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herself.
    The coachman called to the horses, and the carriage stopped. Moments later a footman was dropping the steps and helping the ladies from the chaise. Hawksley Park stood before them in all its Palladian glory and Lady Diana was at the door.
    “Lady Acton! I’m so glad you could come.” Diana dropped a respectful curtsy.
    The countess nodded, then swept away in a rustle of skirts.
    “Eleanor, my dear friend! I just couldn’t wait in the drawing room with Mama as I ought.” Diana grasped Eleanor by both hands. “As soon as you’ve had tea, you must come with me and I’ll show you around. You’re to have the very next bedroom to mine, so we can have the most comfortable coze imaginable.”
    Linking arms, the two girls followed the countess into the hallway, where maids and more footmen stood ready to aid the travelers.
    “I’m in the most dreadful tangle, Eleanor,” Diana whispered as soon as her friend was divested of her coat and bonnet, and they were following behind the guiding butler. “There’s no hope for me at all.”
    “Which sounds excessively melodramatic, Di. Is it something I can help you with?”
    “You kind creature! You’re always the soul of good sense. I’m just a ninny in comparison. But I’m lost this time, truly. Have you ever met someone and known right away you were meant for each other, but it could never be?”
    Eleanor shook her head. She dismissed the irrelevant image of a pair of violet eyes that came annoyingly to mind.
    “No, I haven’t. Don’t tell me you’re in love? And it’s someone your mama thinks totally ineligible?”
    Diana stopped and looked at her friend with wide blue eyes. “However did you know?”
    “Because nothing else would make you look quite so like Hapless Clara who pined away for love.”
    “Don’t make fun, please! His name’s Walter Feveril Downe. It’s a splendid name, isn’t it? We met last year when I first came out and I knew right away. He was at so many dances and dinners, but nothing was ever declared between us, of course. Yet he’s written to me.”
    “Diana! I’m shocked.” Eleanor laughed. “I’m to assume that Lady Augusta knows nothing of this and would have the vapors if she were to find out? Is he the son of a coal merchant?”
    “Eleanor, do be sensible. Of course not!” Lady Diana looked shocked to the core. “His father is Viscount Clare, but he’s a younger son and you know how Mama is.”
    “Well, no, actually I don’t, except by reputation, since I’m about to meet her for the first time. But pray, don’t sink into a final decline between here and the drawing room. If there’s anything I can do for such very deserving star-crossed lovers, you have my word to help. I’m a splendid conspirator. Being one of six children teaches you all kinds of useful skills.”
    “No, there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s hopeless, really.”
    “Surely not!” She gave Diana’s hand a little squeeze. “I know you would never really give your heart to someone ineligible. Only a creature as lost to all decency as me would do that.”
    “Whatever do you mean?”
    Eleanor looked at her friend’s woebegone face and laughed again. She had no idea why she had said that. “Nothing at all. I’m just trying to cheer you up. Now smile, or else I shall lose all courage to face the dragon.”
    Lady Augusta, Dowager Countess of Hawksley, did look something like a dragon, Eleanor thought as that lady sailed toward them. She had prematurely graying hair caught up beneath a cap of stiff lace shingles, and her eyes were small and sharp. Diana had certainly not inherited her lovely blue eyes from her mother. Yet Lady Hawksley wasn’t actually breathing fire. Instead, having absolutely no affection for her guests, she was preparing an effusion of greeting.
    “ Ma chère Felicity!” she said, holding out both hands to Lady Acton, who had entered the room ahead of the girls. “Hawksley is honored.” Then she looked past the