"Young woman, I am the one who's supposed to be deaf. Now do you, or do you not, mean to get Sevarin?"

Whitney frantically considered and cast aside half a dozen responses. She glanced beseechingly at her aunt, who gave her a helpless, laughing look. Finally, she clasped her hands behind her back and regarded her tormentor directly. "Yes. If

I can."

"Ha! Thought so!" said the dowager happily, then her eyes narrowed. "You aren't given to blushing and simpering, are you? Because if you are, you may as well go back to France. Miss Elizabeth has tried that for years, and she's yet to snare Sevarin. You take my advice, and give that young man some competition! Competition is what he needs-he's too sure of himself with the ladies and always has been." She turned to Lady Anne. "For fifteen years, I have listened to my tiresome neighbors foretelling a dire future for your niece, Madam, but I always believed there was hope for her. Now," she said with a complacent smirk, "I intend to sit back and laugh myself into fits watching her snap Sevarin up right in front of their eyes." Raising her monacle to her eye, she gave Whitney a final inspection, then nodded abruptly. "Do Not Fail Me, Miss."

In amazed disbelief Whitney stared at the empty doorway through which the dowager had just passed. "I think she's a little mad."

"I think she's as wily as a fox," Lady Anne replied with a fault smile. "And I think you'd be wise to take her advice to heart."

Trancelike, Whitney sat before her dressing table mirror, watching Clarissa deftly twist her heavy hair into elaborate curls entwined with a rope of diamonds-her last, and most extravagant purchase made with the money her father sent her to spend in Paris. As Clarissa teased soft tendrils over her ears, the night breeze wafted the curtains, raising bumps on Whitney's arms. Tonight was going to be unseasonably cool, which suited Whitney perfectly, for the gown she wanted to wear was of velvet.

As the gown was being fastened up the back, Whitney heard the sound of carriages making their way along the drive, the echo of muted laughter, distant but distinct, drifting through the open windows. Were they laughing as they recounted her old antics? Was that Margaret Merryton or one of the other girls, sniggering about the shameful way she used to behave?

Whitney didn't notice when Clarissa finished and quietly left the room. She felt cold all over, frightened, and more painfully unsure of herself than ever before in her life. Tonight was the night she had been practicing for and dreaming of all these years in France.

She wandered over to the windows, wondering distractedly what Elizabeth would wear tonight. Something pastel, no doubt. And demurely fetching. Parting the ivory and gold curtains, she stared down, watching the carriage lamps twinkling as they approached along the sweeping drive. One after another, in amazing numbers, they rolled to a stop at the steps. Her father must have invited half the countryside, she thought nervously. And of course, they had all accepted his invitation. They would all be eager to look her over, to search for some flaw, some sign of the unruly girl she'd been before.

Two steps into Whitney's room, Anne came to an abrupt halt, a slow, beaming smile working its way across her face. In profile, Whitney's finely sculpted features looked too lovely to be real. Anne took in everything, from the shadows of thick lashes on glowing magnolia skin, to the diamonds glittering amidst her shiny mahogany curls and peeping from beneath the soft tendrils at her ears. Her curvaceous form was draped in an emerald-green velvet gown with a high waist. The bodice was molded firmly to her breasts, exposing a daring amount of flesh above the square neckline. As if to atone for the gown's immodest display of bosom, the sleeves were fitted tubes of emerald velvet which did not allow so much as a glimpse of skin from shoulder to wrist, where they ended in deep points at the tops of her hands. Like the front, the back of the gown was elegant in its simplicity, falling in velvet folds.

A carriage drew up below, and Whitney watched a tall, blond man bound down and offer his hand to a beautiful blond girl. Paul had arrived. And he had come with Elizabeth. Jerking away from the window, Whitney saw her aunt and visibly jumped.

"You took positively breathtaking!" Lady Anne whispered. "Do you really like it-4he dress, I mean?" Whitney's voice was raspy and tight with mounting tension.

"Like it?" Anne laughed. "Darling, it's you! Daring and elegant and special." She extended her hand from which dangled a magnificent emerald pendant. "Your father asked me this morning what color your gown was, and he just brought me this to give to you. It was your mother's," Anne added when Whitney stated at the glittering jewel.

The emerald was easily an inch square, flanked by a row of glittering diamonds on all four sides. It was not her mother's; Whitney had spent hours, long ago, lovingly touching all the little treasures and trinkets in her mother's jewel case. But she was too nervous to argue the point. She stood rigidly still while her aunt fastened the pendant.

"Perfect!" Anne exclaimed with pleasure, studying the effect of the glowing jewel nestling in the hollow between Whitney's breasts. Linking her arm through Whitney's, Anne took a step forward. "Come, darling-it's time for your second official debut." Whitney wished with all her heart that Nicolas DuVille were here to help her through this debut, too.

Her father was pacing impatiently at the foot of the stairs, waiting to escort her into the ballroom. When he saw her coming down the steps toward him, he halted in mid-stride, and the stunned admiration on his face bolstered Whitney's faltering confidence.

Under the wide arched entrance to the ballroom, he stopped and nodded at the musicians in the far alcove, and the music ground to an abrupt hate. Whitney could feel the eyes swerving toward her, hear the roar of the crowd dying swiftly as the babble of voices trailed off in ominous silence. She drew a long, quivering breath, focused her eyes slightly above everyone's heads, and stepped down the three shallow steps, allowing her father to lead her toward the center of the room.

Staring, watchful silence followed her and, at that moment, had she been able to find the strength, Whitney would have picked up her skirts and fled. She clung to the memory of Nicolas DuVille, of his proud, laughing elegance, and the way he had escorted her everywhere. He would have leaned over and whispered in her ear, "They are nothing but provincials, cherie! Just keep your head high."

The crowd parted as a young, red-haired man shoved his way through-Peter Redfern, who had teased her unmercifully as a child, but had also been one of her few friends. At five and twenty, Peter's hairline had receded slightly, but the boyishness that was so much a part of him was still there. "Good God!" he exclaimed with unconcealed admiration when he was standing directly in front of her. "It is you, you little ruffian! What have you done with your freckles?!"

Whitney gulped back her horrified laughter at this undignified greeting and put her hand in his outstretched palm. "What," she countered, beaming at him, "have you done with your hair, Peter?"

Peter burst out laughing, and the silent spell was broken. Everyone started talking at once, closing in on her and exchanging greetings.

Anticipation and tension were building apace, but Whitney restrained the urge to turn and look for Paul as the minutes ticked past and she continued making the same mechanical responses, over and over again. Yes, she had enjoyed Paris. Yes, her Uncle Edward Gilbert was well. Yes, she would be pleased to attend this card party or that dinner party.

Peter was still beside her a quarter of an hour later while Whitney was speaking with the apothecary's wife. From her left, where all the local girls and their husbands were standing, Whitney heard Margaret Merryton's familiar, malicious laugh. "I heard she made a spectacle of herself in Paris and is all but shunned from polite society there," Margaret was telling them.