The heavens opened about ten minutes before the party arrived back at Rodington Court—sluicing rain that seemed to come in spears rather than droplets, accompanied by a distant, ominous grumble of approaching thunder, and made the Earl shout back at them all about India and monsoons. By the time Pat finally got inside, she was wet through to her smalls, and the Countess insisted on hot baths for everyone to prevent chills. Pat did not particularly enjoy sitting around in water, but hiding in the bath seemed like a better prospect than facing Fen, or Jimmy, let alone the Haworths. Please God this evening would be better than the one before.

Of course, in one particular respect, no evening could be better than the one before, but Pat had to put that from her mind. Fen had a choice to make about the course of her life, and Pat had no right to distract her. Unless she wanted to be distracted, of course. In which case she could come and find Pat herself.

Pat allowed herself to imagine that for a moment. A soft knock on the door, a rustle of skirts, Fen slipping into the room while Pat reclined naked in the bathtub. A giggling offer to help with the soap, a plump hand, frothy with lather, sliding over her shoulder, down to cup her breast...

This was not helping.

She sat in tepid bathwater a while longer, listening to the rain lash the windows outside, then heaved herself out. Her legs had the pleasant ache of an active day; the persistent ache between them was less welcome. She ignored it and set to dressing, wishing she had more interesting jewellery, or perhaps some face-paint and the experience to apply it, or the sort of hair that looked good in piled ringlets. Anything to make herself less workaday and practical. She settled for a bright Indian shawl that she always brought on visits and virtually never wore, and set off downstairs telling herself that dinner couldn’t possibly be more uncomfortable than yesterday.

The raised voices from the drawing-room suggested she was wrong.

Bill was standing outside the open door, looking smart enough in his dinner togs, but wearing the pinched expression of a man with a headache. Inside the room, Preston Keynes was speaking at uncharacteristic volume and without his usual cheerfulness—Pat clearly made out “damned offensive”—while Lady Anna, Miss Singh, and the Countess all seemed to be talking at once.

Pat sidled up on light feet, and whispered, “What on earth is going on?”

“Haworth,” Bill said, unnecessarily. “Suggested the Countess order her ayah to fetch her slippers, as a delicate reference to Miss Singh who is second cousin to a Sikh maharajah, and then called her a rather less flattering name, at which point Preston offered to teach him some manners, and Haworth suggested extremely crudely that he had an ulterior motive for doing so. Did you know Preston had an interest there?”