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“I suppose I could accompany you to the Boodle tea party,” Silvester conceded.

She threw him a smug look. “I’ll also expect you to attend my annual Scavenger Hunt tomorrow, as well as my Bucolic Supper with Riparian Entertainments.”

Silvester loved his mother. He did. But . . . “What’s a ‘riparian entertainment’ when it’s at home?”

“At home? Riparian . . . riverside,” his mother clarified. “I blame Eton for the deficits in your vocabulary.”

“I shall be desolate to miss it, but—”

She cut him off with a raised finger. “The Earl of Lilford, Lady Yasmin, and Lady Stella have accepted my invitation. That should prove entertaining. Unless, of course, you want to leave the field clear for his lordship.”

“Well played,” Silvester said, reluctantly.

“The earl’s sister, Lady Lydia, will also attend. Perhaps Harold could marry Lydia, if she speaks French. Oh, and Lady Stella’s aunt, Mrs. Thyme, who is just the sort of nincompoop whom I most despise.”

“Lovely.”

His mother ignored that sour comment. “I’ll invite the American Duchess as well. I gather the duke is traveling, but I find her so refreshing.”

Silvester nodded. He liked Merry, as the Duchess of Trent insisted on being called.

“I expect she knows Harold. America isn’t very large, after all. Once one knows one American, one feels one has met them all.”

Chapter Four

En route to a tea party given by Lady Boodle

for select debutantes and their chaperones

Until Stella debuted, she didn’t realize that the Season was a competition that ranked ladies as winners and losers.

The losers were women like her. It didn’t matter how many suitors she had; everyone knew that the men were actually courting her dowry. The winners were exquisite ladies like Yasmin, drifting around the ballroom trailing smiles and French perfume.

“I would quite like to be a wallflower and thereafter, a spinster,” Stella said abruptly.

Her aunt was gazing at the small glass she carried in her reticule, while reapplying the “rosy glow” she felt signaled youth. “You would?” Mrs. Thyme’s question was polite but disbelieving.

“If I had charm, exerting it to dazzle man after man would be exhausting,” Stella pointed out. “Not unlike being a courtesan. Though, of course, those ladies are paid for their charm and other . . . skills.”

“Stella!” Her aunt’s eyes widened with horror. “If we weren’t in a moving carriage, I should leave the room. Thank goodness your uncle is in the country.”

Mr. Thyme had a singular passion for growing gourds. He regularly won prizes at the county fair, having discovered that gourds could be coaxed to bulging glory by being nurtured with warm manure and regularly turned toward the sun. In short: they needed his supervision.

“A concubine entices a man for the evening in exchange for coin,” Stella mused. “A lady is supposed to entice a man as well, and she doesn’t even get paid for it.”

Ladylike comportment dictated that Mrs. Thyme always sat bolt upright, even in a carriage, but now she collapsed back against the velvet seat, a trembling hand on her heart. “My sister is turning over in her grave,” she moaned.

Stella was of the opinion that rotation in the grave was unlikely. “The prize for not being a wallflower is, of course, marriage. But is that truly a prize?”

“Yes!” Mrs. Thyme snapped upright again. “It is.”

Stella sighed.

“What else will you do with your life, Stella?” her aunt demanded. “You’re too odd to become a governess.”

“I—”

Mrs. Thyme interrupted. “You have a home with me. But after my husband’s brother or his son inherits the estate, what will you do then?”