Much Ado About You

ELOISA JAMES

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the U.S.A. by AVON BOOKS

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2005

Copyright © Eloisa James 2005

Eloisa James asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007229482

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007396061

Version: 2018-04-09

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

Keep Reading

A Love Letter to Louisa May Alcott

Why Every Heroine Needs a sister Just as Much as She needs a Husband (Ooops! Did I say More Then She Needs a Man?)

About the Author

Praise

About the Publisher

One

September 1816 Holbrook Court, seat of the Duke of Holbrook On the outskirts of Silchester

In the afternoon

‘I am happy to announce that the rocking horses have been delivered, Your Grace. I have placed them in the nursery for your inspection. As yet, there is no sign of the children.’

Raphael Jourdain, Duke of Holbrook, turned. He had been poking a fire smouldering in the cavernous fireplace of his study. There was a reserved tone in his butler’s voice that signalled displeasure. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Brinkley’s tone signalled the disgruntlement of the entire household of elderly servants, not one of whom was enchanted by the idea of accommodating themselves to the presence of four small, female children. Well, the hell with that, Rafe thought. It wasn’t as if he’d asked to have a passel of youngsters on the premises.

‘Rocking horses?’ came a drawling voice from a deep chair to the right of the fireplace. ‘Charming, Rafe. Charming. One can’t start too early making the little darlings interested in horseflesh.’ Garret Langham, the Earl of Mayne, raised his glass toward his host. His black curls were in exquisite disarray, his comments arrogant to a fault, and his manners barely hid a seething fury. Not that he was furious at Rafe; Mayne had been in a slow burn for the past few months. ‘To Papa and his brood of infant equestriennes,’ he added, tossing back his drink.

‘Stubble it!’ Rafe said, but without much real animosity. Mayne was a damned uncomfortable companion at the moment, what with his poisonous comments and black humour. Still, one had to assume that the foul temper caused by the shock of being rejected by a woman would wear off in a matter of time.

‘Why the plural, as in rocking horses?’ Mayne asked. ‘As I recall, most nurseries contain only one rocking horse.’

Rafe took a gulp of his brandy. ‘I don’t know much about children,’ he said, ‘but I distinctly remember my brother and me fighting over our toys. So I bought four of them.’

There was a second’s silence during which the earl considered whether to acknowledge the fact that Rafe obviously still missed his brother (dead these five years, now). He dismissed the impulse. Manlike, he observed no benefit to maudlin conversation.

‘You’re doing those orphans proud,’ he said instead. ‘Most guardians would stow the children out of sight. It’s not as if they’re your blood.’

‘There’s no amount of dolls in the world that will make up for their situation,’ Rafe said, shrugging. ‘Their father should have thought of his responsibilities before he climbed on a stallion.’

The conversation was getting dangerously close to the sort of emotion to be avoided at all costs, so Mayne sprang from his chair. ‘Let’s have a look at the rocking horses, then. I haven’t seen one in years.’

‘Right,’ Rafe said, putting his glass onto the table with a sharp clink. ‘Brinkley, if the children arrive, bring them upstairs, and I’ll receive them in the nursery.’

A few minutes later the two men stood in the middle of a large room on the third floor, dizzily painted with murals. Little Bo Peep chased after Red Riding Hood, who was surely in danger of being crushed by the giant striding across the wall, his raised foot lowering over a feather bed sporting a huge green pea under the coverlet. The room resembled nothing so much as a Bond Street toy shop. Four dolls with spun gold hair sat primly on a bench. Four doll beds were propped atop each other, next to four doll tables, on which sat four jack-in-the-boxes. In the midst of it all was a group of rocking horses graced with real horsehair and coming almost to a man’s waist.

‘Jesus,’ Mayne said.

Rafe strode into the room and stamped on the rocker of one of the horses, making it clatter back and forth on the wooden floor. A door on the side of the room swung open, and a plump woman in a white apron poked her head out.

‘There you are, Your Grace,’ she said, beaming. ‘We’re just waiting for the children. Would you like to meet the new maids now?’

‘Send them on in, Mrs Beeswick.’

Four young nursemaids crowded into the room after her. ‘Daisy, Gussie, Elsie, and Mary,’ said the nanny. ‘They’re from the village, Your Grace, and pleased to have a position at Holbrook Court. We’re all eager for the little cherubs to arrive.’ The nursemaids lined up to either side of Mrs Beeswick, smiling and curtsying.

‘Jesus,’ Mayne repeated. ‘They won’t even share a maid, Rafe?’

‘Why should they? My brother and I had three nurses between us.’

‘Three?

