“But Mama and I have been invited too,” Elizabeth reminded him. “I would not miss it for worlds. Besides, I have not seen any of the cousins since the funeral either, and their enforced seclusion must be quite irksome to them, especially when the Season is tempting them with so many entertainments. Camille must be hugely disappointed at having been forced to postpone her wedding to Viscount Uxbury, and poor Abigail must feel even worse done by at having to wait until next year to make her come-out when she is already eighteen. Perhaps we will see young Jessica too, since this meeting is to be at Archer House. Oh, and I must confess, Alex, that I look forward to seeing the Duke of Netherby. He is so deliciously . . . grand.”

“Lizzie!” Alexander looked pained as he nodded to the footman to remove their plates. “He is nothing but bored artificiality through to the very heart. If he has one.”

“But he does it all with such magnificent flair,” she said, the twinkle back in her eyes. “And he is so very beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” He looked thunderstruck before relaxing and shaking his head and chuckling. “But the word does fit, I must confess.”

“Oh, it does,” their mother agreed. “If I were but twenty years younger.” She sighed and fluttered her eyelashes, and they all laughed.

“He is the very antithesis of you, Alex,” Elizabeth said, patting his hand once more while they all got to their feet. “Which fact must be an enormous relief to you, since you really do not like him one little bit, do you?”

“The antithesis?” he said. “I am not beautiful, then, Lizzie?”

“Absolutely not,” she said, linking her arm through his while he offered the other to his mother. “You are handsome, Alex. Sometimes I think it is unfair that you got all the stunning good looks—from Mama’s side of the family, of course—while I have never been anything but passably pretty. But it is not just your looks that disqualify you from being called beautiful. You never look bored or haughty, and you definitely have a heart. And a conscience. You are a solid citizen and a thoroughly worthy gentleman.”

“Good God,” he said, grimacing. “Am I really such a dull dog?”

“Not at all,” she said, laughing. “For you have the looks.”

He was, in fact, the quintessential tall, dark, handsome man—with an athletic, perfectly toned body and blue eyes to boot. He also had a smile that would melt frozen butter, not to mention female hearts. And, yes, he had a firm sense of duty to those dependent upon him. Elizabeth, four years his senior, was beginning to recover some of the bloom she had lost during her difficult marriage, though she was neither as dark nor as strikingly good-looking as her brother. She did, however, have an even temper, an amiable countenance, and a cheerful disposition that had somehow survived six years of disappointment and anxiety and abuse.

“Lizzie!” her mother exclaimed. “You have always been beautiful in my eyes.”

Three

“The devil!” Harry, the young Earl of Riverdale, frowned down the stairs at his sisters, who were frowning right back up at him. “Is it today old Brumford wants to see us at Avery’s house? Not tomorrow?”

“You know very well it is today,” Lady Camille Westcott said. “You had better make haste. You look a fright.”

He looked as though he had been up all night carousing, which, in fact, was exactly what he had been doing. His fine evening clothes were creased and rumpled, his shirt cuffs soiled, his neckcloth limp and askew, his fair, wavy hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, and no one would particularly wish to come within smelling distance of him. He was in dire need of a shave.

“You did not even come home last night, Harry,” Lady Abigail remarked rather obviously, her eyes moving over him from head to toe with open disapproval.

“I would dashed well hope not,” he said. “I would hardly be returning from a morning ride dressed like this, would I? Why the devil did Brumford have to choose today? And in the morning, of all the ungodly times? And why Archer House and not here? What the devil does he have to say anyway that cannot be put in a letter or conveyed through Mama or Avery? He does a great deal too much posturing and prosing, if anyone were to ask me, not that anyone ever does. I am of half a mind to get rid of him as soon as I turn twenty-one and choose someone else who understands that a solicitor’s absence is more appreciated than his presence and his silence more than his eloquence.”

“I must protest your language, Harry,” Camille said. “It may be all very well for your male acquaintances, but it certainly will not do in the hearing of your sisters. You owe Abby and me an apology.”

“Do I?” He grinned and then winced and grasped his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. “You both look like avenging angels, I must say—just what a fellow needs when he has come home for a well-earned sleep.”

At least he had not said they looked like two crows, as he had when they first put on their blacks. Camille was darker haired than her brother, tall, very upright in bearing, rather severe of countenance, her features too strong to be described as pretty, though she could certainly be called handsome with some justification. Abigail had her brother’s coloring and good looks and slender build, though she was small of stature.

“Mr. Brumford will soon be awaiting us at Archer House,” Abigail reminded him. “So will Cousin Avery.”

“But what can be left to discuss?” he asked, releasing his temples. “He droned on for hours when he came here a few weeks ago, though he had absolutely nothing new to say. And why do the two of you have to go this time as well to be bored silly? I shall have a few questions for him when I see him, you may rest assured.”