Page 1 of Counting on Love

Chapter One

November 1812, London

The London Season. The Marriage Mart. It was said to be the most exciting time in a lady’s life—the contest for which she had been preparing since birth—during which a mere few months of attending parties would determine her entire future.

Why was that not appalling? Lady Georgiana Stewart, daughter of the Duke of Hovington, turned to her cousin Alice and forced a smile. A waiting footman handed them down from the ducal carriage onto a wide, brick-paved drive. Georgiana’s mother, the Duchess, preceded them, marching ahead as if into battle, nodding greetings to other arrivals. Georgiana gestured up the crowded walkway to the entrance of a blazingly lit Greek revival-style home.

“I hope you aren’t nervous, Alice.” If she was, Georgiana knew she would be no help, not while laboring under her own cloud of dread.

“In these clothes? Of course not,” Alice replied with a jaunty twitch of her wrap.

Alice did look particularly pretty. The high-waisted, pale-yellow gown suited her dark hair and pale complexion. Its green bows brought out the color of her eyes, which were bright with amusement, not nerves.

Alice glanced ahead at her formidable aunt. “Besides, the Duchess has reassured me tonight is strictly for practice. It’s not an official function.”

True, the Season would not officially open until Lady Andini’s ball on Thursday. Meanwhile, Mrs. Preston, the independent-minded sister of the Marquess of Waltham, had been holding this pre-Season rout annually ever since she defied expectations and married a handsome, wealthy cit. The ton may not have approved, but invitations to her parties were highly prized, especially by those young ladies about to be launched, who appreciated a tame evening of preparation. It was the unofficial start to the most exciting time of their lives.

Georgiana looped her arm through Alice’s and followed her mother up the walk.

“I need this too. I’m woefully out of practice.”

She regretted the callous words the minute they left her mouth. Out of practice might be true enough. At the end of the last Season, which had been calamitous, she’d fled London for the peace and quiet of her father’s country house in Marbury, determined to avoid fashionable society for as long as possible. Yet equating her situation with Alice’s was unjust. Mama’s widowered brother’s daughter was what one might call a poor relation. Her dowry was scanty, and her father possessed only proximity to a title. Whereas Georgiana’s advantages still outweighed her disadvantages—that was the problem.

Alice gave her arm a pat. “Once more unto the breach, dear friend. Stiffen the sinews. Summon up the blood.”

At that, Georgiana laughed. No one understood her as well as Alice.

And perhaps their situations were not so different. At nineteen years of age, they both needed to find husbands, sooner better than later. There was no other choice.

When they were young, growing up almost as sisters, they gabbled excitedly, callowly, about coming out together. But as the time approached, without ever discussing it, they realized that a dual debut would be unfair. Alice would have to compete with Georgiana for gentlemen’s attention. And how could she? Whereas Alice was merely pretty, Georgiana was a renowned beauty.

The renown was largely the result of a few egregious sonnets that had made the rounds last winter, praising her strawberry-blonde hair, her Greek nose, her milk-white skin, and, daringly, her pleasing figure—a lot of fustian nonsense. She was a duke’s daughter, and her dowry would be at least twenty thousand pounds. That was the true source of her beauty’s renown.

At her coming out ball, she had immediately been dubbed: the Incomparable, a sobriquet as embarrassing as it was unoriginal. The splash she’d made had merely increased the pressure on her to make a brilliant match. It was expected of her. And she had failed.

Oh, she’d had offers. If she possessed two heads and snakes for hair, she would have had offers. Frightened, she turned them all down. Men she barely knew were asking for a lifetime of devotion! A lifetime.

The balls, the theater, the routs, the musicales, even Almack’s—especially Almack’s—it had all been so…boring. And here she was, preparing to go through it all again. She must. And it would be worse: having failed to pull off a triumph her first Season, she would find suitors warier. What is wrong with Lady Georgiana?

What was wrong was that she could not bear to commit to a lifetime of mind-numbing dullness.

And how unfair that she would still overshadow Alice, who deserved her own opportunity to shine.

They reached the open door where Mrs. Preston greeted her guests. Mama introduced Alice. Georgiana, of course, was known. Their hostess urged them to move into the music room to find the other young people and some light refreshments. The Duchess, she claimed for herself.

Georgiana steered her cousin down the hall toward the sound of voices. It all seemed eerily similar to last year. That impression was reinforced when they entered the music room: the same piano pushed against the wall, a buzzing assembly of prettily dressed ladies and smartly attired gentlemen, the scent of cakes, punch, and perfume. She was acquainted with most of the other guests, Alice less so. She would have to smooth her cousin’s path, but just looking at the gathering made her tired.

Fortunately, the first face to emerge from the mix was that of Lord Haslet. She smiled, relaxing a bit, as he approached.

“Lady Georgiana! How good to see you.”

“And you, my lord. May I present my cousin, Miss Alice Fogbotham? This is Lord Haslet.”

“Delighted.” He bent a leg with an absurd flourish that made Alice giggle.

Viscount Haslet, Hazard to his friends, was a forty-year-old confirmed bachelor. He drank little, gambled less, and was said to be worth a fortune: a spectacular catch if one ignored rumors of hidden vice. He had approached her last year in this same room in much the same way, flirting so maladroitly that she quickly guessed he wasn’t serious. In retrospect, it had been one of the few highlights of the Season. She had looked for him at other parties, but he rarely attended once he’d “done his duty and reminded people of his existence”. He’d proposed to her midway through the calendar, as soon as he was certain, he’d said, that she would refuse him—only so that he could honestly inform his mother that he had.

It seemed his mother didn’t like his heir, a cousin’s son who she’d decided was a wastrel.