‘Two for my brother, ever since he became duke at the age of seven, and one for me.’

Mayne snorted. ‘That’s absurd. When’s the last time you met your wards’ father, Lord Brydone?’

‘Not for years,’ Rafe said, picking up a jack-in-the-box and pressing the lever so that it hopped from its box with a loud squeak. ‘The arrangement was just a matter of a note from him and my reply.’

‘You have never met your own wards?’

‘Never. I haven’t been over the border in years, and Brydone only came down for the Ascot, the Silchester, and, sometimes, Newmarket. To be honest, I don’t think he really gave a damn for anything other than his stables. He didn’t even bother to list his children in Debrett’s. Of course, since he had four girls, there was no question of inheritance. The estate went to some distant cousin.’

‘Why on earth -’ Mayne glanced at the five women standing to the side of the room and checked himself.

‘He asked me,’ Rafe said, shrugging. ‘I didn’t think twice of it. Apparently Monkton had been in line, but he cocked up his toes last year. And Brydone asked me to step in. Who would have thought that ill could come to Brydone? It was a freak accident, that horse throwing him. Although he was fool enough to ride a half-broken stallion.’

‘Damned if I thought I’d ever see you a father,’ Mayne said.

‘I had no excuse to say no. I have the substance to raise any number of children. Besides, Brydone gave me Starling in return for acting as a guardian. I told him I’d do the job, as soon as he wrote me, and no bribe was necessary. But he sent Starling down from Scotland, and no one would say nay to adding that horse to their stables.’

‘Starling is out of Standout, isn’t he?’

Rafe nodded. ‘Patchem’s brother. The core of Brydone’s stable is out of Patchem, and those are now the only horses in England in Patchem’s direct line. I’m hopeful that Starling will win the Derby next year, even if he is descended from Standout rather than Patchem himself.’

‘What will happen to Patchem’s offspring?’ Mayne asked, with the particular intensity he reserved for talk of horses. ‘Something Wanton, for example?’

‘I don’t know yet. Obviously, the stables aren’t entailed. My secretary has been up there working on the estate. Should Brydone’s stable come to the children, I’ll put the horses up for auction and the money in trust. The girls will need dowries someday, and I’d be surprised if Brydone bothered to set them up himself.’

‘If Wanton is for sale, I’m the one to buy him. I’d pay thousands for him. There could be no better addition to my stables.’

‘He would do wonders for mine as well,’ Rafe agreed.

Mayne had found a little heap of cast-iron horses and was sorting them out so that each carriage was pulled by a matched pair. ‘You know, these are quite good.’ He had all the cast-iron horses and their carriages lined up on the mantelpiece now. ‘Wait till your wards see these horses. They won’t think twice about the move from Scotland. Pity there’s no boy amongst them.’

Rafe just looked at him. The earl was one of his dearest friends, and always would be. But Mayne’s sleek, protected life had not put him in the way of grief. Rafe knew only too well what it felt like to find oneself lonely in the midst of a cozy nursery, and cast-iron horses wouldn’t help, for all he found himself buying more and more of them. As if toys would make up for a dead father. ‘I hardly think you -’

The door behind him swung open. He stopped and turned.

Brinkley moved to the side more nimbly than was his practice. It wasn’t every day that one got to knock the master speechless with surprise. ‘I’m happy to announce Miss Essex. Miss Imogen. Miss Annabel. Miss Josephine.’

Then he added, unable to resist, if the truth be known, ‘The children have arrived, Your Grace.’

Two

The first thing Teresa Essex noticed was that the Englishmen were playing with toys. Toys! That fitted with everything they’d heard about Englishmen: thin, puny types they were, who never grew up and shivered with cold during a stiff breeze.

Still, they were only men, if English versions of them.

Tess hadn’t been much over sixteen years old when she realised that men’s notions of toys were flexible. With a glance at Josie and a touch on Imogen’s shoulder she brought her sisters into a straight line. Annabel had already fallen into place, her head tilted just so, the better to allow the beholders to appreciate the sheen of her honey-golden hair.

These Englishmen looked even more shocked at the sight of the four of them than was usual. They were practically gaping. Quite rude, really. They weren’t exactly the spindly-legged, sickly creatures she would have expected, from what was said about Englishmen. The one of them looked like a fashion plate and had a wild mop of black curls that she supposed must be fashionable. Not that he was a dandy. Dandies didn’t have that faintly dangerous air. The other was tall, with a bit of a gut and a messy shock of brown hair falling over his brow. A lone wolf, perhaps.

‘Well,’ she said finally, when no one spoke, ‘we are, naturally, sorry to interrupt you both, especially when you were so gainfully occupied.’ She gave it just the faintest stress. Just enough to let them know that they were not merely pretty Scottish lasses, to be shunted off to the back room and ignored. They were ladies, after all, whether they wore unfashionable clothing or not.

The elegant one bowed and came forward, saying, ‘What a delightful surprise to meet you, Miss Essex. All of you.’

There was something odd about his voice, as if he were having trouble not laughing. But he kissed her hand with all the adroitness of a courtier.

Then finally the big one, the lone wolf, shook himself, for all the world like a dog coming out of a puddle, and came to her side as well. ‘I apologise for my impoliteness,’ he said. ‘I am Rafe Jourdain, the Duke of Holbrook. I’m afraid that I mistook your ages.’

‘Our ages?’ Tess let her eyebrows ask a delicate question. Then, slowly, the implications of the gaudily painted room and the clusters of toys sank in. ‘You thought we were still children?’

He nodded, standing before her now, bowing again, the easy sweep of a man who has spent his lifetime in the highest echelons of society, even though he (apparently) didn’t bother to brush his hair. ‘I offer you all my heartiest apologies. I was under the erroneous belief that you and you sisters were quite young.’

‘Young!’ Tess said. ‘You must have thought we were mere babes in arms!’ Because now she had taken in the presence of a nanny and four gaping young nursemaids in white aprons, the rocking horses, the dolls. ‘Didn’t Papa tell you -’

But she broke off. Of course Papa hadn’t told him. Papa had likely informed him of Starling’s age, and Wanton’s stride, and what Lady of Pleasure liked to eat before a race, but not the ages of his daughters.

Their guardian had taken her hand and was smiling down at her now, and her heart warmed despite her resentment. ‘I’m such a fool that I forgot to ask your father. And, of course, I hadn’t the faintest notion that my guardianship would be needed. Will you accept my deepest sympathies for your loss, Miss Essex?’

Tess blinked. His eyes were a curious colour, sort of a grey-blue. And kind, for all he looked like a wild man of Borneo. A dash of hope mixed with the bleak feeling of defensiveness in her chest.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘May I introduce my sisters? This is Imogen,’ she said, turning to her sister. ‘Imogen is just turned twenty.’ There were moments when she thought that Imogen was more beautiful than Annabel (and that was really saying something). She had their mother’s sleek black hair and her laughing eyes, but that mouth – only Imogen had a mouth that took such an exquisite curve. Sometimes it struck men like a blow in the stomach; it was rather interesting to watch the duke blink and recover.

Imogen, of course, never paid any mind to the effect she had on men because she was in love. She did smile at the duke, though, and gave a pretty curtsy. When their father had a bit of money, he usually remembered to hire a governess for a time, at least, and so they all could put on dandified manners when required.

‘This is Annabel,’ Tess said, putting a hand on Annabel’s arm. ‘Annabel is the eldest after me; she is twenty-two.’ If Imogen paid no heed to men, Annabel must have toddled out of her nurse’s arms knowing how to flirt. Now she gave the duke a rosy-lipped smile that spoke of innocence and something else; she pitched her voice to the tune of an unheavenly appreciation. Her simple greeting sounded like honey with an edge of lemon.

The duke showed no sign of turning weak at the knees.

‘Miss Annabel,’ he said, bringing her hand to his lips. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘And Josephine,’ Tess said. ‘Josie is fifteen, and still in the schoolroom.’

Tess noticed that the duke was already smiling at Josie, which was a sign of his good manners. She loathed it when men acted as if they were stuck by glue to Annabel’s side and only gave Josie the scantest glance.

‘I’d rather you didn’t kiss my hand,’ Josie said briskly.

‘May I introduce a friend of mine?’ the duke said, acting as if he didn’t hear Josie’s comment, although he made no effort to kiss her hand. ‘Garret Langham, the Earl of Mayne.’

Annabel gave Mayne a blithely appreciative smile, as if she were a four-year-old being handed a piece of birthday cake. There was nothing more to Annabel’s taste than a man in possession of all his limbs and a title.

Mayne smiled back with something of the same admiration, although Tess thought that his emotion likely had little to do with Annabel’s forefathers.

The gentlemen completed their greetings, and the duke turned back to her. ‘Miss Essex, since none of you are likely to have interest in these -’ he waved his hand ‘- these playthings, shall we retire to the public rooms? I’m afraid that my housekeeper will likely need a short period of time to ready bedchambers for you, but I imagine your maids will assist.’

Tess felt a blush rising up her collarbone. ‘We haven’t brought any maids with us.’

