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.

“Elizabeth!” Harriet scolded.

Frances narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth. “It’s not, is it?”

“It ought to be,” Elizabeth retorted, “given that you’ve made her put a bloody unicorn in the story.”

“Elizabeth!” Sarah didn’t really care that her sister had cursed, but as the oldest in the family, she knew she ought to care. Or at the very least, make a pretense of caring.

“I wasn’t cursing,” Elizabeth protested. “It was wishful thinking.”

This was met with confused silence.

“If the unicorn is bleeding,” Elizabeth explained, “then the play has at least a chance of being interesting.”

Frances gasped. “Oh, Harriet! You’re not going to injure the unicorn, are you?”

Harriet slid a hand over her writing. “Well, not very much.”

Frances’s gasp whooshed into a choke of terror. “Harriet!”

“Is it even possible to have a plague of weddings?” Harriet said loudly, turning back to Sarah. “And if so, would two qualify?”

“They would,” Sarah replied darkly, “if they were occurring just one week apart, and if one happened to be related to one of the brides and one of the grooms, and especially if one was forced to be the maid of honor at a wedding in which—”

“You only have to be maid of honor once,” Elizabeth cut in.

“Once is enough,” Sarah muttered. No one should have to walk down a church aisle with a bouquet of flowers unless she was the bride, already had been the bride, or was too young to be the bride. Otherwise, it was just cruel.

“I think it’s divine that Honoria asked you to be the maid of honor,” Frances gushed. “It’s so romantic. Maybe you can write a scene like this in your play, Harriet.”

“That’s a good idea,” Harriet replied. “I could introduce a new character. I’ll have her look just like Sarah.”

Sarah didn’t even bother to turn in her direction. “Please don’t.”

“No, it will be great fun,” Harriet insisted. “A special little tidbit just for the three of us.”

“There are four of us,” Elizabeth said.

“Oh, right. Sorry, I think I was forgetting Sarah, actually.”

Sarah deemed this unworthy of comment, but she did curl her lip.

“My point,” Harriet continued, “is that we will always remember that we were right here together when we thought of it.”

“You could make her look like me,” Frances said hopefully.

“No, no,” Harriet said, waving her off. “It’s too late to change now. I’ve already got it fixed in my head. The new character must look like Sarah. Let me see...” She started scribbling madly. “Thick, dark hair with just the slightest tendency to curl.”

“Dark, bottomless eyes,” Frances put in breathlessly. “They must be bottomless.”

“With a hint of madness,” Elizabeth said.

Sarah whipped around to face her.

“I’m just doing my part,” Elizabeth demurred. “And I certainly see that hint of madness now.”

“I should think so,” Sarah retorted.

“Not too tall, not too short,” Harriet said, still writing.

Elizabeth grinned and joined in the singsong. “Not too thin, not too fat.”

“Oh oh oh, I have one!” Frances exclaimed, practically bouncing along the sofa. “Not too pink, not too green.”

That stopped the conversation cold. “I beg your pardon?” Sarah finally managed.

“You don’t embarrass easily,” Frances explained, “so you very rarely blush. And I’ve only ever seen you cast up your accounts once, and that was when we all had that bad fish in Brighton.”

“Hence the green,” Harriet said approvingly. “Well done, Frances. That’s very clever. People really do turn greenish when they are queasy. I wonder why that is.”

“Bile,” Elizabeth said.

“Must we have this conversation?” Sarah wondered.

“I don’t see why you’re in such a bad mood,” Harriet said.

“I’m not in a bad mood.”

“You’re not in a good mood.”

Sarah did not bother to contradict.

“If I were you,” Harriet said, “I would be walking on air. You get to walk down the aisle.”

“I know.” Sarah flopped back onto the sofa, the wail of her final syllable apparently too strong for her to remain upright.

Frances stood and came over to her side, peering down over the sofa back. “Don’t you want to walk down the aisle?” She looked a bit like a concerned little sparrow, her head tilting to one side and then the other with sharp little birdlike movements.

