“Who is it from?” barked her father from his end of the table. “That jackanapes who ate here last evening?” He had missed all the implications of Lord Holland’s brief attendance of Lady Charlotte at the theater, but he thought he knew the smell of a fortune hunter when he saw one. Although he had to admit that the baron was a good deal more bearable than most of the dissolute, useless aristocrats he saw wandering down the Strand. He seemed to know something of commerce, for example, which is more than one could say of the majority of Tulips his daughter met.

“No, Papa,” Chloe said, her eyes dancing. “It is a note from Lady Charlotte Daicheston.”

“Humph,” her father said. “That woman’s got herself into the papers again.”

“Oh? May I see, Papa? That is, if you are quite finished.”

“Finished? I don’t read the gossip pages, miss!” His family tactfully ignored the issue of how he knew about Charlotte Daicheston’s presence in the papers as Chloe scanned the gossip pages.

“Oh, Mama,” she gasped. “Apparently Charlotte and her friends arranged to have fireworks set off for a poor sick man last night, after we left Vauxhall.” Chloe didn’t even notice her use of Charlotte’s first name, in her excitement. She read aloud the entire article, which was agreeably detailed about exactly which fireworks had been shot off and the reactions of all concerned, particularly the driver of a phaeton whose horses had been startled by the sudden blooming of a large rearing horse in the sky. The driver’s tart commentary was, however, treated as sour grapes by the journalist, who finished by remarking how few people these days bother making kind gestures toward the sick and invalid. Mrs. van Stork smiled hugely. She herself spent most of her time making up clothing for London’s poor population; Lady Charlotte promptly moved into an honored place in the galaxy of those people she knew—or knew of—in London. Even Mr. van Stork grunted approvingly after Chloe finished reading the article.

Just before leaving, Chloe pinned some of the violets to her white dress. She was going to Charlotte’s house … and perhaps, who knows? She might even see Will there. Unlike her father, she had no illusions about what Charlotte’s beckoning nod to Lord Holland had meant the night before. Perhaps, she thought, gasping at her own temerity, they are lovers! Chloe’s common sense intervened. It was unlikely. Charlotte was simply so beautiful that no man could resist her summons. Well, Chloe thought, she would just have to hope that Charlotte turned her eyes away from Will. It sounded from the gossip column as if Charlotte might marry the “Ineligible Earl,” whoever that was. Her mother’s lips had folded tight as a steel box when Chloe asked who he might be and why he was ineligible.