‘In that case,’ her guardian said without even blinking, we can employ these four young women for the purpose, if that would be acceptable.’ He indicated the four nursemaids, still lined up against the wall, their eyes wide as ha’pennies. ‘I’m certain the housekeeper can train them in their duties readily enough.’

‘You’re in need of a chaperone,’ Mayne put in, with a slanting glance at the duke. ‘Now that you’re no longer running a nursery. Tonight, Rafe.’

Clearly the thought hadn’t crossed their guardian’s mind. ‘Dammit, I’ll have to write a note to Lady Clarice,’ he said, running a hand through his wild hair, ‘and ask her to pay me a visit. That’s if she’ll come after last time; I think I was a trifle rude to her.’

‘In your cups, were you?’ Mayne asked.

A wry grimace curled their guardian’s mouth. ‘I threw her out, with luck not bodily. Can’t really remember.’ He suddenly realised that Tess and the girls were all staring at him and gave them a smile that hadn’t a whit of remorse in it. ‘Now my wards will think I’m a sot.’

‘To know you is to love you,’ the earl said, throwing him a sarcastic grin. ‘My dear Misses Essex, the evening when your guardian isn’t clutching a bumper of brandy will be the day hell blooms with roses.’

‘Lady Clarice’s land runs parallel to ours,’ Holbrook said to Tess, ignoring his friend’s comment. ‘I daresay if I send a pretty enough note, she’ll forgive me since we are in desperate circumstances. You can’t possibly spend the night under my roof without a chaperone.’

But Mayne wasn’t to be silenced. ‘The lady’s a widow, and she has an eye for your guardian,’ he told the girls. ‘I do believe she’s hoping that one day she’ll find him so deep in his cups that he doesn’t notice that she’s calling the banns. It’s too bad for her that Rafe doesn’t show his liquor.’

‘Nonsense,’ the duke said gruffly, sweeping his hair about so that he looked even more of a lunatic.

‘Doesn’t bother her that she has ten years on Rafe,’ Mayne continued blithely. ‘Lady Clarice has an optimistic soul, for all that her own son is almost Rafe’s own age.’

‘Maitland is considerably younger than I,’ the duke said rather curtly.

‘He’s in his twenties,’ Mayne said, ‘and that makes Lady Clarice at least five years older than you.’

Tess felt rather than heard an agitated little sound from Imogen, at the same second that her own heart sunk. They were hoping to wean Imogen from her hopeless adoration of Lord Maitland, and finding him next door wasn’t the best start. ‘Are you by any chance referring to Draven Maitland, Your Grace?’ she asked, obedient to an imploring glance from Imogen.

‘So you know Maitland, do you?’ It didn’t look to Tess as if their guardian thought much more of Lord Maitland than she did. ‘Likely he’ll accompany his mother then. I’ll ask them both to join us for supper. Perhaps you and your sisters would like to take a short rest before the evening meal?’

‘That would be pleasant,’ Tess said. Imogen was grinning like a fool. Tess saw the duke’s eyes take in her grin, but he said nothing.

‘The rose suite will do until your chambers are readied.’ Holbrook held out his arm, and Tess took it, rather awkwardly.

The Englishmen were so unlike what she had expected! They were – formidable. But Englishmen weren’t supposed to be formidable. Everything she’d ever heard about English gentlemen suggested that they were willowy creatures, liable to sneeze and blow away. Oh, there were exceptions, of course. Lord Maitland, for one, had a sturdy enough figure.

Their new guardian didn’t fit the mould either. He was not ducal in the least. He wasn’t dressed in satin or velvet. Instead, he was wearing trousers so old that she could see the seams on the side, especially where they strained over his belly, and a white shirt that didn’t have a bit of satin on it. Its sleeves were even turned up, as if he were about to set to work in the stables.

There was nothing aristocratic about his voice, either. It was nice enough, but gruff and brusque. And he had lines around his eyes, for all he couldn’t be more than thirty-five. Dissipated, that’s what he looked. Not a womaniser: Tess could spot one of those a mile off, and though he looked at all of them with interest, there wasn’t a spark of appreciation of their womanhood in his eyes.

And yet, for all that wild hair and dissipated face and ancient clothing, for all of that — he wasn’t frightening.

Tess felt a hard knot in her chest begin to loosen, just a trifle.

This burly man who had hired four nursemaids for four little girls and was never without a bumper of brandy … he wasn’t someone to fear.

Tess looked down at the worn linen of his shirtsleeve and said, ‘I want to thank you, Your Grace, for accepting this guardianship.’ She swallowed, but it had to be said. ‘My father was an improvident man, and sometimes he traded upon acquaintance in a way that must create a burden.’

