Raymore sat a long time silently considering what he must do. The most obvious solution seemed to be to give in to her demands and send her back to the country. Yet he could not display weakness by giving in to her so. He had very little hope left of finding her a husband in the near future. She had effectively prevented that by her behavior in the ballroom.

He had still not found a solution when the butler knocked on the door to ask if his lordship intended to eat luncheon at home. Raymore ordered a tray brought into the library. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his meal. He hardly tasted it, in fact. His mind was dealing with a thorny problem. Did he owe Miss Dacey an apology? The idea was quite unpalatable. She had clearly provoked him into anger. He was very ready to believe that she had lured him into that embrace. Even so, he admitted, he should not have touched her.

Raymore decided that he would join the ladies later in the drawing room. There would probably be visitors. His cousin Sylvia had appeared to take very well the evening before. He would draw Miss Dacey to one side, apologize briefly, and be done with the matter. It was far more desirable to do the job that way than to speak to her in private. She would be sure to make a major quarrel out of it if he did it that way.

In the event, though, Raymore found himself unaccountably uneasy when he entered the drawing room. As he accepted a cup of tea from Hetty and entered into a conversation with Standen and his sister, Mrs. Letitia Morrison, he was uncomfortably aware of Rosalind sitting across the room talking to Standen's younger brother. He talked to each of the visitors in turn, but failed to take the opportunity of moving to his ward's side when Broome moved away to talk to Sylvia. Soon he lost the chance, when Axby took the empty seat that young Nigel had vacated.

Raymore left the room soon afterward without having spoken to his ward. In fact, he had not even looked directly at her the whole time he had been in the room. The earl frowned. What was the matter with him? Was he afraid of the chit? He hurried up to his room and rang impatiently for his valet. An hour later he left the house and remained away until the early hours of the following morning.

The ladies did not have any engagement for that evening, but they spent a productive evening going through the pile of invitations that had arrived with the day's post. Now that they were officially out, Sylvia and Rosalind were entitled to attend as many routs, balls, Venetian breakfasts, soirees, and other events as could be reasonably fitted into each day. Sylvia and Cousin Hetty were trying to decide which of the invitations should be accepted.

"Lady Sefton promised me last evening that she would send vouchers for Almack's," Cousin Hetty said, scratching the ears of a sleeping poodle as she passed an invitation card across to Sylvia.

"Almack's!" that young lady squealed. "How heavenly! Did you hear that, Ros?"

Fortunately for Rosalind, the question appeared rhetorical. Her cousin was already exclaiming over the card she held in her hand, which promised further delights at yet another party.

Rosalind did, in fact, escape early to bed, claiming that she was tired after the ball of the evening before. She was not exactly lying, she mused as she closed the door of her bedroom behind her and set down the candle on the table beside the bed. She was extremely weary and mortally depressed. Until the night before, she had buoyed up her spirits with the conviction that the Earl of Raymore would send her back home without delay once she had publicly embarrassed him.

But her scheme had failed. Not only was she being forced to remain in London, but she had succeeded in embarrassing herself quite dreadfully. The only factor that had given her the courage to walk across that ballroom the evening before was her conviction that she need never face any of those people again. Now it seemed that she was doomed to face them all many times.

How she hated her guardian. Even that afternoon he had appeared in the drawing room, probably to check on her, like a jailer, to make sure that she was not hiding in her room. She shuddered at the memory of what had happened between them the night before. That he was physically very attractive she could not deny. She had loved Alistair, his dream counterpart, for several years. But how had she allowed herself to ignore the very contemptible character that was housed in the very godlike body? She never would have done so had she not been furiously angry, she persuaded herself.

But her own abandonment to the embrace quite disturbed her. Rosalind had never been kissed before. Indeed, she had rarely had any contact at all with men, having always avoided the few social events that she and Sylvia had been invited to in previous years. She should, then, have been shocked even by the mere touch of a man's lips. And she had been shocked at first. She had pulled away from him with the same instinct as she would have withdrawn her hand from a hot surface. But when she had looked at him, his face had for once been unguarded, the coldness absent. His eyes had had depth, and she had fallen into those depths as he drew her to him again. And she would never be able to explain why she had reacted as she had that second time. Her behavior was frightening to look back upon. Rosalind could explain it to herself only by admitting that she had wanted him. She had wanted to be close to him, closer than she could be even by pressing her body against his. She had opened her mouth when his tongue had asked entrance, though she had not known there could be such a kiss. She had moved against his hands, wanting them to know her. She had always been embarrassed by her full figure, but she had welcomed his hands on her breasts, had ached to have them beneath the fabric of her gown. She had wanted him.

Rosalind was clinging to one of the posts of her bed. She hung her head and closed her eyes. How could she have behaved so, had those feelings with him? With him of all people! Had she no shame? Could she be attracted so powerfully to beauty when there was no substance behind it? He was a cold, unfeeling man who just happened to be extraordinarily handsome. Was she to be seduced by external appearances alone?

And why had he participated in that embrace? Rosalind knew that her deformity repelled him. She knew that he disliked her. She knew that she was ugly. Why, then? He could not have been led astray by appearances. She turned her face to the bedpost as she faced the truth as it must be. He had deliberately set out to humiliate her. She had bested him in the ballroom, and being the sort of man who could never allow another to outmaneuver him, he had coldly and calculatedly taken his revenge almost immediately. With practiced powers of seduction, he had drawn her into making a complete cake of herself. Forever afterward now, when he looked at her, he would be able to sneer at the poor, ugly girl who had responded eagerly to an embrace in the library, believing it to be a sign of real attraction.

Rosalind's knuckles were white as she clung to the post. She would get even with him. She did not have the faintest notion of how she would do it, but she would.

The Earl of Raymore rose the next morning with the determination to see Miss Rosalind Dacey as soon as possible, make his apologies, and forget the whole matter. He was heartily sick of the whole situation with his wards. Having them in his house and setting about getting them married was proving a deucedly troublesome business, and that one girl was occupying his mind far more than he could wish.