Her smile charming, her expression serene, Sophie dipped and swayed through the complicated figures, conscious of treading a very fine line. She refused to retreat in confusion before Mr. Marston’s attentions, yet she had no wish to encourage him.

“Indeed, sir,” she replied to one of his sallies. “I’m enjoying the ball immensely. However, I feel no qualms about meeting those gentlemen up from London-after all, my cousin and I will shortly be in London ballrooms. Acquaintances made tonight could prove most comforting.”

From her partner’s disapproving expression, Sophie deduced that the thought of her gaining comfort from acquaintance with any other gentleman, from London or elsewhere, was less than pleasing. Inwardly, she sighed. Depressing pretensions gently was an art she had yet to master.

About them, Lady Asfordby’s guests swirled and twirled, a colourful crowd, drawn primarily from the local families, with here and there the elegant coats of those London swells of whom her ladyship approved. This distinction did not extend to all that many of the small army of ton-ish males who, during the hunting season, descended on the nearby town of Melton Mowbray, lured by the attraction of the Quorn, the Cottesmore and the Belvoir packs.

Jack realized as much as, with Percy hovering in his shadow, he paused on the threshold of her ladyship’s ballroom. As he waited for his hostess, whom he could see forging her way through the crowd to greet him, he was conscious of the flutter his appearance had provoked. Like a ripple, it passed down the dark line of dowagers seated around the room, then spread in ever widening circles to ruffle the feathers of their charges, presently engaged in a quadrille.

With a cynical smile, he bowed elegantly over her ladyship’s beringed fingers.