“I can handle it, love.”

“Just tell us wot to do, Mum.”

And so she did. And four hours later, within her arms, she cradled the most beautiful babe upon whom she’d ever set eyes. Skimming her fingers lightly over the dark hair, with sorrow, she reminisced briefly about the two babes she’d given her husband, and the sweet joy they’d brought with their arrival. But then Michael had died, and shortly thereafter, so had her little ones. She’d begun taking in by-blows as a way to earn a few coins. Now she had one of her own.

“Wot ye goin’ to name ’er?” Gillie asked.

“Fancy. Because one day she will not live in the squalor her mum did. But she will marry a fancy man, live in a fancy house, and enjoy a fancy life.” She smiled warmly at the five children surrounding her. “You’ll all have fancy lives.”

Chapter 1

London

1873

A man’s life was bookended by two events: the day he was born and the day he went toes up. Interspersed throughout were other critical moments, but for the Earl of Rosemont, only three were of any consequence: the day he wed, the night his wife died, and the morning she rose from the grave to wreak havoc on his life.

Sitting at the desk in his library, opening the newspaper his butler had dutifully ironed, he once more read the letter that had ruined his appetite at breakfast three days earlier.

To the noble ladies of London:

It is with unheralded sorrow tempered by a great deal of hope that I pen this letter. The very fact that you, gentle ladies, are reading it today signals that it has been one year exactly since my passing. We all know gentlemen seldom observe the full mourning period of two years while women always have the more dedicated hearts and adhere more fervently to Society’s strictures.

I, for one, am glad we allow such leniency toward men as I want my darling Rosemont to be saddened and without the comfort of a woman for as short a time as possible. To that end, dear ladies, I call upon you to hasten the close of his period of sorrow and bring forth his smile.

For you see, it was his smile that first drew me toward him.

It was ever so slow in coming, but when it did arrive, it fairly took my breath and softened the countenance of a man whose pride sometimes has the better of him. He is not an easy man to love and yet love him I did for I saw a side to him that few witnessed.