“You were very bad, Aunt Freddy,” Beatitude said, drawing a finger along the mantel. A smudge developed on her fingertip, meaning another scold was in order for Aunt’s housekeeper. “You should not importune an earl to repair instruments that have been broken for ages.”

Fredericka Beauchamp had been a great beauty in her day, back when fashion had favored well-curved females rather than the willowy, boyish figure now in vogue. In later years, Freddy had grown plump, and Beatitude had loved her hugs. They were soft and fierce at the same time, and fragrant with the scents of camphor and verbena.

Now, Aunt Freddy seemed to grow smaller each year. Her hugs were still fierce, but they’d become bony, and Beatitude didn’t dare hug her back with the abandon of a favored niece.

Aunt Freddy, don’t leave me. The same plea Beatitude had made when she’d been banished to boarding school and when Aunt had come to pay her rare calls at the vicarage. Don’t leave me amid these joyless, dour saints who are crushing my spirit one sermon at a time.

“I have not been bad, Addy mine,” Aunt Freddy replied, knitting needles clicking away. “I knew Casriel’s parents. Lovely couple, though the earl was a bit distracted with his horticulture. Not too distracted. Between his first and second wives, he had a regiment of children, all of them with those lovely eyes. The present titleholder is too serious. He has his papa’s focus, but has aimed it entirely at duty rather than at any particular passion.”

Casriel was passionate about the harp. Beatitude traced the base of a candlestick and found more dust. “His lordship is an adult, and you must respect his choices.” As I must.

“Addy dearest, where has my fun-loving, warmhearted girl gone? Did Roger take all of your joy with him when he wrecked his curricle in that ditch?”

The windows were also in need of a good scrubbing, coal dust being a chronic problem in London. Then too, the parlor smelled less than fresh. The carpets needed beating and a liberal sprinkling of dried lavender, while the drapery should have been tied back with verbena sachets.

“I am a widow,” Beatitude said. “I loved my husband. Grief changes our perspective.” Though that husband had never called her Addy or dearest.

Aunt laughed, her mirth dry and papery. “I’ve been at widowing rather longer than you, my dear. I loved my darling husband too, and yes, widowhood changes us. It needn’t turn us into angry nuns.”

“I am not angry.” Though I am as celibate as a nun.

Aunt put down her knitting needles, struggled to her feet—she boosted herself off the chair arms more than she rose on main strength—and crossed the room.

“Beatitude, I shall soon go to my reward. Please do not trouble what time remains to me with worries for my favorite niece.”

Aunt was so tiny, so pale and frail, as if the girl she’d once been was haunting her from within. “You give me this speech every Season, Aunt.”

“Not every Season. I waited until Roger had been gone for three years. I like Casriel. A woman can like a man, and a man can like her in return. Casriel knows virtually every tune written for the harp and all styles of crafting the instrument. He sang me a little Scottish air about some fool who’d sold his fiddle for a dram of whisky, and I realized the concert hall is missing a fine talent. Did you know he’s a first-rate painter of landscapes?”

He sang for you. Addy tucked the shawl up around her aunt’s shoulders. “You can be friends with a man half your age. My options are more limited.”

“Quite the contrary. Your options are greater than my own, provided you are discreet. I suspect Casriel was born discreet.”

“While you were born with a naughty streak.”

“You wanted to grow up to be just like me.” Aunt resumed her place in the wing chair, settling into the cushions with a sigh. “When you’re staring death in the face, Addy my girl, you will not wish you’d spent more evenings at home knitting shawls.”

“No more talk of death, please, and no more inveigling the Earl of Casriel with matchmaking-by-harp. Were he interested in me, he’s had plenty of time to make that interest apparent.”

Aunt picked up her knitting, arranging the completed portion of the shawl over her knees. The yarn was a soft, lavender blue that put Addy in mind of Casriel’s eyes, but then, everything brought the earl to mind. Not since Addy had been smitten with her late husband had she felt this unruly fixation on a male of the species.

