After three maddening days trying to get Mr. Spaulding out of her thoughts, Dahlia gave up in defeat and set out for her parents’ townhouse. Perhaps what she needed wasn’t to push her fantasies from her mind, but rather to talk the situation through with the most brutally honest of all her siblings.

Except Bryony was not at home. Nor was Heath. Or Cam. In fact, the only family member currently present in the Grenville family home was Lady Grenville herself.

Which was how Dahlia found herself perched on the edge of an overstuffed sofa, sharing one of her mother’s infamously awkward teas.

“I don’t know how you can claim feathers to be boring,” Mother was saying now. “The right ostrich feather can make all the difference in whether one’s bonnet is en vogue or outré. Look at yours, if you don’t believe me.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“It hasn’t even got a feather,” Mother spluttered. “That’s what’s wrong with it. And the top is all wilty, as if it had been left out in the rain.”

Dahlia pointed to the windows. “It’s raining.”

“One’s bonnet needn’t show it, darling. You’ve an umbrella, do you not? Surely you didn’t sell it to raise money for your little school.”

“What a lovely idea, Mother. Thank you for thinking of it.”

“Don’t you dare sell that perfectly nice umbrella. The pearl trim cost two months of your pin money, as I recall. Quite the cleverest purchase I’d ever seen you make.”

“I was sixteen. It was probably the first purchase I ever made. By selling it, I could buy cheaper umbrellas for every girl in my school.”

Or shoes. Or books. Or paper. Or globes. Anything to fill the empty schoolroom.

“Cheap umbrellas!” Her mother flapped a hand. “How I wish you wouldn’t bicker so. It is a challenge to stay levelheaded in the presence of someone determined to thwart logic at every turn.”

“It is indeed,” Dahlia muttered as she helped herself to a second lemon tart. “Will it help if I promise never to carry a cheap umbrella in your presence?”

“It would help if you gave up that school altogether.”

“Mother—”

“I know we’ve been over this already. I know. But you are the daughter of a baroness.”

“Being a headmistress doesn’t make me less your daughter.”

“It makes you seem less,” Mother warned. “If you won’t give up the school, at least be conscious of how you present yourself. Your Almack’s voucher will be the least thing you’ll have lost, if you go too far.”

“I’ll lose access to tepid ratafia and dancing with outspoken roués?” Dahlia asked dryly.

“You’ll lose soirées altogether,” Mother said sharply. “And house parties, and balls, and dinners, and teas. Can you think of anything worse?”

Dahlia could, in fact, think of hundreds of worse tragedies. However, her mother’s arrow struck truer than she might have thought. Losing her last ties with society would be an unmitigated disaster. The last thing Dahlia wanted was to alienate the very people she hoped would help support her cause.

She set down her tea plate. “You’re right. I would not wish for that to happen.”

“I’m always right.” Mother beamed at her. “And I have very good news. Despite your unfortunate activities as of late, I have managed to wrangle invitations for both of us on Sunday night.”

“Invitations where? To meet a duke? An earl?”

Mother’s smile faltered. “I’m afraid even I have been unable to return your name to those lists. But have no fear, darling. There are a half dozen others who will accept you. We shall flit to them all as if we haven’t a care in the world. I suspect Lady Upchurch will have those lemon cakes you adore.”

Dahlia had known taking a role as headmistress would inherently make her less fashionable, but she hadn’t realized her philanthropy with the school had sunk her status so low as to make even low-quality invitations difficult to obtain. Her stomach went cold at the thought.

Her ambivalence at being “a baroness’s daughter” had been nothing more than bravado. She might not have appreciated the constant reminder, but in the back of her mind she had always counted on it.

The entire reason she’d been brave enough—or, it seemed, foolish enough—to found a school like hers in the first place was because she’d assumed she would always have access to some percentage of the ton’s pocketbooks. There were always ladies looking for a good charity to sponsor, and as Dahlia was a lady herself, the financial aspect had seemed easy.

Except it had never been easy, and was getting harder by the day. She now had Faith on board to share the administrative load, but that was only half the battle. Faith hadn’t been able to rub shoulders with Dahlia’s circle, even before she’d agreed to be joint headmistress.

If Dahlia lost that advantage too, what would that leave them?

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go to the party.”

“More than one?” Mother asked hopefully.

“All of them.” Dahlia rolled back her shoulders. She would go, she would flit as her mother said, and she would work back into the ton’s good graces. It was the only way.

“Darling, that’s marvelous!” Mother clasped her hands together in excitement. “You may even find a husband. Bring the right man up to scratch, and you’ll never have to fear being cut from society again.”

Dahlia didn’t have time for a husband. Not to be the arm bauble of some marquess or viscount. Until she had the school sorted, she didn’t even have time for Mr. Spaulding. She had to focus on the big picture before she could fritter time on herself. The girls’ futures depended on her.

