Chapter 1
Mayfair, London
April 1754
Lady Constance Stonewell awoke to a crisp spring breeze, birdsong streaming through her windows, and the sense that she was, for reasons she could not quite recall, inordinately vexed.
She flopped back against her vertiginous mound of feather pillows, annoyed to be wide-awake before her customary hour of high noon. A piece of paper came dislodged from the sleep-tangled mass of her hair and stabbed her in the cheekbone.
She squinted at the crumpled missive. Potential Husbands for Gillian Bastian.
All the reasons for her ill mood came rushing back.
She scanned over the names she’d written down the night before. Lord Avondale. No, too libidinous. Lord Rellfare. Too bilious. Sir Richard Voth. Too poor.
She balled up the scrap of paper and threw it on the floor, where it joined the pile of other names she’d rejected before she fell asleep. She caught sight of her haggard face in the looking glass and groaned.
This disaster with the Earl of Apthorp was giving her insomnia and making her look drawn. Which was unsurprising: she could always trust Lord Bore to find new, enterprising ways to drain her of her youth and beauty.
She sighed, and rose from bed, dabbing at a blotch of ink smeared onto her cheek. At least by now Gillian must have seen the poem and realized Lord Apthorp was not the saintly specimen of manhood that he so vigorously imitated. She could either decide she didn’t mind a husband with a taste for the illicit and a penchant for hypocrisy or marry someone else. And Constance would come armed with a list of suitable alternatives.
It was the least she could do, having encouraged the match with Apthorp in the first place.
The door to her room flew open and a small child dashed in, clad in a frilly sleeping dress and a grown man’s powdered wig.
She bit back a laugh. “Why, good morning, Georgie. What a fetching coiffure you have today. Will you be delivering an oratory at the Inns of Court?”
“I’m Lord Arsethorp!” he shouted, leaping onto her bed.
She snorted. Her cousin’s three-year-old son had always lisped, but this was a new, rather amusing mispronunciation of Lord Apthorp’s name.
She straightened the wig over his mop of blond curls. “It’s Apthorp, darling, but I must admit, I like your version better. You do rather resemble him today. Though he does not approve of gentlemen appearing in mixed company sans their smalls.”
At least not that he cared to admit publicly.
“I’m Arsethorp!” Georgie insisted, jumping up and down on her mattress in a way that made her head ache.
“If you insist. Shall we go find the man himself and show him your ensemble?”
She draped her silk dressing gown over her shoulders and smirked at her reflection. Apthorp frowned on her habit of meandering through the house in her robe de chambre. Provoking his prim sensibilities had been one of life’s great pleasures even before she knew they were contrived and hypocritical.
She picked the child up and carried him down the corridor toward Apthorp’s rooms. In truth, she’d been hoping for an excuse to speak to him ever since she learned his secret. But he kept scrupulously early hours, and she was almost never up before the stroke of twelve. They hadn’t crossed paths in a week.
She paused at his door. “Here we are,” she told Georgie. “Give it a tap.”
The child smacked the wood with his palm. “Arsethorp!” he bellowed.
“Apthorp, darling.”
She waited, wondering if he would seem different now that she knew his sordid secret.
Or if, somehow, she would. To him.
She could not fathom why he’d played the Puritan all these years. Especially to her. She was friendly with plenty of dissipated rogues, circulating as she did among the theater set. She collected objects of scandal like other ladies collected hair ribbons and fine art.
To Apthorp’s supposed never-ending horror.
Ever since his cousin married hers eight years ago, he’d been aghast at the company she kept, missing no opportunity to deem her continental and unladylike. He cast himself as the solemn future statesman, shouldering his heavy responsibilities with perfect bearing, in contrast to her, the frivolous, loud orphan who preferred hosting parties to doing charitable works, and collecting gossip rather than accomplishments. He made no secret that he viewed her as a naughty child who required constant supervision lest she be caught dangling from a chandelier in her nightdress. Or worse: inviting shame upon her family with her wanton, reckless ways.
And all the while he’d been—
“ARSETHORP!” Georgie shouted, kicking the door with his small foot.
There was no answer—to her disappointment as much as her relief.
Georgie giggled at his own antics, squirming in her arms.
“You’re a very evil child, young Lord Lyle. Just like your wicked cousin Constance before you.” She blew a noisy kiss onto his neck. “Apthorp must be down at breakfast. Let’s present you to your nurse instead. I imagine she is looking for you. Just as the poor footman is no doubt looking for his wig.”
They located Mrs. Williams in the children’s nursery. The old woman was craning her neck toward some cacophony coming through the open window from the street below.
“Arsethorp!” Georgie yelled with renewed excitement, gesturing outside.
Mrs. Williams jumped and snapped the window shut, her face the color of sorbet à la framboise. “Lord Lyle! That’s not language for a child to repeat.” She shook her head apologetically at Constance and took Georgie from her arms. “Oh, heavens. Come, let’s go apologize to whichever poor fellow is missing his hair.”
Constance took the old woman’s vacated position by the window and slid it open, curious at what she’d been observing on the street.
A news-rag hawker noticed her and waved. “New Saints & Satyrs, madam,” he said, brandishing a paper with a saucy wink. “Lor’ Arsethorp and the sinful—”
She slammed the window shut and backed away.
Arsethorp.
Oh God. Georgie’d heard that coming from the street? Could that mean—
No. She pressed her fingers to her temples. Impossible. She hadn’t used his name. She’d sent it only to her usual, discreet audience of ladies, written in a code only they could understand.
It’s a coincidence. You’re overwrought from lack of sleep.
Nevertheless she walked briskly down the stairs to the parlor, needing to reassure herself that she was, indeed, imagining things. It was early enough that the man in question would no doubt still be at the breakfast table, tediously droning on about the finer points of irrigation or his favorite blend of tea. He would likely pause his diatribe to remind her in his patient, condescending way that one mustn’t appear at breakfast in half dress.
He would be as he always was: insufferable.
But Lord Apthorp’s customary seat in the dining room was empty.
Constance’s cousin Hilary, and Hilary’s husband, Lord Rosecroft, sat alone in silence.
They looked like someone had died. Someone they liked.
“What a glorious morning,” Constance said, striving for brightness despite the fact that her hands had gone damp.
“Is it?” Rosecroft glanced outside in irritation, as if good weather were an affront to his foul mood.