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“I hardly think –”

“– you are capable, kind and honest, and –”

“I am not beautiful like you, Aimee,” Ursula interrupted her.

Aimee thought of Ursula’s dear face and felt her heart contract. “You are beautiful!” she insisted.

“No,” her sister contradicted her simply. “I have a looking glass, Aimee. As Papa has always said, you are his little beauty, and I am his capable one.”

“Oh, curse Father!”

“Aimee!”

“Oh well! I hardly think Papa is a judge,” Aimee huffed, thinking of the Widow Hemmings’s double-chin and rather prominent nose. “He just thinks plump women are pretty. I wish I was as slender as you are, Ursula. I daresay I will be quite stout before I am thirty. In any case, I will speak to Father on the morrow.”

“Don’t you dare, Aimee!” Ursula gasped. “Besides,” she added in a stronger voice. “Besides, it is not just these considerations which convince me I am ill-suited for such a match.”

“What, then?” asked Aimee, her ears pricking up.

Ursula lay back down on the mattress and let out a sigh. “I am not blessed with your sunny nature. I do not have your resilience.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Aimee wondered aloud. For no one knew Ursula’s retiring nature as well as she.

“Anyone who …” Ursula’s voice faltered. “Who marries outside the rank they were born into,” she carried on painstakingly. “Would need to be hardy of nature indeed and … and able to withstand the judgement and censure of others. You are strong of will, and such things would not affect you as much as I. Oh, Aimee,” Ursa confessed in a rush. “Ever since we have been staying under this roof, I have felt I am walking on eggshells, miserably aware of ‍…”

“Every glance Lady Wycliffe sends our father’s way,” Aimee supplied for her and heard Ursula’s head turn on her pillow.

“You have noticed it too, sister?” Ursula sounded astonished.

“Of course. She winces and grimaces whenever Father speaks at their table. No doubt, she thinks he should sit there quiet as a mouse, profoundly grateful to find himself in such exalted company.” Aimee’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“That is just what she thinks,” Ursula agreed hollowly.

“Golda says Lord Wycliffe has drunk and gambled away their fortune, and they haven’t a pot to piss in.”

“Aimee!”

Aimee laughed. “I think of what Golda said every time I see Lady Wycliffe shudder, and it brings the serenest smile to my face. You should try it, sister.” She reached out and patted Ursula’s arm. “Now, try not to worry yourself to distraction. I will speak to Father on the morrow, and all will be well.”

“Aimee, you must not,” her sister murmured, but Aimee’s mind was made up. She could not concentrate on her own love for Lord Kentigern when her older sister’s future was not provided for. Something would have to be done.

Ursula deserved to have what she wanted for once, instead of putting her younger sister or Father first. Ursula admired Sir Renlow, and therefore, she would have Sir Renlow. By hook or by crook, Aimee vowed she would make it so.

2

Caer Lyoness, the summer capital, the following July

The right honorable Konrad Bartree, otherwise known as fifth Baron Kentigern, was in a vile mood. The ferocious glare he bent on the landlord at The Jennet Tree was enough to make the man take an involuntary step backward. Even as he opened his mouth to blast the wretch into oblivion, his manservant Jakeman stepped hastily into the fray.

“His lordship requires a room for the next two weeks,” he interjected swiftly. “If you cannot accommodate me as well, then I am sure I can find alternative accommodation nearby. Lord Kentigern has been a patron of your inn these past three years, good master Johnson, as I’m sure you’ll remember.”

The landlord’s shoulders came down a notch. “One room I can manage, right willingly,” he agreed, casting a nervous look in Konrad’s direction. “And I only ’ope ’is lordship can pardon the fact I must ask his servant to put up elsewhere. Caer Lyoness has been overrun this past two weeks, and I’ve never known it so busy!”

Jakeman made all the right replies, tutting at the influx of strangers who had poured into the city and nodding his head sympathetically as the older man vented his woes. Soon the landlord had calmed sufficiently to have Konrad’s bags carried up the narrow stairs to a bedchamber and a table set up below for his lordship’s refreshment.

Konrad flung himself down on the bench and took a large swig of his foaming tankard. The pleasant taste of the ale soothed him and reminded him why he always put up at The Jennet Treewhenever he was forced to come to the accursed southern capital. He glanced about at the busy room. The landlord had not lied. Within was busy, just as busy as the teeming streets without.

Most of them must have flocked to the city for the same reason as he, the royal summer tournament. Unlike the hawkers, pickpockets, and tourists, he actually had a relevant role to play in proceedings, he reflected sourly.