Sally scrunched her shoulder. “Well, no.”

His sister gave Turnip a look that made it abundantly clear that she considered it nothing short of a breach of his fraternal obligations to have been so remiss as to fail to have been the Pink Carnation.

“And a good thing, too!” said Turnip with feeling. “Some of those French spies can be deuced pushy.”

There had been the Marquise de Montval who had invited him for what he believed to be a coffee and a spot of assignation and then presented him with a pistol and three French thugs, all of whom seemed to be named Jean-Luc, all because she mistakenly took him for the Pink Carnation.

It was enough to put a chap right off dalliance. And coffee.

Since then, Turnip had confined his amorous attentions to English ladies. They might lack that je ne sais whatever it was, but at least one knew exactly where one sat.

Turning to the English lady currently seated beside him, Turnip said, “You probably know the Purple Gentian. Lord Richard Selwick. Jolly good chap, Selwick. He made rather a thing of smuggling comtes and ducs and whatnot right out from under the Frenchies’ noses. Brought back some spiffing good brandy, too.” Turnip shook his head in regret. “Deuce of a pity he had to retire.”

It was his liaison with young Miss Wooliston’s cousin that had forced the Purple Gentian’s retirement, but Turnip tactfully refrained from reminding her of that bit. Deuced silly of Selwick to go about gallivanting beneath Bonaparte’s nose like that, but Turnip supposed that was what love did to one. Cupid’s arrows, and all that. He heard they struck a devilishly hard blow.

“Goodness,” said Miss Dempsey. “You all live such interesting lives.”

The three girls preened. So, he had to confess, did Turnip. But just a little bit.

“Oh, well,” he said modestly. “Can’t take credit for one’s friends. Smashing good chaps, all of them.”