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She wrinkled her nose. “Another reason I am not generally invited to such festivities.”

“Do you want to be?”

“Everyone wants to be invited,” she said with a tiny shrug to offset the strange, unwelcome heaviness in her chest. “Even if one does not want to attend.”

A footman passed right by her without offering her a flute of champagne adorned with a single strawberry. Even the footmen took one look at her and knew.

She tried, once more, to take it as a compliment on her skills at disguise, and was only half successful. Still, she had made this particular bed and there was no sense in feeling sorry for herself.

Bram raised an eyebrow. “I have only ever seen that expression on sailors heading into a hurricane.”

“Me?” Clara laughed softly. “I am hardly the hurricane type.”

He snorted dubiously.

He might as well have recited a poem with the way she reacted. A tingle, a flush of heat. A ridiculous urge to giggle. Fix her hair. Flash a red silk ribbon.

“Lady Clara,” Selene called from the nearby card table. “I am quite outnumbered.” She was indeed surrounded by gentlemen in various stages of inebriation. “Will you play?”

“That one?” Lord Whitlow laughed. “She’s more likely to deliver you a sermon.”

Selene’s smile did not slip, but her eyes changed. “Well, that sounds like a challenge, my lord. And we do never back down from a challenge. Do we, Lady Clara?”

Clara swallowed.

Lord Whitlow laughed again. “The virgin and the wh—” He abruptly cut off when Bram loomed. He really was an excellent loomer. She was fairly certain they did not teach that in the navy. It was an innate skill.

“Beg your pardon,” he said stonily. He all but seethed with the promise of an avalanche burying an entire village without warning. “I am sure you meant to offer the lady your seat.”

Lord Whitlow looked like he was going to protest, decided he was not quite that drunk, or that brave, and promptly abandoned the field. Clara took the offered seat, suddenly very, very willing to go to outright war on behalf of Selene and Bram.

Even if the war was only across a card table decorated with yellow roses.

Interest prickled around them. The courtesan and the spinster. The virgin and the whore. Guests abandoned their own games, lured by the promise of something new. Their boredom might be different than hers, but it was still boredom. Even here, even now.

Selene slid her champagne over to Clara. “Fortification.”

Clara took a sip, feeling Bram take up the space behind her chair. A looming, comforting presence.

“Are you any good?” Selene asked.

Clara blinked innocently. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

Snickers moved around the circle of spectators. Clara knew the exact moment they reached Bram. A stutter of silence. She did not know which of his glowers he was employing, but it must be formidable indeed.

“How about a game of Brag?” Lord Howell suggested with a wink. “Don’t worry, we’ll take it easy on you, Lady Clara.”

“Thank you, Lord Howell.”

Bram’s hand closed over the back of her chair, just close enough that she could brush against his knuckles. If she needed to. Wanted to.

She felt the amusement from the other players, from the audience. Bram did not seem amused at all. Selene did, but not at her. It made a flicker of competitiveness flare within.

The cards were dealt, and Clara could not help but notice their beauty—they were hand-painted with intricate details. Slightly wicked details, of course. One of the ladies smiled at her, showing a lot of sharp teeth, waiting for Clara to succumb to a fit of the vapors over a pair of painted buttocks. Or three.

As Clara had written about a moment of passion between three lovers in a similar position, she did not even blink. In fact, she liked to think she could have given the artist some constructive criticism.

The game began, and Clara gathered information as best she could. Lord Howell took a sip of port when he was trying to hide his satisfaction with his cards. Clara might not know Lord St. John well, but his wife touched the diamonds around her neck nervously when he refused another card. Selene drew attention to her rather splendid cleavage with every hand.