Alex blinked as the door snapped shut. Singular woman. He found himself intrigued, and he didn’t even know her name.

But she evidently knew his. Of course, he was a common fixture in social circles, so it wasn’t entirely surprising she would recognize him. What was more surprising was that he didn’t recognize her. He thought he knew every pretty girl who’d been out the last few Seasons, if only so he could avoid their matchmaking mamas.

He descended the stair. Of course, she wasn’t in the common way. Her thick coil of auburn hair nearly dwarfed her elfin face. The dress she wore had been severe enough for a governess, but the clean lines somehow drew his attention to her slender curves. She was also petite, coming only to his collarbone if one counted the knot of hair on top of her head. She looked as insubstantial as eider down and far too young to be the lady of the house for her stepsister Miss Templeman. She did look old enough, however, to be ready for marriage. Yet there had been no wedding band on those slender fingers.

Unfortunately, for all she intrigued him, she hadn’t been very helpful. He knew little more about the household than when he had followed his shadow here. But he had twenty-four hours. What could an enterprising gentleman learn in that time? Setting his top hat at a jaunty angle, he set forth to find out.

–

It was evening before Katherine had a moment to consider the next steps in her plan for her stepsister. First, she made sure Sir Richard was busy with Constance as her stepsister rested from her “accident.”

“Why do I feel you had a hand in this, Colonel?” her uncle asked Katherine when she slipped into the bedroom she shared with her stepsister to check on them.

She smiled at his pet name for her. “Do you think I would trip my dearest stepsister down the stairs, Uncle? I was with you at the time, if you recall.”

“I recall. I also recall my intentions at the time. A simple word of warning would have been sufficient, girl. You need not cozen me into doing the right thing.”

She did not point out that she had tried to stop him with words. He had not been in a mood to recognize subtlety. Besides, she knew her attempts to manage things annoyed him. But if he wouldn’t take responsibility for the family, what else was she to do?

Now was no exception. She had thought Constance might keep him safely by her side. All too soon, however, he complained of the pain in his leg and hobbled off to his study. Certain of what her uncle intended, Katherine intercepted Bixby on his way up with a tray. She raised a brow at the crystal decanter.

“Watered down two to one, just as you ordered,” her man promised with a nod of his balding head. “And Emma has popovers in the oven, Sir Richard’s favorite.”

Katherine returned the nod. “Good. Perhaps if we can fill his stomach with food, he will have no room for the liquor.”

“Worth a try,” Bixby replied. “Don’t you give up on him, Miss Katherine. He’s just fallen into a funk. Pride of the regiment, your uncle was once. Wasn’t a man in the unit who wouldn’t have traded places with him.”

“I know,” Katherine murmured. “Perhaps once Constance is safely wed we can turn our attentions to finding him something more worthwhile to pursue than the fastest way to empty a bottle. In the meantime, when you’re done with Sir Richard, and Emma is free, join me in our bedchamber, will you? We shall need several new plans if Mr. Perry continues his attacks on Wellington.”

“I wish Sir Richard would just read a different paper,” her man muttered, but he hurried off to complete his duties.

Katherine could not argue with him. Unfortunately, she’d already tried that tact. Her uncle insisted on The Chronicle. The few occasions when it had failed to appear on their doorstep he had stomped out to find a copy. They had to try something else to keep him from maiming the good editor.

But when they all gathered in the bedchamber, Katherine discovered that no one had any other ideas.

“Mayhap we should let him go to The Chronicle,” Emma suggested, absently twisting a piece of her coarse braided hair around one plump finger as she sat on the bed Katherine shared with her stepsister. “Seems like if that editor be so foolish as to bad-mouth General Wellington, he ought to be expecting a poke in the nose for his trouble.”

“Uncle doesn’t intend to punch him,” Eric told her from where he was curled up at the foot of the bed. “He wants to run him through.”

“Surely he couldn’t murder Mr. Perry,” Constance protested from the head of the bed, one hand clutching the gold cross she wore about her neck. “‘Let not the sun go down on your wrath,’ Ephesians 4:26.”

Bixby shook his head, leaning back against the wood-wrapped fireplace. “Sir Richard’s not a vengeful man, but he isn’t himself when he’s been drinking. Still, he is full-grown. Perhaps Emma has the right of it–we should stop interfering.”

Constance and Emma nodded sagely. Eric looked thoughtful. Perched beside him, Katherine stared at them.

“Have you all considered what would happen if he disgraces himself outside this house?” she scolded. “He would be mortified when he came to his senses. He might even go deeper into this decline. Not to mention what effect his misfortune would have on Constance. She only has six weeks left. Do you wish her doomed?”

Only Eric had the stomach to meet her gaze, and his eyes were wide.

