“Needham.”

And of course Esther would, for despite his dark good looks, height, and charm, without a decent match, Michael’s future held little worth looking forward to.

“Miss Himmelfarb.”

With effort, Esther did not grimace, for it appeared the tops of her breasts were again to engage in conversation. “Sir Jasper.” She gave him her hand, and because he was standing so close, when he bowed over it, his nose nearly touched her décolletage.

“The sets are forming, Miss Himmelfarb, and I would happily partner you.”

Something in his tone implied that his partnering was available in locations other than the dance floor, and on short notice. Sir Jasper Layton was not yet thirty, had all his teeth, and was as handsome as a bad bout with smallpox could leave a man. Three beauty patches and a heavy hand with the face powder did more to call attention to his scars than hide them, though.

Esther manufactured a smile. “Thank you, sir, and tell me how your sisters go on.”

He appeared surprised to recall he had sisters, though both attended the same court functions as Esther and many of the ladies present at the house party. Soon enough the steps of the dance saw him partnering other women, and Esther could breathe a sigh of relief.

“Are you concentrating on the steps, or have you taken me into dislike?” Percival Windham bowed to her jauntily, took both of her hands, and as the dance called for, moved closer. “Or is Sir Jasper overstepping?”

Esther dropped his hands, turned her back, smiled over her shoulder—who had chosen this particular dance?—and turned back to take Lord Percival’s hands. “I’m concentrating on the steps.”

They promenaded down the line, hands joined before them. “You’d rather be in the library, curled up with a book by the fire, reading French poems, or possibly German. Tell me, Miss Himmelfarb, do Germans write poetry?”

He was teasing, but also studying her as he smiled that particular, personal smile.

Esther dropped his hands and turned a full circle. “I’d be reading Shakespeare sonnets up in my room. Anybody can come upon a lady in the library.”

Though her room would be stuffy and dank because Esther lacked sufficient strength to pry open its single window.

“There’s a full moon tonight, Miss Himmelfarb. Why not walk with me in the garden instead?”

He turned to his corner and whisked her down the line, leaving Esther to wonder if twenty more days—and nights—of this nonsense was worth the effort of seeing her cousin suitably matched.

As she slipped up to her room an hour later on aching feet, she also spared a thought to wonder whom Percival Windham would have enticed into the garden, and if he’d truly limit his activities there to walking.

“The trouble is, we ain’t got a proper dam.”

Dear Tony was sliding past pleasantly foxed and barreling on to true inebriation, so Percival waved away the footman plying the card room’s decanter.

“You’re insulting the Duchess of Moreland, Tony, if you’re saying our mother is anything less than proper. One does this at considerable peril to his well-being.”

Tony continued to stare morosely at his brandy. “That’s what I’m saying. She’s all duchess and no mama. Not mama, not dame, not mother. We’d be back in Canada if His Grace had a notion how to foil her queer starts.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re missing Canada?”

“Not missing it, exactly, but there ain’t any debutantes in Canada, no levees, no duchesses.”

In vino, veritas. “There are bears and wolves, or had you forgotten?”

Tony offered his brother a rueful grin. “Wolves don’t sing any worse than those sopranos at the opera.”

“The sopranos are a good deal better smelling and friendlier.”

“That they are.” Tony blinked at his drink, perhaps wondering how the thing had gotten so quickly empty. “There’s one little Italian gal from the chorus, and I swear that mouth of hers could devour—”

“Anthony, we’re in proper company.” To the extent a card room of reprobates and dowagers could be considered proper at the end of a long evening.

At the peremptory note in Percy’s voice, Tony blinked. “Is it time to go home?”

Not for another twenty days. “We’re certainly not going back to Canada tonight.”

“Bloody cold in Canada,” Tony observed, apropos of nothing.

“True.” Percy set his drink aside and debated whether to leave Tony to his own devices at such a late hour. “At least in Canada the savages announce themselves as such, observe certain rules of engagement, and don’t use the minuet to scout out the opposition.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Tony gestured with his glass a trifle wildly. Then paused as if he’d heard an arresting sound. “I’ll be stepping to the gent’s retiring room for a moment.”

“Of course.” And Percy would not allow his younger brother to stumble through the corridors, half-disguised, in charity with the world, only to be pulled into a convenient broom closet by some enterprising debutante.

They negotiated the dimly lit passages without incident—unless a giggle from a secluded alcove on the second floor could be considered an incident. As Tony unbuttoned his falls and took a lean against a handy wall in the men’s retiring room, he aimed an oddly sober look at his brother.

“I’ve had this notion, lately, Perce.”

The man could piss and philosophize at the same time—a true exponent of the aristocracy. “Any particular notion?”

“It’s a queer notion, as queer as considering a vocation in the church.”

“Which you did for about fifteen minutes, until you recalled that bit about poverty, chastity, and obedience.” For Percy, five minutes’ contemplation of a life in the church had seen him buying his colors. “For God’s sake, button up if you’re done.”

“What? Oh, indeed.”

This late in the evening, Tony’s fingers were clumsy, though his brain apparently continued to lumber around and his mouth danced attendance on it. “I’ve had the notion Her Grace might be right. Petey ain’t getting any younger, and his lady ain’t dropped a bull calf in ten years of marriage.”

Tony was the only person in the whole of the realm who could refer to the Marquess of Pembroke, heir to the Moreland ducal title, as “Petey.”

“Lady Pembroke could yet conceive a son.”

“Canada is cold, Perce. It’s full of wolves and savages and colonials with very big, loud guns and little allegiance to dear King George.”

When Tony had fumbled a few buttons closed in relevant locations, Percy linked his arm through his brother’s. “Are you thinking of selling out and joining the ranks of retired bachelors?”

That would solve a significant problem for Percy, true, but the idea of boarding a ship for the colonies at the end of the Season and not having Tony there to provide his inane commentary was disquieting.

“I’m thinking of taking a bride,” Tony said, much of the bonhomie leaving his voice. “You like all that military whatnot, the pomp and nonsense, for King and Country. I like to be warm and well fed, to tup pretty girls, and spend my quarterly in two weeks flat.”

And so had Percy, until a few years in charge of several hundred younger sons and rascals like Tony had somehow soured the allure of returning to an idle existence. Then Her Grace had taken this notion to recall her sons from the provinces and lecture them about Duty to the Succession, Familial Loyalty, and Social Responsibility.

The woman put the average gunnery sergeant to shame with her harangues.

“You are not ideal husband material, Tony.” Percy spoke as gently as he could. “The ladies like some constancy for the first few years of marriage. They like to show off their trophy and drag a new husband about on calls. You’ve got the place in Hampshire, and you’d be expected to tend your acres for much of the year.”