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“It’s not that simple,” Viola argued.

“Why?”

“You’re all beautiful, for one thing.”

“As are you,” Joan flashed back.

Viola sighed. She had insipid brown hair, a pointed chin, eyes of an ordinary shape and an unremarkable color, and a small nose. In fact, she was small everywhere except her bosom.

Her stepsiblings were the result of years of breeding, and like the best racehorses, they showed it. Every single one was the very portrait of an aristocrat, with almond-shaped eyes, winged eyebrows, and an alabaster complexion.

Putting Joan’s golden hair to the side, the older children had inherited the duke’s dark hair, and the younger children had Ophelia’s red hair. But all of them, including Joan, had finely wrought features that spoke to generations of noble birth.

It wasn’t merely a matter of appearances. Over years of observation, Viola had realized that Wildes instinctively took on the mannerisms that defined the aristocracy. Even Erik at age ten excelled in raising one mocking eyebrow.

Viola had spent a whole summer squinting in the mirror before she accepted that her eyebrows were incapable of moving separately.

“When I meet someone, I imagine what they are thinking about me,” she admitted. “Sometimes I can almost hear voices laughing about me not belonging among the duke’s children, so loudly that I feel seasick.”

Joan scowled. “You mustn’t listen to that foolishness. The next time you meet someone, you should hold up your chin and silently repeat over and over, ‘I’m a Wilde. I’m a Wilde!’ We are your family, Viola, and we love you. You came to us as a baby, remember? You’re as much a Wilde Child as I am.”

“That’s silly,” Viola said, laughing.

“No, it is not. What if I succumbed to that sort of thinking? If I believed the worst that is said about me, I wouldn’t dare to debut at all. As it is, you and I shall debut together, heads high.”

“I’m a Wilde,” Viola mumbled. “I feel like an idiot.”

“Please try it?” Joan asked. Her eyes were hopeful, and Viola couldn’t say no. Besides, she was desperate. She had to conquer her shyness in order to be a true partner to Mr. Marlowe.

In the next few weeks, she practiced thinking, I’m a Wilde when talking to the housekeeper, when taking the pony cart into Mobberley to drop in on Mr. Marlowe and see how the vicarage renovations were coming, even when talking to her older stepbrother North.

Joan stayed at her side, and every time Viola faltered, overcome by a stab of shyness, Joan would hiss, “Wilde Child!” The phrase was so absurd that it made Viola smile—and somehow survive the moment.

It helped.

Absurd, unlikely, ridiculous as it was, the phrase helped.

In early January, two parliamentary lords and a visiting ambassador from France joined the dining table. Normally, Viola would have eaten in her bedchamber, but instead, she walked into the room clutching Joan’s hand, Wilde Child beating over and over in her head.

One of the lords was sixty if he was a day, and Viola found herself discussing the nesting habits of gray herons with him. Before she knew it, she was talking to the other lord as well, even though he was a young man, and unmarried. She didn’t feel even a tinge of nausea. Why should she? She had a mission.

The next morning she confided to Mr. Marlowe about her terror of the upcoming Season, hoping that he would volunteer to accompany the family to London. Instead he patted her hand, looked deeply into her eyes, and assured her that Providence would provide.

That wasn’t particularly helpful.

At a family-only dinner that night, the conversation turned to the household’s imminent move to London; Lady Knowe had decided that the household should depart in January, rather than February.

Viola felt a pulse of terror at the thought, but: “I’m a Wilde,” she said to herself.

“I don’t intend to marry until my third Season,” Joan said. She waggled her eyebrows at the duke. “Any suitors who come your way . . . Reject them immediately, if you please. They needn’t propose to me in person; it won’t change my mind.”

“I agree,” Viola put in quickly.

“You can always live with me, Viola, if you don’t want to marry anyone,” Erik said. He peered at Viola owlishly. “There’s something different about you lately. I hadn’t noticed before, but you are pretty. I could marry you, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“That is a very kind offer,” Viola said, smiling at him.

“Erik is right,” Aunt Knowe said. “These last few weeks you’ve been less timid.”