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“She and the Marchioness are rehearsing for a benefit Lucasta is giving at the King’s Theatre,” said Lady Payne. “You must attend, Mrs. Hinton. It is a fortnight hence, and we can procure tickets for you if you wish.”

“We shall all come and be happy to support whatever cause the Marchioness is promoting,” Sophronia said with a sweet smile. “Tonight we have plans to see the production at the Theatre Royal hosted by the Turkish ambassador. Inkle and Yarico. I have heard the story but never seen the opera.”

“The one where the English trader shipwrecked in the West Indies falls in love with a native girl?” Rowden asked.

“Yes, and then when he returns to civilization, he intends to sell her into slavery and marry the governor’s daughter who was chosen for him,” Lady Payne said. “Showing that some men will sacrifice love to profit.”

“A vile betrayal,” Sophronia agreed. “But I understand the governor’s daughter marries another, and Inkle repents and wins back his Yarico. I am bringing an extra handkerchief in my reticule.”

“So, a story of betrayal and reconciliation,” Rowden said. “But how can she forgive him, when he was willing to destroy her life for his own security?”

Sophronia caught the note of ire in his voice and watched him warily, her eyes flaring. “Yar—Yarico is a generous soul. A far stronger character than Inkle. The point of the play is that her humanity and fellow feeling are greater than his, and he redeems himself by casting off the prejudices of his father.”

“But can he redeem such a grievous error?” Rowden persisted. “And can she forgive such a blow to her heart?”

Lady Tressie watched this exchange with close interest. “You would not be so forgiving as Yarico, Mr. Rowden?”

“Perhaps the play comes too close to my own life,” Rowden said. “I loved once, when I was young. And I was betrayed, like Yarico, by someone who chose her own comfort over our bond.”

Sophronia held his gaze, but her cheeks lost their color. “So you would not forgive,” she murmured. “You would bear a grudge still.”

“It was a deep blow, and I was young and tender,” Rowden said. “One does not recover from that. Not easily.”

She stared at him for long moments, her lips trembling. He looked for the light he had always seen in her eyes, the light that shone out of those brown-gold depths, and for the first time, he didn’t see it.

She turned and reached for Lily, tucking her hand into the elbow of the girl’s unclaimed arm.

“Few of us would,” she said, and though she strove for her voice to be steady, her lips were not.

Rowden felt the axe fall into his gut, a sharp, clean blow. He cursed himself for baring his soul here, now, in company. He had sworn he would never let her see how deeply her rejection had hurt him, and now he had shown his scars in the Great Room of Somerset House, of all places. He could not have chosen a more public setting to make a spectacle, and more than one bystander, pretending to study the art, was instead studying with great interest the exchange between Rowden’s party and Lady Payne’s.

Sophronia took a long indrawn breath, then forced a tremulous smile. “It seems a theme of this exhibition,” she said to Lady Payne. “Betrayal. Have you noticed?”

“Diana and Acteon, Salome and St. John. I’ve noticed,” Rowden said, his voice hard.

“This Medusa,” Starria said proudly, indicating the massive oil that Rowden had noticed earlier, Medusa alone in a shadowy temple among the stony pillars of her victims. “This is by the Countess of Renwick. Well, Duchess in her own right, but I confess I can never recall the name of the place her family is from. She usually has a painting chosen for the Royal Exhibition. She’s very good.”

“Another female destroying a man. There does seem a theme,” Selene observed.

Lily shot a nervous glance at Sophronia. Lily, alone among them, had caught onto what Rowden had confessed, and she was concerned for her friend.

Lily had known Sophronia in her new life, in her life with Hinton, and Rowden had not. What did the girl know about Sophronia’s feelings for him?

Sophronia studied the painting in every detail, her head tipped back. Her gown was the popular straw shade, a warm golden yellow that set off her complexion and her vivid hair, and the slanted cut of the tunic over the embroidered gown made her look a bit dashing. She was a woman who had left the fancies and follies of girlhood long behind, and she was in possession now of a woman’s wisdom, and a woman’s insight.

“Medusa does not look angry or vengeful,” Lily remarked. “She looks…alone.”

Indeed, Medusa stood in an attitude of defeat, her face with its deadly stare buried in her hands, while her hair coiled gently around her, looking more like long knotted locks of hair than serpents. Her gown was tattered, falling off one shoulder, and her feet bare.

“Medusa was cursed, remember,” Sophronia said. “Like Acteon, her trespass was impiety. I’ve read some stories suggesting she was in love with Poseidon and chose to lie with him despite her vows to Athena. But Ovid says it was not…” Her eyes fell on Lady Payne. “Love.”

Lady Payne nodded in silent understanding. “And so she was trapped in her curse, suffering the rage of a goddess, because of what a man had done to her.”

Rowden found himself angered by this conversation. “My love was not ravished away from me,” he said. “She followed the lure of riches and comfort. I don’t suppose that a subject for stories or art—it is all too common a theme.”

Sophronia regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Did your love know your heart? Did you tell her? Did you offer her a choice?”

This stung. Had he not laid his heart out for her before, all those years ago in the parlor of her home, when he saw she was being trussed up and made ready for marriage? Had he not made his bid then?