He looked genuinely surprised. ‘Don’t think twice about it, m’dear.’

‘I’m quite serious,’ Tess persisted. ‘I -’

‘So am I,’ the duke said. ‘I must be named guardian in at least twenty wills, Miss Essex. I am a duke, after all, and I’ve never seen that I had a reason to refuse such a request.’

‘Oh,’ Tess said, shocked to the bone. It seemed her father wasn’t the only man to take advantage of a slender acquaintance with Holbrook.

He patted her hand, for all the world as if he were a middle-aged uncle. ‘Not to fear, Miss Essex. I’m certain we can figure out this guardianship business amongst us. It should be an easy enough business to find a governess for young Josie. Finding a chaperone that we can bear to live with might take a bit more thinking. But there’s nothing to worry about.’

To Tess’s mind, worry had been her sole emotion of last few months, most of which had been occupied by squabbling over the possibility that their guardian was a reasonable, kindly man versus a half-cracked horseman. And to each and every nervous question Tess had said stoutly, ‘I’m certain he will be an estimable gentleman. After all, Papa chose him with careful forethought.’

Lord knows that wasn’t the truth. On his deathbed, Papa had grasped her hand, and said, ‘Not to worry, Tess. I’ve an optimal man to look after you all. Asked him just after poor old Monkton up and died last year. I knew Holbrook years ago.’

‘Why has he never visited, Papa?’

‘Never met him again,’ her father had said, looking so white against the pillow that Tess’s heart had clenched with fear. ‘Not to worry, lass. ‘I’ve seen his name mentioned time and again in Sporting Magagne. He’ll take good care of Wanton, Bluebell, and the rest. Said he would. Wrote me as much. And I sent him Starling to seal the bargain.’

‘I’m sure he will, Papa,’ Tess had said, putting down her sweet, feckless Papa’s hand with a loving squeeze since he seemed to have drifted off to sleep. So this duke would take good care of Papa’s beloved horseflesh – but what of his daughters?

He opened his eyes again though. ‘You’ll be right and tight with Holbrook, Tess. Take care of them for me, won’t you?’

She picked up his hand again hastily, trying to force back the tears crowding her throat.

‘Feel as if I’m looking at you through a snowstorm,’ he had said, his voice just a whisper of sound.

‘Oh, Papa,’ Tess whispered. ‘I do love you.’

He shook his head, obviously gathering himself. ‘I’ll be seeing your mother, I’ve no doubt.’ There was a little smile on his face. Papa was always very good at looking forward to a happy event. Sometimes she thought he was happier in the week before a big race, when he had something to anticipate, than when he’d won a race. Not that he won very often.

‘Yes, Papa,’ she whispered, brushing the tears away as they coursed down her cheeks.

‘My lass,’ he said, and she didn’t know whether he was talking of her or her mother. Then, ‘Don’t forget that Wanton likes apple-mash.’ And, again, ‘Take care of them for me, Tess?’

‘Of course I will, Papa. I’ll inform His Grace immediately on our arrival about Wanton’s weak stomach.’

‘I didn’t mean that, Tessa,’ her father said, and this smile was for her, not for her mother. ‘Annabel’s too beautiful, you know. And sweet Josie.’ There was silence for a moment, then he said, ‘Maitland’s not right for Imogen. Wild thing, that boy.’

There were tears running down Tess’s wrists.

‘You’re …’ His voice faltered, then he said, rather dreamily. ‘Tess. Those apples …’

But he had gone to sleep, then. And though she and her sisters had told him of the stables until they were hoarse, and Josie had brought a bowl of steaming apple-mash into the bedchamber, thinking it might arouse him, he didn’t wake. After a few days, he slipped away in the midst of the night.

The funeral passed like a grey dream. Their plump cousin, who had inherited the estate, appeared with a clucking wife and two maiden aunts in tow; Tess did her best to make them comfortable in a house that hadn’t even one decent feather bed. When the duke’s secretary finally arrived to announce their fate, she managed not to scream questions about his master but waited patiently. When that secretary spent the first full week of his visit arranging for their father’s horses to be sent to England with all possible comfort, her questions seemed unnecessary. The horses left long before they did. Could their unknown guardian have made it clearer where his priorities lay?

So even as she reassured Josie, and told Imogen to stop talking of Draven Maitland or she would strangle her with the only ribbon Annabel had left, Tess had worried, and worried, until the lump of grief in her chest seemed to turn to permanent stone.

She’d just as soon have nothing to do with a horse-mad male, ever again. It was galling to find that their futures were utterly dependent on just such a man. It made her think fierce thoughts of her darling papa, and that made her feel guilty, and guilt made her feel irritable.

