Birgitta, or Birdie, who wouldn’t make her debut for some years, was Viola’s secret favorite, a sweet-natured girl who played the pianoforte with a sensitivity and emotion that couldn’t be taught. She had shown talent for musical composition and was to perform a piece of her own authorship at the musicale.

As for their brother, the duke, his conduct was not to be held as an example for any respectable soul. He slept the day away and left the house in the evenings with the sole intent of furthering his dreadful reputation as London’s Most Wicked Rogue.

Even when he was mostly absent, his formidable presence permeated the entire house. He left reminders of his decadent pursuits strewn about—playbills from bawdy entertainments, vouchers for debts at gaming hells, even the odd silk stocking or jewel-encrusted hairpin, mementos of passionate liaisons that fell, unheeded, from his coat pockets.

Blanche moved from the andante grazioso movement to the menuetto and Viola’s thoughts remained with the duke. He had the same gilded hair and dark blue eyes as his sisters, but he was a colossus of a man, with broad shoulders, a chiseled jaw, and the dangerously handsome face of a fallen angel.

Her friends were always scolding her on the subject of Wicked Westbury. They thought she was secretly in love with him. Ridiculous! She’d never be so incredibly stupid as to give her heart to such a rake. Even though he was sinfully attractive, and his commanding bass voice gave her gooseflesh.

Even though she suspected his gruff exterior hid a warm and generous heart because he doted on his sisters, and they adored him in return. She’d gleaned that whatever drove him to drink and gamble had probably originated with his father who, by all accounts, had been exceedingly cold and distant toward his firstborn son.

She wanted to know more about his past. Sometimes she led the conversation toward him, to hear his sisters’ tales of their childhood. How their brother had always had a kind word for them, a smile, a new book, or toy. How all of that had changed when he was sent off to school after their brother Bertram’s birth.

The family had experienced its share of tragedies. The girls’ mother had passed from this earth six years ago, with Bertram following less than a year later in a horse riding accident. Their father had soon followed and the ladies whispered that he’d died of a broken heart.

When Westbury was a young man he’d gone downhill so swiftly, Blanche had told Viola with a deep sadness in her eyes. He’d lost himself in London’s demimonde. Developed a compulsion to frequent gaming hells and throw his money away until he stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning.