Sensing that Mother might turn at any moment and catch them, Elisabeth and Spatz darted back behind the curtain. And as the older women took their conversation into another room, Elisabeth turned to Spatz, clutching her side in an exaggerated impression of her mother. “I’m bleeding to death on the inside, and all because of that child! Bring me some schnapps!”

Spatz giggled, hand to mouth.

They could still hear Mother’s shrill voice, farther away now, this time pointed at Helene, who must have chosen this unfortunate moment to leave her room and come into the hallway. “I won’t allow things to go wrong—not again, not at the last minute.”

That was the problem, though: the duke had been wrong from the very first minute, his attentions unwanted before he stepped through the door. But no matter how nicely Elisabeth said so, no one seemed to hear her.

Spatz looked at her older sister, curious. “Mother says he wants to propose to you.”

“Well, he can propose all he likes,” Elisabeth answered, leaning in, conspiratorial, “but I don’t want him.”

She smiled wryly, ruffling Spatz’s mussed brown hair. Spatz looked like Elisabeth had at her age: aquiline nose, pale skin, cheeks rosy with mischief. The only difference was their eyes: Elisabeth’s a mysterious color somewhere between blue and green, Spatz’s the liquid dark brown of a forest floor after the rain.

“But why not?”

Elisabeth poked her sister and whispered in mock horror, “Did you see how he dresses?”

On their first meeting, over a very awkward dinner, the duke had worn a collar so ruffled that it made him look like a turkey. Of course, much worse was the way he’d gone on and on about himself through dinner and then placed a proprietary hand on Elisabeth’s knee under the table. But Spatz didn’t need to know that part. The costume would be what was memorable to the youngest duchess.

Spatz rolled her eyes at the reminder.

Then, more serious, Elisabeth brushed a loose lock of hair from her sister’s face. “I don’t love him, and I want to make my own decisions.”

Spatz nodded sincerely, but before she could ask another question, the telltale noise of a carriage rattled across the gravel drive and through the open window behind them. Elisabeth’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She’d thought Mother’s wails of any minute had been hyperbole. As usual. But now the duke had arrived—and was descending from his carriage. Elisabeth could see flashes of him through the trees between the window and drive. Her supposed beloved: his skin pale, his mustache curled, his expression ridiculously self-satisfied for a man dressed in the largest plumed hat Elisabeth had ever seen. She watched him until he disappeared around the corner of the house.