Not that he visited ballrooms.

He learned to live with pain, the constant ache of a badly set bone, the pulsing throb of a twisted muscle.

And he forced himself to visit his father, to try to reason with him, to tell him to stop hunting Daniel Smythe-Smith. But nothing worked. His father clung to his fury with pinched white fingers. He would never have a grandson now, he fumed, and it was all the fault of the Earl of Winstead.

It did not matter when Hugh pointed out that Freddie was healthy and could still surprise them and get married. Lots of men who would rather have remained unwed took wives. The marquess just spat. He literally spat on the floor and said that even if Freddie took a bride, he would never manage to sire a son. And if he did—if by some miracle he did—it wouldn’t be any child worthy of their name.

No, it was Winstead’s fault. Hugh was supposed to have provided the Ramsgate heir, and now look at him. He was a useless cripple. Who probably couldn’t sire a son, either.

Lord Ramsgate would never forgive Daniel Smythe-Smith, the once dashing and popular Earl of Winstead. Never.

And Hugh, whose one constant in life had been his ability to look at a problem from all angles and sort out the most logical solution, had no idea what to do. More than once he’d thought about getting married himself, but despite the fact that he seemed to be in working order, there was always the chance that the bullet had indeed done him some damage. Plus, he thought as he looked down at the ruin of his leg, what woman would have him?

And then one day, something sparked in his memory—a fleeting moment from that conversation with Freddie, right after the duel.

Freddie had said that he hadn’t tried to reason with the marquess, and Hugh had said, “Of course not,” and then he’d thought, Because who reasons with a madman?

He finally knew the answer.

Only another madman.

Chapter One

Fensmore

nr. Chatteris

Cambridgeshire

Autumn 1824

Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, veteran of three unsuccessful seasons in London, looked about her soon-to-be cousin’s drawing room and announced, “I am plagued by weddings.”

Her companions were her younger sisters, Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances, who—at sixteen, fourteen, and eleven—were not of an age to worry about matrimonial prospects. Still, one might think they would offer a bit of sympathy.

One might, if one was not familiar with the Pleinsworth girls.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Harriet replied, sparing Sarah a fleeting glance before dipping her pen in ink and resuming her scribbles at the writing desk.

Sarah turned slowly in her direction. “You’re writing a play about Henry VIII and a unicorn and you’re calling me melodramatic?”

“It’s a satire,” Harriet replied.

“What’s a satire?” Frances cut in. “Is it the same as a satyr?”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened with wicked delight. “Yes!” she exclaimed.