Chapter 1
London, 1817
Miss Bryony Grenville was seated on the floor polishing a worn pair of lad’s boots when the door to her private drawing room flew open.
In a flash, she hid the boots and the polish behind her back—then scowled up at her grinning elder brother.
“Heath, you beast.” She placed the boots back before her. “I thought you were Mother, here to scold me anew.”
“Has she been in here?” Heath looked about in obvious surprise.
The drawing room had once been the private domain of all four Grenville siblings. Bryony was the only unmarried one left.
“She scolds me everywhere, these days. I’m her pet project.” She brightened. “Have you brought me more castoffs to wear?”
“I’ve brought you something better.” He flopped bonelessly onto the overstuffed settee just as he had always done. “First, tell me about Mother. Is she hounding you about marriage again?”
“There’s no one else left to hound,” she replied morosely. “I’m considering pursuing a career as a violinist just to make myself unmarriageable to Society gentlemen.”
Heath grinned. “I’ve no doubt you could do it.”
Bryony perked up. “Really?”
“Not that I recommend such an action,” he amended. “While you are indeed the most talented violinist ever to grace London with your music, I seem to recall the tiny detail of you actually hating the instrument.”
“I don’t hate the violin,” she protested. “I don’t mind playing in our family musicales. And I willingly volunteer my time at Dahlia’s school with a minimal quantity of pouting.”
“Because you love your family and enjoy helping other people,” Heath pointed out. “But if it’s not your passion, trading some boring marriage for a grueling soloist career is exchanging one unhappy circumstance for another. Are you certain there are no suitable gentlemen on the horizon? Even a semi-suitable one that you like marginally better than the violin?”
“None I would make a good match with,” she admitted. “I wish there was a way I wouldn’t have to marry anyone at all.”
“Isn’t there?” Heath frowned. “I thought that was what all your investments were for. To become a woman of independent financial means.”
She winced. “I gave everything I could to Dahlia’s school.”
“So did I,” he said with a crooked grin. “Yet I find myself here on behalf of one of your investments, so I know you have at least one iron in the fire.”
Over the past two years, Bryony had sold all the unencumbered assets she’d earned from what felt like a lifetime of investing in order to make her anonymous donations to her sister’s struggling school. All she had left was ownership of one outstanding investment contract and a single property deed.
Those pseudonymous investments had been the one thing giving her hope. Until now.
“It doesn’t matter. Mother and Father are determined to wash their hands of me before the end of the Season. He’ll marry me off before allowing me financial independence.” The unfairness of it made the backs of her eyes prick. “They’ve given me the same ultimatum they gave Camellia. I’ve one month to nab an eligible bachelor, or they’ll select one for me.”
He flinched. “The suitor they selected for Camellia was certainly not her best match.”
“They’re not hoping for apersonalitymatch,” Bryony reminded him. “According to Mother, as the daughter of a baron I am all but contractually required to wed a man with an even loftier title.”
“I can imagine how well that’s going,” Heath said wryly.
“Dreadful,” Bryony said with feeling. “I don’t want some gentleman twice my age who will take over my investments and my life and my—”
“Whatdoyou want?” he interrupted, laughing. “To take overhisinvestments and his life and his—”
“Oh, you.” She tossed a pillow at his head. “I don’t want to run anyone’s life but my own. Yet even that is impossible. Mother is trying her best to curtail my ways. Take up embroidery or somesuch. She says hoydens are ‘mannish’ and will never attract a good title.”
The corners of Heath’s mouth twitched. “Lad’s clothing is, by definition,mannish.”
“She doesn’t know I sneak out in them,” Bryony pointed out.
