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started on the Season with Lily and Camellia.”
    Stewkesbury’s brows pulled together. “The devil. Your father shouldn’t have invited his lot there with you at home. A drinking party with a gentlewoman in the house! What was he thinking?”
    Vivian stiffened. Her father had not been the best of fathers; she would admit that. But she loved him and would not stand by to let others criticize him. “It is his house, after all.”
    Oliver grimaced. “That does not make it right. It’s all of a pattern—to have raised you the way that he did, bringing in his latest para—” He stopped, apparently realizing that the topic he was broaching would not be considered fit for a lady. “That is to say, he did not always have a care who he allowed around his children.”
    His words made Vivian bristle even more. Naturally Oliver would not decry that her father had spent most of his time in London, leaving his motherless infant daughter to the care of nannies and governesses for much of her life. What bothered him was the inappropriate lifestyle her father had lived, that he had brought home groups of his friends, sometimes including one of his mistresses.
    “Whom Marchester brought home is no concern of yours,” Vivian shot back. “Nor is the manner in which he raised his children.”
    She stopped abruptly, jerking her hand from his. Startled, Stewkesbury, too, came to a halt as the other couples whirled about them.
    “Vivian! The devil! What are you doing?” he hissed, glancing around. “You can’t just stop in the middle of a dance.”
    “Can’t I? I believe I just did.” Whirling, Vivian walked off, winding her way through the other dancers.
    Stewkesbury stood for a moment in stunned disbelief, then strode off the floor after her.

Chapter 2

    Oliver caught up with Vivian at the edge of the dance floor. Wrapping one hand firmly around her arm, he steered her away from the crowd to an empty chair.
    “Let go of me!” Vivian protested. “What are you doing?”
    “Saving us from gossip, I hope.” He thrust her down into the chair as he bent over her, doing his best to fix a solicitous expression on his face. “Try to look as if you felt faint.”
    “I don’t feel faint. I feel furious.”
    “You’ll recover,” he replied unfeelingly. “Now, wilt a little in your chair and look as if you were overcome by the exertion of the waltz—unless, of course, you wish to have half the ton speculating as to what is going on between us to make you stalk off the floor like that.”
    She would have liked to jerk her hand away and give him a piece of her mind, but Vivian was wise enough in the ways of the ton to know that Stewkesbury spoke nothing less than the truth. She had committed a social solecism by leaving the floor in the middle of a dance. It would only make it worse if she was seen arguing with Stewkesbury now. It would set all the gossips’ tongues to wagging, and while she did not care overmuch what others might say about her, she knew that any bit of gossip about her and Oliver would affect Lilyand Camellia, and she certainly did not want to make the Bascombe sisters’ task any harder than it was already.
    So she contented herself with sending him a glare from beneath her lashes as she slumped in the chair, raising one hand to her forehead.
    “Don’t overdo it,” he told her. “Or I shall have to employ your smelling salts.”
    “I don’t carry smelling salts.”
    “I’m sure you don’t. Still, I imagine I could borrow some.”
    “You are the most annoying man.” Vivian dropped her hand and gave him a hard look. “Why don’t you just go away?”
    “I can scarcely leave you in your weakened state. I beg your pardon—did you just growl?”
    “Don’t be absurd.” Vivian sighed. “I don’t know how you are able to always say exactly the thing that will make me the angriest.”
    “Apparently it is quite easy.” He turned to glance out over the room. “Ah, here comes Charlotte, looking