As soon as he located her, his heart gave an odd lurch. Sarah Vangelder was the quintessential American beauty-tall, slender and crowned with a lustrous mass of honey-colored hair. She also had an engaging air of innocent enthusiasm that made him want to walk over and introduce himself. A beautiful woman, not his. The world was full of them, he reminded himself. Aloud, he said only, "Very fetching."

"Perhaps I should reconsider marrying May," Gavin said pensively. "They say Augusta Vangelder wants to see the girl a duchess. Should I offer her the noble same of Thornborough?"

Justin's mouth tightened. Though he loved his brother, he had no illusions about the duke's character. "You'd find a young innocent a flat bore."

"Very likely you're right," Gavin agreed. His gaze lingered. "Still, she's quite lovely."

Three peeresses and two Cabinet ministers came over to pay their respects to their host. Justin seized the opportunity to escape, for the constant chatter was driving him mad. He would have preferred to be elsewhere, but he could hardly avoid a party taking place in his own backyard.

Avoiding the formal parterre where many of the guests were strolling, he made his way to the rhododendron garden, which had been carefully designed to look like wild woods. There was a risk that he would find some of Gavin's fashionable friends fornicating beneath the silver birches, but with luck, they would all be more interested in champagne and gossip than in dalliance.

Half an hour in the wilder sections of the park relaxed him to the point where he felt ready to return to the festivities. Not that anyone was likely to miss him, but he liked to keep an eye on the arrangements to ensure that everything ran smoothly.

As he walked through a grove of Scottish pines, he heard a feminine voice utter a soft but emphatic, "Drat!"

He turned toward the voice, and a few more steps brought the speaker into his view.