“Casriel isn’t like that boy you were married to,” Aunt said, needles clicking. “Roger clung to the privileges of boyhood, though he was an understandable choice and a charmer. Casriel is a man. He’ll not come simply because you crook your finger, and he’ll not come laughing in any case.”

“When did you become an expert on enticing men?”

Aunt aimed a particularly solemn glance at Addy, her needles moving in the same steady rhythm. Some snippet of mythology tugged at Addy’s imagination, the Fates perhaps, spinning out the length of mortal lives.

“I am an expert on living for decades without a companion to share my days, young lady. See that you don’t grow up to be just like me in that regard, at least.”

That salvo was all the more devastating for being quietly offered. “Casriel needs money, Aunt. I haven’t much of that now and never will.”

Aunt Freddy flipped the half-made shawl over. “Money is not the only form of wealth a man can appreciate. All aristocrats think they need money, when, in fact, they have a roof over their heads which will stand for centuries, more land to cultivate than the common man can fathom, art treasures cluttering up their attics, and stables that provide better accommodations than some inns. He does not need money, he merely wants it.”

If the Earl of Casriel was marrying for money, then he needed money. “He doesn’t want to marry at all.”

Addy made another circuit of the room, concluding that more than a lecture was due the housekeeper. The time had come to issue a threat. The carpet needed beating, the whole room wanted a good dusting, and no flowers had been brought in from the garden to beautify an old woman’s day. Creeping damp was the next phase of neglect, and from there, a house could crumble in a very short time.

“Lord Casriel told me his father hadn’t wanted to marry either,” Addy said, peering more closely at a sketch beside the hearth. “Is this me?” She hadn’t noticed the drawing previously, or perhaps it hadn’t been on display. “It is me.”

The younger version of Beatitude was a little thinner, a little more lithe, and she was radiantly happy. Her resemblance to Fredericka was obvious about the smile and the warmth in her eyes.

“Who did this?”

Aunt did not reply, and her needles had gone silent.

She’d fallen asleep in the middle of a call, a rare occurrence until recently. Clearly, matchmaking had tired the old dear out. Addy extricated the needles from Aunt’s grasp, folded up the shawl so the needles were on top, and set the lot on Aunt’s knitting basket.

“I’ll come again soon,” Addy said, kissing her aunt’s cheek.

Though visiting Aunt had become a labor of love. She had been Addy’s dearest friend and relation, and she was fading.

Addy committed the unpardonable offense of appearing in the housekeeper’s parlor without notice and issued a writ of ejection, stayed only by the housekeeper’s assurances that Mrs. Beauchamp refused to let anybody clean in her private parlor, and she noticed if the maids tried to dust on the sly.

“Dust anyway,” Addy said. “If Aunt has callers, she will be embarrassed by the state of her parlor, and if her parlor is a disgrace, she won’t be home to them anyway.”

The housekeeper curtseyed until her cap came loose. Addy inspected the rest of the house and found the housekeeper had spoken honestly. For the most part, the dwelling was clean and orderly. Only the bedroom and sitting room—where Aunt spent most of her time—had been neglected.

Perhaps another trip to Bath was in order. That daunting thought occurred to Addy as she met her footman at the bottom of Aunt’s porch steps.

“Where to now, my lady?”

“Home, Thiel. I’m only capable of so much socializing in a day, and I’m expected at a card party tonight.”

“Pretty day to be out and about, though, ma’am. London shows to best advantage in spring.”

A footman typically did not converse with his employer, but Thiel was a holdover from before Roger’s death. He’d come with Roger from the seat of the Canmore earldom and declined to return there when Addy had been widowed. He was probably five years her senior, handsome as footmen were supposed to be, and cheerful.

Addy liked him. When she’d first put off mourning, she had wondered if she was attracted to him, but had reasoned that if attraction was a matter of speculation, it wasn’t attraction, but rather, boredom, or some other more troubling sentiment.

She was attracted to Casriel—no question about that, more’s the pity—and she suspected he was attracted to her as well. His lordship was simply too proper to yield to any wayward impulses.

