Chapter One
Lady Phoebe Aubrey was filled with resentment regarding the colour pink.
That was, perhaps, an unfair target for her resentment, when in reality what she resented was bolts of fabric and hours spent wandering about Savile Row while Violet March worried over whether or not her skin and hair were too pale for the colours a debutante would be expected to wear.
And thus, her resentment of that insipid, blush-coloured pink that her friend had spent ages holding against her wrist, her face, her neck.
Phoebe had not understood why they couldn’t simply wait for the time when Kate had promised that she would accompany them to the modiste to acquire their wardrobe for the Season.
What Phoebe had wanted was an orange. The fruit, not the colour. She was now both hungry and out of sorts, having not acquired it and having been made to shop.
It was the season for oranges, and it would pass quickly, and she was positively filled with dread over the prospect of missing out.
The Duke of Rochester, otherwise called Levi, had the best orangery at his estate, Calcot Park, which was a day’s carriage ride away from London. They were not near Calcot Park, as the troupe of them had taken up residence in London in time for the Season.
She did not want a Season. She wanted an orange.
Usually, they would be in Calcot this time of year, but usually they did not have two debutantes coming out for the Season.
Their families had always been close, with a row of townhouses in London all next to one another.
But since their parents’ deaths, that was even more true.
During the Season, they went to London, but they often rusticated all together in one of the large manor houses, rarely spending much time apart.
They were practically all siblings.
Their two lady’s maids walked behind them at a close pace, chatting quietly to each other, while she and Violet walked with one another.
‘I am starving and now we have to go directly back home,’ Phoebe said, knowing she sounded accusing and not caring.
Violet did not seem to care either. She had lapsed off, her hands clutched in front of her bosom, her head tilted up toward the sky.
Violet was beautiful and fragile-looking, with her nearly white blond hair, upturned nose, and skin so pale you could occasionally see delicate blue veins beneath.
She would make a triumph of herself this Season, Phoebe knew it.
Violet, however, didn’t seem to know it, and she was increasingly anxious.
Or maybe it was because she was fixated on a certain gentleman, which was creating rather a lot of feelings around the whole thing.
Phoebe couldn’t relate.
She loved their lives. Losing their parents in the shipwreck had been an awful tragedy. She missed her father every day. But she also gave thanks for the family they’d created together. If she could have stopped life six years ago, before the shipwreck, and kept her father forever, she would have.
If she could stop it now, with all of them unmarried and together and her possessing the freedom to do what she liked at the country estates, she would do that too.
But time marched relentlessly on, and Violet seemed so happy about it while Phoebe was filled with dread.
She was supposed to leave her entire life, her hopes, her dreams, her happiness, in the hands of a man she’d possibly not even seen yet? To know that there was a stranger out there, a man she might meet in a ballroom who had dominion over her fate, made her feel sick with terror.
What if he were cruel?
What if he was boring?
What if his mouth was fetid and she had to kiss him?
Worse still, she could still remember standing in a field at one of the country homes, watching a stallion mount a mare and her governess saying, with a curled lip:
‘Men are like that. It’s what they all want from women.’
‘Aren’t they breeding to make a baby horse?’
Her father had told her about that when she’d asked some years earlier.
‘How do you think humans have babies? But the worst of it is, men want to do it for fun. Horrible brutes. And women must bear it. It’s the lot of a wife.’
The horses had never made her feel uncomfortable because her father had explained it in such a matter-of-fact way, just as he explained to her how gunpowder worked in a cannon. But the way her governess spoke of it changed it entirely.
It made her want to shiver in revulsion. It made her feel like a hare with her foot caught in a noose, being taken toward a totally uncertain future. A cage or a stew pot, and she wanted neither.
‘You are elsewhere,’ Phoebe accused.
Violet startled, then looked ashamed. ‘I am,’ she admitted. ‘I am thinking about balls. And pink gowns.’
And Henry, Earl of Kent, no doubt. Violet was utterly preoccupied with him and had been since they were girls.
Which was why she called him Henry and not by a proper title, because they had known him for so very long.
It felt longer to Phoebe now that she was forced to listen to soliloquies regarding his angelic blond hair and his soulful eyes.
