PROLOGUE
Dear Lady Daventry,
Your attendance is requested at my house party, located at Birch House of Lockhart Square in London beginning on the twenty-eighth day of August and ending on the sixteenth day of September.
Your attendance will present many priceless opportunities, the nature of which will be explained to you upon your arrival. Prepare for twenty days of games, entertainment, and exquisite dining with the finest men and women of my acquaintance in the most impressive manor in all of London. As your hostess, I would be honored to have your company.
Sincerely,
Lady Tottenham
CHAPTER 1
ANNE
August 28th, 1818
It was five minutes past midnight when the second note of the evening was slipped underneath my bedchamber door at Birch House. It opened on the floor like a venus flytrap, just inches away from my discarded boots.
“What on earth?”I muttered, jolting up straight on my bed. Had someone seen light coming from my room? I should have blown out my candle. I stared at the door, half-expecting the handle to jostle as the shadows of two feet finally dispersed down the corridor. I exhaled a slow breath, pressing one hand to my chest.
The first note had come less than an hour before, preventing my sleep due to its strange nature. I had known my hostess was a bit…peculiar, but I hadn’t expected the first night of her house party to consist of such odd invitations.
The first note still rested on the table beside my bed, and its contents had been playing through my mind since I had first opened it.
Dear Lady Daventry,
You have been selected from amongst my guests to participate in this evening’s secret parlor game. Please meet in the parlor at midnightfor a night of frivolity you shall never forget. Be sure to bring your wit, imagination, and daring nature. I look forward to your attendance.
Your hostess,
Lady Tottenham
I clutched the sides of my nightdress and crept toward to the new letter on the floor. I swiped it up. The smudged ink was still damp. How could I sleep at all for the next week in this house if I was to expect mysterious letters under my door every hour?
Lady Daventry,
I must insist upon your attendance. Please make haste. We wait upon your arrival in the parlor.
Lady T
I cast my gaze upward with a sigh, glaring at the plasterwork on the ceiling. It would seem there was no escaping this ‘game’ without disrespecting my hostess. My mind raced with what ‘secret parlor game’ could entail. I would put nothing past Lady Tottenham and her love of theatrics.
And breaking rules.
I was a widow just as she was, but she seemed to think that her widowhood came with permission to ignore all the regulations of polite society. She was nearing the age of sixty, and she had no desire to marry again. She attracted friends from all over Town with her extravagant parties and peculiar soirees. The first day I met Lady Tottenham at a ball in Town, she invited me to a dinner party at which she served a dessert topped with dried crickets. She thrived on shocking people.
I suspected she liked me so much because I was easily shocked.
She had money, a title, and connections—and she was fearless about losing the latter. She had once told me that all she required to be happy were her gowns, her elaborate meals, and the memories of her late husband.
That was, perhaps, where we differed the most. She loved her late husband. I would eat a pile of dried crickets if it meant I could forget mine.
The invitation to Lady Tottenham’s house party had come at the most opportune time. I had accepted it with one purpose: a place to live in London for the next twenty days. With my finances depleting steadily, I depended on her hospitality. I had received another letter a month before, and it had become all I breathed for. I read it daily. The memorized words lived inside my mind.
Dearest Anne,
I am not certain this letter will reach you before I return from India, but it is my hope that you receive it well. The months have been long without you. My time abroad has given me time to reflect on my future, and the dream I have of spending it with you. Forgive me if I am too bold in declaring my intentions in a letter after all these years, but I couldn’t bear to wait another moment. All that I have done has been for you, for that dream, to secure a financial state that might make your life comfortable.