“Looks like you’re to have company,” Thiel said as they approached Addy’s house.

A tall gentleman was striding up the walk. He wore standard daytime attire—breeches, waistcoat, morning coat, top hat, cravat in a simple knot, no ornamentation. His walk was not the gentlemanly saunter, however.

This fellow would arrive at his chosen destination long before the saunterers or strollers. He moved with the purpose of a man who expected to cover miles in the course of a day and who decided exactly where he would arrive and when—and in whose company.

“Lord Casriel.” Addy curtseyed.

He swept off his hat and bowed to a correct depth. “My lady. If you could spare me a few minutes of your time, I’d be grateful.”

“Of course.” Addy took the earl’s arm, and Thiel trotted up the steps to open the front door. His lordship’s usual genial demeanor had been replaced by a gravity that reminded Addy of Mrs. Palmyra Whitling’s words.

Casriel was not a boy.

“Shall I ring for tea?” Addy asked when Thiel had taken his lordship’s hat and walking stick.

“Tea will not be necessary. A word with you in private would be appreciated.”

“This way.” Addy led him not to her formal parlor, but to her personal sitting room. She wanted to see him among her favorite artwork and comfortable furniture, wanted the quiet available at the back of the house.

“How are you?” Casriel asked. The question was nearly fierce.

“I am well, and you?”

“In good health, thank you.” He stared down at her. “I am not like Tresham, who needed the services of a matchmaker to find him a suitable lady.”

This was interesting. “But you are angry.”

“Frustrated, my lady.”

“With me?”

“Because of you.”

“Should I be flattered?”

Casriel ran a hand through thick chestnut hair. “Probably not, but with ladies, a gentleman can never be certain.”

“Might we sit?”

“I can’t stay long.”

“But you won’t leave without saying your piece, so let’s be done with it, shall we?”

The countess exuded serenity, while Grey felt torn between foolishness and determination. He’d slept badly, then his horse had thrown a shoe in the park at first light. What should have been a good gallop had become a hike through Mayfair’s streets towing a gelding who had perfected the art of the theatrical limp.

Grey had attempted to deal with his correspondence, because he was two weeks behind with the steward’s reports from Dorning Hall, but Sycamore had wandered by, intent on discussing his new business venture. The morning had been a waste, and luncheon at the club had seemed like a small consolation.

Ha. Grey had been unable to enjoy his steak in a dining room that still reeked from last night’s smoking in the cardroom across the corridor. He’d made the mistake of glancing at the betting book on his way out the door, and his day had gone from trying to impossible.

Her ladyship took a seat, making a portrait of feminine contentment in a wing chair near the window. She clearly wasn’t afraid of sunlight, though that thought brought a question. What did she fear? What could ruffle her composure? What preoccupied her when she laid her head on her pillow and waited for sleep to come?

Not you, old chap.

“My club keeps a book,” Grey said, rather than attempt any small talk. “The ledger records wagers of all kinds.” He wanted to pace, but this little parlor would afford him about two strides in any direction. The appointments were comfortable and pretty, also delicate enough to be easily smashed by a heedless earl.

The mantel held a series of porcelain figures in gilded pastels—a laughing shepherd boy, a girl in a straw hat with a goose curled adoringly against her skirts, another girl who was barefoot and leading a small cow. Sheep figured among the collection, as did a white donkey with a blue butterfly on its nose.

Whimsical, bucolic choices for a Mayfair countess, and the sight of them helped settle Grey’s temper. This might have been a series of scenes from the home farm in Dorset, where Grey could return when his task in London was completed.

“Are you the subject of a wager?” Lady Canmore asked.

“I am the subject of a host of wagers, all of them recent and inappropriate.”

Her ladyship looked as if she were studying a hand of cards, deciding what to toss and what to keep. “I was married to a man who took enthusiastically to life’s joys. I am familiar with the mechanics of conception. I know that across the street and three doors down, a pretty woman of years comparable to my own maintains a common nuisance. From my morning room, I can see who patronizes her establishment. I know who spends the entire night there, and who is in and out—so to speak—in less than half an hour.”

