The thing was, Libby had already proven herself an absolute failure at being a proper young lady. And when her brother had announced at breakfast eight days ago, with that frustrating “I know what’s best for you” look, that he’d spare her any further embarrassment and arrange a match with Sheridan, her options for the summer had shrunk considerably.

It wasn’t that Lord Sheridan wasn’t a good man. It was just that she didn’t really like him. He went ever on about archaeology. And she went ever on about the nature that his digs upended. And it only took about five minutes for both of them to be either bored out of their minds or seething at each other.

For the life of her, she couldn’t determine why Sheridan would have agreed to her brother’s plotting. Maybe he hadn’t yet. Maybe Bram meant to inform Sheridan of his brilliant new plan in the same heavy-handed way he’d informed her. Though why a marquess would feel any obligation to obey an earl, she couldn’t imagine.

Sheridan would object, if given enough time to really contemplate what Bram was demanding of him. That was how it always worked with Sheridan—he’d go along, follow her brother mindlessly for a while, and then he’d get that look on his face and declare, “I say, old chap. That is, what were you thinking of? That won’t do.”

She just had to give him time enough to come to the conclusion that she’d make him a lousy wife before her brother could get wedding plans made to the point that neither could back out without damaging their reputation. The summer to think about it—that was what Sheridan needed. She’d never seen him take longer than three months to wake up to Bram’s manipulations.

Never in her life had she disobeyed her brother though. Or, before that, their father. The very idea of it made her stomach squirm like the beetle she’d found digging its way through the garden at the inn this morning. But Bram had finally pushed her too far. It was one thing to inform her that she would be fitted for a new wardrobe for the Season and set up rules for what she could do when wearing it. It was quite another to simply state that he’d decided on a husband for her.

Mama sighed and turned her face into the breeze, toward the ferry. Her blinking was too quick to bespeak anything but a continued struggle. But her voice sounded steady—if a bit tight—when she said, “You’re going to have such a lovely time exploring and cataloguing. I only wish we knew someone on the islands. There are surely a few of our acquaintances holidaying there this year.”