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subject dropped.

Chapter Four

    The following week was a calm one for Miss Mallow, allowing her to catch her breath after her spate of public life. She sat home working most days and went with Uncle Clarence and her mama to one very dull dinner party and with an aged female friend of her uncle to a concert of antique music. Lord Dammler was feted at Carlton House by the Prince Regent, found that an unknown young female had smuggled herself into his apartment during his absence one evening and was waiting for him in his bedroom, was requested to write a comedy for presentation at Drury Lane, won a thousand pounds at faro, enjoyed a flirtation with Lady Margaret Halston, and was presented with a paternity suit for a child conceived while he was still in America, by a girl who knew his reputation but not his itinerary. It was a calm week for him, too.
    On Friday evening he stopped at Lady Melvine's to take her to a rout he would prefer to have missed. He found her dressed and ready, a hideous purple turban on her head and an excess of diamonds sparkling about her person.
    “Setting up as a shop window, Het?” he quizzed her.
    “Don't I look horrid? But I haven't a stitch to wear, and the diamonds detract attention from this old gown, don't you think?"
    “They certainly detract from your elegance. Nothing is so vulgar as too many diamonds. You don't need both the necklace and that awful cluster of brooches, do you?"
    “No matter, when I walk in with you I will be the envy of them all."
    “You forget I have a reputation to maintain, Auntie."
    “The reason I am so ill prepared is that I have spent the whole afternoon reading another book by that Miss Mallow you recommended."
    “Oh, has she written more than one?"
    'Three—all delightful. The Cat in the Garden is the one I have just put down."
    “Sounds monstrously exciting,” he drawled, then yawned behind long fingers. “Is it about animals then?"
    “No, it is a two-legged cat referred to in the title. An old tabby like me who lurks about her garden seeing things she shouldn't, and telling."
    “Which she also shouldn't. I'm surprised at such dissipation coming from Miss Mallow's pen."
    “You cannot know her well!” Hettie laughed.
    “Hardly at all. Don't tell me you have her acquaintance."
    “I've met her. Fanny Burney brought her to call on me last week, and sat with her lips pursed the whole visit at her protegée's impertinence."
    “I think we must be speaking of two different ladies. My Miss Mallow could not by the broadest interpretation be called impertinent."
    “Not to your face maybe. She does a fine job of ripping you up behind your back."
    “Indeed!” He looked stunned. “May I ask what she said? We are virtual strangers. It is odd she should speak to my discredit."
    “It is rather your works she dislikes than yourself."
    “I seem to recall she complimented me on the cantos."
    “Ask her sometime for her true opinion."
    “I am asking you, Hettie. What did she say?"
    “My, how your head has become swollen! A fellow writer may not find a single fault in your work without your mounting your high horse. Well, it was nothing so very bad after all. She only took exception to your being chased by Indians and rescuing three women and emerging unscathed to attend a ball and dally with the governor's wife the same night. I must say, it seemed a point well taken."
    He shrugged. “I am not a novelist who counts up the hours in a day, but a poet. Was there anything else?"
    “She was not happy at your hogging the whole world for your setting. She is to launch her next heroine off into the cosmos and out-do you in wonders."
    “She is welcome to try her hand at it. I make no claim to having visited the stars. Is that the sort of thing she writes?"
    A peal of laughter escaped Lady Melvine. “Good God, no! She was funning. Very down to earth indeed. She couldn't be more so. Well, I have her three books here. See for yourself."
    “I don't read