After a quick glance around the room she saw two of the ladies were present. She didn’t see the Lady Heathecoute or Lady Lynette. Millicent decided to check the ladies’ retiring room and the area where the buffet table had been placed and headed in that direction.
“Millicent,” Lady Lynette said, coming up behind her. “I saw you looking my way, but when I waved to you, you looked right through me. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. And I was looking for you,” Millicent said with a hurried smile. “I’m glad you saw me. I wanted to thank you for that lovely note you sent thanking me for the apricot tarts I dropped by your house. I’m sorry you weren’t up to seeing me when I called on you.”
“I was disappointed to have missed you.” She rolled her eyes. “There are just three or four days out of every month that I have to go to bed. I’m simply a beast, but as I said in my letter to you, I have been wanting to taste one of those tarts for years. And they did make me feel so much better.” She stopped and licked her lips and inhaled deeply.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed them.”
“They were heavenly. Truly divine. Didn’t you think so?”
“Oh yes,” Millicent said, and realized immediately that wasn’t the truth. She had not even sampled a one of the tarts. They all had gone to Lynette, except for the two she had sent up to Aunt Beatrice.
Lady Lynette pursed her lips and fanned herself with a lace fan. “You didn’t even taste one, did you?”
Millicent opened her mouth to protest but the truth came out instead. “No.”
“What a shame, but I understand why you didn’t.”
“You do?” Millicent wasn’t sure she understood why she had had no desire to eat one of the tarts.
“You wanted to be different, didn’t you?”
Millicent wasn’t sure this was a conversation she wanted to have with Lady Lynette or anyone. “What do you mean?”
“You were hoping Lord Dunraven would treat you differently from every other young lady he has called on. You wanted him to be so bewitched by you that he forgot to bring the tarts.”
He had that first time he came. But he had forgotten only because he was upset because he’d figured out that she was writing the gossip for Lord Truefitt’s column—not because he was bewitched by her.
“Sometimes you see too much, Lynette.”
“Right you are. Earlier, I knew it wasn’t me you were looking for. You were watching Lord Dunraven, weren’t you?”
Millicent smiled. “Now that is only partly true. My eyes naturally fell upon him a few minutes ago as I was looking for you and Lady Heathecoute.” Millicent made a show of scanning the room again for her chaperone. “I know it’s about the time of evening that she said we would be leaving. I was on my way to walk past the refreshment table and the ladies’ room looking for her. Would you care to walk with me?”
“That would be nice,” Lynette said and fell in step beside Millicent. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Millicent stiffened. Lady Lynette asked the astonishing question as easily as she would have asked about the weather. Millicent wasn’t prepared to be that honest with her friend.
She was left with no choice but to say, “What? Who?”
“Lord Dunraven of course.”
“No, no, no. Does it show?”
Lady Lynette laughed softly. “To me, but probably not to anyone else.”
“Angels above, I hope not,” Millicent said, feeling more exposed than she would like to be. And was she really admitting that she was in love with Lord Dunraven?
“Remember, I warned you about him that first afternoon I called on you.”
They arrived at the retiring room, but the viscountess was not there so they started toward the refreshment table.
“I know, but by then it was too late. I had already met him, had already been besotted by him. You won’t mention this to anyone, will you?”
“Of course not. He’s a charmer and so engaging it’s downright sinful. I know what it is like to love someone who will never be available.”
Millicent’s attention turned from herself and focused on her friend. “Do you?”
“Oh yes. I knew there was no way he would ever consider me, but it didn’t stop me from dreaming about him.”
Millicent felt a squeeze at her heart. She should have known that the birthmark would not keep Lady Lynette from feeling love, and it shouldn’t keep a gentleman from loving her. She was a warm