Chapter 1
19 March, 1817
Almack’s Assembly Rooms
London, England
* * *
Thaddeus Middleton, plain old “mister” in an endless line of plain old misters, considered himself the luckiest of men.
“The first set?” gushed a wide-eyed debutante, gripping her blank dance card in trembling fingers. “Truly?”
“I cannot conceive of a greater start to the evening,” Thad assured her and signed his name with a flourish.
She clutched the card to her bosom and all but ran off squealing.
He grinned to himself. Now that she had one name, more would surely follow. Perhaps both of them would find the match of a lifetime tonight.
The first hour inside Almack’s Assembly Rooms was always one of the best. He could greet all his old friends, make a dozen new ones, and set the tone for the evening. Like everyone else, Thad was looking for more than a dance partner. He wanted a wife. As for why he was so lucky?
When it came to love, Thad possessed one thing the snobs and the lordlings and the new money hopefuls did not:
Choice.
“Middleton!” A light-pocketed dandy clapped a hand to Thad’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “You’re not after the Wakefield heiress, are you?”
“For nothing more than a country dance,” Thad assured him. “She’s yours if she wants you.”
The dandy adjusted his cravat. “Then I’ll see if there’s still room on her card.”
Thad returned his gaze to the bustling ballroom before him. Large mirrors between the gilded pilasters along the walls reflected the high energy and sweeping elegance of the crème de la crème of high society. A man could not ask for better odds than this.
Technically, he did not yet have a list of potential brides from whence to choose. Or even a single name lightly penciled in on a sheet labeled “…Perhaps?”
But all of that was about to change. Soon. He just had to keep looking.
As far as Thad could tell, the moral of most fairy-tales was to be in the right place at the right time, and not to overlook anyone. One never knew when one’s right time and right place would be, so Thad endeavored to be everywhere.
Tonight, he was in the perfect spot for running into Princess Charming. For twelve consecutive weeks during the height of the London season, these hallowed walls housed what was colloquially known as the Marriage Mart. Eligible ladies and gentlemen flocked here every Wednesday in search of The One.
“Do say you’ll complete our quadrille,” one of his favorite bluestockings said as she swept past. “One tires of discussing the weather with every dance partner, and you always have an interesting book you’ve just finished.”
“This time as well,” Thad said solemnly as he signed his name upon her card. “It’s about the history of English weather.”
Laughing, she smacked him with her fan. “Find another book and meet me for the third set.”
“But… the rain,” he called after her with faux innocence. “We could discuss it for hours!”
Not that he had hours. He was on a mission. If Almack’s was the Marriage Mart, Thad had a very specific shopping list: True love. What else mattered?
Surely he’d recognize love when he saw it. Love was impossible to miss. Love felt like the singing of angels and the thunder of fireworks. It was intimate confessions and breathless kisses and riding white horses into the sunset. Love meant waking every morning next to someone as delighted to see him as he was to see her. A fairy-tale come to life.
Or it would be. But first, he needed to find The One.
“Middleton!” Another friendly hand clapped Thad’s shoulder. “First Colehaven, then Eastleigh… Must be our turn to shine at last, eh?”
“So I pray,” Thad agreed fervently.
