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Sophronia skipped to a bench and took a seat, smoothing her skirts with unconscious grace. “You are being silly, which is kind of you. I like you.”

Oh, child … Affection should not be so easily given.

“I am not being silly at all. I am merely the niece of a baron from Shropshire, and should not have made any sort of come out, except that my aunt wanted company for one of my cousins. I was sent off to London, equipped with a wardrobe, and given cursory instruction from my cousin’s finishing governess.

I faced many dragons, Sophronia, and they would have dined on my bones if I’d let them. ”

“But you didn’t let them. You are a viscountess now. Mrs. Cavanaugh is a dragon. She wants to dine on Papa’s bones. ”

Daphne saw no point dissembling in the face of that truth. “Mrs. Cavanaugh is actually quite nice. She has four sons, and if she made your Papa happy, then you would benefit from her ambition.”

Sophronia heaved up a sigh the size of Shropshire.

“That’s what George says. He says I’m not to worry over gaining a step-mama, because I will go to school when I’m fourteen and marry after I make my come out, but if I don’t worry over Papa, who will?

He’s very serious, and I won’t be fourteen for ages and ages. ”

“That a grown man takes life seriously is an appealing quality.” Though Montmarche did not seem to take himself too seriously, another appealing quality. “Shall we have a peek at the maze?”

“We can peek,” Sophronia replied, bolting from the bench, “but we’re not to go inside. Papa has a rule.”

A man in homespun attire occupied a chair where the hedge opened into the maze. He rose and bowed. “Ladies, good day.”

“Good day, Mr. Perkins,” Sophronia said. “This is Lady Cargill. I wanted to show her the maze.”

“From the outside,” Daphne added. The hedges were twelve feet tall at least, and the growth impenetrably thick. A rabbit might be able to wiggle through the hedges, a person could not. “I understand guests are to avoid the maze.”

“The guests, the servants, even the groundskeepers stay clear unless we’re trimmin’ the hedges. His lordship’s orders. One of the largest mazes in England, you see. Easy to get lost.”

He was not simply proud of his maze, he was respectful of it. Daphne gave the towering greenery an uneasy glance. Why would anybody devote such effort to a place where the most likely outcome was to lose one’s bearings?

“Is there a rule for navigating the maze?”

Perkins smiled. “It’s a secret passed down from earl to earl. Lord Killoway should have learned the secret on his twenty-first birthday.”

“George is Lord Killoway,” Sophronia said. “He doesn’t like to use the title at home. He promised to tell me the secret when I turn one and twenty. ”

Daphne was coming to like Montmarche’s son, and she’d barely been introduced to him. “Let’s have a ramble through the woods, then, shall we? After spending days in a coach, I’m not quite ready to go back into the house yet.”

Through the trees she caught a glimpse of Montmarche and Mrs. Cavanaugh trotting along the edge of the park. The widow cut a lovely figure in her fashionable green habit.

Daphne turned toward the woods rather than watch Montmarche assist the lady from her horse. Emma Cavanaugh would make the most of that moment, while Daphne wanted to make the most of what fresh air she could enjoy before being forced to make inane conversation for hours at dinner.

“A buffet was a wise choice for the first evening,” Lysander said. “You’ve given our guests a chance to mingle without the regimentation of a seating order.”

The anxiety in Cassandra’s gaze eased as she surveyed the guests ranged around the parlors. The informal parlor, the first formal parlor and the music room stretched in one continuous space by virtue of open folding doors.

The doors to the back terrace had similarly been flung wide, meaning a party of more than thirty could spread out enough for private conversation, but remain gathered enough that wandering and regrouping between trips to the buffet was easy.

“We will have plenty of dinners before the guests disperse,” Cassandra said.

“A buffet is easier on both the staff and the guests, though some people need the pre-arranged seating order. Otherwise, they will sit in the corner with their school friends and neighbors from back home, never venturing to speak to more recent acquaintances.”

Lysander’s job had been to welcome each new arrival and see them settled. Cassandra bore the brunt of most of the introductions, which she’d been making as the day had progressed.

“What’s the Offenbach whelp doing here? He’s been sent down from university twice, and from what I recall, his prospects are limited.”

Offenbach was an extra spare without portfolio, not a comfortable status. He was good-looking, well-dressed, and held membership in a modest club, but Lysander had reason to know the man was slow to pay his vowels and had engaged in two duels in the past six months.

