There had been a ruby, that first night, strung on black velvet so that it nestled tightly against the hollow of her throat. Sullen red welling against white, white skin…

Vaughn let his quizzing glass drop to his chest. "The resemblance is purely a superficial one. A matter of coloring, nothing more."

"That might be enough."

"No," said Vaughn flatly.

"If," said Jane, ignoring him as only Jane dared, "someone were to speak to her; if someone were to suggest…"

"Ah." Vaughn's lips compressed, as the whole fiasco suddenly fell into place. "That's what you want of me. To play Hermes for you."

"We can't all be Zeus," Jane said apologetically.

Prolonged exposure to Jane was enough to make anyone take to Bacchus. "I'm afraid I've left my winged shoes at home. Forgive me for suggesting the obvious, but why not approach the girl yourself? Why drag me into this fiasco?"

"Because," said Jane very simply, "I don't want her to know who I am."

Vaughn regarded her with reluctant appreciation. Lulled by the peaceful symmetry of her fine-boned face, it was easy to forget that that pink and white complexion masked a mind for strategy that put Bonaparte to shame. It seemed unlikely in the extreme that Miss Mary Alsworthy was a French agent. Her interests, thus far, had tended more to millinery than politics. But hats — and all those other furbelows that tricked out the willowy forms of society's beauties — were expensive. The identity of the Pink Carnation was a commodity for which more than one person would be willing to pay dearly.