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he came along.
    But then the one she thought—that week—might prove to be the one proved to be something much less delightful.
    Having spotted him across the street when she was out shopping, she thought she might tease him by sneaking up unseen behind him to surprise him.  But when she did, she discovered that he was talking to one of the other candidates of the week and, like most eavesdroppers, Maddie did not like what she heard. The young men were laying a wager over which of them could get the heiress to say yes first, the winner to stake the loser, after the wedding, to a trip to Hot Springs in pursuit of a substitute heiress.
    Neither suitor got past Maddie’s front door again, and she never found out if they got to Hot Springs, singly or together. After that she began to more carefully scrutinize her potential beaux, whose very number was becoming suspect by her eighteenth birthday. By the time she was twenty, she had become such a cynic about male sincerity that Teddy Malcolm’s careless assurance that he adored her money almost as much as he did Maddie herself sounded so refreshingly honest to her jaded ears that she encouraged him despite her mother’s warning that he was no better than any of those other, less charming fortune hunters. But her father understood, and when Maddie fell in love with Teddy in earnest, he indulged her yet again by not only accepting but welcoming Teddy Malcolm as a son-in-law.
     
    #
     
    It was not until Devin Grant pointed out something Maddie was well aware of but had never before felt any embarrassment about, that the matter of money forced itself back into Maddie’s consciousness—so forcefully, indeed, that she had not hesitated to use it as a weapon against Grant. Yes, it was true that she controlled the purse-strings at home, but what did that matter? It had never mattered to Teddy. She had never used her control against him.
    Do you have a larger stake in this marriage than he does? Grant had wanted to know. Maddie was still not sure what he had meant by that. Indeed, she was struck now by the uncomfortable suspicion that she had not fully understood anything Devin Grant had said to her. He seemed to have been in possession of some secret about her that even she was unaware of.
    The only thing she was sure of was that it was not safe to trust anyone just now—least of all the disturbingly attractive Devin Grant.
     

Chapter 3
     
    “There is a young man making eyes at you,” Florence said, intruding herself suddenly into Maddie’s train of thought. “He looks rather a lamb, too. Wherever did you find him?”
    Maddie looked around to see the young photographer from Charing Cross Station standing in the doorway with his hat in his hands. His tightly curled blond hair and the supplicatory expression on his pale face—very much a lamb, indeed, Maddie thought with a smile—made him look even younger than she had at first glance supposed him to be.
    “He seems to have found me instead,” she said and, curious to hear what he wanted from her, smiled at young man in an encouraging way that he wasted no time in misinterpreting.
    “Mrs. Malcolm?” he said, approaching her and handing her his card. “My name is Laurence Fox.” This was confirmed by the engraved calling card that also stated, Photographer of Famous Faces .
    Her curiosity now thoroughly aroused, Maddie motioned Mr. Fox to sit down. He did so without taking his eyes away from Maddie’s face, charmingly unaware that his sleeve had brushed the jam pot and his bowler hat had missed the table and fallen on the floor.
    Florence caught Maddie’s eye and winked, then scrawled her signature across the chit for their tea and stood up, declaring that she would keep Geoffrey waiting for his dinner if she did not go up at once and begin the ceremony of changing her clothes. Mr. Fox jumped up again to shake her hand and be overwhelmed by her professed delight at meeting him, then sank slowly back into his chair as