“Not particularly,” Sarah replied. At least, not unless it was at her own wedding. But it was difficult to talk to her sisters about this; there was such a gap in their ages, and there were some things one could not share with an eleven-year-old.

Their mother had lost three babies between Sarah and Harriet—two as miscarriages and one when Sarah’s younger brother, the only boy to have been born to Lord and Lady Pleinsworth, died in his cradle before he was three months old. Sarah was sure that her parents were disappointed not to have a living son, but to their credit, they never complained. When they mentioned the title going to Sarah’s cousin William, they did not grumble. They just seemed to accept it as the way it was. There had been some talk of Sarah marrying William, to keep things “neat and tidy and all in the family” (as her mother had put it), but William was three years younger than Sarah. At eighteen, he’d only just started at Oxford, and he surely wasn’t going to marry within the next five years.

And there was not a chance that Sarah was going to wait five years. Not an inch of a chance. Not a fraction of a fraction of an inch of a—

“Sarah!”

She looked up. And just in time. Elizabeth appeared to be aiming a volume of poetry in her direction.

“Don’t,” Sarah warned.

Elizabeth gave a little frown of disappointment and lowered the book. “I was asking,” she (apparently) repeated, “if you knew if all of the guests had arrived.”

“I think so,” Sarah replied, although truthfully she had no idea. “I really couldn’t say about the ones who are staying in the village.” Their cousin Honoria Smythe-Smith was marrying the Earl of Chatteris the following morning. The ceremony was to be held here at Fensmore, the ancestral Chatteris home in northern Cambridgeshire. But even Lord Chatteris’s grand home could not hold all of the guests who were coming up from London; quite a few had been forced to take rooms at the local inns.

As family, the Pleinsworths had been the first to be allotted rooms at Fensmore, and they had arrived nearly a week ahead of time to help with the preparations. Or perhaps more accurately, their mother was helping with the preparations. Sarah had been tasked with the job of keeping her sisters out of trouble.

Which wasn’t easy.

Normally, the girls would have been watched over by their governess, allowing Sarah to attend to her duties as Honoria’s maid of honor, but as it happened, their (now former) governess was getting married the next fortnight.

To Honoria’s brother.

Which meant that once the Chatteris-Smythe-Smith nuptials were completed, Sarah (along with half of London, it seemed) would take to the roads and travel from Fensmore down to Whipple Hill, in Berkshire, to attend the wedding of Daniel Smythe-Smith and Miss Anne Wynter. As Daniel was also an earl, it was going to be a huge affair.

Much as Honoria’s wedding was going to be a huge affair.

Two huge affairs. Two grand opportunities for Sarah to dance and frolic and be made painfully aware that she was not one of the brides.

She just wanted to get married. Was that so pathetic?

No, she thought, straightening her spine (but not so much that she had to actually sit up), it wasn’t. Finding a husband and being a wife was all she’d been trained to do, aside from playing the pianoforte in the infamous Smythe-Smith Quartet.

Which, come to think of it, was part of the reason she was so desperate to be married.

Every year, like clockwork, the four eldest unmarried Smythe-Smith cousins were forced to gather their nonexistent musical talents and play together in a quartet.

And perform.

In front of actual people. Who were not deaf.

It was hell. Sarah couldn’t think of a better word to describe it. She was fairly certain the appropriate word had not yet been invented.

The noise that came forth from the Smythe-Smith instruments could also be described only by words yet to be invented. But for some reason, all of the Smythe-Smith mothers (including Sarah’s, who had been born a Smythe-Smith, even if she was now a Pleinsworth) sat in the front row with beatific smiles on their faces, secure in their mad knowledge that their daughters were musical prodigies. And the rest of the audience...

That was the mystery.

Why was there a “rest of the audience”? Sarah never could figure that out. Surely one had to attend only once to realize that nothing good could ever come of a Smythe-Smith musicale. But Sarah had examined the guest lists; there were people who came every single year. What were they thinking? They had to know that they were subjecting themselves to what could only be termed auditory torture.

