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“Ma’a in the hall “Do you have any further instructions for me?”

“No, it’s all right, Lil,” A to eat I’ll send for you when you’re needed”

“The servants’ quarters are this way,” Mrs March moved briskly across the hall Lil fell into line, and her back was, if possible, even straighter than the housekeeper’s

In the second-best parlor, A decor “I aone voice

“At least ill be able to visit the theater, Mama And the opera And Maday of Mrs March in the Chamber of Horrors”

A you don’t upset her, Francesca Helen did reat deal”

“You don’t think they are—?”

“No, I don’t”

Francesca thought of the housekeeper’s cold, uns face and steely eyes, and decided there was little likelihood that Uncle Willia his bed Surely his preference—if he had one—would be for someone soft and sweet and pretty? One of the soiled doves whose only way of surviving was to find a protector ould house and care for her…until boredom set in, and she was once more adrift

Francesca shuddered Aphrodite had once been such a woman…

“Do you wish to visit Madame Aphrodite while we are in London?” It was almost as if Amy had read Francesca’s mind

“No,” she said shortly

The subject, she hoped, was closed

Aphrodite was busy with the evening entertainuests were being entertained and that their glasses were full of chane She seemed to know just what to say to each of them

Years of experience, Sebastian supposed, watching her as he half listened to the pretty girl at his side Her s more than conversation, if he was interested He knew she’d be knowledgeable in the giving of pleasure without emotion—no need to think beyond theBut Sebastian wasn’t Passionless encounters bored him, even more so now that he’d known Francesca