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loyalty.”
    “His Majesty!” I exclaimed, recalling at once the engraving of the handsome young sovereign that hung in my mother’s bedchamber. “What is he like? How does he fare so far from home?”
    Chesterfield’s face turned solemn. “His situation is very grave, and most reduced, and enough to break the hearts of those still loyal to the crown. His Majesty’s clothes are shabby and lacking, as are those of his attendants, and he is entirely dependent on the gifts and kindness of others for his very food. They say he’s so low that he can dine each noon upon but a single dish, and only one of meat every seven-day at that.”
    “How dreadful!” I cried, and quickly looked down at His Lordship’s fine dress. “Were you able to give him comfort, my lord, a gift, however slight, to ease his distress?”
    “Alas, my pockets were near as empty as his,” he said with a fine show of sorrow. “I’d hoped, of course, that I’d soon be able to make a better offering, but those prospects were dashed.”
    “Your wedding,” I said, assuming a measure of remorse for my cousin’s theft of his bride. “I’m most sorry for that, my lord. To lose your beloved to another so close to the wedding—”
    “What was beloved was not the lady but her estate,” he said with surprising frankness. “Because her father’s General Fairfax, Cromwell’s hero at Naseby, she would bring connections beyond measure, as well as having my lands restored to me. For that I was willing to take her plain muffin of a face, but she tossed me over for your cousin.”
    “I’m sorry, my lord,” I said again, for lack of anything else. “I’m sorry.”
    “Why should you be, my goddess, when it’s scarce your fault?” He looped one arm familiarly around my waist, taking no notice of how I stiffened in return. “No, the same did happen to me with old Nolly’s daughter, too. She was as good as promised to me, with a dowry of twenty thousand pounds and a plum military appointment, but at the last I decided I couldn’t stomach the lady. She wanted Warwick’s grandson, anyway. It’s trade, sweet, not love. You should know that as well as I.”
    I nodded, thinking of the dour young men my mother had tried to steer my way. “There’s no love in any of it. My mother wishes to marry me to some ugly old general or his son to repair her fortunes.”
    “Exactly so,” he murmured, idly reaching out to stroke his finger across my cheek. “And precisely why we poor noble folk must steal love where we may. Which branch of that rotten old Villiers tree had the good fortune to drop you, my goddess?”
    “My father was Lord Grandison,” I said, breathless from that tiny caress. “My mother is now wed to Lord Anglesea. She wishes I weren’t so old, and scarce wishes to admit me, for she prefers people to believe she’s still too young to have me for a daughter. But she is old, my lord. She paints her face. She thinks I don’t realize it, but I’ve seen her maid mixing the Venetian ceruse beside the ground cochineal in the morning.”
    “My, my, but that’s damning,” he whispered, deftly turning me a fraction so that we were standing to one side of a tall, japanned cabinet, hidden from the sight of the others. With his fingertips, he turned my face upward, so all I could see was his handsome face with the moonlight behind it. “Ceruse and cochineal! May you never be so old as that, sweet.”
    He kissed me then, which I’d been expecting, and thrust his tongue into my mouth, which I had not. Nor did I anticipate how swiftly he managed to disengage my breasts from my bodice for his handling, the air cool on my suddenly bare skin.
    I should have done what I’d been taught and pushed him away. I was a noblewoman, a lady by birth. I was a Villiers. But as soon as my first shock passed at being so used by him, I realized I liked what he was doing. His tongue, his touch, gave me a startling pleasure, and the more I answered him back in