Apparently there had been a word invented for that.

The only way for a Smythe-Smith cousin to be released from the Smythe-Smith Quartet was marriage. Well, that and feigning a desperate illness, but Sarah had already done that once, and she didn’t think it would work a second time.

Or one could have been born a boy. They didn’t have to learn to play instruments and sacrifice their dignity upon an altar of public humiliation.

It was really quite unfair.

But back to marriage. Her three seasons in London had not been complete failures. Just this past summer, two gentlemen had asked for her hand in marriage. And even though she’d known she was probably consigning herself to another year at the sacrificial pianoforte, she’d refused them both.

She didn’t need a mad, bad passion. She was far too practical to believe that everyone found her true love—or even that everyone had a true love. But a lady of one-and-twenty shouldn’t have to marry a man of sixty-three.

As for the other proposal... Sarah sighed. The gentleman had been an uncommonly affable fellow, but every time he counted to twenty (and he seemed to do so with strange frequency), he skipped the number twelve.

Sarah didn’t need to wed a genius, but was it really too much to hope for a husband who could count?

“Marriage,” she said to herself.

“What was that?” Frances asked, still peering at her from above the back of the sofa. Harriet and Elizabeth were busy with their own pursuits, which was just as well, because Sarah didn’t really need an audience beyond an eleven-year-old when she announced:

“I have got to get married this year. If I don’t, I do believe I will simply die.”

Hugh Prentice paused briefly at the doorway to the drawing room, then shook his head and moved on. Sarah Pleinsworth, if his ears were correct, and they usually were.

Yet another reason he hadn’t wanted to attend this wedding.

Hugh had always been a solitary soul, and there were very few people whose company he deliberately sought. But at the same time, there weren’t many people he avoided, either.

His father, of course.

Convicted murderers.

And Lady Sarah Pleinsworth.

Even if their first meeting hadn’t been a mind-numbingly mad disaster, they would never have been friends. Sarah Pleinsworth was one of those dramatic females given to hyperbole and grand announcements. Hugh did not normally study the speech patterns of others, but when Lady Sarah spoke, it was difficult to ignore her.

She used far too many adverbs. And exclamation points.

Plus, she despised him. This was not conjecture on his part. He had heard her utter the words. Not that this bothered him; he didn’t much care for her, either. He just wished she’d learn to be quiet.

Like right now. She was going to die if she did not get married this year. Really.

Hugh gave his head a little shake. At least he would not have to attend that wedding.

He’d almost got out of this one, too. But Daniel Smythe-Smith had insisted, and when Hugh had pointed out that this wasn’t even his wedding, Daniel had leaned back in his chair and said that this was his sister’s wedding, and if they were to convince the rest of society that they had put their differences behind them, Hugh had better bloody well show up with a smile on his face.

It hadn’t been the most gracious of invitations, but Hugh didn’t care. He much preferred when people said what they meant and left it at that. But Daniel was right about one thing. In this case, appearances were important.

It had been a scandal of unimaginable proportions when the two men had dueled three and a half years earlier. Daniel had been forced to flee the country, and Hugh had spent a full year learning to walk again. Then there was another year of Hugh’s trying to convince his father to leave Daniel alone, and then another of trying to actually find Daniel once Hugh had finally figured out how to get his father to call off his spies and assassins and leave bloody well alone.

Spies and assassins. Had his existence truly descended that far into melodrama? That he could ponder the words spies and assassins and actually find them relevant?

Hugh let out a long sigh. He had subdued his father, and he had located Daniel Smythe-Smith and brought him back to Britain. Now Daniel was getting married and would live happily ever after, and all would be just as it should have been.

For everyone except Hugh.

He looked down at his leg. It was only fair. He’d been the one to start it all. He should be the one with the permanent repercussions.

But damn, it hurt today. He’d spent eleven hours in a coach the day prior, and he was still feeling the aftereffects.

