Aunt Beatrice was the youngest of the Littleton sisters. Aunt Clara, who’d left George her fortune, had been the eldest, and George’s own mother, Sarah, the middle sister. The Littleton sisters had been considered beauties in their day, cutting a devastating swath through London society. All three sisters had married unhappily. Aunt Clara had wed an insanely religious man who had died young, leaving her childless but wealthy. Aunt Beatrice had married a much older man who had kept his wife constantly pregnant while he lived. Tragically, all her babies had died in miscarriages or stillbirth.

As for Sarah, her own mother . . . George took a sip of her tea. Who knew what exactly was wrong with her parents’ marriage? Maybe only that her mother and father had not cared for each other. In any case, Lady Maitland was bedridden with imagined ills and had been for years.

“Even the most sophisticated man becomes like a little boy unable to share his toys,” Lady Beatrice continued now. “No more than three is my motto, and really with three one has to do a fine balancing act.”

George choked.

“Whatever is the matter with you, Georgina?” Lady Beatrice looked at her with annoyance.

“Nothing,” George gasped. “A bit of crumb.”

“Really, I do worry about the English as a race with—”

“What luck to find not one, but two examples of womanly pulchritude.” George’s sitting room door was flung open to reveal Oscar and a fair young man who bowed to the ladies.

Lady Beatrice frowned and lifted her cheek for Oscar’s buss. “We are busy, dear. Go away. Not you, Cecil.” The other man had started to back out the door. “You may stay. You are the only man I know with any sense, and that should be encouraged.”

Cecil Barclay smiled and bowed again. “Your ladyship is kind indeed.”

He quirked an eyebrow at George, who patted the settee cushion next to her. She’d known Cecil and his younger brother, Freddy, since they’d all been in leading strings.

“But if Cecil stays, then I beg leave to do so also.” Oscar sat down and helped himself to a slice of cake.

George glared at her brother.

Oscar mouthed What? at her.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Will you take tea, Cecil?”

“Yes, please,” Cecil said. “Oscar dragged me all over Tattersall’s this morning to look at horses. He wants a matched set for his new carriage and claims none in London will do.”

“Gentlemen spend entirely too much money on horseflesh,” Lady Beatrice pronounced.

“What other type of flesh would you have us spend our blunt upon?” Oscar opened his wicked brown eyes wide.

Lady Beatrice tapped him overhard on the knee with her fan.

“Ow!” Oscar rubbed the spot. “I say, is this a prune filling in the cake?”