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“I can get through it,” Viola said to Cleo, stroking her smudgy, soft nose. “I can survive the Season.”

Cleo didn’t bother to moo.

Likely she knew as well as Viola that while survival was probable, success was unlikely.

Even Aunt Knowe had a tight look around her eyes when the subject came up. She had taken to dosing the footmen with dandelion potions and asking them if they felt capable of serving dinner without breaking plates. Unfortunately, when Viola tried a dose, she slept away the entire afternoon.

“It’s only a few months,” Viola told Daisy, who blinked her long eyelashes and chewed meditatively. Viola hitched her stool a bit closer and leaned her cheek against the cow’s bristly, warm side. Inside she heard mysterious gurgling sounds. “But I’m a coward.”

Acknowledging the fact didn’t change anything.

Her pet crow, Barty, had been dozing on Daisy’s back, but he woke up and gave a little squawk. She was doomed, and even Barty agreed.

That night at their family-only supper, the duke announced that he’d found a new vicar.

“His name is Mr. Marlowe,” His Grace said. “He comes highly recommended by the Bishop of London. He’ll have the living on a year’s trial, as he’s both inexperienced and unmarried.”

“Is he handsome?” Joan asked, and squealed when ten-year-old Erik elbowed her.

“Children,” Ophelia said placidly.

“It was merely a question. I don’t want to marry a vicar,” Joan said.

“Viola could marry him,” Erik suggested.

“No, thank you,” Viola said. Her grand life plan involved surviving the Season and gratefully lapsing into life as a spinster.

“Mr. Marlowe is betrothed,” Aunt Knowe put in.

“He took an excellent first at Cambridge,” the duke said. “He’s young, though. Comes to us with only a few years as a curate.”

“His entrée is his fiancée,” Aunt Knowe added. She kept a close eye on polite society, by way of voluminous correspondence. “Miss Pettigrew is the granddaughter of an archbishop, daughter of a bishop, and reading between the lines, she means to push the man into a bishopric before he turns thirty.”

A few days later, Viola and Joan were sitting in the drawing room when Aunt Knowe trotted in and announced that Mrs. Pettigrew, Miss Pettigrew, and Mr. Marlowe had unexpectedly come to pay a visit.

Viola and Joan sprang to their feet. They had spent the morning making paper flowers, and bright scraps of paper were scattered all over the carpet. Barty had been seated on the back of the settee, overseeing their work, but he startled, instinctively tried to fly, and flopped over the back of the settee instead.

“Barty!” Viola cried, peering over. Her crow managed to land on his feet and looked up at her crossly. From experience she knew that he would now spend an hour or two grooming each of his wing feathers into shiny perfection.

Barty was a pragmatic bird, as the duke pointed out: Having discovered that his wings didn’t function, he focused on beauty.

“Join us whenever you wish,” she told him, and got to her feet. When Barty wasn’t embarrassed—as he was now—he was a sociable fellow who added companionable squawks to any conversation.

Aunt Knowe was greeting their guests at the drawing room door. Viola walked over to join her, leaving Barty to sulk behind the settee.

Miss Pettigrew was tall, with a superb bosom that curved like the prow of a ship. But nothing else about her resembled those jolly wooden women who plunge into the waves, breasts leading the way.

She wore a navy gown whose only ornament was a row of shiny buttons, a style that labeled the gown three to four years old. Viola had the strong feeling that Miss Pettigrew did not pay attention to frivolities of fashion. The pious look in her eyes suggested she considered herself above such earthly concerns.

Her mother was a taller version of the daughter, and her black gown, if not her expression, proclaimed that fashion was a trivial matter.

“He’s very handsome,” Joan whispered as Viola finished her curtsies. “I’d wager that all the ladies hereabouts begin attending services.”

Viola always avoided looking at strange men, having perfected the art of dropping into a curtsy and murmuring a greeting with lowered eyes. She had registered only that Mr. Marlowe didn’t tower over her the way the Wildes did. He wasn’t much taller than she was, perhaps even shorter than Miss Pettigrew.

It wasn’t until their new vicar was escorting his future mother-in-law to a settee that Viola dared to peek at his face.

Joan was right.