He really did not understand why he needed to put in an appearance at this wedding. Surely his attendance at Daniel’s nuptials later in the month would be enough to convince society that the battle between Hugh and Daniel was old news.

Hugh was not too proud to admit that in this case, at least, he cared what society thought. It had not bothered him when people labeled him an eccentric, with more aptitude at cards than he had with people. Nor had he minded when he’d overheard one society matron say to another that she found him very strange, and she would not allow her daughter to consider him as a potential suitor—if her daughter were to become interested, which, the matron said emphatically, she never would.

Hugh had not minded that, but he did remember it. Word for word.

What did bother him, however, was being thought a villain. That someone might think he’d wanted to kill Daniel Smythe-Smith, or that he’d rejoiced when he’d been forced to leave the country... This, Hugh could not bear. And if the only way to redeem his reputation was to make sure that society knew that Daniel had forgiven him, then Hugh would attend this wedding, and whatever else Daniel deemed appropriate.

“Oh, Lord Hugh!”

Hugh paused at the sound of a familiar feminine voice. It was the bride herself, Lady Honoria Smythe-Smith, soon to be Lady Chatteris. In twenty-three hours, actually, if the ceremony began on time, which Hugh had little confidence it would. He was surprised she was out and about. Weren’t brides meant to be surrounded by their female friends and relatives, fussing about last-minute details?

“Lady Honoria,” he said, shifting his grip on his cane so that he could offer her a bow of greeting.

“I am so glad you are able to attend the wedding,” she said.

Hugh stared into her light blue eyes for a moment longer than other people might have thought necessary. He was fairly certain she was being truthful.

“Thank you,” he said. Then he lied. “I am delighted to be here.”

She smiled broadly, and it lit up her face in the way only true happiness could. Hugh did not delude himself that he was responsible for her joy. All he had done was utter a nicety and thus avoid doing anything to take away from her current wedding-induced bliss.

Simple maths.

“Did you enjoy your breakfast?” she asked.

He had a feeling she had not flagged him down to inquire about his morning meal, but as it must have been obvious that he had just partaken, he replied, “Very much so. I commend Lord Chatteris on his kitchens.”

“Thank you very much. This is quite the largest event to be held at Fensmore for decades; the servants are quite frantic with apprehension. And delight.” Honoria pressed her lips together sheepishly. “But mostly apprehension.”

He did not have anything to add to that, so he waited for her to continue.

She did not disappoint. “I was hoping I might ask you a favor.”

Hugh could not imagine what, but she was the bride, and if she wanted to ask him to stand on his head, it was his understanding that he was obligated to try.

“My cousin Arthur has taken ill,” she said, “and he was to sit at the head table at the wedding breakfast.”

Oh, no. No, she wasn’t asking—

“We need another gentleman, and—”

Apparently she was.

“—I was hoping it could be you. It would go a long way toward making everything, well...” She swallowed and her eyes flicked toward the ceiling for a moment as she tried to find the correct words. “Toward making everything right. Or at least appear to be right.”

He stared at her for a moment. It wasn’t that his heart was sinking; hearts didn’t sink so much as they did a tight panicky squeeze, and the truth was, his did neither. There was no reason to fear being forced to sit at the head table, but there was every reason to dread it.

“Not that’s it not right,” she said hastily. “As far as I am concerned—and my mother, too, I can say quite reliably—we hold you in great esteem. We know... That is to say, Daniel told us what you did.”

He stared at her intently. What, exactly, had Daniel told her?

“I know that he would not be here in England if you had not sought him out, and I am most grateful.”

Hugh thought it uncommonly gracious that she did not point out that he was the reason her brother had had to leave England in the first place.

She smiled serenely. “A very wise person once told me that it is not the mistakes we make that reveal our character but what we do to rectify them.”

“A very wise person?” he murmured.

“Very well, it was my mother,” she said with a sheepish smile, “and I will have you know that she said it to Daniel far more than to me, but I’ve come to realize—and I hope he has, too—that it is true.”

