Marriage or death: the only two ways to avoid conscription into the Smythe-Smith Quartet. Or perhaps more accurately: the only two ways to extricate oneself from its clutches.

Which was why no one could understand (except Iris, but more on that later) how it came to pass that in three hours the Smythe-Smith Quartet would take the “stage” for their annual musicale, and Lady Sarah Prentice, recently married and very much alive, was going to have to sit down at the pianoforte, grit her teeth, and play.

The irony, Honoria had said to Sarah, was exquisite.

No, Sarah had said to Hugh, the irony was not exquisite. The irony should have been beaten with a cricket bat and stamped into the ground.

If irony had a corporeal form, of course. Which it didn’t, much to Sarah’s disappointment. The urge to swing a cricket bat at something other than a cricket ball was positively life-altering.

But there were no bats available in the Pleinsworth music room, so she had instead appropriated the bow to Harriet’s violin and was using it in the way God had surely intended.

To threaten Daisy.

“Sarah!” Daisy shrieked.

Sarah growled. She actually growled.

Daisy ran for cover behind the pianoforte. “Iris, make her stop!”

Iris raised a brow as if to say, Do you really think I would rise from this chair to help you, my exceedingly annoying younger sister, today of all days?

And yes, Iris did know how to say all that with a quirk of the brow. It was a remarkable talent, really.

“All I did,” Daisy pouted, “was say that she could have a slightly better attitude. I mean, really.”

“In retrospect,” Iris said in a very dry voice, “that may have not been the best choice of words.”

“She’s going to make us look bad!”

“She,” Sarah said menacingly, “is the only reason you have a quartet.”

“I still find it difficult to believe that we did not have anyone available to take Sarah’s place on the pianoforte,” Daisy said.

Iris gaped at her. “You say that as if you suspect Sarah of foul play.”

“Oh, she has good reason to suspect foul play,” Sarah said, advancing with the bow.

“We’re running out of cousins,” Harriet said, briefly looking up from her notes. She had spent the entire altercation writing everything down. “After me there is only Elizabeth and Frances before we must turn to a new generation.”

Sarah gave Daisy one final glare before returning Harriet’s bow. “I’m not doing this again,” she warned. “I don’t care if you have to shrink to a trio. The only reason I’m playing this year is—”

“Because you felt guilty,” Iris said. “Well, you do,” she added when her comment was met with nothing but silence. “You still feel guilty about abandoning us last year.”

Sarah opened her mouth. It was her natural inclination to argue when accused of something, wrongfully or not. (And in this case, not.) But then she saw her husband, standing in the doorway with a smile on his face and a rose in his hand, and instead she said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“You do?” Iris asked.

“I do. I’m sorry to you, and you”—she nodded toward Daisy—“and probably to you, too, Harriet.”

“She didn’t even play last year,” Daisy said.

“I’m her older sister. I’m sure I owe her an apology for something. And if you’ll all excuse me, I’m leaving with Hugh.”

“But we’re practicing!” Daisy protested.

Sarah gave her a jolly wave. “Ta-ta!”

“ ‘Ta-ta?’ ” Hugh murmured in her ear as they made their way out of the music room. “You say ‘ta-ta’?”

“Only to Daisy.”

“You really are a good egg,” he said. “You didn’t have to play this year.”

“No, I think I did.” She would never admit it aloud, but when she realized that she was the only person capable of saving the annual musicale... Well, she couldn’t let it die. “Tradition is important,” she said, hardly able to believe the words that were coming from her mouth. But she had changed since falling in love. And besides...

She took Hugh’s hand and placed it on her abdomen. “It could be a girl.”

It took him a moment. And then: “Sarah?”

She nodded.

“A baby?”

She nodded again.

“When?”

“November, I should think.”

“A baby,” he said again, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“You shouldn’t be so surprised,” she teased. “After all—”

“She’ll need to play an instrument,” he interrupted.

“She might be a boy.”

Hugh looked down at her with dry humor. “That would be most unusual.”

She laughed. Only Hugh would make such a joke. “I love you, Hugh Prentice.”

“And I love you, Sarah Prentice.”

They resumed their walk toward the front door, but after only two steps, Hugh leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Two thousand.”

And Sarah, because she was Sarah, chuckled and said, “Is that all?”