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Prism had been standing to the side supervising the dispersal of lemon cake. He stepped forward. “I shall take Master Barty,” he said. The butler was one of Barty’s favorite people, since Prism had spent hours feeding him as a baby, and he readily hopped to his arm.

“Thank you,” Viola said, as Prism walked away, his arm held high at a right angle, as if he were dancing a minuet.

“I never!” Miss Pettigrew said, dropping her hands from her bosom.

Aunt Knowe stepped in before Miss Pettigrew could elaborate on an opinion that was likely to prove universally unpopular.

“How are your plans for the parish progressing?” she asked Mr. Marlowe.

“I have suggestions about how you might encourage parishioners to attend services,” Viola said brightly.

Mrs. Pettigrew cast her a narrow glance. “Such matters are best left to the vicar.”

But Mr. Marlowe was more polite, and for the next five minutes, they had a lively exchange about ways to bring people to the church, ranging from a harvest dinner—“expensive and unnecessary,” sniffed Mrs. Pettigrew—to a Sunday school.

Mr. Marlowe was as delightful on closer acquaintance as he had appeared the day before. He was deeply kind and interested in the welfare of everyone in the parish. He listened respectfully to Viola’s ideas, which was refreshing after Father Duddleston’s invariable refusal to consider anything new.

“Our friend Lady Caitlin Paget began a Sunday school in St. Wilfrid’s parish in London,” Viola told him. “At first she had a hard time convincing mothers to send their children. Now she has a schoolmaster in the afternoons as well.”

“I know Lady Caitlin, since I was a curate at St. Wilfrid’s,” Mr. Marlowe said, a smile lighting his eyes. “She is a remarkable young lady.”

As Mrs. Pettigrew launched into a monologue about the poor’s need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Viola began musing over her second problem. She couldn’t leave Mr. Marlowe in Cheshire while she went to London. The Season began in April, but the family would leave for London in early February; it would take at least two months for modistes to create a wardrobe proper for Viola’s and Joan’s debuts.

Mr. Marlowe was planning to marry Miss Pettigrew in only eight months. How would he ever choose Viola over Miss Pettigrew if they didn’t become better acquainted? He must come to London and be provided with opportunities for comparison.

Her shyness was a problem too. She couldn’t be a true partner to Mr. Marlowe if she trembled every time she encountered a male parishioner.

That night she recruited Joan to help with her shyness, using their upcoming debut as an excuse.

“Aunt Knowe says that once you’ve met enough young gentlemen, you’ll realize that they are mostly hopeless duffers, and not to be feared,” Joan reminded her.

Viola had heard this bit of wisdom many times. “What goes through your head when you meet someone for the first time?”

“Do you mean an eligible young man?”

“Yes.”

“I consider whether I find him appealing,” Joan said promptly. “I like a firm chin and dark eyebrows. I can’t abide sandy eyebrows. But looks are not everything. Does he have the faintest interest in what I have to say, or does he lecture me about his interests? Does he look like a gambler, a degenerate, or a fortune-hunter?”

“How would you know about the last?” Viola asked. She had a feeling she knew what a degenerate looked like, albeit a titled version, but she had no idea about fortune-hunters.

“Shifty eyes,” Joan said, narrowing her own. “Versus lascivious ones.” She goggled at Viola. “Like this. What do you think when you meet someone?”

“I—”

Joan waited, eyebrow raised.

“I wonder if they think I don’t belong among the Wildes,” Viola said in a rush.

Joan looked nonplussed. “Why do you think that?”

“I’m not really a Wilde.”

“No more am I,” Joan pointed out. Her mother had fled the country with a yellow-haired Prussian count, leaving her newborn (yellow-haired) baby behind. It was generally accepted by everyone in the family except for the duke that Joan didn’t have a drop of ducal blood in her.

“But you . . . you’re you.”

“I won’t make the obvious response,” Joan said, looking suddenly very like Aunt Knowe. “You are as much a Wilde as I am. As is Parth, who is adopted. As well as your mother’s other children, Erik, Artemisia, and Spartacus. All of us are Wildes, and that’s the end of it.”