Prologue
White’s, 1818
The six elderlydukes had once more gathered in their favored room at the club. When the dukes had arrived, they’d found a gaggle of younger gentlemen occupying the room, these presumptuous cubs imagining their card game to be of vital importance. Those youthful and very mistaken fellows had been chased out as if they were of no more account than a group of clerks. Servants had scurried to move the furniture and set up the room as the dukes liked it—six chairs round a cheery fire with plentiful claret and a tray of meats and cheeses piled high on a side table.
The dukes did not engage in idle chatter, that was never their habit on these occasions. The discussion would revolve around the pact between them to ensure their sons found wives so that grandsons might be produced. Before any further actions could be debated, they waited patiently for the Duke of Wentworth to settle his gouty foot and claim his recent victory.
After much rearranging of pillows on a stool, the duke and his foot were finally in place. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I hardly dared imagine it, but my son has married. You will know by now that it was Mendbridge’s daughter, Penelope Darlington. The two of them have ridden off to Dorset, where I suspect they are riding still. Naturally, I hope the lady will dismount her horse at some point and produce an heir.”
“We congratulate you, Wentworth,” the Duke of Gravesley said. “In the meantime, I never imagined we would actually have to take the thing so far, but the two scoundrels that are left have been entirely cut off from their funds. It appears we have arrived at a far steeper hill to climb.”
The dukes nodded at one another, as if this were a fact well-known amongst them.
“There aretwohills left, though—do you hint that Bainbridge’s son or my own is the steeper of them?” the Duke of Glastonburg said.
“It is mine,” the Duke of Bainbridge said. “Dalton may be scarred and sullen, but he does not spend half his life dressing himself and is not one of the most unfortunate scoundrels to ever grace London. My eldest spawn is getting a reputation for breaking hearts, although his own is never amongst them.”
“Then let us hope,” the Duke of Carlisle said, “that a new season brings a new lady who may finally capture our lothario and tie him down.”
“I’d tie him down myself and point the girl to his location if I thought it’d help,” the Duke of Bainbridge said.
Chapter One
Katherine Dell, orKitty as her friends knew her, debated what could be brought with her to London for the season. It was not anywhere near the amount of things she would like to bring, but then there were only so many trunks, and only so many times the carriages would make the trip back and forth from Devon. Most young ladies might be singularly focused on their wardrobe, but those decisions had long been dispensed with. The current question was, how to move the telescope and precisely how many books could she fit into the luggage carriage? While there was a perfectly good library in their house in town, she was just now in the middle of upwards of sixteen books and had her eye on a few dozen more.
“We are not bringing the telescope,” a laughing voice said at her doorway.
Kitty turned to find her brother, Frederick, leaning against the doorframe and appearing highly amused. He was tall and handsome and they were only two years apart. They had been great friends and great combatants since their days in the nursery.
“So says Martha, too,” Kitty said. “Though she calls it thecontraption.”
“Then your maid has more sense than you do,” Frederick answered. “Nobody takes their telescope to London.”
“Oh, I am not so certain,” Kitty said, with a mischievous look. “It is my guess that people may wish to bring all sorts of unusual things to London. I might even imagine that a dear brother would not mind packing a certain Miss Crimpleton in one of his trunks.”
Frederick straightened a cuff. “You would be wrong,” he said. “Miss Crimpleton has a particular delicacy of feeling and would scream like a stuck pig if I attempted it.”
“You will miss her, though?”
“Enough of that, Kitty,” her brother said brusquely. “She will have her season next year, not a hundred years from now. I can easily wait.”
Kitty shrugged, well knowing when not to take a thing further. Her brother was perfectly amenable to a teasing…up to the point he was not. When it came to Miss Crimpleton, he was generallynot.
“In any event,” Frederick said, “your telescope is emblematic of what I wished to speak to you about.”
Kitty crossed her arms and prepared for battle.
Seeing his sister donning her armor and ready for a war, Frederick sighed. In a kinder tone, he said, “Kit-cat, you are going up for your launch season, not to give a speech at the Royal Society. I understand your interests, but there are practicalities to consider.”
Kitty turned away at the mention of the Royal Society. Had she been a man, induction into that great institution would have been her primary aim in life. Had she been a man, she’d already be a member. Through rigorous experiments, she had proved that Cornish eyebright was hemi-parasitic on Western Gorse. Men had been inducted for less. In truth, men had been inducted for nothing at all, though the great Caroline Herschel might discover a slew of comets and be excluded.
She bent and looked through her beloved telescope; it stood in its permanent place on the wide window ledge. It was afternoon and so no stars were to be noted and it was an overcast and drizzly sort of day. The most interesting thing she could discover was a herd of cows huddled together against the weather on a far hillside.
“You sound very like mama with your scoldings,” Kitty said, “though you are more roundabout than she is. She does not remind me ofpracticalities—she calls it marriage.”
“Marriage is very practical,” Frederick said. “Dinners and balls and routs are the most established way to achieve that very practical aim. Please put aside your intellectual pursuits for a few months at least. You cannot wish to be an old maid. Iknowyou cannot wish it. You shall want children and your own house.”
Kitty knew that was perfectly true. And yet, she was not eager to leave her father’s house. Her dear papa treated her as his intellectual equal. How was she to transform herself into somebody’s wife, only responsible for seeing that the right calls were made and a house ran smooth and dinner parties came off well? She suspected those mundane tasks would be the height of her wifely career—she had not the skill or temperament to be as her mother was. The baroness was the vital root of the family, keeping her various offshoots supplied with sunlight and water.
