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Besides, his friendwasright. There were worse matches that their children might find, and it would surely be better for them to wed a trusted family friend. Even if Sarsen was an incurable rake, he was a good man, and those were difficult to find.

“Found it!” Sarsen exclaimed, waving a sheet of paper.

Benedict straightened his spine. “So I see.”

Had his words emerged less clearly than they usually did? Benedict could not be certain, but he thought they had.

With a victorious grin, Sarsen slammed the paper down onto the table between them. In his other hand, he held the pen and ink. As he placed them on the table, he nearly spilled the ink on the paper that had inspired such joy.

“Are we truly going to make this a contract?” Benedict asked, reaching for the pen.

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed?

Benedict shrugged and wrote the date—7 December 1788—in bold, looping script atop the page.

“Is it the seventh?” Sarsen asked.

“I believe so,” Benedict replied.

Admittedly, he had not thought much of the date in the past week. His thoughts were entirely consumed with the imminent arrival of Dorothy, and there was little space for something as pedestrian as the date.

“On this day,” Benedict said, as he wrote, “An agreement was made between Benedict Leedway, the Duke of Reeds, and Charles Richards, the Duke of Sarsen.”

CHAPTER1

Catherine grimaced at her poor hand of cards with the same intensity that she might have had if someone had insulted her mother. Such an expression did not suit a proper lady, but Catherine had known since girlhood that she was notproper.

While her governess tried valiantly to coax Catherine into appreciating ladylike pursuits, Catherine always tried to escape the woman. She would hide in the gardens and climb trees, if necessary, to avoid embroidering a single stitch or learning her mathematics. The gardens were alive and beautiful, always promising adventure, while her governess had only dull papers and long, wasted hours to offer.

“I think you do this purposefully,” Catherine said. “You always want to play whist because you know I have no head for that particular game.”

Across the table, her brother Elias grinned. “My dear sister, would I do something like that?”

“Yes,” Catherine said.

“Indeed,” Bridget said, who was the youngest of the Leedway siblings.

“I feel obliged to agree with my sisters,” Dorothy said. “We ladies must look after one another.”

Catherine gave her elder sister Dorothy a nod of mock solemnity. “Certainly, the gentlemen cannot be depended upon to look after us.”

The siblings had only recently returned to the countryside from an unfruitful Season. As a young woman of two-and-twenty years, Catherine knew she had little time left to find a suitable match. She suspected that this was partly her own folly.

She was not an unattractive woman. Like her brother and sisters, she had been blessed with their mother’s thick, dark hair. Her eyes were blue like her father’s and Elias’s. She was tall and slender, and the family’s modiste was excellent. Elias spared no expense, no matter how great, to ensure his sisters looked lovely for the Season. But Catherine was wild and impulsive in a way that ladies were not meant to be.

“Perhaps, next year,” Elias said. ‘I believe that Bridget and I are victorious. Shall we play again?”

“Do you wish to humiliate me so soon?” Catherine asked. “Were the previous nine victories insufficient for you?”

Elias grinned, his eyes gleaming in delight. Although he was the oldest of the Leedway siblings, Catherine had found that he had a penchant for mischief, which often made him seem younger. “I do not know what you mean, Cat. How are you to improve if you do not practice? I am only trying to help you refine your skills.”

Catherine cast him a vexed look. “Somehow, I suspect your intentions are not that noble. Why might that be?”

“I am wounded that you would think me capable of any ignobility,” Elias said, putting a heart to his chest.

Catherine crossed her arms. “Truly? I find it impressive that you can lie so brazenly.”