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him.
    Suddenly Edmund’s sense of the ridiculous reawakened and he made up his mind to distract himself with the heady task of confusing the lovely Miss Alstone, whilst searching for his true quarry. It would do the redhaired witch good, he assured the doubter within. He wouldn’t be cruel, heaven forbid, but someone should make her realise she existed in the same world as the rest of faulty humanity, not on a higher plane where everything was ordered to her convenience.

Chapter Three
    ‘H ow is everyone at Wychwood, Miss Alstone?’ he asked in a tone even he knew was insufferably indifferent to her answer, although he liked the Earl of Carnwood and his spectacularly lovely wife. Now he came to think of it, if Miss Kate Alstone resembled her fiery sister as strongly in character as she did in outward beauty, he couldn’t walk away from her to wed a less unique woman. Thank you for not being made in your elder sister’s extraordinary image, he silently praised the beauty at his side, but even he wasn’t yet a bitter enough man to say it out loud.
    ‘All very well,’ she replied stiffly, as if she could read his thoughts, and he made himself look into her intriguing indigo eyes to make sure he was mistaken.
    No, he informed himself sternly, he refused to cave at the hint of wistfulness in her gaze, the faint droop of discontent and perhaps a hint of longing in the curve of her rosy-lipped mouth. It was an illusion, he reminded himself. She might look as if she longed for a tithe of her sister’s passionate and mutually loving marriage for herself, but she didn’t have the least intention of following Miranda Alstone’s stormy path through life. After enduring her chilly lack of attention for a whole Season, he’d concluded Kate had no heart to lose. Trust her to decide to feel piqued that she’d finally lost his adoration tonight, just when he was starting his hunt for a very different female.
    ‘My sister is expecting to present Lord Carnwood with another pledge of her affection very shortly,’ she added to her terse assessment, again with that hint of wistful longing in her voice he wished she’d learn to conceal a little better.
    To anyone else he supposed it might seem a tone of rueful irony, a discreet nod towards the fact that her sister and brother-in-law were deeply in love and therefore made insufferable company for a rational human being. Too many months spent learning her moods and interests from avid observation, he thought crossly. What an irony if she so longed to carry brats of her own that she was prepared to take him as her husband after all, just when he’d realised he couldn’t tolerate such a marriage to a wife he’d once longed to adore until his dying day. Compassion threatened as he wondered why she thought it safe to love her children and not her husband, who could be her equal and her passion. No, Carnwood and his countess were unique and he was done with dreams; Kate was not the wife for him.
    ‘Ah, well,’ he replied carelessly, ‘your brother-in-law is sadly in need of an heir.’
    ‘Kit will feel the need for whomever my sister presents him with, my lord. Not even the most cynical and uncaring spectator could deny that.’
    Now he’d really offended her, just as he’d intended to. What a shame, then, that the fleeting vulnerability of hurt he glimpsed in her eyes, the not-quite-hidden wince as he pretended indifference to two people he liked and envied, pained him as well. Better this way, he reminded himself and smiled encouragingly at a certain Miss Transome he’d been introduced to earlier and her hovering swain. With any luck, they would join them at supper and break up any suggestion of a tête-à-tête between himself and the beauty at his side before too many people recalled that he’d once been mad, deluded and desperate for her.
    ‘La, my dear Miss Alstone,’ Miss Transome spouted so fulsomely so that Edmund almost regretted encouraging her, even to save