a blue handprint on her left flank and wearing a pair of gloves that were too small for her. She picked nervously at them and peered around the ballroom, looking for a friendly face.

“Lady Weston, you look…ah…charming as ever.”

Gillian smiled at the man in front of her. “Thank you, Sir Hugh. That is quite gallant of you, considering I have a blue handprint on my gown and am wearing borrowed gloves.”

“My dear Lady Weston, no one will notice the slightest thing once they have beheld your radiant smile.”

Gillian laughed at the dandy. “’Tis the truth, Sir Hugh, you do raise my spirits so with your words. That’s a particularly lovely shade of plum, by the way. It sets off the royal blue very nicely.”

The baronet preened a bit as he smoothed out his waistcoat and checked quickly to make sure his watch fobs weren’t tangled in the ribbon to his quizzing glass.