“I wish you would not remind me of the date,” Constance murmured. “The right man will come along, Katherine. Be content to let me wait for him.”

Katherine grit her teeth. Waiting would get them all into trouble. “I do not wish you to feel pressured, love. But facts are facts. Your father, Eric’s and my stepfather, was certain you needed encouragement to wed. Your incentive was his fortune, which you will lose to your cousin if you are not married by your twenty-first birthday.”

“That’s not very far from now,” Eric pointed out helpfully. “You better hurry, Constance.”

She sighed. “I am trying, Eric, truly I am.”

Emma patted her hand on the coverlet. “Of course ye are, Miss Constance. Ye be so lovely, I know some handsome bloke’ll snatch ye up, so he will.”

As Bixby nodded, Constance offered them all a brave smile. “I pray you are right.”

“I know they are right,” Katherine said with equal fervor. “Just think, Constance. The perfect gentleman may appear on our doorstep tomorrow.”

“Or today,” Eric said with a grin and a wink to Katherine.

Katherine laid a hand on his shoulder in warning lest he give away the game with his enthusiasm. “Precisely,” she said. “And with that in mind, Constance, I think you should dress in your very best tomorrow.”

“And which dress would that be?” Constance asked with a teasing wink. “All my clothes are lovely. You should know, for you chose most of them.”

Katherine felt a pang at her manipulations. In truth, it pleased her to dress Constance in pretty clothes. Of course, with Constance’s beauty, Katherine would have been hard pressed to find anything that failed to flatter the girl. Constance had no way of knowing that several of the more recent acquisitions had been chosen with a far more important goal in mind than the girl’s own delight.

“What about that new dress I purchased for you?” Katherine asked her stepsister with a great deal more innocence than she felt.

Bixby caught her eye and nodded encouragement. “And that pretty scent you wore the other day,” he said to Constance. “Like violets it was.”

“Oh, that dress,” Eric said wisely, and Katherine had to pat him again.

Constance frowned as if she had noticed their odd behavior, but she nodded. “Certainly I can do those things, if they please you.”

Katherine smiled her thanks, although she knew it wasn’t so much their pleasure as Lord Borin’s they had in mind. Purple was his favorite color and violets his favorite flower, according to his old nurse, whom Bixby had found retired in London. If one was going to lay a trap, after all, one needed to use the proper enticement.

Of course, she didn’t like thinking of it as a trap, so much as the logical solution to a problem. Katherine considered the matter as she finished up her duties that evening and settled herself into bed beside Constance. Even asleep her stepsister looked lovely. Her skin glowed in the moonlight, and her breath was as soft and quiet as a newborn kitten’s. Though they shared no blood, they were closer than many sisters Katherine had seen. She knew from experience that her stepsister was as lovely inside as she was out. Any man should be pleased to have Constance for a bride.

Knowing that, she had not expected to have to work so hard at finding that man. Her mother and stepfather had been carried away by the influenza just before Katherine’s first Season. Society called for a mourning period of no less than six months, which would have effectively cancelled her Season, but she had her hands too full with seventeen-year-old Constance and five-year-old Eric to worry about what she was missing.

Sir Richard had been home recovering from his wound for more than a year at that time and had assumed guardianship for them, with the help of his man Bixby. In the beginning, her uncle had been of some help to her, but it soon became clear he had no idea what to do with the three of them. His failure had only encouraged his retreat into the bottle.

Katherine had been the one to find them a house when they lost her stepfather’s home to his heir, Weldon Amory. Katherine had begged Emma, her stepfather’s long-time cook, to come with them. Katherine had made sure Constance received tutoring so she could be received into Society. Katherine had inveigled an old friend of her mother’s to stand as Constance’s sponsor so her stepsister could be presented at court.

And now Katherine intended to see that her wonderful stepsister lived happily ever after.

She wrinkled her nose as a feather from the down comforter tickled it. At some point, she supposed, she’d have to consider what “happily ever after” meant as well. Her twenty-third birthday would be in August. She was too old to have a Season of her own. In truth, she wasn’t sure she wanted one. While she loved London with all its amusements and intrigues, she wasn’t particularly enamored of parading herself on the marriage mart. The only thing she had saved for a trousseau was her mother’s ruby engagement ring, a heavy, ornate piece that suited her no better than it had her gentle mother.

Once Constance was safely wed and Eric enrolled in Eton, as was his due, she thought she would be quite content to keep a small house and cultivate a select circle of friends. She might even purchase herself a harp to replace the one Constance’s cousin had spitefully insisted on keeping when they had left the Templeman town house.

But all that depended on Constance marrying in the next six weeks. Lord Borin was the favored candidate. Tomorrow, Katherine would take another step toward betrothing him to her stepsister.

With the plan of attack she had in mind, the poor fellow didn’t stand a chance.