One lady braved his detachment and put her hand on his sleeve. He smiled, urbanely charming; gracefully, he lifted her hand and bowed over it. Straightening, he exchanged a light word, some quip to set the lady laughing, hoping… only to be disappointed as with no more than that superficiality, he smoothly moved on.
He was a master at sliding through a crowd, refusing to be anchored, ineffably polite, arrogantly assured, and utterly impossible.
"Alathea! Good gracious, my dear-what peculiar fetish do you have with walls?"
Abruptly straightening, Alathea looked around-into Celia Cynster's startled eyes. "I was… just easing my legs."
Celia gave her a hard, inherently maternal stare, but was distracted by a glimpse of her firstborn through the crowd. "There he is! I made him promise to attend-he's been to hardly any balls this entire Season-well, only family affairs. How on earth does he expect to find a wife?"
"I don't think securing a wife is uppermost in his mind."
Celia nearly pouted. "Well, he had better get started on the matter-he's not getting any younger."
Alathea kept her lips sealed.
"Lady Hendricks has been dropping hints that her daughter Emily might suit."
An image of the lovely Miss Hendricks popped into Alathea's mind. The young lady was sweet, modest, and excessively quiet. "Don't you think she's a little too timid?"
"Of course she's too timid! Rupert wouldn't know what to do with her-and she certainly wouldn't know what to do with him."
Alathea hid a smile. "Are you really entertaining any hope that some lady will be able to influence Rupert? He's the least easy to influence person I know."
Celia sighed. "Believe me, my dear, the right lady could do a great deal with Rupert, because, you see, he'd let her."
"Lady Alathea!"
Blinking, Alathea refocused on Mary and Alice, strolling with Heather and Eliza ahead of her on the lawns. It was clearly not they who had called. Looking around, she discovered two blond beauties rushing to catch her up. Both held on to elegant bonnets, ribbons streaming in the breeze; profusions of golden ringlets danced on their shoulders.
Recognizing the twins, Alathea halted. She'd been introduced to them at a ball, but they hadn't had a chance for any lengthy chat.
Gaining her side, the twins waved at their cousins, then turned beaming smiles upon her as they flanked her. Alathea got the distinct impression she'd been captured.
"We wondered if we might speak with you," one began.
Alathea smiled, a shrewd suspicion of what was to come dawning in her mind. "You'll have to take pity on me-I can't remember which of you is which."
"I'm Amelia," the one who'd spoken testified.
"And I'm Amanda," the other said, making it sound like a confession. "We wondered if you'd mind giving us your opinion."
"On what subject?"
"Well, you've known Gabriel and Lucifer since they were young. We've decided that the only way we'll be able to escape them and find our own husbands is for them to get married, so we wanted to ask if you could give us any pointers."
"Any hints as to who might be suitable-
"Or characteristics to avoid, like being hen-brained."
"Although that does narrow the candidates."
Alathea looked from one bright face to the other-they were earnest, eager, and totally serious. She stifled a gurgle of laughter. "You want to marry them off so they'll no longer be in your way?"
"So they'll no longer guard us like the crown jewels!"
"We've heard," Amelia said darkly, "that some gentlemen won't even come near us, simply because of the ructions that might ensue."
"They actually cross us off their lists, right from the first, all because of those two!" Amanda all but shook her fist at her absent cousins. "How on earth can we reasonably assess all the possibilities-"
"And make sure they've assessed us properly, too-"
"If our watchdogs are forever snarling-"
"And they always snarl loudest at the most interesting gentlemen!"
"Well," Amanda went on, "you know what gentlemen are like. If there's the least hurdle, then they simply won't bother exerting themselves."
"Well, they don't need to, do they? There's always so many other ladies about for whom they need exert themselves not at all."
"So you see, when it comes to eligibility, we're laboring under an unfair disadvantage."
"Oh, dear." Alathea fought to straighten her lips. "You know, I really don't think Gabriel and Lucifer would like you to think of them as an 'unfair disadvantage'." She suspected they'd be hurt, their male egos bruised.
Amanda kicked at the grass. "Well, we don't plan on telling them, but that doesn't excuse the fact. They are a disadvantage."
"And they are unfair, too."
Alathea didn't argue-she thought the same. They were being pigheadedly unfair, refusing to see that Amanda and Amelia had any modicum of sense and, regardless of all else, had every right to choose their own husbands. The way Gabriel and Lucifer had always treated her-as an equal companion-stood in stark contrast to how they treated the twins. Although they'd always interposed themselves between her and any threat, they hadn't tried to stop her from encountering those threats.
Looking up, she checked her charges ambling ahead; all four girls were engrossed in some avid discussion. Alathea glanced at the twins-at Amanda, scowling at the grass as she walked, then at Amelia, softer of face but with the same determined set to her chin. "Why do you think their marrying will help?"
Amanda looked up. "Well, it has with all the others. They're no longer a problem."
"All you have to do is look, and you'll see it. Why, Devil was the worst, but he's so much easier now."
"Once they marry, it's as if all their attention is focused on the lady they wed."
"And their families."
Alathea pondered that.
"We think we should concentrate on Gabriel first."
"Simply because he's the elder." Amelia glanced at Alathea. "Do you think that's the right tack?"
Alathea considered the picture of Gabriel trying to maintain his repressive watch over the twins while simultaneously fending off ladies the twins themselves introduced. He wouldn't have time to cause her any problems. "I think… that your aunt Celia could give you some names."
Amanda brightened. "That's a thought."
"There would be no need," Alathea mused, elaborating on the picture in her mind, "to be overly subtle. The ladies won't care as long as they gain some time by his side, and he'll know what you're up to from the first, so there's no need to be careful on that count."
Amelia stopped dead. "He'll be trapped." She swung to face Alathea and Amanda, her eyes alight. "He won't be able to escape-
"Except"-Amanda concluded with great relish-"by leaving us alone."
Hookhams Lending Library in Bond Street was Alathea's port of call the next morning. Unfortunately, their section on Africa was almost nonexistent. Nevertheless, she borrowed all four books; old and rather tattered, they held out little promise. Juggling them under her arm, she stepped down to the pavement. The biggest book slipped-her shoe skidded off the last step-
"Careful!"
Hard hands gripped her arms and righted her. Jerking her head up, Alathea stared-into Lucifer's face. She swallowed her sigh of relief, and struggled to calm her thudding heart. For one moment, with the sun behind him, she'd thought him his brother. "Ah…"
"Here-give me those."
He didn't, of course, give her any choice. "Oh-yes!" Alathea drew in a quick breath. "Have you been riding this morning?"
He looked at her. "In the park? No. Why?"