Now calmness lay on his shoulders like a blanket, Kendall briefly jerked his head toward the poker-stiff matron in the gray dress at the entrance to the ballroom.

"Lady Halloran ... "

One thing he'd noted about Marietta's friends was that they'd been young and old. The cultivation was one he'd never understood, as if she'd had to take everything into her clasp, including him. Lady Halloran was one such. A damnable toad of a woman who still blamed him for ...