Chapter One
Almack’s
Ah, the Temple of Marital Ambition, a Wednesday Night Assembly at Almack’s.
Miss Millicent Wainwright pursed her lips and fanned her heated face, searching the Ton’s Tiresome Toadeaters for her eldest sisters.
Among the waltzing pairs, she located Cassie, Duchess of Harbury, with her duke.
Then, in a blissful blur of dark hair, black tails, and deep burgundy skirts, Cassie’s twin Eliza swished past with her husband, the Marquess of Redver.
Just as Millie feared, both couples were blatantly enamored.
Or, more accurately, completely deluded.
Certainly, marriage and motherhood were admirable ambitions for some. Cassie had always wished to marry, for instance. But Millie would rather snip out a seam by the dim light of a smelly tallow candle than endure another endless evening on the Marriage Mart.
At Millie’s side, the formidable dowager Lady Asquith, Millie’s chaperone, sighed. “How lovely your sisters look. Don’t you agree?”
“Indeed,” Millie replied.
Lady Asquith assessed Millie with a sidelong glance. “You should be dancing, too. Especially in that stunning purple frock.”
“There is a shocking shortage of eligible young men this Season,” Millie quipped. And she’d chosen the dress with the express purpose of intimidating the few of them in existence into leaving her alone.
“Tut.” Lady Asquith lifted her brow. “You forget—my son is among this Season’s eligibles.”
“Forget Asquith?” Millie feigned astonishment. “One could never.”
Lady Asquith’s lips twitched with a suppressed smile. “As your guardian, I suppose he is out of the question. Still, a dance with him would be better than none.”
“I am perfectly content with your company, Lady Asquith.”
“Tsk. You may visit me any day, as you know. Your younger sisters often do. But Almack’s is a veritable fortress. Have some respect for how hard I worked to persuade the patronesses to grant you and your sister Lenora vouchers this Season.”
“Yes, Lady Asquith.”
Of course, Millie owed the dowager.
During another Almack’s Assembly the prior spring, the Duke of Harbury had swept a startled Cassie into a waltz without the patronesses’ permission, and the patronesses had reacted by immediately banishing both twins.
Lady Asquith, Cassie, and Eliza had all gone to desperate lengths to restore the family to respectability just so that Millie, Lenora and Nettie had a chance to secure their futures.
But an Almack’s voucher was a boon Millie never wanted, nor expected. In fact, she’d rather be notorious than leg-shackled, as she’d told her younger sister Lenora earlier this evening.
The family had been branded a scandal; Millie might as well become one. Then, at least, she would be bundled off to the country, where she could hunt and shoot to her heart’s content, unencumbered by the dictates of some menacing male.
A male who might turn out to treat her exactly as her father had treated her mother—terribly.
Yes—she raised her chin—she would make herself notorious in a minute, if she could do so without also harming her sisters. But, alas, among the three unwedded Wainwright ladies, Millie was alone in her apathy toward the marital state’s alleged pleasures.
“Have you considered Lord Neville?” Lady Asquith asked. “He seems an excellent marital prospect.”
Millie covered her choke with a cough. “Neville?” She slanted a glance toward the precise corner where Neville had hidden himself away with Lord Asquith and their mutual friend, Lord Blackwell. “Never.”
“Why not?” Lady Asquith asked. “Neville is intelligent, admired, and reliable.” Lady Asquith nodded to herself. “A solidly moral gentleman.”
“Neville is solidly moral.” As solidly moral as he was profoundly irritating. “A man like him,” one pompous and certain of everything, “is likely to desire a bride who is…”
She frowned.
How could she best describe the kind of perfect, proper bore the little lordling would choose? The kind of young lady who studied The Mirror of Graces, that exhaustive etiquette book for young ladies, on a nightly basis.
“Conventional?” Lady Asquith suggested.
“Yes.” Millie sucked in. “Neville will choose a conventional bride.”
One of the genteel, pastel-clad young ladies gathered around Lady Jersey, for instance. One—two—no, three of them were currently casting simpering glances in Neville’s direction.
Millie couldn’t help a slight scowl.
What could those young ladies be thinking?
Couldn’t they see he was deep in conversation with his friends?
No female smile, no matter how shyly admiring, had any chance of catching Neville’s attention.
Neville was… well, extraordinarily, unpleasantly male.
She’d known that much from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him.
