Until You

Sherry felt the room tip, then right itself. Her ears were deceiving her, of course.

"The Duke and Duchess of Claymore have invited all of us to an intimate gathering at their home!"

Sherry groped behind her for the bedpost, gripping it and staring at the other woman. Based on what she'd seen firsthand of the ton's social ladder, the Westmorelands occupied the very pi

"Miss Bromleigh, you are losing your color, and I must caution you that there simply isn't time for you to have vapors over this. If I haven't time for a nice swoon," she added with a robust smile, "then neither do you, my good girl."

Sherry swallowed and swallowed again, trying to find her voice. "Are you-" she rasped, "are you acquainted with them, with the duke and duchess, I mean?"

Lady Skeffington issued a warning before she confided the truth: "I trust you would not betray a confidence, and risk losing your position with us?"

Sherry swallowed again and shook her head, which Lady Skeffington correctly interpreted was Sherry's promise of confidentiality. "Sir John and I have never met them in our lives."

"Then how, that is, why-?"

"I have very good reason to believe," Lady Skeffington confided, proudly, "that Julia

Sheridan was begi

"Miss Bromleigh?"

Sheridan blinked, warily surveying the woman who had obviously devised this entire Banbury tale as some form of diabolical torture designed to break down Sheridan's carefully constructed foundation for sanity.

"Miss Bromleigh, THIS WILL NOT DO!"

"Mama, give me your smelling salts quickly," Julia

"I'm quite all right," Sheridan managed, turning her head away from the odious salts that Lady Skeffington was determined to wave under her nose. "I was just a little… dizzy."

"Thank heavens! We are all depending upon you to provide us with any information on how the i

Sheridan gave a laugh that was part hilarity and part hysteria. "How would I know?"

"Because Miss Charity Thornton wrote your reference letter and said very specifically that you were a woman of rare gentility who would set an example of the highest social standards for any child entrusted to your care. She did write that letter, did she not? The one you showed to us?"

Sherry had her own suspicion that Nicholas DuVille had dictated it and somehow gotten Miss Charity to sign it without reading it, since the recommendation of a bachelor, who also happened to be a notorious rake, was hardly the thing to gain a young woman respectable employment. Either that or he'd not only written it but signed both their names to it. "Have I given you any reason to doubt the truth of those words, ma'am?" Sherry evaded.

"Certainly not. You're a good sort of girl, despite the wild color of your hair, Miss Bromleigh, and I hope you will not let us down."

"I will try not to," Sheridan said, amazed that she was able to speak at all.

"Then I give you leave to lie down and rest for a few minutes. It is rather stuffy up here."

Sherry plopped down on the bed like a limp, obedient child, her heart begi

"Guitar," Sherry provided lamely.

When she left, Sherry looked at her lap. Not for one minute did she believe that nonsensical notion of Lady Skeffington's that Stephen Westmoreland had glimpsed Julia

No, that wasn't why the Skeffington family-and their governess-was being summoned to Claymore for a command appearance. The invitation had nothing to do with them at all, Sheridan thought as a hysterical laugh that was part dread and part helplessness welled up in her. The truth was that the Westmorelands-and probably a large group of their friends who'd also be at Claymore-had devised the most exquisite vengeance in the world to punish Sheridan Bromleigh for what they thought was her deceitful misuse of them: they were going to force her to return to their society, only not as an equal this time, but as the glorified servant she really was.

And the most painful part of it… the humiliating, agonizing part… was that she didn't have a choice in the world except to go there.

Sherry felt her chin tremble and angrily stood up. Her conscience was clear. Furthermore, there was no shame in her position. She had never aspired to be a countess.

Her conscience reminded her that wasn't entirely true. The truth was that she had wanted to be Stephen Westmoreland's countess. And so this was to be her punishment for daring to dream, daring to reach above herself, Sherry realized, feeling furious at fate for doing this to her.

"I want to go home!" she said fiercely to the empty room. "There has to be some way to go home!" Only five weeks had passed since she'd written to Aunt Cornelia, explaining everything that had transpired since she boarded the Morning Star, and asking her aunt to send her money for passage home. The money would be coming, of that Sheridan was certain, but at best it would take a total of eight to ten weeks for her letter to cross the Atlantic and reach her aunt, and then for her aunt's response to reach her.

Even if the Atlantic seas stayed calm and the ships didn't tarry in any port between Portsmouth and Richmond, there was still three weeks left before she could hope to hear from her aunt. Three more weeks before the money for her passage home could possibly arrive. Three more weeks before the party at Claymore. If Fortune would smile down on her just one time since she set foot on English soil, then she might still be able to deprive the Westmorelands of their petty vengeance after all.