Violet had learned that Phoebe did not share her endless appetite for discussion of him, though, and typically parried when Phoebe thrust on the subject.
Phoebe simply did not see the appeal.
For her, marriage was a potential loss of the freedom she enjoyed with her older brother as her only guardian. The Duke of Brandon did not mind if she spent her days riding horses astride and shooting off cannons, so long as she confined her exploits to the country estate.
So long as her reputation remained unimpeachable in Society, she was free to do as she liked, just as their father had allowed her.
But it would all change once she debuted. Once, she was expected to find a husband. Then she would have to observe his rules and that…
Well, she took no joy in that thought.
‘I am not interested in balls,’ Phoebe said, doing her best to get her mind off the orange and on to the family meeting that they were obliged to attend and which began in a quarter of an hour.
‘What I want to know is whether or not we will be permitted to have brandy at this afternoon’s meeting, as we are now considered old enough to participate and are nearly about to debut. ’
Kate, Jasper, Devlin, and Levi had long held these meetings, ever since the deaths of their parents. They had sorted out how to handle the business of merging their four families, caring for each other and keeping themselves…as happy as possible.
‘Somehow, I doubt very much your brother is going to allow you alcohol,’ Violet said, her tone lofty.
‘But why not? I am very interested in that.’ Which, loath though she was to admit it, made her think Violet was right.
If she happened to possess a natural interest in something, she could be reasonably certain it wasn’t considered appropriate for a young lady.
She had a talent for directing her interests in precisely the wrong direction.
‘He allows you access to gunpowder,’ Violet said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
Phoebe frowned, and the wind kicked up, her bonnet catching on the breeze and falling forward into her face, disturbing the pins in her dark hair as it did. She glanced at Violet, who was still perfectly put together, the wind somehow not managing to disturb her countenance in the least.
‘Sometimes I worry nothing will ever be enough,’ Phoebe said. ‘Do you ever worry about that, Violet? That nothing, absolutely nothing, stretching ahead of us sounds like…fun.’
Violet blinked, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. ‘No, Phoebe. I don’t.’
Phoebe paused for a moment, and simply looked at her friend. ‘How fortunate for you.’
‘Don’t be angry with me simply because I like dresses and slippers and dancing.’
‘I am not angry with you for that. I might be slightly angry with you for being so at ease with it, though. I wish I were not the only one resisting.’
‘Your brother is resisting. As are Devlin and Levi. It isn’t as if they’re rushing to find wives.’
‘They are men and they do not have to,’ Phoebe said. ‘Which I find grossly unjust, I will simply say.’
‘What is your objection to marriage?’
Phoebe looked off down the street they’d just come down, the wind picking up just slightly. ‘I can think of nothing interesting about it.’
‘Because you don’t fancy anyone. But once you do…’ Violet lapsed off. ‘Henry is simply the most lovely man. I would like for you to find a man like that. One that makes you feel… It’s hard to describe.’
‘But when you’re a wife, you must run a household and…needlepoint.’
‘I don’t think anyone is going to force you to needlepoint.’
‘Then why did our governesses make us learn it?’
Violet was unconcerned. ‘I don’t know, but just find a husband who doesn’t care about needlepoint if you don’t want to do it.’
‘Well, how do you know that? The Season, as far as I am aware, consists mainly of dancing with men until one of them asks your… I suppose they’ll have to ask our brothers, won’t they?’
Would each suitor for each of the ladies ask all of the Dukes? Phoebe wondered.
Her own brother would likely mount a fierce and incisive interrogation. Jasper was nothing if not cutting.
Devlin wouldn’t use many words, but he would evaluate the man closely and come to swift judgments.
Levi…
What would he think of such things? She could imagine him looking this faceless, nameless man down, his blue eyes assessing and sharp. Earning Levi’s approval was a difficult task indeed.
Would he want a wife who could needlepoint?
Surely not. He was a ship’s captain and a duke; why would he have need of needlepoint?
‘I suppose they will. Oh, Phoebe, what if they don’t approve of Henry because he’s only the son of an earl?’
Phoebe winced. ‘I don’t think they’ll mind terribly.’
‘But will they mind slightly?’
‘I don’t know.’