Grey left off admiring the figures. “You are saying I needn’t be delicate.”

“My husband liked to drink to excess. He dabbled in nitrous and opium and occasionally shared a pipe with me. He teased me into trying his cigars and laughed uproariously when I nearly coughed myself to perdition on the first puff. He read me naughty poetry and had a wicked imagination, which he did not keep to himself in the presence of his wife.”

This recitation had Grey taking the other wing chair. He could not tell if her ladyship missed this man, judged him for his vices, neither, or both.

“So, my lord, tell me of these wagers.”

Grey didn’t want to, but as he’d stomped from the club and endured the knowing smirks of a few passing acquaintances, he’d concluded that he must.

“Some of the wagers are merely unkind, betting that I will propose to an Arbuckle before King George’s birthday. Others are less innocent.”

“Welcome to the entertainments of the idle, wealthy male, my lord. For my part, I usually find the sums involved more obscene than the wagers themselves.”

Excellent point. “The wager gaining the most attention says I’ll make you my mistress before I leave Town, brideless, one assumes, though some are betting that I’ll propose to Miss Sarah Quinlan, and others have put their faith in Lady Antonia Mainwaring’s charms.”

Those bets made Grey uneasy. The one regarding Lady Canmore infuriated him.

“You cannot make me your mistress, my lord. That is an office I must choose for myself.” She offered this observation with a baffling touch of humor, not quite smiling, but communicating mirth with her tone of voice.

“You will forgive me, my lady, if I don’t refine on that point to the idiots at my club. A lady’s good name should be protected at all costs. I’m tempted to resign from the damned organization before sundown. The Arbuckles are in precarious standing, from what I understand, being unpopular and without any offers in their third Season.

“I cannot speak for Miss Quinlan’s situation,” Grey went on, “though I suspect she is an heiress of some renown. Lady Antonia cannot help that she is tall, any more than I can help that I am tall, and yet, her appearance was referred to unflatteringly in the ledger book.”

Lady Antidote. Did young women make up sly names for the gentlemen? Grey hoped they did, because such puerile tricks deserved retaliation.

“You are an earl. Height is manly and unwomanly at the same time.”

Her calm baffled him. “Why have I spent my youth and adulthood pounding, lecturing, and threatening my brothers into a semblance of gentlemanly conduct, only to come to London and find this, this… vulgarity from men who are supposed to manage the affairs of the realm?”

The countess smoothed a hand over her skirts. “You are concerned your brothers will learn of these wagers.”

Well, yes, though Grey hadn’t come to that realization until her ladyship had spoken. “Sycamore hears everything. He’s like a damned house cat, always where he isn’t supposed to be, always listening and plotting secret mischief. Lately, he’s taken up the habit of correspondence, which is enough to give me nightmares. Hawthorne regards Town as Sodom-on-Thames, and I suspect Ash, Oak, or Valerian will come on an inspection tour any week now. They expect better of me.”

Her ladyship rested her chin on her palm, gazing out the window. “We could have an affair.”

Grey responded before the import of the words fully registered. “No, we could not—I mean, such an undertaking would doubtless be delightful, but one doesn’t, or rather, I haven’t, or not very—what the hell kind of suggestion is that, Beatitude?”

Had she been teasing him?

And when had the adult male cock become an auditory organ? Her outrageous notion sent desire pooling where it wasn’t easily hidden. Grey considered crossing a knee over an ankle, but Lady Canmore had apparently enjoyed a very modern marriage.

He did not cross his legs, or fidget, or for one instant allow the possibility of an affair to consume his imagination. Instead, it sat like a cat in a shadowed corner of his mind, licking its paws and switching its tail in a knowing fashion.

“People do,” she went on, brows knit. “Have affairs, especially people who like each other. Ever since you escorted me home from Lady Bellefonte’s ball, I have held you in high regard.”

