A hip-roofed, limestone house squatted in the lee of a hill, too close to the road like a toad crouching in the weeds. "That's Adderhill," Freddy said.

Her abigail, Emma Peebles, looked out the window. "Don't know how you can be sure of that."

 "It looks just like Aunt Margaret." Freddy rapped on the roof of the traveling carriage and signaled the driver to turn into the drive.

Peebles shook her head. "Anyway, it don't look like a house where a wedding's going to happen in the morning."

The carriage drew up at the front of the house, and Freddy stepped out, a trim and stylish blonde. Above her left eye, she wore her fair hair in a bunch of curls that concealed a crescent-shaped scar on her forehead. "You will handle the luggage all right won't you, Peebles? I'll announce myself."

The driver bent from his seat. "Will you be wanting me to knock for you, My Lady?"

Freddy waved her hand without turning around. She wielded the knocker herself to such good effect that a very small, round butler fairly shot from the house and stood puffing in the doorway. He looked about him.

Freddy regarded him with surprise. "Bulstrode, are you still with the family?"

"What?" the little man barked.

"I am Lady Winifred Westerly. Claudie's cousin. I was invited to Claudie's wedding."

The last statement made an impression on the butler. He clutched the door frame for support and squeezed his face into an expression of mild disdain. "Please come into the parlor. Mrs. Tuttle will be anxious to see you, My Lady."

Puzzled, Freddy furrowed her brow. "Really? I hadn't thought she was very fond of me."

Something in the butler's demeanor, perhaps the flared nostrils or the slight reddening of the eyes, told Freddy she had made a mistake. "Oh I say, it is a figure of speech, isn't it. The parlor is fine, Bulstrode."

The butler gave a little gasp of relief and ushered Freddy into the house. He led her down a short hall and up a flight of stairs. He had a bulldogish air that she remembered from the last time she had seen him as a footman in her aunt's household. The impression was emphasized by the way he bounded from one side of the hall to the other, straightening a rack of antlers on one side, adjusting a vase on a small table on the other. He opened the parlor door and leaned into the room. "Lady Winifred Westerly," he announced.

Four inmates occupied the barren, little room. No draperies hung on the whitewashed walls, and the gray mist of cobwebs ratted with fly carcasses obscured the vaulted ceiling. "Are you all here for Claudie's wedding?" Freddy said.

A slender, young man with delicate features and translucent skin squinted over his spectacles for a moment. Suddenly, he beamed at Freddy and crossed the faded carpet. "Cousin Fred? I almost didn't recognize you. Come and meet everyone. Don't you remember me?"

Freddy admired the gentleman's green waistcoat embroidered with bumblebees and dandelions and his coat of canary yellow. "I should think you're Dickie AnsleyŃLord Danleigh, I mean. We played together that summer in Cornwall when we met the Tuttles." The memory was so pleasant and so strong that Freddy took her cousin's arm as comfortably as though they were old friends.

Lord Danleigh said, "The family is all upstairs. It's a funny kind of a wedding, Fred. Everyone is so pop-eyed and prickly. And the groom." He shuddered. "Let me introduce you to everyone." He brought her to the group it front of the fire.

"Here's Baron Von Graff: friend of Cousin Janet come down to see her and got caught up in all this wedding business. Sir, my cousin Lady Winifred Westerly."

A little man with a stumpy face and bowed legs had thrust his pipe under his armchair when Freddy came in. He stood now and bent over her hand. "Honored to meet you, Lady Winifred," he said in a heavily accented voice that snicked like a pair of shears opening and closing.

Freddy was never at her best among strangers or crowds. She said the first thing that entered her head. "I shouldn't think you ought to leave your pipe under the chair. Aunt Tuttle is very particular about her carpets."

The tip of the gentleman's nose turned bright red. "Is that so." He rummaged under the chair for the offending pipe.

He dropped it again when Bulstrode opened the parlor door and announced, "Miss Claudine Tuttle and her fiancˇ, the viscount Malking."

"You'll see what I mean," Dickie said softly in Freddy's ear.

Claudine Tuttle, a fragile blond with a very pink complexion looked much younger than her sixteen years on the arm of what was presumably her betrothed.

Freddy was struck at once with loathing for the rouˇ with his fingers sunk into Claudine's arm. The viscount was, if anything, slightly older than Claudie's father. Pox scars marked his face under his powder and rouge, and stains from wine and food discolored his carelessly tied cravat. He smirked at the guests.