For the journey to London, Maggie had donned a dark blue carriage gown. It had once accentuated the generous curves of her bosom and the narrowness of her waist. Now, it hung loosely on her small frame. She’d always been petite. Indeed, after the age of sixteen she’d never grown any taller. But following her illness, and the subsequent years of grief and isolation, there was altogether less of her.

Her mirror didn’t lie. Instead of the voluptuous curves that had once inspired gentlemen of the ton to dub her the Pocket Venus, there was now a fragile delicacy to her face and figure that had never been there before.

She looked—or so she feared—very much like an invalid.

“A bit of good food and good company, and before you know it, Miss Margaret, you’ll be as bonny as you were while your Papa was alive,” Bessie said. “Mind you, you’re still the prettiest young lady I’ve ever seen.”

Maggie gave her maid a wry smile. At six and twenty there weren’t many who would still consider her a young lady. Rather the opposite, in fact. She was well on her way to becoming an old maid.

It wasn’t for lack of choice.

During her come-out season alone, she’d received six formal offers of marriage, including one from an impoverished earl who had hopes that Squire Honeywell’s vast fortune would replenish his ancestral estates.

She had refused them all, just as she’d refused every offer since.

And if she still had any choice in the matter, she would continue refusing.

They arrived at Lord and Lady Trumble’s house in Green Street a short time later. Jane was waiting on the front steps, a colorful Indian shawl draping her tall, slender frame. As a footman handed Maggie out of the carriage, Jane ran down to meet her, both hands extended in greeting.

“My dear friend! It’s been far too long. How was the journey? Are you dreadfully tired?” She kissed one of Maggie’s cheeks and then the other before linking arms with her and walking her into the house. “Aunt Harriet is fast asleep in her room else she’d be here to greet you. She’s meant to be our chaperone, you know. Papa wouldn’t consent to my coming to London otherwise. But you mustn’t think she’ll interfere with our fun. She’s an absolute relic. She falls straight to sleep a moment after sitting down in a chair, and can’t hear a thing without her ear trumpet. It will be as if we have the entire house to ourselves.”

A footman in the entry hall took Maggie’s hat, gloves, and cloak.