The room was in an uproar. Everyone present thought only of themselves, and in this preoccupation with their own merriment were wholly unaware of the immediate peril of Miss Afton Green. Indeed, Afton herself was hardly aware of it, for the wine had quite impaired her, so that not only had she lost her capacity for reason, she couldn’t even stand unaided. But that was of no concern to Mr. Gibbs.

His only thought was for getting her alone in one of the many unoccupied rooms of Holland House, where he meant to ravish her, giving free rein to his illicit desires. The oldest in attendance by a few years, he was more than willing to risk taking advantage of this youthful company’s indiscretion, to say nothing of this friendless girl’s naïvety and low estate to satisfy his own wanton and base desires.

“Come, Miss Green,” he said, supporting her. “Let us find a quiet room…”

She groaned in protest. Her vision swam and she felt quite sick. Still, she was grateful for the steady arm around her, and leaned heavily against Mr. Gibbs’ torso as he started to lead her away. Faintly, she was aware that someone was playing a jolly tune on the pianoforte, and all around her colorful skirts seemed to be blooming like flowers as the men and women danced. Delighted, she yearned to reach out and touch one, but always, they seemed to be just out of reach.

“Excuse me.”

Just before they reached the door, it opened before them, and an unexpected voice carried through the room like the peal of a bell, ominous and low. At the sound, the raucous noise of the party died down and every eye turned to the speaker, where stood Mr. Aubrey, looking severe and pristine in his high white collar and perfectly pressed coat. His appearance marked him at a glance to anyone present a most professional and respectable adult.

“Pardon my interruption,” he said, and everyone in the room straightened instinctively. Some of them even stopped to fix their attire, which had been displaced in the commotion.

“On behalf of my employer, Mr. Holland, allow me to give my fondest regards to all present, and to your most respected parents. And now, I have the unhappy task of dispersing this merry gathering and sending you all on your way before the hour grows any later.”

“Aubrey!” Esther was flushed; her breast heaved lightly with exertion from her dance. “Leave us—my party does not concern you.”

“You’ll forgive me, Miss Holland, but as your father’s secretary and appointed representative in his absence, I’m afraid it does concern me. This gathering, I fear, happy as it is, is unsanctioned, and without proper chaperoning, I must add, is quite improprietous. With the good reputation of all present in mind, I shall put a stop to it now, and bid all of you goodnight. You’ll find your horses and drivers await you out front, so please, collect your coats and make for the door.”

A chorus of protests went up, one of them louder than all the rest.

“This is preposterous!” Mr. Gibbs cried, still supporting Afton in his arms. “We’re here on invitation!”

Mr. Aubrey’s eyes narrowed on the inebriated girl in the soldier’s arms, and his stony countenance went even stonier, so that he seemed more statue than man, ice cold marble.

“And I am hereby revoking that invitation, sir.”

“Sending us away in this manner is insulting!” protested Gibbs, desperate to reclaim the prize that had very nearly been his. “Your authority does not supersede that of the lady of the house! You’re just a secretary!”

At that moment, Afton, wholly unaware of the conflict playing out before her, was seized by a fit of nausea, and became sick all over the front of her escort’s coat.

With a shout of revulsion, Gibbs pushed the girl away. Unsteady, she swayed on her feet a moment and would certainly have gone down but for the timely intervention of Mr. Aubrey, who caught her and lifted her limp frame into his arms.

“I think,” he said coldly, making deliberate eye contact with a mortified Esther, “my point has been quite made. If you would be so courteous, Miss Holland, as to make the proper goodbyes. Miss Holland?” he prompted her when she did not move.

Esther swallowed, blinking back the tears of humiliation that threatened to spill from her eyes.

“As Mr. Aubrey says, perhaps it is time to break up our little gathering.”

Protests went up, especially from the twins, but Esther would not hear them.

“Mr. Gibbs, if you’d care to leave your coat, I shall have it washed and returned to you tomorrow afternoon.”

