“My love,” her mother said reproachfully.

“Fearfully?” Avery’s quizzing glass hovered near his eye.

“It is the very word she used,” Jessica said.

He looked pained. “It would be a long journey for Josephine,” he said, looking at Anna.

“She has always traveled well,” she said. “Besides, I really must meet this fearfully handsome man. It is too long to wait until Christmas.”

“I must say,” Louise added, “that Camille chose the perfect word to describe the man. I cannot, however, like the idea of Viola marrying him. Perhaps my sisters and I can frighten him away, though I doubt he is a man easily intimidated.”

“Shall I answer the invitation for all of us?” Anna asked.

“Yes, do,” the dowager said while her daughter clasped her hands tightly on the edge of the table. “I shall have no peace from Jessica if I deny her the treat. Besides, I cannot deny myself.”

At Brambledean Court Wren found Alexander in the steward’s office and showed him the invitation. He said a few words to the steward and followed her out into the main hall before reading it.

“You must not do any unnecessary traveling while you are in a delicate condition,” he said.

“Must not?” She was smiling.

He looked up sharply. “Am I being the stuffy autocrat again?” he asked.

“Delicate?” She raised her eyebrows.

“You are with child, Wren.” He looked at her ruefully. “To me you are delicate. So is my child—our child. You both bring out my worst instincts to coddle and protect.”

“Or your best.” She set a hand on his arm. “I have never felt better in my life, Alexander. And you are head of the family.”

“If that were a physical thing,” he said with a sigh, “I would hurl it from the highest cliff into the deepest depths of the ocean.”

“But it is not.” Her eyes twinkled at him.

“But it is not.” He sighed again. “Let me go alone. You remain here.”

“I would pine away without you.” Her eyes were laughing now. “And you would pine away without me. Admit it.”

“Hyperbole,” he protested. “But I would be horribly inconvenienced and out of sorts.” He grinned suddenly. “I suppose you want to meet the infamous marquess before Christmas.”

“Camille described him as fearfully handsome,” she said.

“Did she really?” he said. “Fearfully? I suppose he does have a way of instilling fear in anyone who tends to be intimidated by pretension.”

“But you are not. My hero.” She laughed, and he laughed with her.

“We will go, then?” he said. “You are quite sure, Wren?”

“I am very fond of Viola,” she said. “She was not in London long when we got married, but there was an instant bond between us. Apart from your mother and sister, who were incredibly kind to me from the start, Viola felt like the first real friend I have had in my life. I am a little upset about her, for I fear that circumstances are forcing her into doing something she does not really want to do. I cannot do anything about that, of course, but I can . . . be there. It is not much to offer, is it?”

“It may be everything,” he said. “Why have we been standing here for so long? You will be getting dizzy. You will answer the invitation? And say yes?”

“I will.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You may return to what you were doing.”

“I have your permission, do I?” he asked.

“You do, sir,” she said. “You may have noticed that I can be a stuffy autocrat too.”

At Riddings Park in Kent, Alexander’s home until he inherited the Riverdale title and Brambledean with it, Mrs. Althea Westcott, his mother, read the invitation aloud to Elizabeth.

“I must have seen the Marquess of Dorchester a hundred times over the years,” she said, “but I cannot for the life of me put a face to the name.”

“Even though Camille describes him as fearfully handsome, Mama?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes twinkling. “And she is right too. I have to agree with her. He is both handsome and fearful. I would not like to cross his will. And he was not the Marquess of Dorchester until a couple of years or so ago. He was plain Mr. Lamarr before that.”

“Is Viola out of her mind agreeing to marry him?” her mother asked.

Elizabeth thought about it. “No,” she said, though there was some hesitation in her voice. “Although the marriage has undoubtedly been forced upon them—good gracious, his young son and daughter and her daughter were among the eight of us who came upon them there. It has been forced upon them, but I am not at all sure they would not have got there on their own, given time. There is something . . . Call me a romantic if you will. There is just . . . something. Words have deserted me this morning.”

“They are in love?” her mother asked.

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, “I am not at all sure about that, Mama. He is definitely not the sort of man one would expect to fall in love. It is widely believed, on good evidence, that he is a man without a heart. And I am not sure Viola is the sort of woman to fall in love. She is far too disciplined, something that has been so forced upon her all her adult life that it may well have become ingrained, I fear. But . . . Well . . .

“There is something,” her mother said, smiling.

“Just the word I was searching for. Thank you, Mama.” Elizabeth smiled. “There is something. We will go, then?”

“Certainly,” her mother said. “Was there ever any doubt?”

In the north of England, Mildred Wayne, née Westcott, was still in her dressing room having the finishing touches put to her morning coiffure when Lord Molenor, her husband, came in with their invitation dangling from one hand. He waited until his wife had dismissed her maid.

“Dorchester’s young daughter is inviting us to a betrothal party for Viola and her father at Redcliffe,” he said. “We have just returned home from Bath. With the boys away at school, perhaps behaving themselves, perhaps not, we have more than two months of quiet conjugal bliss to look forward to before we all take ourselves off to Brambledean for Christmas and the wedding. But I suppose you will insist upon going to Redcliffe as well.”

“Well, goodness me, Thomas,” she said, taking one last look at her image before turning from the glass, apparently satisfied. “Of course.”

“Of course,” he said with mock meekness, and offered his arm to escort her downstairs for breakfast. “And you may answer the invitation, Mildred.”

“Of course,” she said again. “Don’t I always?”

He thought about it during the time it took them to descend five stairs. “Always,” he agreed.

And at the home of the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, one of the smaller entailed properties of the earl, Lady Matilda Westcott, spinster eldest sister of Humphrey, the late Earl of Riverdale, offered her mother the vinaigrette that she took from the brocade reticule she carried everywhere with her to cover all emergencies.

“We will not go, of course,” she said. “You must not upset yourself, Mama. I shall write and decline the invitation as soon as we have finished eating.”

“Put it away,” her mother said, batting impatiently at the vinaigrette. “The smell of it makes my toast taste vile. Viola is an important member of this family, Matilda. She was married to Humphrey for twenty-three years before he died. It was not her fault the marriage turned out to be irregular. I have loved her as a daughter for twenty-five years and I will continue to do so until I go to my grave. What I need to know is whether she is making a foolish mistake. Again. I understand this young man has a reputation every bit as disreputable as Humphrey’s was.”