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CHAPTER EIGHT

“HE’S DOING THIS just to infuriate me, you know. Oh, don’t shake your head, Jennie, for you know I’m right.”

Jennie Wilde was hard-pressed to conceal her smile as she watched Mary flutter about the Bourne drawing room like a kite in a stiff breeze. “Inviting you to share a theater box with the Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg infuriates you, Mary? And what, pray, would make you happy? Having him appear at the theater with some other young woman on his arm?”

“Yes—No! Oh, Jennie, you know what I mean. It’s like that Lorenzo Dow fellow said: ‘You will be damned if you do—And you will be damned if you don’t.’”

“I believe the man was speaking about religion, Mary, not a festive night at Covent Garden,” Jennie supplied, tongue-in-cheek. “But I cannot see how you can turn a simple invitation into something even remotely devious.”

Mary flitted about a moment or two more, then came to roost on the settee across from where her friend was reclining at her ease. “The grand duchess is rewarding Tristan’s courage in stopping that curricle last week—all the town knows it. Her theater box will be the cynosure of all eyes for the entire evening. And Tristan knows I would sooner shave my head and wear rags than miss such a spectacle.”

“I understand what you are saying so far, Mary.” Jennie nodded, picking up her knitting. “But where does the revenge come in?”

Mary rolled her eyes heavenward, unable to believe that Jennie—who was usually so awake on all suits—could be so dense. “For goodness sake, Jennie, Tristan knows if I appear as his companion for such a public display that everyone and his wife will have us as good as married!”

Jennie laid down her knitting to peer intently into Mary’s worried green eyes. “And to think, my dear, the main presentation of the evening is to be an allegorical festival entitled ‘The Grand Alliance.’ My goodness, anyone would think the authors had you and Tristan in mind, rather than England and our allies.” Shaking her head in mock dismay, she went on: “Perhaps you have been trotting too hard, Mary. Really, the ideas you get into your head amaze even me!”

Mary was not so self-involved that she could not see the humor in Jennie’s words. Wrinkling up her pert little nose, she retorted, “Oh, pooh—I guess I am going a bit overboard, aren’t I?” Then she became serious once again. “But, Jennie, I already told you how horridly I behaved to Tristan last week after he’d made his daring rescue. Surely he can’t be rewarding me for such a terrible attack on his character? Have I told you that he has come to visit Aunt Rachel and Sir Henry nearly every day without so much as inquiring about me? Now, does that sound like the man is perishing for the sight of me—or that he would be desirous of my company? No,” she answered for herself, “it does not. He knows full well how he has curtailed my social life, and he is purposely using this invitation to throw yet another damper on my fun.”

“I think I’m beginning to get the headache,” Jennie mused, lifting one hand to her temple.

“That’s what Aunt Rachel says every time I bring up the subject,” Mary responded, shaking her head. “You all think I’m reading entirely too much into this invitation, don’t you? Very well, I’ll accept it. But remember this, Jennie, I do so only under duress.”