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our waltz.”
    As he led her onto the floor, Felix realized he had been too precipitate. That she should progress in a few minutes from believing Fanny his mistress to issuing an invitation was not to be expected. She had been brought up to consider a respectable nobody to be beneath her notice.
    Suddenly recalling the Ingrams’ noble connexions, he realized why they never mentioned them. An unsupported claim must inevitably be disbelieved, making them appear the worst sort of social climbers. It was better forgotten.
    All the same, even without that inducement, he’d try Lady Sophia again at the picnic. After all, he wasn’t asking her to accept Fanny as an intimate friend, only to take her to a ball where, among hundreds of guests, her presence would doubtless go unnoticed.
    He imagined how Fanny’s face would light up if he told her he was trying to snabble an invitation to the Richmonds’ ball for her. No, best not breathe a word. He was too uncertain of the outcome.
    Lady Sophia was particularly charming for the rest of the evening, and his spirits soared. He almost forgot Boney, lurking in his lair.
     

Chapter 6
     
    “Some of our fellows are giving a picnic tomorrow,” Fanny told Felix when he returned to the parlour next morning after sending off the courier. “Frank was here last night and he suggested that I invite you. I don’t suppose you’d care to go with us?”
    “I’m going,” said Anita happily. “And Billy and Jane and Peter.”
    “Major Prynne’s children,” Fanny explained. “I expect it will be a noisy, rowdy affair, not at all what you are accustomed to.”
    Felix grinned. “That’s what you think.”
    “Indeed!” She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
    “Well, harking back to schooldays and...hm...some of the less refined amusements of my years on the town--no, don’t ask for details! I’d like to go to your picnic, but I’m already engaged tomorrow.”
    He looked almost as disappointed as she felt. “I wish I had been able to ask you sooner, but the date was only settled last night. Our batteries are scattered all over the countryside so it was difficult to consult everyone.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “To the river bank near Ninove. Some of ours are quartered there. I daresay I shall spend my time keeping Anita out of the river.”
    “So that is why I was invited!” he quizzed her.
    “Not at all! I can always find someone to watch her if I want to.”
    “I been’t going to fall in,” Anita announced. “The river will make my new dress dirty.”
    “I’m not going to fall in,” Fanny corrected absently.
    “I hope not,” said Felix, laughing, “but if you do there will be plenty of stout fellows eager to pull you out.”
    She smiled. “What a horrid, teasing humour you are in this morning. You enjoyed the party last night?”
    “Lady Sophia was all that is amiable, and none of my rivals was present. She was impressed by the Duke’s willingness to grant me a private interview in the middle of his soirée.”
    She should have known that if he had enjoyed himself it was because the Goddess had been kind for once. To forestall the expected paean of praise, she asked, “And what was the result of that interview?”
    He told her of his concern that Wellington was ignoring the implications of the closed border.
    “Old Hookey doesn’t like anyone to know his plans,” she pointed out, “and you have said yourself that he is much concerned to persuade the Belgians of his confidence. Panic among his guests last night would have achieved the precise opposite. I daresay your pride was piqued because he did not at once act on your report, but only consider how many factors he must take into account.”
    “True. You are thoroughly commonsensical, Miss Ingram.”
    Any praise was better than none, she thought with a silent sigh. She stood up. “Common sense tells me that if I don’t go to market, we shall not dine tonight, and I have promised to bake a spice cake