“I’ll try to attend,” Alex said, throwing an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Wait till the matchmaking mamas get hold of this news,” he said mischievously. “You are going to be a sensation.”

Patrick shuddered. “All the more reason to leave for Wales immediately.”

Chapter 3

When Sophie York was announced in the Dewland ballroom, there was a rustle of fluting voices. Sophie was a wild, reckless girl—the very worst of the new generation, muttered spinsters in the corners of the room.

The most beautiful woman in England, noted the male arbiters of London fashion. She was diminutive, but gorgeous; she was a coquette, but she was also the daughter of the most starched aristocrat in London, the Marchioness of Brandenburg. Eloise’s cold French admonishments had dented the reputation of many a young miss whose behavior walked a fine line between immodesty and rank wantonness. Quite naturally, the biting aspect of Eloise’s judgments on the propriety of young women made the impudence of her daughter’s behavior all the more delicious, all the more noteworthy.

Sophie paused at the top of the ballroom steps as her papa plunged down into the milling crowd, searching (no doubt) for the delectable Dalinda. Her mama proceeded sternly after him, her poker-straight back expressing an outrage that had hardly blunted with the years. Sophie scanned the assembly, looking, she told herself, for the Earl of Slaslow.

But Sophie knew inside that such a pretense merely stressed her weakness and lack of moral fiber, as her mother might put it. Her eyes were actually looking for a tall man with shoulders so broad that he looked only marginally comfortable in fine broadcloth. She was looking for tousled black hair shot with silver. She hadn’t seen Patrick since she’d turned down his proposal of marriage, and she didn’t see him now.

Her mother turned about in irritation at the bottom of the stairs.

“Sophie!” she hissed.

When Sophie obediently traipsed down the remaining steps, Eloise grasped her wrist in a steely hand.

“Stop making an exhibition of yourself!”

The gentlemen were on them now, flocking around Sophie, begging her for dances, handing her dance-cards, looking at her imploringly. Eloise contented herself with giving Sophie an admonishing look before heading off to the chaperones’ corner, where only those women whose titles equaled their ferocity were allowed to sit.

Laughingly, Sophie divided her time among the beseeching gentlemen, but the exercise was hollow. Tomorrow, or at most in two days, The Times would carry a discreet announcement:

The Earl of Slaslow announces that he will marry Lady Sophie York, the daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburg. The ceremony will be held at St. George’s Church and the formal presentation will occur at a Chapter of the Garter held in St. James’s Palace.

Then the chattering flocks would fall to the side and all of London would know that the great heiress, Sophie York, had finally settled on a husband. By February she would be married to Braddon Chatwin, the “Amiable Earl,” she’d heard him called. Braddon was amiable. He would be a pleasant husband. He probably liked his horses more than any human being, but he didn’t gamble to excess at the races.