“I’ll go,” she repeated. “But I’m not husband-hunting. I mean it, Mother.”

“You’re not getting any younger, darling. A new crop of young ladies make their curtsey every year.”

“Let them. I have my own group of girls to worry about.”

“You and that school!” Mother slammed down her teacup. “That’s enough unladylike pursuits. You need to grow up, give up, and get married. While you still can.”

The flicker of anger that flashed through Dahlia was aimed not at her mother, but society in general. Who decided that five-and-twenty was too old to find a husband? Or that becoming headmistress of a philanthropic school meant she no longer even deserved one?

Perhaps her mother was right, and she was on a path that would lead her far from everything she’d ever known. If one couldn’t bend the road, then one would simply have to bend the rules. Not being able to stay in both worlds didn’t mean there wasn’t a compromise that would allow her to keep a foot in each.

After all, her primary responsibility was to whom? Herself? Her school? The law? Society manners?

None of that. Her number one priority hadn’t changed from the time she was a child. The thing she cared about most had always been and would always be her family.

Which now included twenty-four orphan and runaway girls, as well as two sisters, one brother, an absentee father, and a smothering, overprotective, well-meaning mother.

She couldn’t bear to lose any of them. And yet it felt like it was happening.

“Once a week,” she said. “I’ll go to parties with you once a week.”

Mother gasped in delight. “And you’ll let me matchmake? I’ll offer you only the very best, I promise.”

Somehow, Dahlia doubted she and her mother shared the same taste.

“I’ll be cordial to everyone you introduce me to,” she allowed. “As long as you stay calm when I invite the other ladies to donate to the school.”

Mother leaned forward to grasp her hands. “You’re a good daughter, darling. I just know there’s a man out there who won’t mind your foibles.”

Dahlia managed to smile without clenching her teeth. “Thank you, Mother. That’s very heartening. I can hardly wait to become an insipid society wife to someone whose title matters more than I do.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely?” Mother sighed happily. “What if all three of my daughters captured the hearts of lords!”

“My heart is aquiver at the very idea,” Dahlia assured her.

It was not.

Yet the thought of marrying a man with money was undeniably one of her mother’s better ideas.

Not a lord, to be sure. Being a duchess or countess or marchioness carried far too many responsibilities to allow any time for overseeing a charity boarding school. Nor would any man of nobility or pretensions to it allow her to continue.

Through the rest of the tea and all through the carriage ride back to her school, Dahlia couldn’t quit the idea from her mind. Marrying someone she didn’t love had never held much appeal to her, but what if doing so solved all the rest of her troubles?

Her mother would be thrilled to have yet another daughter safely wed. If the gentleman in question were rich enough not to care how or where his new wife spent his money, was it selfish of her not to at least try?

She doubted any of the eligible dandies in her mother’s social circle could ever hold a candle to the flame Mr. Spaulding was capable of igniting with a mere glance in her direction, but she wasn’t looking for passion. Her girls needed stability. Marriage was simply a business decision.

Everyone in the ton knew that.

She stepped out of the carriage and made her way to the front door, intending to march straight up to her office to take a cold hard look at her finances…and her future.

As soon as she unlocked the front door, however, she overheard the telltale sound of muffled sobs coming from the stairwell.

“It’s not fair,” came the voice of little Beatrice, one of the youngest girls. She had been left on a workhouse doorstep as a baby, and at seven years old had the oldest eyes of anyone Dahlia had ever seen. “Louisa, you don’t understand.”

Dahlia hesitated in the middle of the entryway. She hated to hear one of her girls cry. Yet interrupting might cause more harm than good. She bit her lip and decided to give the girls a few more moments.

“You’re wrong,” Louisa said. “About everything. You do have a mother.”

“I’m an orphan. And if I’m not, then I might as well be,” Beatrice said brokenly. “My own mother didn’t love me enough to keep me.”

“Yes she does,” Louisa insisted. “That’s not your mother. Headmistress is. She’s leagues better than an ordinary mother. Headmistress would never give one of us up.”

Dahlia’s heart caught. She pressed a hand to her throat and closed her eyes.

“Headmistress is my mother?” Beatrice asked in wonder.

“She is now,” Louisa said firmly. “Look around at all our sisters, Bea. We’ll never be alone again. We have more family than anyone else in all of London!”

A long silence stretched out through the stairwell before Beatrice said softly, “We’re the luckiest girls alive.”

Dahlia sagged against the foyer wall, her throat too clogged to swallow. If Louisa and Beatrice were the luckiest girls alive, then Dahlia was, too.

They were right. This was a family. As their surrogate mother, Dahlia would dedicate her life to the school, not to herself. She’d find a way to keep this their home for as long as they needed it.

No matter what it took.