“I believe he has,” Hugh said softly.

“Well, then,” Honoria said, briskly changing both subject and mood, “what do you say? Will you join me at the main table? You will be doing me a tremendous favor.”

“I would be honored to take your cousin’s place,” he said, and he supposed it was the truth. He’d rather go swimming in snow than sit up on a dais in front of all the wedding guests, but it was an honor.

Her face lit up again, her happiness practically a beacon. Was this what weddings did to people?

“Thank you so much,” she said, with obvious relief. “If you had refused, I would have had to ask my other cousin, Rupert, and—”

“You have another cousin? One you’re passing over in favor of me?” Hugh might not have cared overmuch for the myriad rules and regulations that bound their society, but that did not mean he didn’t know what they were.

“He’s awful,” she said in a loud whisper. “Honestly, he’s just terrible, and he eats far too many onions.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Hugh murmured.

“And,” Honoria continued, “he and Sarah do not get on.”

Hugh always considered his words before he spoke, but even he wasn’t able to stop himself from blurting half of “I don’t get on with Lady Sarah” before clamping his mouth firmly shut.

“I beg your pardon?” Honoria inquired.

Hugh forced his jaw to unlock. “I don’t see why that would be a problem,” he said tightly. Dear God, he was going to have to sit with Lady Sarah Pleinsworth. How was it possible Honoria Smythe-Smith didn’t realize what a stupendously bad idea that would be?

“Oh, thank you, Lord Hugh,” Honoria said effusively. “I do appreciate your flexibility in this matter. If I sit them together—and there would be no other place to put him at the head table, trust me, I looked—heaven only knows what rows they’ll get into.”

“Lady Sarah?” Hugh murmured. “Rows?”

“I know,” Honoria agreed, completely misinterpreting his words. “It’s difficult to imagine. We never have a cross word. She has the most marvelous sense of humor.”

Hugh made no comment.

Honoria smiled grandly at him. “Thank you again. You are doing me a tremendous favor.”

“How could I possibly refuse?”

Her eyes narrowed for a hint of a moment, but she seemed not to detect sarcasm, which made sense, since Hugh himself didn’t know if he was being sarcastic.

“Well,” Honoria said, “thank you. I’ll just tell Sarah.”

“She’s in the drawing room,” he said. Honoria looked at him curiously, so he added, “I heard her speaking as I walked by.”

Honoria continued to frown, so he added, “She has a most distinctive voice.”

“I had not noticed,” Honoria murmured.

Hugh decided that this would be an excellent time for him to shut up and leave.

The bride, however, had other plans. “Well,” she declared, “if she’s right there, why don’t you come with me, and we will tell her the good news.”

It was the last thing he wanted, but then she smiled at him, and he remembered, She’s the bride. And he followed.

In fanciful novels—the sort Sarah read by the dozen and refused to apologize for—foreshadowing was painted by the bucket, not the brushstroke. The heroine clasped her hand to her forehead and said something like, “Oh, if only I could find a gentleman who will look past my illegitimate birth and vestigial toe!”

Very well, she’d yet to find an author willing to include an extra toe. But it would certainly make for a good story. There was no denying that.

But back to the foreshadowing. The heroine would make her impassioned plea, and then, as if called forth from some ancient talisman, a gentleman would appear.

Oh, if only I could find a gentleman. And there he was.

Which was why, after Sarah had made her (admittedly ridiculous) statement about dying if she did not marry this year, she looked up to the doorway. Because really, wouldn’t that have been funny?

Unsurprisingly, no one appeared.

“Hmmph,” she hmmphed. “Even the gods of literature have despaired of me.”

“Did you say something?” Harriet asked.

“Oh, if only I could find a gentleman,” she muttered to herself, “who will make me miserable and vex me to the end of my days.”

And then.

Of course.

Lord Hugh Prentice.

God above, was there to be no end to her travails?

