She laughed at him, and something tugged at her heart and was instantly quelled.

"If you believe sex is not enough," she said, "then you have not yet spent enough time in /my/ bed, Stephen. You will learn to change your thinking. Will you come tonight?"

She was not sure she had ever said the word /sex/ aloud before now. It was extraordinarily difficult to say.

"Do you wish me to come?" he asked her.

"But of course," she said. "How else am I to earn my living?"

He turned his head to look at her again and she read in his eyes not the desire of a man who looked forward to bedding his mistress again tonight but something that looked almost like pain. Or perhaps it was merely reproach.

He did not truly believe, surely, that they could ever be /lovers/. He could not be /that/ naive or unrealistic.

It was too late for further private conversation. It was partly a relief – she was wishing more than ever that she had chosen another man last evening, someone less innocent, less /decent/, someone more earthy, someone who would accept the connection between them simply for what it was – sex for money, regular sex for a regular salary. Someone who had not accused her of wearing a mask.

Even /thinking/ the word /sex/ was difficult.

Partly it was no relief at all to be among the crowd, to be on display as she had been last evening but even more so if that were possible. She was perched on a seat above most of the crowd. It was virtually impossible for anyone /not/ to see her.

She wondered if it was deliberate on Lord Merton's part, and guessed that it was. He surely had other carriages that he might have used. And yet he had not brought her to flaunt before his male acquaintances. He had been angry when she had suggested it.

He smiled cheerfully at everyone, touching his hat to the ladies, calling greetings, stopping to exchange a few words whenever someone showed a willingness to talk to /him/. Cassandra guessed it was far fewer people than usual. But whenever someone did stop him, he introduced her, and she inclined her head and sometimes spoke.

As with most of the guests in Lady Carling's drawing room, some people were willing to speak with her, Cassandra found, even if only to ask her how she did. But of course, she had had Lady Carling to sponsor her there, and she had the Earl of Merton here. There had been the Earl and Countess of Sheringford last evening.

Perhaps there were always a few kind people. Perhaps her cynicism had become too extreme. Perhaps she need not be the total outcast she had expected to be. Or perhaps now she was a curiosity to whom some people could not resist drawing close. Once the novelty had worn off, so would her welcome.

It was hard /not/ to be cynical.

It did not matter. In many ways she had always been an outcast.

Predictably, it was mostly gentlemen who stopped to speak with Lord Merton and therefore to be introduced to her. And Cassandra looked at them all and wondered if she might have chosen more wisely last evening.

But how could one choose wisely when one knew absolutely nothing about the man concerned except perhaps his name and the fact that he was probably wealthy? Though how could one know even that when so many gentlemen lived beyond their means and were up to their eyebrows and beyond with debt?

She had thought she had chosen a husband wisely. She had been eighteen then. She was twenty-eight now. Perhaps the only wisdom she had gained in the intervening years was to know that when one chose a man to give security and stability to one's life, one ought to choose a protector rather than a husband.

Freedom was worth more than anything else of value life had to offer.

Yet for a woman it was so very elusive.

Baron Montford came to exchange pleasantries with Cassandra and to chat with his brother-in-law for a few minutes. He had three other gentlemen with him, including Mr. Huxtable, who still looked somewhat satanic to Cassandra. He looked very directly at her with his dark eyes while the other gentlemen talked and laughed. At some time in his life his nose had been broken and not set quite straight, she could see. She was very glad she had not chosen /him/ last night. She had the feeling that his eyes could see through her skull to the hair at the back of her head.

And then, just as those gentlemen were moving on in the opposite direction from the one the curricle was taking and Cassandra looked around again, she saw a familiar face – that of an auburn-haired, good-looking young man, who was sitting in an open barouche beside a pretty young lady in pink. He was smiling at something she was saying to a couple of scarlet-clad officers on horseback.

The Earl of Merton's curricle was almost upon them. The officers rode on, the young lady smiled at the smiling young man, and they both turned their heads to look about at the crowd.

Their eyes alit upon Cassandra at almost the same moment. The two carriages were almost abreast of each other. Without thought Cassandra smiled warmly and half leaned forward.

"/Wesley/!" she cried.

The young lady put both hands up to her mouth and turned her head sharply away – as several others had done to a lesser degree during the past fifteen minutes or so. The young man's smile faded, and his eyes regarded Cassandra with dismay, wavered, and then looked away from her.

"Move on," he said with some impatience to the coachman, who really had nowhere to go until all the carriages in front of him moved on too.

The Earl of Merton had a little more space in front of his curricle.

Even so, it seemed to take an excruciatingly long time for the two vehicles to have completely passed each other.

"Someone you know?" Lord Merton asked quietly.

"Take me home," she said. "Please. I have had enough."

It took him a little while to draw free of the crowd, but at last they were moving at a faster pace along a path that was blessedly free of much other traffic.

"Young, was it not?" he said. "Sir Wesley Young? I have only a slight acquaintance with him."

"I would not know," she said foolishly, spreading her hands in her lap.

"I have never seen him before."

"He just /looked/ like a Wesley, then, did he?" He glanced across at her, smiling. "Don't let him worry you. Giving the cut direct is something some members of the /ton/ delight in doing. Many others have /not/ given it. I believe you will find more and more people accepting you and treating you with open good manners as the days go on."

"Yes," she said. And she watched her hands begin to tremble and then shake. She curled one into a hard fist and gripped the handrail beside her with the other. She clamped her teeth hard together so that they would not chatter.

"Ah," he said as they approached the park entrance at Marble Arch, and for a moment his gloved hand covered hers on her lap, "you really /do/ know him, then."

"My brother," she said, and clamped her teeth together again.

He had come to visit her a few times during her marriage. He had come to the funeral last year. And he had hugged her tightly afterward and assured her that he did not for a moment believe that she had had anything to do with the death. He had told her he loved her and always would. He had urged her to return to London with him, to live with him until she was over her mourning and grief and was healed enough to return home to live at the dower house.

And then, after she had said no and he had gone, he had written to her – twice. And then suddenly silence, even though she had continued to write to /him/. Until a month ago, when she had written to tell him that her life had become so intolerable that she had to leave, that she would have to impose upon his good nature until she had her life in order and somehow found a way to move on. He had written back then to tell her that she must on no account come to London since her notoriety had preceded her. Besides, he would be unable to offer her any help in the immediate future as he had promised friends to travel to Scotland with them to explore the Highlands. He expected to be gone for at least a year. He was allowing the lease on his rooms to lapse.