Looking at the Duke of Holbrook now, there was no question that their guardian was indeed horse-mad. With that hair and clothing, he was probably garden-variety mad and no need for the adjective.

But he was kind, too. And not lecherous.

He didn’t seem to have their father’s easy way of ignoring their comforts. He certainly had no obligation to invite them to live in his house, nor to treat them like real relatives.

Perhaps she’d been too hasty. Perhaps – just perhaps – all men weren’t mad in the same ways.

Three

A few hours later, Tess lay under the damp cloth that the duke’s housekeeper herself had placed over her eyes. The faint smell of lemons drifted to her nose. She could hear the sounds of a large household around her. It wasn’t the echoing, empty sound of her father’s house, marked only by the harsh rap of boots on the bare floor (Papa had sold the carpets long ago), but a faint hum that added to the smell of furniture rubbed with lemon oil, and sheets dried in the sun, and a mattress that had been turned once a season.

‘It’s time for a family council,’ said a cheerful voice. The side of the bed dipped as Annabel sat down.

Tess lifted up the cloth over her eyes and peered at her sister. ‘I only just lay down,’ she objected.

‘No, you didn’t,’ her sister retorted. ‘You’ve been lying there like a plum pudding under a steaming cloth for at least two hours, and we must talk before dressing for the evening meal. Here come Josie and Imogen.’

The girls climbed up onto the bed, just as if they were in Tess’s bedchamber at home, where they’d spent many an evening curled under the covers so as to stay warm, talking endlessly of their future, and their papa, and their horses.

‘All right,’ Tess murmured, yawning.

‘I shall marry him,’ Annabel announced, once they were all settled.

‘Who?’ Tess asked. She put the cloth on the bedside table and pushed herself upright against the pillows.

‘The duke, of course!’ Annabel said. ‘One of us must become the duchess, obviously, since he doesn’t seem to have one at hand. Duchess of Holbrook. The man isn’t married, although -’

‘Holbrook may well be promised in marriage,’ Imogen pointed out. ‘Look at Draven.’ Lord Maitland had been promised in marriage for two years or more, without showing the slightest interest in progressing toward the altar.

‘I doubt it,’ Annabel said. ‘And if not, I shall marry him. That way, my husband can give each of you excellent dowries. Perhaps you won’t marry as well as I, since there are only eight dukes in all England, not counting the royal dukes. But we shall find titled men for each of you.’

‘What a sacrifice,’ Josie said acidly. ‘I suppose you read all of Debrett’s in order to discover the names of those eight dukes?’

‘I shall steel myself to the task,’ Annabel said. ‘And mind you, given our guardian’s looks, I do consider it a sacrifice. The man will be positively potbellied before he’s fifty, if he doesn’t watch out.’

Imogen rolled her eyes, but Josie leaped in before her. ‘Sacrifice, Annabel? You’d marry an eighty-year-old man if you, could make yourself a duchess! Your Grace!’ she added for good measure.

‘I most certainly would not!’ Annabel retorted. Then she laughed. ‘Well, only if the man was very, very wealthy.’

‘You’re naught more than a money-grubbing flirt,’ Josie observed. ‘And who’s to say that this duke is any richer than Papa was? After all, Papa was a viscount, but his title was naught more than tin when it came to his pocket!’

‘If Holbrook has no money, I shan’t marry him,’ Annabel said with a delicate shudder. ‘I’d rather slay myself than marry a man as out at the elbows as Papa was. But don’t be foolish, Josie. Look at this house! Holbrook is obviously deep in the pockets.’

‘Don’t be disrespectful of your father,’ Tess broke in. ‘Annabel, truly, the duke may well be affianced, and it would be best not to think in such an improper fashion of the man who was kind enough to agree to be our guardian.’

Annabel raised one eyebrow and took a small mirror from her reticule. ‘Perhaps I’ll make him regret that arrangement, then,’ she said, rubbing her lips with a scrap of Spanish paper that she’d bought in the village before they left Scotland.

‘You’re revolting,’ Josie said.

‘And you’re a squib,’ Annabel replied. ‘I’m being practical. One of us has to marry, and immediately. Imogen has been telling us for two years now that she means to marry Maitland, and Tess has never made the slightest push to marry anyone – so that leaves me. One of us has to marry and take the others to her house. That’s what we always said.’

‘Tess could marry anyone she chose!’ Josie said stoutly. ‘She’s the most beautiful of us all. Don’t you agree, Imogen?’