Mr. Gibbs swore an oath as he removed his fine scarlet uniform. “Really, for an officer of His Majesty’s army to be treated in such a fashion—”

“Oh, shut up, Gibbs,” said Mr. Bard, who was just beginning to nurse a severe headache. “Let’s go home.”

While Esther performed the necessary courtesies as hostess, bidding each of her guests goodnight, Mr. Aubrey carried the unconscious Afton upstairs to the lavender guest room, where he laid her reverently upon the bed, placing a cover over her before backing out of the room, leaving her to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.

Downstairs, he found Esther standing alone in the hall, her face in her hands. Grimly, he passed her to lock the front door, then turned to face his young mistress.

“The hour is late. You ought to be in bed, Miss Holland.”

Sharply, she lowered her hands, cutting him a furious glare. She was no fool. Esther knew very well she was at fault here, and yet she could not bring herself to accept responsibility for her indiscretions, and instead focused all her frustration outward on the only man who’d been brave enough to call her out on them.

“How dare you?” she demanded, jewel green eyes sparkling with tears. “You humiliated me in my own house—how dare you, Mr. Aubrey?”

“One might ask the same of you, Miss Holland. How dare you behave in such a reckless and unscrupulous manner?”

“It was a party, nothing more! A gay evening with friends!”

“Without a chaperone, such an evening might well be called debauchery itself.”

“Debauchery?! A few harmless games, you call debauchery?”

“Indeed, I do, Miss Holland. And you would too, if you were anything but a spoiled, self-centered child.”

“Do not treat me like a child—I am nearly sixteen years old and more than capable of—”

“You are a child and you behaved as a child, utterly without sense or scruples—disgraceful conduct which nearly cost your father dearly!” It was the first time Aubrey had ever raised his voice to her, and his words sobered her instantly. “So focused on your own pleasures, did you even think to look to the peril of your guests?”

“Peril?” She blinked. “Of what peril do you speak?”

“I speak of Miss Green. Surely, you saw her dreadfully inebriated state, and how she was being deliberately led away from the group. Another minute and that cad Gibbs would have had her alone, robbed her of her virtue, and then what? She was placed in the Hollands’ care and her disgrace would have been entirely the Hollands’ fault!”

Of course she had noticed the attentions Mr. Gibbs was paying Afton, but she’d thought it merely harmless flirtation. She’d never dreamed his intentions could be…and yet, dear Afton had protested against drinking the wine, and had even tried to make an excuse to leave at the beginning of the party. Could it be that her well-meaning efforts to host her very own fashionable, sophisticated gathering in Afton’s honor had really put her new friend in danger?

As though guessing her thoughts, Aubrey sighed. “I recognize your eagerness to join society, Miss Holland, but there are institutions set in place to protect young ladies from the designs of unscrupulous men. As dull as you may find them, it is in your best interests to adhere to these institutions, for the sake of your father’s good name. And your own.”

“Don’t lecture me, Mr. Aubrey!” Esther was without excuse and wholly in the wrong, and she had no more words to deny it, which infuriated her. Robbed of everything but her pride and indignation, she directed all of it at him in the most devastating threat she could manage. “Don’t forget your place. If you ever presume to correct me again, I shall ruin you so completely, not my father’s recommendation nor even your good name will be enough to save you!”

“If you would threaten to ruin a man merely for protecting your honor and daring to tell you the truth, then you are not the woman I gave you credit for, Miss Holland.”

His cold words coupled with his severe features and sharp glare somehow made her breast suddenly hot, and Esther turned with a little gasp, her cheeks and ears burning with humiliation. Feeling his eyes on her back, she stalked up the stairs, frustratedly scrubbing her tears. She knew he was right and she hated it; what’s more, she hated him for his composure, his wisdom and especially his unfair good looks.

It was then that she became aware of a figure standing before the window at the end of the hall. Though it was dark and he was silhouetted only by moonlight, she recognized him at once.

“Ezra,” she said. Her brother did not turn at her address, but continued to stare out the window at the snowy countryside.