“Sarah!” came Honoria’s cheerful voice as the bride herself stepped into the doorway beside him. “I have good news.”

Sarah came to her feet and looked at her cousin. Then she looked at Hugh Prentice, who, it had to be said, she’d never liked. Then she looked back to her cousin. Honoria, her very best friend in the entire world. And she knew that Honoria (her very best friend in the entire world who really should have known better) did not have good news. At least not what Sarah would consider good news.

Or Hugh Prentice, if his expression was any indication.

But Honoria was still glowing like a cheerful, nearly wed lantern, and she practically floated right off her toes when she announced, “Cousin Arthur has taken ill.”

Elizabeth came immediately to attention. “That is good news.”

“Oh, come now,” Harriet said. “He’s not half as bad as Rupert.”

“Well, that part’s not the good news,” Honoria said quickly, with a nervous glance toward Hugh, lest he think them a completely bloodthirsty lot. “The good news is that Sarah was going to have to sit with Rupert tomorrow, but now she doesn’t.”

Frances gasped and leapt across the room. “Does that mean I might sit at the head table? Oh, please say I may take his place! I would love that above all things. Especially since you’re putting it up on a dais, aren’t you? I would actually be above all things.”

“Oh, Frances,” Honoria said, smiling warmly down at her, “I wish it could be so, but you know there are to be no children at the main table, and also, we need it to be a gentleman.”

“Hence Lord Hugh,” Elizabeth said.

“I am pleased to be of service,” Hugh said, even though it was clear to Sarah that he was not.

“I cannot begin to tell you how grateful we are,” Honoria said. “Especially Sarah.”

Hugh looked at Sarah.

Sarah looked at Hugh. It seemed imperative that he realize that she was not, in fact, grateful.

And then he smiled, the lout. Well, not really a smile. It wouldn’t have been called a smile on anyone else’s face, but his mien was so normally stony that the slightest twitch at the corner of his lips was the equivalent of anyone else’s jumping for joy.

“I am certain I shall be delighted to sit next to you instead of Cousin Rupert,” Sarah said. Delighted was an overstatement, but Rupert had terrible breath, so at least she’d avoid that with Lord Hugh at her side.

“Certain,” Lord Hugh repeated, his voice that odd mix of flatness and drawl that made Sarah feel as if her mind were about to explode. Was he mocking her? Or was he merely repeating a word for emphasis? She couldn’t tell.

Yet another trait that rendered Lord Hugh Prentice the most aggravating man in Britain. If one were being made fun of, didn’t one have the right to know?

“You don’t take raw onions with your tea, do you?” Sarah asked coolly.

He smiled. Or maybe he didn’t. “No.”

“Then I am certain,” she said.

“Sarah?” Honoria said hesitantly.

Sarah turned to her cousin with a brilliant smile. She’d never forgotten that mad moment the year before when she’d first met Lord Hugh. He had turned from hot to cold in a blink of an eye. And damn it all, if he could do it, so could she. “Your wedding is going to be perfect,” she declared. “Lord Hugh and I will get on famously, I’m sure.”

Honoria didn’t buy Sarah’s act for a second, not that Sarah really thought she would. Her eyes flicked from Sarah to Hugh and back again about six times in the space of a second. “Ahhhhh,” she hedged, clearly confused about the sudden awkwardness. “Well.”

Sarah kept her smile pasted placidly on her face. For Honoria she would attempt civility with Hugh Prentice. For Honoria she would even smile at him, and laugh at his jokes, assuming he made jokes. But still, how was it possible that Honoria didn’t realize how very much Sarah hated Hugh? Oh very well, not hate. Hate she would reserve for the truly evil. Napoleon, for example. Or that flower seller at Covent Garden who’d tried to cheat her the week before.

But Hugh Prentice was beyond vexing, beyond annoying. He was the only person (aside from her sisters) who had managed to infuriate her so much that she’d had to literally hold her hands down to keep from smacking him.

She had never been so angry as she had that night....