Imogen nodded, but she had her arms clasped around her knees, and she was clearly paying not a whit of attention to the conversation. ‘She may marry anyone, other than Draven, of course,’ she said dreamily. ‘Just think, I might see him in a matter of hours … minutes really.’

Annabel ignored her comment, which was pretty much the way the girls had acted every time Imogen mentioned Maitland’s name for the past two years. ‘I agree with you as to Tess’s beauty,’ she told Josie, ‘but men aren’t prone to marry penniless girls who show no interest. Yet I am interested in marriage. Very interested.’

‘In the institution, not the man!’ Josie retorted.

Annabel shrugged. ‘Imogen is romantic enough for the rest of us. It’s Papa’s fault. He made me keep the books for all these years, and now numbers float before my eyes every time I think about matrimony.’

‘He didn’t precisely make you keep the books,’ Tess put in, a trifle wearily. She was tired of defending their father from Annabel’s charges, but Josie took any criticism of their papa very badly. There was no way to sugarcoat the fact that their papa had discovered Annabel had a gift for figures at the age of thirteen and dumped the entire financial accounting of the estate on her slender shoulders.

‘The important point is that I shan’t be keeping books any longer. I don’t want to think of numbers, or bills, or unpaid accounts ever again in my life. Thank goodness, men are silly enough to overlook my lack of dowry.’

‘You could try for a little modesty,’ Josie needled.

‘You could try for a little maturity,’ Annabel retorted. ‘I’m not being immodest. I’m simply being practical. One of us must marry, and I have the attributes that make men dazed enough to overlook lack of dowry. I’m not going to pretend to possess ladylike virtues that I don’t have in front of you three. It’s too late for that. If Papa truly wanted us to think like ladies, he wouldn’t have trained us to do exactly the opposite.’

‘Papa did wish us to be ladies!’ Josie protested. ‘He taught us to speak just like English ladies, didn’t he?’

‘Poppycock,’ Annabel said, but there wasn’t any real spite in her voice, just an amused acceptance. ‘Josie, if Papa had given a fig for his daughters’ futures as ladies, our lives would have been quite different. For one thing, he wouldn’t have pissed in the chamber pot right there in the dining room.’

‘Annabel!’ Tess said. ‘Keep your voice down.’

But Annabel just grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I fully intend to counterfeit every ladylike quality that exists, until at least a week after I convince some bacon-brained peer to marry me and hand over his pocketbook.’

Tess sighed. It wasn’t easy to be an elder sister to Annabel, with her startling tawny hair and brazen belief in her own magnificence. The problem was that she and Imogen truly did look like the princesses in the fairy tale ‘Snow White and Rose Red’.

‘Well, you needn’t set your cap at Holbrook,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’d make the best husband in the world.’

‘If he’s rich enough, he’s good enough. Frankly, I can’t marry just anyone,’ Annabel said. ‘I’ve very expensive tastes.’ She hopped off the bed and examined herself in the glass. ‘I may never have had a chance to indulge those tastes, but I’m certain they’ll be expensive when I do indulge them. I have no objection to considering the Earl of Mayne if he shows as much depth in the pocket as our guardian.’

‘You’re being shocking for the mere sake of it,’ Tess said.

Annabel ignored her, as she had ignored every piece of advice that directed itself toward proper ladylike behaviour. ‘The duke is a better bet. Higher title, and all that. I shall reel him in,’ she announced, ‘then I shall go directly to London. From the day I am married, I shall wear nothing but silk next to my skin.’

‘There’s a word for women like you,’ Josie observed.

‘And that word is happy,’ Annabel said. It was hard to offend Annabel, even though her smallest sister devoted herself to the task. Annabel was too – Annabel. Too sure of herself, too glowing, too sensuous, too loving. Too desired. ‘I can hardly believe that we have finally found our way out of that backwater and almost to London. I don’t mind admitting that there were times that I despaired. Papa’s schemes, after all, never came to anything, for all he kept promising that he’d take us to London for the season.’

As far as Tess could ascertain by staring in the mirror, she and Annabel certainly looked alike enough to be sisters, but their effect on men was utterly different. Something about Imogen and Annabel drove men into imbecilic paralysis in their presence, and whatever it was, she, Tess, didn’t seem to have it. They were all beautiful, thanks to their mama, who had been the most lovely debutante in London until she threw herself away on a horsemad, bankrupt Scottish viscount. But Tess never reduced anyone into stammering silence the way Annabel and Imogen did.

Tess sometimes thought the problem was that she not only looked like their mother but that she remembered her. Annabel would never speak of their mother, and Imogen and Josie had been too small to have clear memories. But Tess remembered. And remembered. And somehow since Papa died, it was all wound up together in her chest … missing her mama so much that her chest hurt, then missing her father with the same pulse of pain.