This conversation was unlike any Grey had had with anybody, including his horse, including those discussions undertaken with his married brother, Willow, while drinking from the bottom quarter of the decanter.

“I hold you in utmost esteem, my lady, which is why I will decline to have an affair with you.” Grey did not look at her décolletage, though he esteemed that abundance right along with the rest of her.

The situation was hilarious, also sad. He was an adult, he desired her madly, respected her tremendously, and she apparently did not find him objectionable. A courtship might have started under those circumstances, but for his lack of funds.

“No affair, then,” she said, as if choosing a velvet fabric over a muslin. “I suppose that leaves a warm friendship, if we’re to scotch the gossip.”

“What is a warm friendship?” A warm friendship probably involved such public tortures as being seen with the lady in casual conversation, sitting out a set with her, perhaps taking her driving during the carriage parade.

Grey hated the carriage parade with a passion that exceeded his loathing for foot rot and dull shearing blades.

“I don’t envision anything too onerous,” her ladyship replied. “I’ll partner you at whist, you’ll stand up with me for a supper waltz. We might ride out together for an early morning hack and indulge in a bit of flirting where others can admire your wit and my smile. Aunt Freddy will be delighted if she gets wind of these doings, but you mustn’t encourage her daft notions. The idea is that we behave with cordial good cheer toward one another, and in a few weeks, another wager will have caught the attention of the buffoons at your club.”

To waltz with her, to see her first thing in the day amid the foggy beauty of the bridle paths, to gaze at her across a card table, sending subtle signals regarding the hands in play…

“How do you advise me to act toward the other ladies?”

“Oh, much the same. They aren’t widows, though Miss Quinlan is something of an original, so the demands on you will be fewer. Aunt Freddy always says the best response to idle talk is no response at all, and she has weathered many a Season.”

Grey had probably flung that maxim at his brothers over the years, for which he deserved to be punched by each of them in succession. “I still want to resign from the damned idiot club.”

Lady Canmore patted his wrist. “You are doomed to be a good example to your peers. Sainthood is a thankless burden, but you might like having me for a friend.”

The cat in Grey’s mind purred at that thought. He mentally nudged the randy beast through the nearest window. “Will you enjoy having me for a friend?”

“I believe I shall, though ladies are known for their changeable opinions.”

“You are teasing me.” Nobody teased the Earl of Casriel. He wasn’t sure he minded it—from her. “How do we embark on our warm friendship?”

She rose, and Grey came to his feet as well. “Are you attending tonight’s card party?”

“I am.”

“Try not to sound so overcome with joy, my lord. I will partner you for the second half of the evening, and we will bicker over farthing points, as friends do.”

“I’m to bicker with you? A gentleman does not argue with a lady.”

She smoothed his cravat. “I’m afraid you must.”

“I refuse to sink to such an ungentlemanly—” He was bickering with her, and she was grinning at him, looking delighted with herself while she petted him. “Very well, a little friendly bickering.”

She linked arms with him and escorted him to the front door. “If you’d ever like to reconsider, let me know.”

“Reconsider?”

She passed him his hat, her expression solemn. “About the affair, of course. I haven’t much experience with such adventures, but one doesn’t forget the basics. I’m sure I could muddle along fairly well once we got past the first few trysts.”

Minx. What a lucky man her husband had been. “If I ever reconsider, you will be the first to know.” And because she’d been entirely too serene, confident, and charming for the duration of this awkward interview, Grey bent close and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You must promise to do likewise—let me know if something more than a warm friendship would be to your taste.”

She touched her fingers to the spot he’d kissed. “That is estimable flirting for a man who professes little interest in frivolous undertakings. I account myself impressed.”

But not tempted, which should have been a relief. He bowed over her hand. “Until this evening, when we will plunder our opponents’ coffers and flirt the evening away.”

“Plundering sounds delightful. Until this evening, my lord.”

“Papa, I have told you and told you: I refuse to discuss a baronet, and I certainly won’t settle for a musty old knight. A mere baron won’t do either, and a viscount hardly bears consideration. I want an earl, at least. If the only available marquess were less than forty years of age, I’d consider him, but alas, he’s doddering, and even my ambitions must be bounded by common sense.”

