He ran with an older, faster set, men who knew the way of the world and women who knew the way of those men. They played deep, they spoke in triple entendres, and they left their bedroom doors open. In contrast, the crowd at Sibley Court was sickeningly unsophisticated. Part of that insipid breed spawned by the new century, Pinchingdale's set uttered words like "King" and "country," and had the poor taste to mean them. No one dueled anymore; they were all too busy gadding about France disguised as flowers. Or named after them, which was nearly as bad. Lord Richard Selwick, currently occupied in propping up the enormous Elizabethan mantelpiece, had only recently been unmasked as the notorious Purple Gentian, a flower as obscure as it was unpronounceable. The youth of England were fast running out of botanical monikers. What would they do next, venture into vegetables? No doubt he would soon be forced to listen to dazzling accounts of the adventures of the Orange Aubergine. It all showed a marked lack of good ton. Vaughn might be less than a decade older than his host, but among this company he felt as ancient as the tapestries lining the walls.

The blame for his presence fell squarely on the woman standing next to him, looking deceptively demure in a high-necked gown of pale blue muslin embroidered with small pink flowers about the neck and hem. With her smooth brown hair threaded with matching ribbons and her gloved hands folded neatly around a glass of ratafia, Miss Jane Wooliston looked more like a prosperous squire's daughter than that many-petaled flower of mystery, the Pink Carnation. It was her summons that had sent Vaughn jolting through the back roads of Gloucestershire clear off the edge of the earth to this godforsaken relic of Bonnie Olde Englande. And he wasn't even sharing her bed.

At the moment, Jane was occupied in examining a dark-haired girl who posed becomingly in front of the light of a twisted branch of candles.