So by the next evening every member of the ton who had enough self-respect to keep abreast of current gossip knew that the Countess of Sheffield and Downes, who had been alone for only a few weeks, had greeted her husband’s brother in the most tender and affecting manner, actually fainting from happiness at the sight of him. And although no one could actually remember seeing them dance together during Charlotte’s first season, quite a mythology sprang up overnight about what must have been a brief but passionate romance before Patrick was ordered off to the Orient.

“Only the most unkind,” Lady Skiffing observed, “would think that Lady Charlotte had married the elder in place of the younger. If only on a practical level, no girl would marry a second son when the first was asking for her hand.”

Her little circle considered this a very fair observation. “You have so much good nature, my dear,” Lady Prestlefield said comfortably.

“Yes, indeed,” chimed in Sir Benjamin Tribble. “Why, those who don’t have your forbearance, Lady Skiffing, might be persuaded to wonder about dear Alex’s previous marital problems….”

“That’s just an example of the ill nature some people exhibit,” Lady Skiffing exclaimed. “It is such a consolation to me to think that none of us would repeat anything so indelicate about the earl!”

The little circle thought with satisfaction of the kindly news they had spread far and wide. In fact, Sir Benjamin had gained quite a bit of fame in the past week due to having been actually present when the lovers met again. Tribble had a way with words, and his account of the countess’s white, imploring face and the way she pressed her trembling fingers to Patrick’s face was taken to be a most affecting account.

So, no matter how many times her mama protested that there was no truth to the report, and her friend Sophie York (“a bit wild herself,” those same unkind people might say) stoutly insisted that Charlotte had merely mistaken Patrick for her husband, by the end of the week all of London understood that Patrick had broken Charlotte’s heart by going off to the Orient without marrying her, and that she had married Alex only as second choice.

Charlotte didn’t know what to do. She was, quite simply, bewildered by the storm of scandal that had broken over her head without warning.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” her mama said consolingly. She had come to say good-bye. The duke and duchess were taking a long-promised trip to America to visit their eldest daughter, Winifred, who had married a wealthy American.