Men like him, men like her father had been, were always more interested in their male companions than they’d ever be in their future wives.
“Millie, your face is speaking again.” Lady Asquith leaned in and lowered her voice. “And using the usual, dry tone, too.”
Millie took up a proper, disinterested posture and then began slowly wafting her fan.
Still, a subtle frown persisted.
They were discussing the little lordling, after all.
Millie formed her own list of qualities for Neville—one very different than Lady Asquith’s had been. Pompously infuriating. Insufferably dull. More rigid with self-righteousness than a vicar in a bay of bare-bottomed, bathing beauties.
She brightened.
Good alliteration, that. Deliciously naughty, too. Not to mention accurate! The man practically begged to be taught a lesson.
Though not by her, of course.
If she were forced to marry, she wouldn’t choose Neville. Nor—she glanced again in the direction of the three friends—would she choose his friend Blackwell. Blackwell had a glib quality she could not quite trust, despite the fact that Nettie relentlessly sung his praises.
“If only Asquith were a possibility,” Millie said aloud.
“Pish.” Lady Asquith shook her head. “You only say that because you’ve known him most of your life.”
“True,” Millie reluctantly agreed.
Asquith had been the first—and the only—young man of the peerage any of the Wainwrights had known as girls.
Lady Asquith tutted again. “The way your father kept you all confined at Willowhurst was a travesty.”
A travesty?
Her father had strictly forbidden visitors from town. And Lady Asquith had to demand a god-mother’s privilege to visit Cassie and Eliza on a yearly basis. Still, Millie had been quite content when the Wainwright ladies were on their own.
If anything, the infrequent times her father had taken up residence had been the travesty—the mockery of what should have been.
Though Millie’s mother had loved her father despite his flaws, her father’s presence only ever inspired fear in his daughters.
In public, the squire had been a celebrated and beloved Member of Parliament.
In private, he had been critical and cruel to his wife, the aristocratic daughter of an earl, and their children.
Millie suspected he resented them all for the by-birth connections they could not help, even as he used those connections for his own ends.
“I don’t know what we would have done, had you not taken us in,” Millie admitted.
Fondness softened Lady Asquith’s expression. “That’s all in the past, now, dear. You’ve your future to consider. If you’d just give the gentlemen of the ton a chance, I think you’d find at least one young man you are able to tolerate as well as you tolerate my son.”
“Doubtful,” Millie muttered.
She sensed most men of the gentry were cut from the same cloth as her father; Asquith was the only one she saw as an exception.
For one, Asquith could ride almost as well as she could. Almost. Plus, he was a decent shot. And even after the guardianship of herself and her sisters had been transferred to him per his father’s will, he had never treated her as if she required his “superior” instruction.
Unlike Neville. Ever since Millie had arrived in London, criticism of her had become Neville’s favorite pastime.
But—she sighed—a marriage like she might have with Asquith, of solid mutual regard and completely free from romantic entanglement, was out of the question.
As Lady Asquith had suggested, marriage between guardian and ward was generally frowned upon.
Worse still, Millie’s younger sister Lenora—presently concealing herself among Lady Jersey’s debutante bees and doing her best to appear as if she were having a good time—had long been hopelessly infatuated with Asquith.
If anyone deserved to break the guardian-ward rule, it would be Lenora.
Pity Asquith always kept a respectful distance from Millie’s sister. Except, of course, on a few notable occasions, like the time last summer when the three youngest Wainwrights had schemed to create a chance for Lenora to meet privately with Asquith.
Just as they’d planned, Lenora had lured Asquith into the Ravenswood yew maze.
Unfortunately, Lenora had yet to tell Millie what had happened.
Millie hadn’t asked, either. Not because she hadn’t wanted to know, but because she had her own reason to avoid questions about who she’d encountered in the maze that night.
Neville.
Again, she took in the little lordling’s profile—broad shoulders, dark hair, angled features, stern mouth. Of course, he was scowling.
These days, he was always scowling.
Candlelight picked up the sheen of his brushed coat as he reached out and touched the top of Blackwell’s closed fist. Then, he opened his hand and looked down, and his ears reddened.
What could those silly simpletons be doing? She shifted on her feet, hoping to get a clearer view. Had they been drawing lots as part of a wager?
Impossible. She could not imagine Neville doing anything so morally questionable as gambling.