“Would you marry one of them?”

“Not if we were the only two people on earth and civilization depended on it. Humans could die out, for all I care. I’d have a clear conscience.”

Elizabeth shook her head, brow furrowed. “Local families, she said. Does she think we’ve had new neighbors in the last fifteen years? Or do you think she’d actually consider Lord Clarksdale?”

“Lord save us,” Ellen whispered, pressing her hands into praying motion. “That would make him related to us, and I’d never bear the shame.”

“There’s always Phillip Drew,” Elinor remarked with a coy smile. “He’s closer in age.”

“And three times the size!” Elizabeth laughed. “Not to mention constantly intoxicated.”

“And poor,” Ellen broke in, as though that were the worst part of it.

All three nodded, for it truly might have been.

“Perhaps the Spinsters should put their talents to work on Letitia, Elinor,” Elizabeth suggested with a sly smile. “You have plenty of research to find her someone worth having.”

Elinor gave her younger sister a quelling look. “If the woman is mad enough to actually consider Rupert and Walter eligible candidates, I have no hesitation whatsoever in letting her fend for herself. I had no idea she was so desperate. Lavinia isn’t, and you know Lucinda isn’t.”

Ellen snorted loudly. “Lucinda doesn’t care about anything but perfecting her tarts and pies. Who in their right minds wants to be a cook when they are gently born and bred?”

“She’s trying to convince her parents to let her move to Paris,” Elizabeth said, lowering her voice. “She wants to study their food, for some reason.”

“With all the trouble France has caused of late?” Elinor scoffed and shook her head. “It’s possibly the worst place in the world she could wish to be, but perhaps the food is worth almost certain death.”

“I doubt that,” Ellen muttered. “It’s French.”

“This seems promising. Where are my passel of little sisters off to?”

They all turned towards the stairs they had just passed, looking up at their lone brother, Edmund, coming down towards them. It struck Elinor at that moment that, of all the Asheley children, Edmund was the only one to have inherited their father’s dark eyes. They all looked unnervingly similar in every other respect, though the girls were certainly distinct enough to tell apart, and they’d all heard the comments enough to have memorized responses for each.

Edmund approached them, his tall, lanky form moving with the same careless ease it always had done, and he grinned broadly, as he usually did. “Well?”

“We’re escaping the cousins,” Ellen informed him bluntly. “They were trying to marry off Elinor.”

“You started it,” Elizabeth shot back.

“Did not. I merely added context.”

Edmund glanced at Elinor, and she rolled her eyes, which he echoed. “Lovely, Ella-belle. So helpful, I’m sure. Sister clearly appreciated your efforts.”

“So much,” Elinor remarked with the dryness of the Sahara. She sighed and eyed her brother, who was clearly preparing for a ride. “Going somewhere?”