Prologue
1802, in the vicinity of Taunton, Somerset
Lady Margaret Bennington,Countess of Westmont, had done her duty by producing an heir for her earl. The succeeding years, though, had brought a string of daughters in alarming rapidity, ending in the fifth who had ungraciously sent her mother to the great beyond. After the countess had departed the world, the natural question arose as to who would guide those five now motherless girls.
Governesses and tutors were all well and good, but there must be a gentlewoman, a blood relative or a new wife, to step in and act as mama.
Young ladies required more than manners drilled into them, or facts about history and literature crammed into their heads. Ladies must master more than the ability to bang out notes on the pianoforte or embroider one more pillow cover nobody knew what to do with.
A well-bred lady developed correct instincts that could be employed in any situation only by being brought up by a gentlewoman of the same station.
Had there been only one or two of those offspring requiring such a mentoring figure, there had been several relatives who might have stepped forward. Had there only been one or two, the earl might have convinced some lady to wed him. Butfiveof them needing mothering?
Really, that was too much for anybody.
Anybody, that was, except Miss Eloise Mayton, third cousin, or perhaps fourth or fifth cousin, to the Earl of Westmont.
Miss Mayton had, at that precise moment in her history, found herself at loose ends, fading youth, and dwindling finances in Rome. Upon receipt of the earl’s rather plaintive letter, Miss Mayton drank her last glass of Orvieto, ate her last maritozzo, waved ciao to her acquaintances, and decamped to the earl’s estate in Somerset.
Ever since that time, she’d guided the earl’s five daughters with her rather unsteady and fanciful hand. Though nobody was absolutely certain what sort of cousin she was, or for that matter what precisely she’d been doing on the continent for all those years, her five charges had settled comfortably into calling her Aunt.
Now, that whimsical creature was poised to guide the launch of the eldest daughter, Lady Beatrice. Trunks were packed, letters sent flying, and final preparations made—they were to depart for London on the morrow.
Chapter One
Beatrice surveyed herarray of boxes and trunks and searched through drawers and under the bed for anything that might have been left behind during the packing.
Miss Mayton, a short and stout lady with a fondness for cakes, was not so bothered by the idea. She sat comfortably by the window with a cup of tea and a biscuit.
“Do not fret, Bea, if there is anything needed, we will purchase it in Town. I have already informed your father that we will be shopping as if it is our career. He shall not have a farthing to his name when we are through.”
“I suppose he took that as well as could be expected,” Beatrice said, laughing.
Her aunt delighted in telling her father that this or that thing would bring him to his knees, and then later pointing out that her excellent management had avoided the disaster.
“Our dear earl, he does not ruffle easily and so he took it quite stoically,” Miss Mayton said complacently.
Beatrice’s door flew open and a line of sisters rushed through it. Rosalind led the way, followed by Viola, Cordelia, and Juliet.
“Beatrice,” Rosalind said, “you will just die to know it—”
“Terribly die,” Viola confirmed.
“Instantly die,” Cordelia added.
“If you do not die, you will be very put out!” Juliet, the youngest, said of her own assessment of the situation.
As Beatrice did not yet know what she must either die of or be put out to know, she said, “Well?”
“Father has been opportuned by, well, you will likely guess who,” Rosalind said. “We heard it when we were passing by the library’s door. Where we had stopped quite coincidentally. Our poor papa collapsed like a house of cards.”
“We could not have avoided overhearing the exchange, naturally,” Cordelia confirmed. “I do not believe those doors are as thick as they ought to be.”
“Dinner,” Viola said.
“Dinner tonight,” Juliet said, to better confirm the time period in question.
“Is it Van Doren?” Beatrice asked. She could not imagine who else would invite themselves to dinner.
