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PROLOGUE

Sweet maid, the blushes on thy cheek

With innocence and beauty speak;

May love and joy attend thee still,

And every wish of thine fulfill.

The New Ladies’ Valentine Writer (1821)

* * *

Early August 1821, London

“And speaking of scandal, you will never believe who was seen sneaking out of Lord Uppington’s chambers at dawn. A certain countess!”

The Dowager Lady Harriet Slight arched her brows in response, her facial muscles shifting in polite reflex as Lady Cordelia Hammond prattled on about the latest on-dits.

They strolled along Piccadilly to shop, but Harriet was barely listening. She was feeling rather sour, not to mention regretful, for having indulged in too many bottles of wine the night before. But it was all beyond the pale.

Last year, she had lost her paramour, Perry Balfour, to a country mouse named, of all things, Emma Davis. What a tritely provincial name! And the chit had matched it, being a tiny, frumpy thing from the countryside. Unsophisticated. Clumsy.

Although, Harriet admitted, the girl did possess a certain rustic vivacity that Harriet, in her sophistication, had perhaps too readily dismissed. Which, at least, offered some meager explanation for why Perry had abandoned her company for the parson’s noose with that frumpy hoyden.

Cordelia continued as if a rapt audience hung on her every word. “A respectable married lady, no less. Of course, she claims she was merely seeking advice on a family matter, but really! At that hour? And in a state of such disarray?”

Gadzooks, her fellow widow did talk. Fortunately, Harriet’s lingering inebriation made it easier to ignore the incessant chatter while she ruminated over the events of the past two weeks.

Initially, she had sought revenge for Perry’s defection by encouraging the attentions of his friend, Mr. Brendan Ridley, and had enjoyed a few months of his avid pursuit across Town. It had restored her self-esteem to see the handsome heir to a baron enraptured by her, quite taking her mind off the humiliation of the year before.

Then, just as she was considering sending him on his way, another unsophisticated hoyden had appeared in her drawing room, demanding that Harriet provide Brendan with an alibi.

Her! An important viscountess! Expecting her to ruin herself to save Brendan from the gallows by testifying that he had been with her at the time of his father’s murder? It had been all she could do not to collapse into peals of laughter.

Nay, Brendan had gotten himself into trouble, and he should be capable enough to get himself out of it. Heroic rescues were the stuff of phantasy, and clearly, little Lily Abbott was nothing more than a deluded schoolgirl barely out of her short skirts if she imagined Harriet would leap onto a white horse to rescue a man she barely knew, then be forced into an unwanted marriage with a lowly baron to mitigate the ensuing gossip.

Only, the ridiculous girl had provided an alibi in Harriet’s stead, thoroughly ruining her own pristine reputation to marry Brendan in the resulting scandal and become the new Lady Filminster.

“If her husband hears of it, she might find herself exiled to the Highlands before the Season is through,” Cordelia continued, failing to notice that Harriet could not care a whit for her mindless tattling.

Were the gods mocking her? Was she to lose every future paramour to some dumpy green girl? Harriet stretched her neck ever so slightly to relieve the tension. She was alluring, blast it all! Incomparable! She could have any man of the upper classes merely by crooking her finger.

At that moment, just as they passed Hatchards, the door swung open, and indeed, the gods proved themselves fond of a jest, for Brendan Ridley and his prattling, unremarkable bride stepped out, buried in conversation and failing to notice that Harriet had stopped to consider them, bringing Cordelia to a sharp halt.

Lily Ridley, the new Baroness of Filminster, turned her head toward her husband, engrossed in their conversation, to trill a breathless question in his direction. Brendan, who had, just weeks earlier, been at Harriet’s beck and call, utterly enthralled by her vivacious beauty, yet now did not even notice her standing three feet away, directly in his line of sight?

It was not to be tolerated.

Harriet’s resentment ratcheted up, and she decided it was high time the newlyweds paid her some mind.

“Well, well. It is the scandalous Lily Ridley, if my eyes do not deceive.”

Silly Lily spun about, and Brendan’s eyes found hers with a jolt of surprise.

Harriet drew her shoulders back in rigid pride, well aware that this posture conveyed her consequence to its fullest effect. The short chit who had caused all of Harriet’s recent botheration took an instinctive step backward, as if unsettled by the sheer force of Harriet’s well-admired presence. Beside her, Cordelia was riveted, giggling coldly at Harriet’s coy remark.

Harriet welcomed the small surge of smugness. She was still a force to be reckoned with.