“You disappeared some time before our party was broken up. Did you think it would escape my notice?”

He did not answer.

“It was you who summoned Aubrey, wasn’t it?”

He lifted his pipe to his mouth and the embers glowed, briefly illuminating his pallid features, so that he seemed to Esther more ghost than man.

“Coward.”

If the word had any effect on her brother, he did not show it. With tears smarting in her eyes, she accused him again.

“Spineless worm. You disapproved, but couldn’t break up the party yourself? You had to bring in that man to humiliate me?”

“That’s right.”

At last he answered her, but with it came no satisfaction. Ezra’s tone was so deucedly even and unaffected, it was all she could do not to scream.

“You put the burden of responsibility for the party on me. You made me look like an incompetent fool!”

“It was your party, no? If you want the honor of being hostess, you must accept the responsibility that comes with it. And if you will not have sense, then it falls to your betters to have it for you.”

“If you were going to protest you should have done so from the beginning! Where everyone could see you and despise you for what you were! A turncoat!”

“But we were all getting along so famously. It seemed a pity to spoil the occasion by making myself disagreeable. Fortunately, Aubrey has no such inhibitions.”

“And you have the audacity to admit it! You two-faced devil! You contemptible sneak!”

He smirked in the shadow, his lips curling cruelly. “Pray, do not restrain yourself, dear sister. It is bad for your health to keep such bitter words bottled up in your stomach.”

“Weakling,” she spat, and he stiffened. “You’ve always been weak. That’s why Father hates you—not because you’re crippled. Because you’re weak, too pathetic to stand tall and take responsibility like a man. Or is it that you can’t stand tall anymore?” she cut at him deliberately, landing a blow she knew would hurt more than anything else.

Yes, she wanted to hurt him, and not just for his actions tonight. Her hated elder brother…

Before the accident, he’d been different. A vivacious lad, full of insolence and pride, burning with ambition, a brother she could look up to and admire. But the events of one single fateful afternoon had changed all of that, stripped him of every virtue he’d ever possessed, and left him a bitter, crippled old man before his time.

She did not pity her brother, this profligate, this shameless womanizer and opium addict. Indeed, though Ezra would inherit their father’s fortune—meaning unless she made a suitable match for herself, she would one day be utterly dependent upon him—she offered him neither pity, nor love, nor even that false, sycophantic adoration some might have expected, but scorn.

Esther had decided long ago she would rise above this man, and make a name for herself in her own way. She would become the darling of London’s society, indomitable, imperious, impertinent. She would have her way and no other, commanding every tearoom, dining room, ballroom, backroom and washroom she set foot in, and she would do it all in a style that made her the envy of every debutante in London. And she would do it without being dependent on Ezra for charity.

As for tonight, she had nothing more to say to her brother. She’d had her revenge, petty though it was, and was shrewd enough to know any further word on the subject would only lessen the sting.

With her vanity a little assuaged, she turned from him, marched to her room and slammed the door behind her. Meanwhile Ezra remained before the window staring out over the snowy landscape, leaning heavily on his cane and smoking his pipe until there remained naught but ash…

~~~

The next morning Afton awoke in the comfort of the finest bed she’d ever slept in. Lying there, she looked about her in bewilderment, her head aching as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings. Slowly, it all came back to her: her new situation at Holland House, the lavender room, the friend she’d made, the party, the attentions of Mr. Gibbs…

Face flushing with shame at the recollection of her behavior last night, she sat up abruptly, and her head throbbed fiercely in protest.

“Gracious,” she murmured, realizing she’d gone to bed not only in the yellow gown Esther had given her, but her slippers as well. Then, turning, she spied the hairpin of white silk violets on her pillow, another gift from her new friend.

She grasped the pin with a quiet sense of reverence, recalling how the minister’s wife Mrs. Clarke had once told her white violets symbolized innocence.

Clutching the flowers to her breast, she was overcome by an enormous sense of relief that Esther’s precious hairpin had not been damaged.

“Thank Providence,” she breathed. “The flowers are safe.”