Prologue
Hanover Square, 1814
It was thestart of a new London season and the streets outside of the Duchess of Stanbury’s elegant address were abuzz with vehicles going by in every direction. Carriages filled with people, and more carriages filled with their belongings, descended upon the town. Society was engaged in the great migration—the entertainments were set to begin.
The duchess, known to the wider world as Your Grace, known to her few equals as Duchess, and known to her closest friends as Theodosia, smoothed out her skirt. The brocade material was a rather wonderful selection Madame LeGrange had secured—a very dark blue with a repeated pattern of mustard-colored peacocks. Brocade was the noblest of silks and therefore it was her preferred fabric.
Those few ladies who had the privilege to call her Theodosia had been summoned to Hanover Square and were even now gathering in her drawing room. She had called a convening ofThe Society of Sponsoring Ladies.
Each year, one of the matrons of the society would escort a suitable young lady through a London season. “Suitable” had proven to be an acceptable background but not enough money. In this way, actual mamas were left behind and the ladies could experience all the joys of acting as a girl’s mama, though they had not born daughters themselves.
There had been some bumps in the road, naturally. Though, when the duchess considered it privately, she thought the past few seasons had been more like dragging oneself up the Italian Alps only to plummet with sickening speed to one’s final destination.
By some miracle and despite the efforts it had taken, all of the final destinations had been a church and the young ladies in their charge had been suitably married.
Now, however, therealmoment of glory had arrived. She, the redoubtable Duchess of Stanbury, had finally found her girl.
Carlson discreetly opened the library door and closed it behind him. “Lady Featherstone and Lady Mendleton have both arrived, Your Grace.” He cleared his throat, then said, “And Lady Easton keeps staring at the clock.”
Theodosia hardly need be told that Lady Easton toe tapped. That lady was always on a schedule. Lady Mendleton though…
“Carlson,” she said, “Lady Mendleton, she has not by chance…that is…she hasn’t brought the VAB?”
“No, Your Grace,” the butler said.
The duchess breathed a sigh of relief. Louisa had got in the habit last season of dragging her toddler granddaughter, otherwise known as the Very Advanced Baby, or the VAB for short, everywhere with her.Bwandbaba, as the little terror called her grandmother, had to be counseled to give up the habit. The duchess would not like to see any of her own porcelain broken, as so many unfortunates had.
“They are all gathered and waiting for me, then,” the duchess said. “Lead me in, Carlson.”
The duchess cruised majestically across the marble floor of the great hall as if she’d set sail for a foreign port.
Carlson minced ahead of her, a veritable dolphin running the waves of her brocade bow. He threw open the drawing room doors and announced, “The Duchess of Stanbury.”
“Ladies,” she said graciously, sailing forward to her favored chair and settling herself in.
“You’ve found someone, haven’t you?” Lady Redfield said.
“Of course she has, Cecilia,” Lady Heathway said. “Now tell us, Theodosia, who is she?”
The duchess poured the tea and said, “She is none other than Isabel Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerdon. I’ve been told that family’s line runs all the way back to the Plantagenets. Her blood could not be more rarified.”
“What is the circumstance, though?” Lady Featherstone asked, completely missing the importance of the aforementioned rarified blood. “Why does not the earl bring her out himself?”
“Because he does not have two farthings to rub together. You know how these ancient families are—the money does sometimes run dry,” she said.
The duchess hoped that was a sufficient answer. She’d really prefer the ladies not keep their attention on the girl’s father. As far as she could gather, the earl did not have two farthings to rub together because he was a bit of an idiot. Being an idiot and being of rarified blood were not compatible, in her considered opinion.
“The Earl of Somerdon is my nephew’s neighbor,” Lady Easton said. “Bertridge says the man is mortgaged up to his eyes.”
The duchess pressed her lips together. She’d realized that Lord Bertridge and Lord Somerdon lived in the same county, but not that they lived so close! What on earth would sensible Lord Bertridge have made out of Somerdon? The man’s letters could have been better written by a small child—they were just a series of words, strung together haphazardly.
“So we can assume she’s not got a dowry,” Lady Redfield said.
“She has not,” the duchess said. “However, I talked it over with the duke and we will provide something. In any case, the dowry is a minor detail. It is the girl herself who is the prize. Plantagenet blood, remember.Rarified. I intend that she marry at the highest echelons of society.”
“Who do we think might be suitable for her?” Lady Mendleton asked.
Lady Featherstone smiled, appearing very pleased with herself. “Every other year and every other girl, we say it must be Lord Ryland. But now he is out of the running as he is my dear son-in-law.”
