“Do you know who he’d be perfect for?” Sophie said suddenly. “Your friend Julia!”

“Oh, Sophie! Julia’s married!” Julia had made a very good marriage, in her first year. Charlotte still couldn’t think about that season without feeling faint pangs of humiliation. While Charlotte sat out dances at the side of the ballroom, Julia energetically bounced her way into the heart of a red-coated major. They currently lived in Gibraltar.

“Why Julia in particular?” she asked.

“Because Reginald loves to listen; haven’t you noticed? He likes the two of us not just because we’re beautiful but because we talk. And Julia: Well, she talks more than both of us put together, doesn’t she?”

Charlotte giggled. It was true that Julia could carry on a conversation with a brick wall. But Sophie had shocked her again. True, Charlotte thought that she looked well, and she knew that Sophie was beautiful, but to refer to it so carelessly … there was something uncivilized about Sophie York. She was so observant—and she never hesitated to voice her opinion, no matter how indelicate that opinion was.

By now they had reached the upper floor, and crowded after Adelaide into the ladies’ parlor. Sure enough, Adelaide was turning her back to a maid, who had begun painstakingly unbuttoning the gilt buttons on her back. Charlotte groaned inside. They’d be here for hours!

Just then her mama looked up and caught her eye. “Girls, will you help me, please? Sophie, if you would sit here and hold my bag, I would be very grateful.” Sophie sat down with Adelaide’s delicate little French reticule on her lap. There had been a rash of burglaries at ton parties lately, and Adelaide was not going to risk losing her favorite bag.

“And, Charlotte, my dear, would you mind slipping downstairs and telling Sissy where I am? I told her mama that I would keep an eye on her, and I don’t want her going into supper with just anyone. Prudence will be furious if that John Mason takes Sissy in to supper again.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Charlotte dutifully but not enthusiastically. Sissy, or Miss Cecilia Commonweal, was a problem; no one particularly liked her, and she had dreadful taste in men. Given a room full of eligible bachelors, she would unerringly single out the only impoverished second son. And since Sissy’s mother, who was a school friend of Adelaide’s, had a weak heart and didn’t attend many balls, Charlotte had spent rather too many dinners with a sullen Sissy, recently rescued from the attentions of yet another ineligible man.

Charlotte began to make her way down the staircase, struggling to see whether she could glimpse Sissy by looking over people’s shoulders. She didn’t seem to be in the ballroom. She’s probably kissing someone on a balcony, Charlotte thought scornfully, forgetting that she herself had almost done precisely that just ten minutes before.