Especially since his grandfather had made a specific point of informing him that Mrs. Anna Bromley-Hayes, Elliott's mistress of two years, simply would not do as his bride. Not that he had needed his grandfather to tell him that. Anna was beautiful and voluptuous and marvelously skilled in the bedroom arts, but she had also had a string of lovers before him, some of them while Bromley-Hayes was still alive. And she never made a secret of her amours. She was proud of them. Doubtless she intended to continue them with more lovers than just him at some time in the future. "This is good," George said. "If you went into the monastery, Elliott, you would doubtless not need a secretary and I would be out of lucrative employment. I should hate that." "Hmm." Elliott returned his foot to the floor and then crossed it over the other leg to rest his booted ankle above the knee.

He wished he had not thought of Anna. He had not seen her - or, more important, bedded her - since before Christmas. It was a damnably long time. Man was not made to be celibate, he had concluded long ago - another reason for avoiding the lure of the monastery. "The three sisters will very probably be at the assembly tonight," George said. "Did not Sir Humphrey say that everyone and his dog will be attending - or words to that effect? Perhaps the cub will be there too." "He is far too young," Elliott said. "But we /are /deep in the country," his friend reminded him, "and far from the influence of all things /ton/nish. I'll wager on his being here." "If you think that possibility will persuade me to attend," Elliott said, "you are much mistaken, George. I am not talking business with him tonight beneath the interested gaze of a villageful of gossips, for the love of God." "But you can scout him out," George said. "We both can. And his sisters too. Besides, old chap, would it be quite the thing to absent yourself when Sir Humphrey Dew made such a point of waiting on you as soon as word reached him that you were here? And when he came in person specifically to invite us to the assembly and to offer to escort us upstairs and present us to everyone worthy of the honor? My guess is that that will be /everyone /without exception. He will not be able to resist." "Do I pay you to be my conscience, George?" Elliott asked.

But George Bowen, far from looking cowed, only chuckled. "How the devil did he discover that we were here, anyway?" Elliott asked, having worked himself into a thorough bad temper. "We arrived in this village and at this inn less than two hours ago, and no one knew we were coming." George rubbed his hands together close to the heat of the fire and then turned resolutely away in the direction of his room. "We are in the /country, /Elliott," he said again, "where news travels on the wind and on every blade of grass and every dust mote and every human tongue. Doubtless the lowliest scullery maid knows by now that you are in Throckbridge and is trying desperately - and in vain - to find another mortal who does /not /know. And everyone will have heard that you have been invited to the assembly as Sir Humphrey Dew's particular guest. Are you going to disappoint them all by keeping to your room?" "Wrong pronoun again," Elliott said, pointing a finger. "I am not the only one everyone will have heard of. There is you too. /You /go and entertain them if you feel you must." George clucked his tongue before opening the door to his room. "I am a mere mister," he said. "Of mild interest as a stranger, perhaps, especially if I had arrived alone. But you are a /viscount, /Elliott, several rungs higher on the social ladder even than Dew. It will seem as if God himself had condescended to step into their midst." He paused a moment and then chuckled. "The Welsh word for God is /Duw/ - my grandmother was always saying it - D-U-W, but pronounced the same way as our dear baronet's name. And yet you outrank him, Elliott. That is heady stuff, old boy, for a sleepy village. They have probably never set eyes upon a viscount before or ever expected to. Would it be sporting of you to deny them a glimpse of you? I am off to don my evening togs." He was still chuckling merrily as he closed his door behind him.

Elliott scowled at its blank surface.

They had traveled here, the two of them, on business. Elliott deeply resented the whole thing. After a long, frustrating year during which his life had been turned upside down and inside out, he had expected soon to be free of the most irksome of the obligations his father's sudden death had landed on his shoulders. But that obligation, George's search and discovery had recently revealed, was actually far from over.

It was not a discovery that had done anything to improve Elliott's almost perpetually sour mood.

He had not expected his father to die so young. His father's father, after all, was still alive and in vigorous good health, and the male line had been renowned for longevity for generations past. Elliott had expected many more years in which to be free to kick his heels and enjoy the carefree life of a young buck about town without any of the burdens of sober responsibility.

But suddenly he had had them, ready or not - just like the childhood game of hide-and-seek. /Coming, ready or not./ His father had died ignominiously in the bed of his mistress - a fact that had become one of the more enduring jokes among the /ton/. It had been less funny to Elliott's mother - not funny at all, in fact, even though she had long known, as everyone had, of her husband's infidelity.

Everyone but Elliott.

As well as longevity, the males of their line were also renowned for the long-term mistresses and their children that they kept in addition to their wives and legitimate offspring. His grandfather's liaison had come to an end only with the death of his mistress ten years or so ago. There had been eight children of that relationship. His father had left five behind, all comfortably provided for.

No one could accuse the Wallace men of not doing their part to populate the country.

Anna had no children - his or anyone else's. Elliott suspected that she knew a way of preventing conception, and he was glad of it. He had no children of other mistresses either.

He might have sent George down here alone, he reflected, bringing his mind back to the present situation. Bowen was perfectly capable of carrying out the business himself. Elliott had not needed to come in person. But duty once embarked upon, he had found, imposed its own dreary code of honor, and so here he was in a part of the country that must be the very middle of nowhere even if it /was /picturesque - or would be once spring decided to show its face if George was to be believed.

They had put up at the only inn in Throckbridge, though it was but a country establishment with no pretension to elegance - it was not even a posting inn. They had intended to proceed to business before the afternoon was out. Elliott had hoped to begin the return journey tomorrow though George had predicted that another day, perhaps even two, was a distinct probability - and even that might be an overoptimistic estimate.

But the inn had proved to boast one fatal feature, as so many village inns did, dash it all. It had assembly rooms on the upper floor. And those rooms were to be put to use this very evening. He and George had had the singular misfortune of arriving on the day of a village dance.

It really had not occurred to either of them that the inhabitants of a remote English village might take it into their heads to celebrate St.

Valentine's Day. It had not even struck Elliott that this /was /St.

Valentine's Day, for God's sake.

The assembly rooms were directly above his head as he continued to recline in his chair beside the fire despite the fact that it was not a vastly comfortable piece of furniture and the fire needed more coal and the bell rope was just out of his reach. The assembly rooms were also directly above his bedchamber. They were directly above /everything/.