Lady Fearful (A Series of Senseless Complications #7)

Prologue

Roland Nicolet, the Duke of Pelham, had spent a great many of his middle years launching daughters out of his house.

As he was in receipt of seven of those individuals, he’d been a regular Sisyphus toiling to get his rock up the mountain.

That rock was just now teetering at the summit and ready to tip over the other side and never trouble him again.

He had one last daughter to launch and then an empty house would soon be his. His dream was finally within reach!

Of course, were any of his array of daughters to hear these thoughts spoken aloud, and they often had, they would decry them as the worst bit of nonsense.

The truth was, he rather missed the chaos of seven bright-eyed girls running roughshod over his peace.

However, he knew his duty and that was to see them all settled creditably.

That duty had turned out to be no easy task either.

When he’d contemplated the project, he’d viewed it as a leisurely stroll down the paths of a well-manicured park.

Once he was actually in it, he realized it was more like having to hack one’s way through an Amazonian jungle.

It should have been a leisurely stroll; his girls were all comely and well-funded and what else could possibly be required?

Apparently, what was required had been tears, laughter, ups, downs, circle rounds, hopelessness, hopefulness, declarations of spinsterhood, vows to give him up, vows to never give him up, packing trunks, unpacking trunks, he’d never, he might, he would, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, he did.

Several of the gentlemen had almost died in the attempt to court one of his daughters and the rest, if not in mortal danger, had been severely shaken by the experience.

Nevertheless, six of them had been settled and that just left Valor, his youngest. He could not even guess what that girl would have up her sleeve. Considering it had been a monumental effort to even convince her to agree to go to Town, he was confident it would be a spectacular sort of nonsense.

He’d enjoyed a few years of relaxation as his youngest reached maturity, but now it was time to gird his loins once more and hold on to his hat—the Dales were to be left behind in favor of Grosvenor Square and a new season was set to begin.

If he were a religious man, he might have sent up a few prayers about it. As he was not, he ordered his vicar to do it for him.