“Really?” I tried to hide my excitement, craning my neck to watch the others as they sat at prearranged places. Deep in conversation with Mrs. Marston (but hopefully not about her verrucas), Uncle Toby took a seat directly across from me.

“Here he is,” Catherine said, holding out her hands past me. “How good of you to grace our humble table with your presence, Mr. Snowe.”

My heart sank nearly to my knees as I watched Phineas Snowe take her hands. “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Ransom.”

Catherine brayed with laughter, then placed her hands on my shoulders. “I have taken the liberty of seating you next to-”

“Isabella Goodrich, was it not?” His eyes seemed to twinkle maliciously behind those horrid spectacles.

“You two are well suited as dinner companions,” Catherine said, her face a warm mask of smiles.

“But he is not, that is…” I searched the doorway, hoping desperately to see my dashing, ideal gentleman at last. “We met earlier,” I finished lamely.

“I am delighted,” Catherine said. “For I can imagine no two people more predisposed to like-minded conversation. After all, Isabella, you have always been the intelligent one among our little crowd.” She took the arm of her doting husband, David, who seated her with great solicitation. “Isn’t that right, my love? You always said that Isabella Goodrich was quite the bluestocking.”

David glanced at me for a moment, then away, his cheeks flushing.

My mind was all sixes and sevens as Phineas politely held out my chair. He was the man Catherine had in mind for me all along? As I settled into my seat, I glanced around the table and saw that save for Uncle Toby, Phineas, and myself, everyone was paired off like animals preparing for Noah’s ark.

Suddenly it seemed that every set of female eyes was trained on Phineas Snowe and me. Their gazes were quick but not enough so for me to miss their shift to Catherine. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that she smiled triumphantly, and when the other women turned to their husbands or betrotheds, I knew that somehow they, too, had been a part of my public humiliation. For as surely as I knew my name, they were setting me in my place.