CHAPTER ONE
Kensington, London. May 1812.
‘Aunt Kate. Aunt Kate! Rosie just bit me on my finger!’
Oh, no, thought Kate Summerby. That loud squeal of protest from the garden meant that her sister Monica’s six-year-old twins were squabbling yet again. Kate rose wearily from the parlour floor, where she had been scrubbing spots of vivid yellow paint from the rug.
Which,she reminded herself,is entirely your own silly fault for suggesting they paint pictures for their mama.
Kate had sent Elijah and Rosie into the garden to play while she attempted to clean up the mess. ‘Peacefully, please, children!’ she’d instructed. But now it sounded as if a full-scale battle was going on, and by the time she reached them, the twins were hurling lumps of wet soil at one another and hurling insults as well.
‘You’re stupid, Elijah!’ yelled Rosie.
‘So are you.’
‘I shall tell our mother!’
‘I don’t care.’
Kate was bracing herself to intervene when one of the lumps of earth landed on her dress.
She was twenty-six years old, well past the usual age for a woman to marry, and she wasn’t over-concerned about theclothes she wore. But as the children stared at her, partly aghast at the mess on her gown and partly longing to burst into giggles, she thought, ‘Is this going to be my life forever?’
Her mother had died long ago, and her father, a baronet, was fond enough of his two daughters but had always made it plain that he was eager to see them married off. Kate’s older sister, Monica, had delighted him by marrying a rich and eligible London businessman, but when Kate reluctantly agreed to enter Society at the late age of twenty, her father’s hopes of a repeat of Monica’s success were doomed to failure.
Why? It was partly because Monica had glossy chestnut hair, blue eyes and a lush figure that went in and out in all the right places. Kate, on the other hand, was slim, had pale hair that refused to curl and green eyes that just didn’t attract compliments like Monica’s did. All of which she could probably have coped with, because she had never been vain.
But when the time came for her first Society ball, she was dreading it—because she could not dance.
Once, she had been like other girls who dreamed of wearing beautiful dresses and someday meeting a handsome man with whom they would live happily ever after. But ten years ago, just after Kate’s mother died, an illness had kept her confined to her bed for months, and the doctors doubted she would ever walk again.
Kate did her best to prove them wrong. Each day she took a few more steps around her father’s garden and gradually she grew stronger, but she still tended to limp if she was tired, and dancing was a nightmare. When she began attending private parties in preparation for her Season, she was terrified of stumbling over even the simplest moves.
Even so, her father was adamant she should formally enter Society, and Monica supported him. ‘We must,’ Monica declared, ‘find you a husband, Kate!’
So Kate finally agreed to her first Season, and she was not a success. Word quickly got round that she did not dance, so she sat with the wallflowers for most of the time, and the only men who approached her were either elderly or made it insultingly plain they were merely after her dowry.
Then, one night, the son of a Viscount came over to talk to her. He said he wasn’t interested in dancing and sat by her side, complimenting her on her appearance and telling her he found her company refreshing. The other debutantes looked on in jealous disbelief, because he was one of the most eligible bachelors in town. Kate too was astonished, but when he approached her again at the next party, and the next, she began to look forward more and more to meeting him, taking care over her hair and clothes.
Her foolish hopes rose, and one night, at a particularly lavish party, he suggested they go out into the garden to watch the fireworks that were the climax of the evening’s entertainment. But once outside he grabbed her and kissed her, a harsh, almost brutal kiss that she had hated. Then he had raised one hand in the air, in a gesture of triumph.
Too late, Kate saw the gesture was intended for his friends who had followed them outside. ‘I’m the winner,’ he had called to them. ‘Pay up, gentlemen, please!’
Gradually, sickeningly, she had realised that those men had all laid bets on who could kiss the wallflower—and he had won. That was when she decided her Season was over. Hiding her humiliation behind a mask of indifference, she said to her father and sister, ‘No more.’
She continued to live with her father in Bayswater. Nearly all her former friends were married by then and starting to have children; they were busy with their own lives and Kate had quietly endured her solitude because it was preferable in her opinion to being thrust into Society once more. Then, just over ayear ago, her father met a rich widow from Norfolk and decided to marry her. But his wife-to-be insisted he come to live with her at her home near Norwich, so he set about selling his Bayswater house—and where did that leave Kate?
Monica had the answer. By then, she had settled in a leafy mansion in Kensington with her husband and they had five-year-old twins. ‘You must come to us, Kate!’ Monica had eagerly proclaimed.
So Kate moved in, but very quickly realised she was expected to look after the twins all day while Monica attended her various social engagements. This afternoon, for example, while the twins were creating mayhem, Monica had gone to a tea party with the ladies of Kensington. ‘After all,’ Monica liked to say, ‘I do need to uphold my husband’s position in the neighbourhood.’
Kate always did her best with the children, but they were exhausting. She’d quickly learned from Monica’s staff that her sister had hired a succession of nursery maids, but none of them had lasted long—and as far as Kate was concerned, things had lately got worse because her brother-in-law, Edward Terrance, kept making sly advances whenever he caught her alone. He was a vain man whom she really could not abide, and she was near the end of her tether. Indeed, today as she stared at the mud on her dress and the stubborn paint stains on the rug, she said aloud, ‘This cannot go on. I must do something. I must find myself a job!’
Yes.Perhaps as a governess or housekeeper? Then at least she might be paid a proper salary. She did receive an allowance from her father, but Monica took most of it—‘For your bed and board, of course,’ Monica always said cheerfully.
With a sigh, Kate glanced out into the garden again. The twins had resumed their bickering, and she was just deciding to leave them to it and change her gown, when the household’s footman approached.
‘Letter for you,’ he said, thrusting it at her and ambling off. Kate stared after him. Even the staff here didn’t bother to be polite to her.
