Jenny Holiday

Being a pioneering reformer is all fine and good, but it does leave one terribly in want of agood party!

Let me give you one piece of advice. Do not get between a woman and her cause.

The Earl of Blackstone didn__ seem particularly mysterious to Emily. In fact, as he stood there silently__xcept for that sneering laugh he__ tried to cover up__he could think of several other adjectives to add to the list next time Sarah was searching for one: rude, self-important, boorish. And, if one could judge by the slightly slack-jawed way he stared at her, perhaps even __imple.

The earl narrowed his eyes as he hopped off his bay gelding and surveyed the deep green expanse of lawn surrounding the ancestral home. The graceful house, built atop and around an ancient abbey, wore its centuries of accretion with aplomb, as if it had always perched atop thisgentle slope. In the slanting late afternoon sun, the fading red-brick walls glowed. __y God, I hate the country,_ he said.

It was so unlikely that she should be there, standing on the far side of the ballroom, and yet there she was. Unlikely Lucy, gleaming, a jade flame burning bright in a sea of mere diamonds. Polished and disheveled at the same time, her fitted, elegant gown contrasted with hair that looked as if it had been precariously arranged and might escape its pins at any moment.