“I was certainly no such thing. Neither was Lyndon’s wife, but when we saw them on their country estate they seemed perfectly happy.”

“Who are this year’s Diamonds, by the by?” he asked, in an effort to appear interested.

Geoffrey, settled in a high-backed chair with curving, polished wooden arms, gave him a look that said he knew perfectly well why Charles had asked. “The Diamond, as you call her, is a Miss Watson. A quite beautiful widgeon.”

“Perfect for Charles, don’t you think?” Adam said in languid tones.

Charles gave a mock shudder. “Lord save me. And the Incomparable?” he asked. “Or is there one?”

Geoffrey and Ariel looked at each other again. “The Incomparable seems to have disappeared,”

Adam said. “Disappeared? Gone home, you mean?”

“No. Disappeared, yesterday. No one knows where she is. Her father’s tried to hush it up, of course, but servants always seem to know everything.”

For the first time, the conversation intrigued Charles. “How could someone possibly do something like that? Especially an heiress? I take it she is an heiress, or she wouldn’t be so sought after.”

“That’s terribly cynical of you,” Ariel protested.

“But true, I imagine. It was such when I left. Who is her father?”

“The Earl of Harlow.”

Charles gave a low whistle. “Lady—who is she now? I know there was a Lady Anne Fairchild.”

“Her sister. This one is Lady Serena.”

“Then she does have expectations. Does anyone know why she left?”

“No.” Ariel frowned down at her knitting. “Oh, dear, I seem to have dropped a stitch.”

Charles glanced at her work, something small and white and fluffy. He was, so he’d been told, going to be an uncle. Not a father. Never a father. “It’s rather strange.”

“Lud, so it is,” Adam said. “It’s become one of the scandals of the Season.”

“Adam,” Elizabeth reprimanded him softly. That’s not kind.”

“But true.”

“No one knows what happened,” Ariel put in. “She seemed to be enjoying herself. Certainly she had suitors aplenty.”

“For her fortune, you mean.”

Ariel’s answer was slower in coming this time. “Perhaps.”

“I wonder what they would do, were she poor.”

“Harlow’s been patient with her,” Adam put in. “I hear she rejected a number of suitors.”

“Perry Faraday, for one. He’s only one and twenty, but I do believe he’s in love with her.”

“Calflove.