Chapter One
Selwyn Court, Dorset, August 1818
The Duke ofGlenmoor was dead. Or so Mia’s cousin claimed. Of course, Eustace was deep in his cups when he said it, and subject to drama at the best of times, even when seated at his father’s dinner table as he was that evening.
He might not have mentioned it at all if his sister Selina hadn’t expressed a moony-eyed hope that the young and very eligible duke, their nearest neighbor of note, would return home now that fall approached, declaring she needed a new wardrobe since they had only recently left off mourning for her mother, Mia’s Aunt Harriet.
“Well, he ain’t coming back soon. I can tell you that. Word in London is he has disappeared,” Eustace declared, waving his empty wine glass. A footman rushed to refill it.
Selina’s spoon clattered to her plate, and Viscount Clavering—Mia’s uncle and Eustace and Selina’s father, Ludlow Selwyn—bristled. “Nonsense. Dukes don’t just disappear,” he said.
Selina’s distress no doubt owed more to fear of the loss of a chance to fix Glenmoor’s attention than any real concern for the poor man.
Eustace shrugged. “He may be dead. Betting in the clubs is that he did himself in.”
Mia shuddered, and Uncle Ludlow glared at him in horror. If true, the duke’s death would be a tragedy however it occurred. Mia loathed Eustace’s insensitive attitude.
“But he has to come home,” Selina wailed. “Now mourning is over, there could be assemblies, and, and…”
“You’ll never get the pair of them married off,” Eustace sneered, slurping his wine. “Fee is a Friday-faced Methodist, and Selina’s whining would drive a man to drink.”
As if you need an excuse to overimbibe.Mia glared at him. She hated her proper name, Euphemia Forbearance Selwyn, gift of a scholarly father and pious mother, almost as much as she hated Eustace’s mocking nickname, Fee.
“Mind your tongue, boy. Your sister and cousin are just now out of mourning for your mother. Show some respect.” Uncle Ludlow’s frown deepened, but as always, it had little effect.
“What am I supposed to do here in Dorset with naught but sheep and the pokey little hamlet of Nether Abbas for entertainment?” Selina said, her tone confirming her brother’s judgment about her whining.
Eustace drank deeply. “I’ll grant you that, little sister. Dull as dirt is Dorset. If Clavering would—”
“There won’t be a farthing for you until quarter day, if that is what you mean to ask. Do you good to rusticate for a while. Time you took some responsibility,” the viscount sputtered.
At one-and-twenty, Eustace was a year older than Mia in time but younger in every way that mattered.When does a man acquire enough age to exhibit some character?
Eustace certainly showed no sign of settling down so far. He had declared himself finished with university two years before and decamped for London. He only came home when his purse emptied out and he needed to outrun creditors. God only knew what sorts of vice and debauchery he got up to. At least this time, he’d arrived without his rakehell friends to raid the viscount’s brandy, ogle both Selina and Mia, and send her uncle into a rage over their profanity.
Uncle Ludlow turned his frown on Selina. “As for you, young lady, you’ll get your London season in the spring. We’ll see if we can get some fools to take you and your cousin off my hands.”
Mia’s heart sank. He had grudgingly offered her one season. “No overdoing the fripperies, mind, Euphemia, and just the one. You best make the most of it,” he’d said. “Unless we get lucky and some farmer takes you off my hands.” She wasn’t sure which option sounded more dismal, being dragged through London as Selina’s poor relation or being forced on some local swain. Now that her aunt had passed, she had no real role at Selwyn Court, however. Uncle Ludlow viewed her as a burden. Her only other relative was her Great-Aunt Hortensia, widow of a chapel preacher who lived in penury in Northumberland. With no money of her own and no other place to go, Mia could only pray that she might find a decent husband.
“Where did you find that ugly frock, Fee? Did some local trull make it up out of her grandmother’s attic?” Eustace asked. “No one will have you looking like that.”
Mia ignored the jibe.
Selina seized on it to wheedle for new dresses. “We’ll both need new wardrobes for the season.” Selina glanced at her father hopefully. “And I don’t see why it must wait, now that mourning is over. The Duke of Glenmoor might yet come home this fall, and we will entertain.”
“Ha! You’ll grow cold waiting for that to happen, you ninny,” Eustace said, laughing.
Mia watched the play of emotion on her uncle’s face. She could almost hear him weighing the cost of dressing his daughter against the possibility of attracting an unattached duke. “Might be best to puff off Euphemia at a local assembly. If I dress you now, though, I’ll have to do it again in the spring. Best wait until we see if he returns to Woodglen.”
“Eustace may be right. The duke has been away more than home for the past two years,” Mia murmured. Mia found the Duke of Glenmoor to be a pleasant enough young man, if a bit dandified, and well mannered at least—not that he had ever paid much attention to plain Mia Selwyn, his neighbor’s unwanted niece.
“But dukes don’t just disappear,” the viscount said, nodding to the butler to clear the table and bring the pudding.
“This one’s been acting peculiar all year. First, he trundled off to Wales with his stepmother. Came to London just as the season started and left town a week later.”
“He didn’t come here, I can tell you that,” Uncle Ludlow said, shaking his head. “He’s come nowhere near Woodglen in over a year.”
Eustace shook his head. “Betts and Rowley stumbled on him in some little inn in a nothing of a village near Nottingham during summer, nursing his ale in the corner, sunk in misery. Treated them to the cut direct. Betts thinks he lost his mind when old Hopewell’s granddaughter refused him.”