Charles Quinlan shot his wife a pleading look, but Edna was absorbed with spooning peas onto her plate.

“Have you settled on a particular earl?” Charles asked his only child. Sarah was nothing if not confident in her schemes. Also beautiful.

Her beauty bewildered him, for neither he nor his dear wife were particularly attractive people. They looked, he supposed, just as a wealthy ironmonger and his lady ought to look in midlife. Comfortable, well fed, well dressed. Mrs. Quinlan had been handsome as a younger woman, her figure matronly even before she’d become a mother.

Charles had liked her figure then and liked it still, though he daren’t say as much except in a whisper late at night under private circumstances.

Sarah, in contrast to her mama, was gorgeous and heard about her various stunning attributes from any callow swain with the ability to form a fatuous rhyme. Her glossy sable hair, cameo-perfect features, and stunning green eyes came together in a symphony of feminine pulchritude. The standard English roses paled in comparison to her, and when she smiled, confirmed bachelors stopped what they were doing and reconsidered their options.

“Pass the butter,” Sarah snapped. “No lady of refined sensibilities can possibly endure peas without butter, and no, I have not selected a particular earl, not yet.”

Edna set a plate of butter pats impressed with the letter Q at Sarah’s elbow. “Surely, darling, you recall the list of names we discussed this morning? The Season is half over, and you’ll want to be about your choice.”

Sarah stabbed a buttery Q with a delicate silver knife, also engraved with the letter Q. “You need not remind me of the date, Mama.”

Charles set down his utensils. “You will address your mother respectfully, miss, or leave the table until your disposition is equal to the challenge of a civil meal.”

He rarely rebuked his daughter—of late, he rarely saw her, for that matter—but week by week, Sarah became less the little girl upon whom his sun had risen and more a petulant virago whose whims dictated the mood of the entire household.

“She meant nothing by it,” Edna murmured, passing over the salt cellar.

More than Sarah’s moodiness, Edna’s subdued demeanor tore at Charles’s composure. He’d married a quiet, dignified lady who had nonetheless brought good cheer and wifely affection to the union. Edna’s counsel had proven valuable in many regards, though now she seemed reduced to yes-dears and of-course-dears.

“Do you think it’s easy,” Sarah began, “being paraded before the eligibles night after night? Asking over and over about favorite composers, preferred season of the year, or most delicious flavor of ice? I’m expected to be charming and gracious at all hours, even to plain-faced misses and mere misters who haven’t a spare groat. I bear up despite exhaustion and the strain to my nerves, and you scold me as if I were six years old.” She rose, tossing an imperious look at her parents. “Send a tray up to my room, then, for a meal in such impossible company has lost its appeal.”

She stormed out, slamming the door and leaving blessed quiet in her wake.

“I was a plain mister without a spare groat,” Charles observed, taking his daughter’s full plate and exchanging it for his empty one. “She conveniently forgets that.”

Edna took a sip of her wine. “Our beloved child disappoints me. She never sits out a dance, and her reputation as a beauty grows apace, while her recall of her manners falters.”

“Perhaps we should leave Town?” Charles loved his sprawling acres up in Cheshire. He hadn’t been born in the countryside, but the increasingly crowded surrounds of his native Manchester had made him appreciate open spaces and clear skies all the more.

“We cannot blow retreat at this point, sir, else all of these weeks of paying calls, staying up until all hours, and buying out the shops will have been for naught.”

“We can’t simply try again next year?”

Edna offered him a wan smile. “Sarah would disown us. The young ladies are all feeling cast down because the Quimbey heir chose a widow, and not even a titled, wealthy, beautiful widow.”

Charles finished the last of Sarah’s peas. Cook had prepared them in fine butter sauce, which Sarah’s discerning palate had apparently failed to detect, and good food should not go to waste.

“If I were a young lady of untitled pedigree,” he said, “the notion that a ducal heir could plight his troth with a woman of modest origins would cheer me considerably.”

