Free The Waltzing Widow by Gayle Buck

difficult to bear the impotent knowledge that someone dear to you may soon be in deadly peril. However, I do not think that Ensign Spence would thank you if you could suddenly whisk him away when all of his friends and acquaintances were to remain for the fight."
    Lady Mary laughed at the vision that he had conjured up for her of William's appalled indignation. “Indeed not, my lord! William would sooner have himself cut up into ribbons than miss an opportunity to prove himself on the battleground."
    "As I feel certain he shall do,” Lord Kenmare said with a smile.
    Lady Mary acknowledged the compliment, and the conversation passed easily on to other things.
    The earl stayed beside her for a few minutes more until Monsieur Francois du Bois came up to greet her, apologizing that he had not before had a chance to speak with her. Then Lord Kenmare rose and made a graceful exit, remarking that he should circulate.
    Lady Mary was sorry when he was gone. Once she had recovered from her odd lack of social aplomb, she had enjoyed the conversation between herself and the earl. He was an intelligent gentleman, one of definite opinion but not insistent that another should wholly agree with him. It had been pleasant to talk with someone who listened to and respected her views.
    As her eyes followed the earl's departing figure, her gaze chanced to fall on an elderly couple well-known to her, and she gasped, staring in stunned disbelief.
    Monsieur du Bois was made curious by her expression. His heavy black brows shot up, emphasizing his rather prominent and extraordinary blue-black eyes. “My lady, what is it? You look as though you have seen a specter."
    "Perhaps I have. I have just now seen my parents, whom I had thought to be in London,” she said, giving a shaky laugh.
    "Ah? It is a pleasant surprise, then,” Monsieur du Bois said.
    Only half-attending to her host, Lady Mary blinked to be certain that she was not seeing an apparition. But there was no mistake. The elderly couple rapidly bearing down upon her were her parents, Viscount and Viscountess Catlin. Monsieur du Bois, seeing that her attention was fully trained on the advancing couple, bowed himself off, shaking his head.
    The viscount's eyes glittered with an equal measure of malice and amusement as he bowed to his daughter. With a shade of sarcasm he drawled, “Well met, Mary."
    Unheeding of any social niceties. Lady Mary asked bluntly, “Whatever are you doing here? I thought you firmly ensconced in London."
    "And so we were until we received your letter, dear Mary,” Viscountess Catlin said. She smiled, completely impervious to the warring emotions in her daughter's expression. “It was so foresighted of you, my dear, to bring Abigail to the hub of the ton. I was quite bowled out by your cleverness. I would not have thought of it; indeed, I did not! I had fretted for weeks that Abigail's first Season would be a shambles, all because of this ludicrous politics one hears too much about, and your letter arrived with the perfect solution. So naturally we began making immediate arrangements to come to Brussels as well."
    Viscount Catlin still regarded his daughter with cynical amusement, quite aware of the turmoil in her breast. “You appear astonished, Mary. Surely you must have known that your mother could not have borne to miss Abigail's first Season?"
    Lady Mary glanced at her father with the faintest lift of her brows. She noted almost with detachment that he had aged. The viscount was thinner than she remembered, his face more lined, his stature frailer. But time had not dimmed the arrogance inherent in his expression or voice, nor had it granted vulnerability to the unfathomable depths of his cold mocking eyes. “If I do seem astonished, sir, it is scarcely to be wondered at, since I know well how my mother detests travel. Naturally it never crossed my mind that she would be willing to make the long journey from England."
    "That is all too true, dear Mary, and