Still, her letter confounded him. Why had she gone to the bother of writing it and arranging to have it published? To ease her guilt at having duped him? Knowing her deceptive ways, he couldn’t take her missive at face value, so what was she striving to accomplish? Based on what he’d experienced since the message first appeared, perhaps she merely wanted to make his life as unpleasant as possible. As though the coldness of their marriage had not been punishment enough for falling into her trap.

At the approach of hushed footsteps, he glanced up to see his butler enter carrying a silver salver. The slender man, graying at the temples, came to a stop and bowed slightly. “My lord, Lady Fontaine and her daughter have come to call.”

In frustration that Elise had placed him in this unenviable position, he slammed his eyes closed. His first visitors of the day. He could expect at least a dozen more before the sun finally bid its farewell. If he wasn’t home to them now, they’d only return later. After carefully folding the broadsheet, he shoved back his chair and stood. “Have tea brought to the parlor.”

And so it went. Day after day after day.

A parade of eligible young ladies through his front door. They had talked, talked, talked. Recited poetry. Sung on occasion. Played his pianoforte with gusto. He was invited for walks in the park as though he were a hound in need of having his legs stretched. They issued him invitations to dinners, recitals, the theater, and gatherings in their gardens. They sought promises of a waltz at upcoming balls once the Season was fully underway. They alternated between cooing over his abhorrent loss and assuring him that happiness waited around the corner if only he would march briskly toward it—and they were more than willing to become his countess and accompany him on the journey toward discovering what glories life still held in spite of the unfairness fate had already visited upon him.

It was the lemon balls that finally became the last straw. Within two weeks of the letter’s appearance, he’d received so many of the damned things he could have opened his own sweet shop. If he ever smelled lemon and sugar again, he might go stark raving mad.

Hence, after having his belongings packed up and his London residence shuttered, he went in search of peace.

Chapter 2

Standing behind the polished oak counter in her bookshop, Fancy Trewlove read once more the letter she’d clipped from the Times a month earlier. The Countess of Rosemont’s words regarding her love for her husband had deeply touched Fancy’s romantically inclined heart, a heart she had feared would cause her—when she was introduced into Society at a ball the following week—to be foolish enough to fall for a lord who viewed her as someone to be only bedded but not wedded.