‘Now, if I marry the duke,’ Annabel said briskly, ‘one of us ought to marry that earl our guardian has so kindly provided.’

‘Better the earl than the duke,’ Imogen said. ‘I don’t think Holbrook has combed his hair since last Tuesday. Not that I’m marrying either of them.’

‘I’m too young to marry anyone,’ Josie said with satisfaction. ‘And even if I weren’t, the Earl of Mayne would never want to marry someone like me. There’s something rather arrogant about him, don’t you think?’

‘What do you mean by “someone like me”?’ Tess asked. ‘Because you are beautiful, Josie. He would be lucky to marry you.’

‘A plumpy partridge?’ Josie said, and there was a hint of shame in her voice.

‘Papa meant it as an endearment, not as a description,’ Tess said, cursing her father silently, then instantly following the impulse with a silent prayer for forgiveness.

‘Did you hear His Grace mention that he would ask Lady Clarice to be our chaperone?’ Imogen said, abruptly changing the subject back to her favourite topic of conversation. ‘Lady Clarice is Draven’s mother. His mother! We are bound to see him often. And if she likes me …’

‘The fact Maitland’s mother exists does not alter the fact that his fiancée exists as well,’ Josie noted.

‘I can tell that Draven’s heart is not engaged in the match,’ Imogen said with an edge to her voice. ‘Just consider, he’s been betrothed for over two years without progressing to the altar.’

‘I hate to be dour,’ Annabel said, ‘but there’s likely a great deal of money involved in a breach-of-promise suit. Maitland has never been one to consider money as other than fodder for his stables. Do you really think he would choose you over his stables?’

Imogen opened her mouth, and then lapsed into silence.

‘Enough,’ Tess said, sitting up and pushing back the counterpane. ‘We must dress for supper.’

‘I’m merely going to the drawing room briefly to meet our chaperone,’ Josie said. ‘Then Mrs Beeswick is going to serve me a comfortable meal in the schoolroom. I’ve been there while you were sleeping, and it’s all books. Lovely books!’

Tess gave her a hug. ‘That’s splendid, darling. And the duke told me that he’d find you a governess directly, so perhaps you could even start lessons in the near future. It would be nice if one of us were learned. Imogen, you mustn’t let Lady Clarice have even a hint of your tendresse for her son.’

‘I’m not stupid!’ Imogen clambered off the bed. She’d left her hair down, and it swept behind her in a great swirling gleam of black silk. ‘Just don’t ask me to marry anyone except for Draven. Not the duke nor the earl. I’m quite certain that — ‘

‘Oh, no,’ Josie moaned. ‘Can’t you just accept the fact that Maitland is unavailable, Imogen?’

‘I don’t agree,’ Imogen said stubbornly. ‘Don’t you remember the time that I managed to fall out of the apple tree at Draven’s feet, and he picked me up?’ She shivered. ‘It was lovely. He’s so strong.’

‘Yes, but — ‘ Josie said, but Imogen overran her.

‘I thought I might not see Draven until we travelled to London, but here he is living down the road, and his mother is to be our chaperone.’ Imogen’s eyes were glowing with fervour. ‘Obviously, it’s fate! We belong together.’

‘I think we’ve neglected the possibility that she injured her head in that fall,’ Josie said to Annabel and Tess.

Tess sighed. It was obvious to everyone that Draven Maitland didn’t really give a pin for Imogen, and it was equally obvious that Imogen wouldn’t countenance marrying anyone other than Maitland. Either she or Annabel would have to give Imogen a home until their little sister finally gave up her fruitless adoration.

‘Our marriage was fated in the stars!’ Imogen announced, looking as dramatic as any heroine in a melodrama.

Annabel was standing before the glass, pulling her honey hair in a great mass over her shoulder. ‘Darling,’ she said, giving Imogen an amused glance, ‘you keep your idea of how marriages are made, and I shall keep mine. From everything I’ve seen, the best marriages are those between practical persons, entered into for practical reasons, and with a reasonable degree of confidence in compatibility.’

‘You sound like a solicitor,’ Imogen said.

‘An accountant,’ Annabel responded. ‘Papa made me into an accountant, which means that I can’t help looking at life as a series of negotiations, of which marriage is the most important.’

She smiled at herself in the glass and twisted her hair into a great shining pile on her head. ‘Do I not look like a duchess?’ She struck a pose. ‘Make way for Her Grace!’

‘Make way for a goose!’ Josie said, and then shrieked and ran for the door as Annabel made a swipe at her bottom with the brush.

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