He collected his wits. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is how anyone could pay attention to the opera when you were in the place.’

      ‘They’re French,’ she said. ‘They take art seriously.’

      ‘And you’re not French?’

      She smiled. ‘That’s the question, it seems.’

      ‘French,’ he said. ‘You’re a brilliant mimic, but you’re French.’

      ‘You’re so sure,’ she said.

      ‘I’m merely a thickheaded Englishman, I know,’ he said. ‘But even I can tell French and English women apart. One might dress an Englishwoman in French fashion from head to toe and she’ll still look English. You…’

      He trailed off, letting his gaze skim over her. Only consider her hair. It was as stylish as the precise coifs of other French-women…yet, no, not the same. She was…different.

      ‘You’re French, through and through,’ he said. ‘If I’m wrong, the stickpin is yours.’

      ‘And if you’re right?’ she said.

      He thought quickly. ‘If I’m right, you’ll do me the honour of riding with me in the Bois de Boulogne tomorrow,’ he said.

      ‘That’s all?’ she said, in French this time.

      ‘It’s a great deal to me.’

      She rose abruptly in a rustle of silk. Surprised—again—he was slow coming to his feet.

      ‘I need air,’ she said. ‘It grows warm in here.’

      He opened the door to the corridor and she swept past him. He followed her out, his pulse racing.

      LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA^®.

      Website: www.LorettaChase.com.

       In Memory of Princess Irelynn

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Thanks to:

      The milliners and tailors of colonial Williamsburg’s margaret Hunter Shop, with special thanks to mantua-maker and mistress of the shop Janea Whitacre and tailor mark Hutter, for helping me with numerous details of the art of dress, and for so generously sharing their expertise and enthusiasm

      Chris Woodyard, for her invaluable help with dolls and demolished houses and every other pesky question I could think to ask her

      Susan Hollowy Scott for storms at sea, as well as her usual wit, wisdom and moral support

      My husband Walter for his cinematic eye, unceasing supply of encouragement and inspiration, and numerous acts of undaunted courage

      Cynthia, nancy, and Sherrie for what they always do

      and, of course,

      Trinny and Susannah

       Prologue

      In the summer of 1810, Mr. Edward Noirot eloped to Gretna Greene with Miss Catherine DeLucey.

      Mr. Noirot had been led to believe he was eloping with an English heiress whose fortune, as a result of this rash act, would become his exclusively. An elopement cut out all the tiresome meddling, in the form of marriage settlements, by parents and lawyers. In running off with a blue-blooded English lady of fortune, Edward Noirot was carrying on an ancient family tradition: His mother and grandmother were English.

      Unfortunately, he’d been misled by his intended, who was as accomplished in lying and cheating, in the most charming manner possible, as her lover was. There had indeed been a fortune. Past tense. It had belonged to her mother, whom John DeLucey had seduced and taken to Scotland in the time-honored fashion of his own family.

      The alleged fortune by this time was long gone. Miss DeLucey had intended to improve her financial circumstances in the

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