Slightly Scandalous by Mary Balogh

little more than a stone's throw away, and staying at home was an unattractive alternative to the prospect of tea and conversation with their peers. They walked to the Rooms.
    The tearoom was fuller than usual, probably because the weather discouraged outdoor exercise, but they found an empty table and nodded politely to various acquaintances while the tea was set before them. Within five minutes the Earl of Willett was seated with them. He had come, he explained, to assure himself that Lady Freyja had taken no harm from her dash across country yesterday.
    "Hallmere really ought not to have encouraged you," he said. "He ought to have remembered that you are a lady and are therefore compelled to ride sidesaddle."
    Freyja regarded him with haughty disdain-and noticed that the subject of his complaint was just then entering the tearoom, looking handsome and distinguished in brown and fawn. She was thoroughly alarmed by the mode of heightened awareness into which her body immediately launched.
    Hallmere really ought not to have encouraged you.
    No, he ought not. But she had not needed much encouragement, had she?
    She set about pointedly ignoring him. He was escorting three ladies-Lady Potford and two strangers, the elder of whom was wearing mourning and smiling sweetly about the room while she leaned heavily on his arm. But although Lady Potford soon sat down at a table with a few of her acquaintances, the marquess and the other two ladies remained on their feet and circulated slowly about the room. He was apparently presenting them to Bath society.
    The earl stood and bowed when the group approached their table. Freyja looked up and met the marquess's eyes, her own cool and-she hoped-very slightly disdainful. His smile was looking somewhat more strained than usual, she noticed.
    "Lady Holt-Barron, Miss Holt-Barron, Lady Freyja Bedwyn, the Earl of Willett," he said with great formality, "may I have the honor of presenting my aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere, and my cousin, Lady Constance Moore?"
    The aunt was the one on his arm.
    "How do you do?" she said. "It is a wonderful pleasure to be in Bath and to meet all of dear Joshua's friends."
    She clung to his arm as if she were too frail to stand alone. She smiled sweetly and spoke in the sort of high-pitched whine affected by ladies who fancied themselves permanently indisposed. In Freyja's experience they almost invariably outlived all their more robust relatives-and drove them near to insanity while they still lived.
    Lady Constance, a neatly clad and coiffed, sensible-looking girl, curtsied and murmured a how-do-you-do.
    "How do you do, ma'am, Lady Constance?" Lady Holt-Barron said graciously. "You have come up from Penhallow to take the waters, have you?"
    "Perhaps they would improve my health," the marchioness said. "My spirits have been low since the passing of my dear Hallmere. But I came with the purpose of seeing my dearest nephew, ma'am, and of enabling him to become reacquainted with his cousin. Constance was little more than a girl when Joshua left home to seek adventure five years ago. Five weary years," she added with a sigh that sounded weary indeed.
    Ah. The woman had come with the intention of marrying off her daughter to her nephew and so securing her home and her place in it, then, had she? Freyja looked more closely at Lady Constance Moore. And then she transferred her gaze to the marquess. He was looking steadily back at her, his lips pursed, a suggestion of laughter in his eyes. It was an expression that acknowledged his awareness of her understanding of the situation.
    "We are staying at the White Hart Inn," the marchioness was saying in answer to a question Lady Holt-Barron must have asked. "I was told it is the best."
    "Hallmere," the earl said, "I must commend you for escorting Lady Freyja home safely from your ride yesterday. I must confess that I was filled with trepidation on her behalf when you took her away from the party we had formed and went