It took a lot to get a man like Harry Annesley down. He refused to give up hope. Thank God there was more than one way to pluck a pigeon. Especially one as wealthy as Chase St. John. Whistling absently to himself, Harry made his way down the crowded street, his hat set at a jaunty angle, no sign of his concerns on his handsome face.

Chapter 2

I heard she wished to be buried in her lilac morning gown, as it would have gone well with the silk lining of the casket. But her family refused, saying it was a bit daring in the neckline. You know, when one is dead, one should be able to wear what one bloody well pleases.

Viscountess Hunterston to Lady Birlington while attending the funeral of Lady Agatha Tallwell, who was neither tall nor particularly well

“I am going to retch.”

Harriet Ward cast a fulminating glance at her sister. “Sophia, if you retch in this cart, I will personally tell everyone we know about the entire experience. And I will spare none of the horrid details.”

Sophia pressed a hand to her cheek and said with all the false tenor of a threepenny actress from Drury Lane, “I am ill, and yet you mock me. You are cruel.”

“I am not,” Harriet said, noting that though her sister tried to appear ill in the bright sunshine, she looked anything but. Sophia, for all her high-flown wiles and die-away airs, was amazingly healthy and had never suffered more than a cold in her entire life.

“Well I think you are cruel, and so does Ophelia.”

From where she sat on the backbench of the cart, Ophelia snorted. “Don’t involve me, Sophia. I shall agree with Harriet, as you well know.”

Sophia cast a look of blazing indignation at their youngest sister.

Ophelia calmly patted Max, an enormous dog who was a solid mix of working sheepdog and family pet. “Soph, don’t shoot dagger glances at either of us. Harriet and I were perfectly happy riding to town alone. But no. You had to come. And you kept us waiting while you looked for your bonnet. And now, here we all are, listening to you complain. So I hope you do retch, only not in my direction.”

Sophia gasped and opened her mouth to retort, so Harriet hurriedly said, “Enough, the both of you. I am in no mood to witness either retching or complaining. Besides, such commotion could upset the sheep.” She glanced over her shoulder at the three ewes riding in the back of the cart, bleating piteously. It was a shame they had to be sold, but the Wards needed the funds to pay for extra help during shearing season.

“I don’t care about upsetting the sheep. In fact, the sheep,” Sophia said in a grand voice, “are upsetting me.”

“How?”

“They smell.”

“They’re sheep,” Ophelia piped up, adjusting her spectacles on the bridge of her nose. Younger and plumper than either of her sisters, she’d always been something of a bookish sort of girl. Though lately she’d discovered the wonders of the barn and had developed an unfortunate tenderness for the sheep, treating them as pets.