Edna drew a fingertip around the rim of her wineglass. “You are not a young lady, and neither am I. They all dreamed of wearing Jonathan Tresham’s tiara, and now they must endure the rest of the Season knowing they’ve been passed over. Sarah considered herself the best candidate to become the next Duchess of Quimbey.”

“Then Sarah’s wits have gone begging. No ducal family would ally itself with us, even if I had all the money in Manchester.” Quinlan didn’t blame the aristocrats for sticking to their own kind. He certainly preferred the company of men who understood business and weren’t terrified of change.

Edna set down her drink, and by the light of the candelabra, Charles could see both the girl she’d once been and a wife growing weary of fashionable Society.

“You underestimate the extent to which these bluebloods need cash, Charles. The land rents have done nothing but drop, enclosures cost a king’s ransom, and the Corsican is no longer keeping our factories humming the livelong day.”

Charles had taken some military contracts, when he could do so at a handsome profit, but he’d refused the lure of becoming dependent on warfare for his livelihood. His employees had grumbled at the time, but many of them were now the sole support of cousins, parents, and in-laws who’d not been as fortunate.

“I have more money than we can possibly spend. If it will make Sarah happy, I’ll part with the lot of it, as long as you stay with me.”

Edna held out her wineglass, and Charles poured her another half serving. “I married a romantic. I think you mean that, about the money.”

The door was closed—Sarah’s tantrum hadn’t been overheard by the servants—and thus Charles spoke honestly.

“I have concluded that unless Sarah is happy, you cannot be happy, Edna. If you’re unhappy, I’m unhappy too. London is all well and good, but it’s not for us.”

He served himself more wine. This was doubtless an expensive French vintage, chosen by an expensive French sommelier. To Charles, the wine was simply a drink to wash down the peas. Ale would have done the job just as well and more enjoyably.

“Nobody snubs Sarah directly,” Edna said. “She’s too pretty for them to risk that, and you are too well-to-do. The gentlemen like to be seen with her, and she is trying to be agreeable.”

“But nobody befriends her, and nobody befriends you.” The sooner Charles could return his family to the north, the better, though if Sarah had her way, she’d probably never set a dainty boot in Cheshire again.

Edna lifted her glass in a salute. “The titled families will befriend her settlements.”

The table was laden with costly silver, French porcelain, and Venetian glass. All so much dross, from Charles’s perspective, trappings to be endured until Sarah had what she craved. His greatest treasure sat at his right hand, finishing her dinner and keeping him company.

“Sarah’s ambition impresses even me,” he said. “She’ll be ridiculed, mocked behind her back, and viewed as a sorry deviation from standards by the next three generations of her own progeny, even as her money funds their foolishness, and yet, she will have a title.”

Edna patted her lips with her table napkin and sat back. “Perhaps she’ll be able to make the leap, from a cit’s pretty daughter to an aristocrat’s wife. Sarah is determined and shrewd in her way, also beautiful, and her papa is wealthy.”

Her mother was also determined and shrewd, something even Charles could lose sight of. “You’ve found her a viscount?”

“Two possible viscounts, and there is an earl…”

“Younger than forty? Not given to debauchery? Even for a title, I won’t allow my daughter to marry a wastrel.”

“The Earl of Casriel is not much past thirty, sober, responsible, reasonably good-looking, and in need of coin. He might not be able to make Sarah happy, but he could make her a countess. At the moment, she thinks that’s better than happiness.”

Sarah would learn otherwise, but this earl would certainly need heirs, and children might do what a title and wealth could not.

“Mrs. Quinlan, if it wouldn’t be too great an imposition, perhaps you’d like to accompany this plain doddering mister above stairs, where we can discuss Sarah’s situation privately.”

And discuss this impoverished earl. They’d consider that gentleman until Charles knew how many sheep, acres, poor relations, and teeth he had, as well as all of his vices and his virtues. His lordship would need an abundance of virtues if he was to marry dear, sweet Sarah.

And her settlements.