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Diana gradually let her false case of the vapors subside, Lady Elaine and her mother slipped out the door.
    “There,” Diana was saying through a watery smile, “I believe I’ve got control of my nerves now.”
    She caught Evan’s eye, and tried to give him a smile.
    He didn’t return the expression.
    “Westfeld, we can’t provide the same danger you faced abroad,” she said. “But still—is there not intimacy in fun and laughter?”
    There was only one thing to do. Evan crossed to his cousin—once his dearest friend—and took her hand in his. He bowed over her.
    For the entire party to hear, he said, “I’ve upset my cousin with my tale. I suppose that is my cue to bid you all a good evening. I’d hate to disturb your
fun
any longer.”
    “But, Westfeld—”
    Diana made him remember who he had been all too clearly. Hurting her would feel like cutting himself. But that was what he needed—to excise that person he had been. Perhaps that was why he leaned in closer and made no effort to moderate his words.
    “If you’d been there that day,” he whispered, “I do believe you would have cut the rope.”
    It was a cruel thing to say. She flinched, and he dropped her hand.
    Still, he left the room without looking back.

Chapter Four

    “W HAT A SHAME,” E LAINE’S MOTHER SAID , peering at the marred fabric. “It is such a lovely gown. Do you suppose it will stain?”
    The pale blue had been one of Elaine’s favorites—the color of a winter sky. With that delicate lace edging the sleeves, it had made her feel like an icicle—cold and unmelting, no matter how hot the fires of gossip burned.
    “A good thing this didn’t happen tomorrow,” her mother was saying. “It would have been so disruptive to my lecture.”
    Behind her, Elaine felt her maid, Mary, pause, her hands on the laces of the dress. Mary had heard the whole story. And without Elaine having to say so, Mary had undoubtedly understood what it meant.
    “Yes,” Elaine said. She’d meant to speak soothingly, but her bitterness came through anyway. “Because
surely
your lecture is more important than having a glass of wine punch spilled on your daughter.”
    But her mother was as impervious to sarcasm as she was to sly innuendo.
    “It is!” she said brightening. “I’m so glad you agree.”
    Elaine had been holding all her emotion inside her so long that she was unprepared for the flare of anger that hit her—fierce and hot and unstoppable. “No,” she heard herself shouting. “No, it isn’t.” She whirled and Mary hissed, reaching for the laces that trailed loose behind her. “I have taken their insults and the innuendo and the glasses of wine punch for
years
. You never take me to task for my failings, but just
once
I wish you would notice that it hurts.”
    Lady Stockhurst stared at her. “Elaine, you’re not getting put out over an accident, are you?”
    “An accident?” Elaine turned from her maid once more. “Of course you would think it was an accident. Mama, they hate me. They laugh at you. Nobody likes us.
Nobody
.”
    “But Lady Cosgrove is always so friendly.”
    “She takes pride in humiliating you.”
    “But how could I be humiliated? My lectures are quite erudite, and—”
    “You humiliate me every day.” The words were out of Elaine’s mouth before she had even properly thought them. And there was no taking them back. Her mother turned utterly pale.
    But the dam had burst, and there was no stopping the outpouring of anger.
    “Do you know what I hate most about the lot of them downstairs?”
    A confused shake of the head in response.
    Elaine’s eyes stung and her vision blurred. “They make me hate you,” she said. “Sometimes. I hate them for it. I hate them. I
hate
them
.
But when they mock you, and you play into their hands so easily…sometimes it makes me hate you, too.”
    “Elaine.”
    She couldn’t say any more. She couldn’t let a decade of anger spill out of her lips. But she couldn’t