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  The Corinthian set admired not only her abundant beauty, but her famous skill with a rapier, and they flocked to the house on Upper Brook Street in hopes of seeing her fence, which they were rarely permitted to do—or, better yet, to fence with Hawthorne and thus impress her with their own skill, so they might win her undivided notice.

  In that last regard, young Lord Sevely, who was too clumsy to fence and too shy to ask her to dance with him, outdid them all. After noting that Lady Melanie Camden and the elderly under-butler at the house on Brook Street (who seemed to be quite deaf) called Alexandra by a special nickname, he wrote a poem to her and had it published. He called it “Ode to Alex.”

  Not to be outdone by a mere “weanling” like Sevely, the elderly Sir Dilbeck, whose hobby was botany, named a new variety of rose he’d grafted in her honor, calling it “Glorious Alex.”

  The rest of Alexandra’s suitors, annoyed by the implied liberties taken by the other two, followed suit. They, too, began calling her Alex.

  Chapter Eighteen

  IN ANSWER TO his grandmother’s summons, Anthony strolled into the drawing room and found her standing at the window, gazing down at the fashionable carriages returning to Upper Brook Street from the ritual afternoon promenade in the park.

  “Come here a moment, Anthony,” she said in her most regal voice. “Look out at the street and tell me what you see.”

  Anthony peered out the window. “Carriages coming back from the park—the same thing I see every day.”

  “And what else do you see?”

  “I see Alexandra arriving in one of them with John Holliday. The phaeton drawing up behind them is Peter Weslyn’s—and Gordon Bradford is with him. The carriage in front of Holliday’s belongs to Lord Tinsdale, who is already in the salon, cooling his heels with Jimmy Montfort. Poor Holliday,” Anthony chuckled. “He sent word he wishes to speak privately with me this afternoon. So did Weslyn, Bradford, and Tinsdale. They mean to offer for her, of course.”

  “Of course,” the duchess repeated grimly, “and that is exactly my point. Today is exactly like all the others for nearly a month—suitors arriving in pairs and trios, jamming up traffic in the streets and cluttering up the salons downstairs, but Alexandra has no wish to wed, and she’s made that clear to the lot of them. Even so, they keep parading into this house with bouquets in their hands, and marching back out of it with murder in their eyes.”

  “Now, Grandmama,” Anthony soothed.

  “Don’t ‘Now, Grandmama’ me,” she said, startling Anthony with her vehemence. “I may be old, but I am not a fool. I can see that something very unpleasant, very dangerous, is happening before my own eyes! Alexandra has come to represent some sort of challenge to your foolish sex. Once Alexandra discovered how Jordan had felt about her, and Carstairs took her under his wing, she began to change and shine almost overnight. When that happened, her connections to this family, along with the huge dowry you and I decided she should have, created a uniquely desirable package to any bachelor needful or wishful of acquiring a wife.”

  The duchess paused, waiting for an argument from her grandson, but Tony merely regarded her in noncommittal silence. “Had Alexandra shown the slightest partiality for one man, or even a preference for one type of man at that point,” the duchess continued, “the others might have given up and gone away, but she did not. And that is what has brought us to the untenable pass for which I blame your entire sex.”

  “My sex?” he echoed blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that when a man sees something that seems to be just beyond the grasp of other men, then of course he must try to grasp it to prove he can take it.” She paused to glower accusingly at an amazed Anthony. “That is a nasty trait which males possess from the time of birth. Walk into any nursery and witness a male babe with his siblings. Whether they are older or younger than he, a male babe will try to snatch whatever toy everyone else is quarreling over. Not, of course, that he wants the toy, he merely wants to prove he can get it.”

  “Thank you, Grandmama,” Anthony said dryly, “for that sweeping condemnation of half of the world’s population.”

  “I am merely stating fact. You do not see my sex lining up to enter the lists whenever some silly contest is announced.”

  “True.”

  “And that is exactly what has happened here. More and more contestants, drawn by the challenge, have entered the lists to try and win Alexandra. It was bad enough when she was merely that—a challenge—but now she has become something worse, much worse.”

  “Which is?” Anthony said, but he was frowning at his grandmother’s astute assessment of what had already become a very complex, trying situation.

  “Alexandra has become a prize,” she said darkly. “She is now a prize to be won—or else taken—by the first male bold enough and clever enough to carry it off.” Anthony opened his mouth, but she raised a bejeweled hand and waved his protest aside. “Do not bother to tell me it won’t happen, because I already know it has: As I understand it, three days ago, Marbly proposed a short jaunt to Cadbury and Alexandra agreed to accompany him.

  “One of her rejected suitors heard that Marbly had boasted of his intention to take her to his country seat in Wilton instead, and keep her there overnight. He carried the tale to you. You, I understand, caught up with Marbly and Alexandra an hour from here, before the Wilton turnoff, and brought her back, telling Marbly that I had requested her company—which was wise indeed of you. Had you demanded satisfaction, the scandal of a duel would have blackened Alexandra’s reputation and compounded our problems tenfold.”

  “In any case,” Tony put in, “Alexandra knew nothing of Marbly’s intentions that day, nor does she now. I saw no reason to distress her. I asked her not to see him again, and she agreed.”

  “And what about Ridgely? What was he about, taking her off to a fair! All London is talking about it.”

  “Alexandra went to fairs as a child. She had no way of knowing she shouldn’t go.”

  “Ridgely is purportedly a gentleman,” the duchess snapped. “He knew better. What possessed him to take an innocent young lady to such a place!”

  “You’ve just hit upon the rest of our problem,” Anthony said wearily, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alexandra is a widow, not a maid. What few scruples ‘gentlemen’ possess rarely apply to their behavior with experienced women— particularly if the woman happens to dazzle them witless, which Alexandra does.”

  “I would hardly describe Alexandra as an experienced woman! She’s barely a woman at all.”

  Despite the grimness of the problem, Anthony grinned at his grandmother’s patently inept description of the intoxicating young beauty with the dazzling smile and stunning figure. His grin faded, however, as the problem again came to the fore. “This whole thing is so damn complicated because she is so young and yet she’s already been married. If she had a husband now, as does the Countess of Camden, no one would blink an eye at her little larks. If she were older, Society would not expect her to live by the same rules that govern younger girls. If she were plain, then those suitors she’s rejected out of hand would not be nearly so inclined to try to blacken her reputation out of spite and jealousy.

  “Have they been doing that?”

  “Only two or three of them, but they’ve been busy whispering in the right ears. You know as well as I how easily gossip stimulates gossip, and when it catches fire it begins to spread in every direction. Eventually, everyone hears enough of it to start believing there must be some truth in it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Not bad, not yet. At this point, all her rejected suitors have accomplished is to cast an unsavory light on some tiny, harmless misadventures of hers.”

  “For example?”

  Anthony shrugged. “Alexandra spent last weekend at Southeby, attending a party there. She and a certain gentleman made an engagement for an early ride and left the stables at about eight. They did not return until after dusk, and when th