Isabel’s petite younger sister, Blanche, rose from the chair.

He strode to her, grabbed her hand, and gave it a peck.

“Hello, Little Bird. I’m sorry I missed your wedding. How is old Smythe Piggott?”

“Hello, Richard. The sky has lit up to celebrate your return. I’m fine, but do emphasise the pig when you say my husband’s name. He already has two mistresses. But he’s a rich pig, so I can’t complain. There are women with worse husbands; the variety of man that remains at home in the evenings and insists on conversation, for instance. The fifth of November, Richard, the fifth of November.”

“What about it? Do you intend to throw him onto a bonfire? I didn’t think you Catholics celebrated Guy Fawkes Night.”

“We Catholics don’t. It’s the date my parents have set for your engagement party. They’d prefer that my sister’s marriage be founded on financial security, as mine is—I think they’re rather intimidated by such concepts as love and passion—but they’ve bowed to the inevitable. Great-Uncle Gerard has agreed to host the party at New Wardour Castle, and if you wish to bring guests, you have his leave to do so.”

Burton looked at Isabel and arched an eyebrow. “Have you been doping your parents?”

She laughed. “No, just driving them to the brink of madness by singing your praises at every opportunity. But I think it was the knighthood that finally swayed them.”

“Oh. You know about that? Good grief! Was I the last to be told?”

“I heard it from Monckton Milnes. You know what a great depository of knowledge, gossip, and secrets he is.”

“Not so much secrets, it would appear.”

Burton indicated that Blanche should resume her seat and Isabel take the other armchair. He dragged over a padded chair from beside one of the desks and sat facing them.

Isabel reached for his hand and held it. She said, “You won’t object to the party, will you?”

“I’ll concede to it,” he replied, “but we’ll keep the wedding itself a small affair, as we agreed—yes?—for a grand marriage ceremony is a barbarous and an indelicate exhibition.”

Isabel first laughed then frowned. “Your face. What was this mishap you mentioned?”

“Yes, brother-in-law-to-be,” Blanche added. “You look a hideous mess.”

He dismissed the question with a wave. “Thank you, Blanche. It’s really nothing to worry about. I tripped.”

Blanche giggled. “Months and months in dangerous Africa and as soon as you’re home, you fall flat on your face.”

“Exactly.”

“Was the safari very difficult?” Isabel asked. “Why did it take so much longer than predicted?”

“The Orpheus’s engines failed,” he replied. “Some five hundred miles north of the lakes, they simply packed up. The engineers couldn’t find a thing to explain it. What little wind there was came from the west—the dirigible couldn’t even float southward—so Sadhvi, Bill, George, and I left it and continued on foot. We followed the upper Nile through a chain of swamps and lakes until we arrived at its source—waterfalls descending from the Nyanza, which is practically an inland sea. We then skirted around its western shore, past the Mountains of the Moon, until we came to the water’s southernmost point. While we were doing all that, the breeze altered direction, allowing Captain Lawless to drift the Orpheus over the eastern shores of the Nyanza then southward to an Arabic outpost called Kazeh. He set up camp there and paid natives to spread the news of the ship’s location. The information eventually reached us and we rejoined our colleagues. A few days later, we discovered that the engines had miraculously come back to life and immediately set course for Zanzibar.”

The door opened and Mrs. Angell entered with a tea tray. She gave Blanche an approving glance, pleased to see that propriety was being observed and Isabel was correctly chaperoned, then set the tray down on a table.

“Shall I pour?” she asked.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Angell,” Isabel said. “Leave it to me.”

“I’ll lay clean clothes out in your bedchamber, Captain Burton,” the housekeeper said. “Oh, I’m so happy to have you home safe and sound. You’ll not be returning to Africa, I hope.”

“No, Mother,” Burton responded. “I have no plans to go back.”

The old woman wrung her hands in satisfaction. “You’ll have some beef broth before you go to bed. I insist upon it. You need building up. Ring when you’re ready for it. Don’t forget!” With that admonition, she left the room.

Isabel said, “Have you satisfied your craving for danger and unexplored lands, Dick? Are you ready to settle? I have petitioned Lord Stanley. I think he’s willing to hand us Damascus.”

Burton sighed. “I wish you hadn’t. The Orpheus gave him passage home from Vienna. He made it quite clear to me that your unsolicited recommendations were unwelcome and irritating. You may have done more damage than good.”

“There!” Blanche interjected. “I told you not to be so bullheaded. Really, Isabel, mother is right. You are far too brazen.”

“I was trying to help!” Isabel protested.

Burton gave her hand a squeeze. “I appreciate that, darling, but in doing so you might have given the impression that I lack the wherewithal to advance my own career.”

“It’s just that—that—Oh, Dick, I just want to be able to do something for our future together. I so regret that I’m bringing you no money, but Papa simply won’t allow it.”

“That’s no disadvantage as far as I’m concerned, for heiresses always expect to lord it over their lords. A man must be a man, Isabel. He must be in charge of his own destiny, and more importantly, he must be seen to be in charge.”

She swallowed and nodded.

“Don’t fret,” he added. “You may have riled old Stanley, but I’m confident we’ll get what we want anyway.”

“You forgive me?”

“I forgive you.”

Isabel smiled, stood, and crossed to the table. While she attended to the teapot, Burton asked Blanche, “Your parents really want me to bring guests?”

“Oh, yes!” she answered. “You should invite them for the first of the month, so we have a few days to become acquainted before the party itself. Will Styggins be among them? I so want to meet him. I hear he’s absolutely utterly!”

“Steinhaueser? Absolutely utterly what?”

“Just utterly! Isabel tells me you’ve known him forever.”

“Since India,” Burton corrected. “Utterly, hey?”

“You must admit,” Isabel said, returning with a filled cup and saucer in each hand, “that he is rather handsome and charming.”

“I can’t say I’ve noticed,” Burton said. “But, yes, I’ll invite Styggins, if only to make my Little Bird’s pet pig jealous.”

Blanche giggled and reddened.

“I’ll ask Monckton Milnes, too,” he added.

Isabel fetched the third cup and sat down. “But none of your wretched Cannibal Club, if you please. They are far too louche.”

“Agreed.”

A short silence fell over them as they sipped their tea. Blanche stared at her sister and wrinkled her forehead meaningfully. Isabel put her cup down and frowned at her sibling.

“What is it?” Burton asked. “Why are you two looking daggers at each other?”

“My sister has something to tell you,” Blanche said.

“Blanche!” Isabel hissed.

“Well?” Burton asked.

Isabel fiddled with the edge of her shawl, examined her fingernails, brushed her hands over her skirts, and said, “I met Hagar Burton again.”

“Hagar Burton?”

“You remember? The Gypsy who used to camp on the family estate when I was a girl.”

“Ah, yes.”

Burton recalled that his fiancée, when fifteen years old, had befriended the Gypsy woman, who’d predicted that she’d one day fall in love with a man who bore the Burton surname.

Isabel continued, “Last June, Blanche and I went to Ascot. She was there.”

“And?”

“And she read my palm.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if I’d married a Burton yet. I said no, not yet. She said, Don’t.”