“He’s the bad example,” Cassandra said, taking a sip of raspberry lemonade punch.

“He’s the fellow the young ladies might end up with if they don’t accept more promising offers.

He’s good for making up numbers, he’s competent on the dance floor, and he doesn’t cheat at cards. He’ll do for my purposes.”

“Never underestimate woman’s capacity for strategy.”

Cassandra’s smile reminded Lysander of the girl she’d been. “You quote Papa.”

“Who quoted Mama. I suppose George is the good example?” Lysander’s son had acquitted himself well as understudy to the host. He’d welcomed guests, known most everybody’s name before they’d left their carriages, and shown the young men to their quarters.

The fluttering young ladies had inspired George to genial banter, nothing more. His mama would have been proud of him.

“George needs to marry sooner rather than later,” Cassandra said, smile fading. “We’ve had that discussion, Montmarche.”

Many times. “He’s barely reached his majority, my dear. Give him a few years to kick up his heels before he takes on the burden of a wife and children. I had that privilege, and made a better choice when I did marry my countess.”

“You have no spare, my lord. You are getting on, George has no cousins through the Marche line. We have no younger siblings. Unless you want some American backwoodsman to inherit the title, either you or George should be marrying and having sons. ”

Getting on . Cassandra’s tactics were shifting, from wheedling and hinting to outright insults.

“Let’s enjoy the terrace, shall we?” Where a brother and sister could speak honestly.

Cassandra took his arm. “You are fifty years old, sir. While you remain a vigorous exponent of your gender, many men don’t see even that many years on earth. Three score and ten is for the few and the lucky.”

They crossed onto the terrace, the fresh air and quiet welcome. “Cassandra, I know.”

“If you know, and you realize that securing the succession with a spare is one way to ensure that George needn’t hurry into marriage, then why haven’t you taken another bride, Montmarche? Must I explain the details to you?”

She had been such a comfort to him in the years after Maria’s death.

Sophronia’s French was fluent already because Cassandra and her husband, Amery Gavineau, had invited their niece for extended holidays with them in Nice and Paris.

Sophronia knew the sights of both Paris and London thanks to her aunt, and had acquaintances on both sides of the Channel.

Never a bad thing, for an earl’s daughter.

“I well understand the details of procreation, madam.”

“Are you in love with an unsuitable parti , is that it? You are old enough that you could get away with marrying a mistress, provided she was somewhat decent. A merry widow, a cit, an opera singer from the Continent. People would understand that an older man needs the comfort of a wife in his declining years, and you can afford to be selfish about your choice.”

They wandered down the steps into the formal parterres that Lysander’s grandmother had so treasured.

She had been French, as Gavineau was French, and had disdained the English craze for creating a caricature of nature at great effort and expense.

She was the reason the park stretching before the house yet flourished without artificial landscaping.

“If I take another wife, she will be a suitable parti , for she might well have the raising of the next earl, or of George’s heir.”

“You are considering it? Remarrying, that is?”

The gravel crunched beneath Lysander’s boots, his steps disturbing the pattern that had been carefully raked into the walkway. Tomorrow, before the sun rose, the pattern would be restored by the labor of the gardeners and grooms.

Everybody pitched in during a house party, the lines between house and grounds, stable and home farm, blurring in an effort to offer the best hospitality Marche Hall could shower upon its guests.

“I have considered remarrying since I put off mourning. I am well aware that I have only the one son. I hadn’t thought through as carefully how the lack of a spare burdens George.”

Lysander’s firstborn was perched on the balustrade, young ladies on a bench beside him.

A gangling sprig bracketed the bench attempting the same easy posture as George, but that fellow was younger and less assured.

Offenbach had taken the end of the bench, crowding the young ladies, though they seemed pleased to have his company.

“It’s not as if having a spare involves the labors of Hercules, not for you,” Cassandra said. “Your countess will be the one giving birth, after all.”

But Lysander would be the papa. He didn’t dread that, exactly, but neither did he look forward to it. Children, viewed from any informed perspective, were a terrifying prospect. Children with a woman other than Maria were… expedient. Necessary. Duty.

No child should be conceived strictly as a concession to duty.

“Have you chosen a countess for me?” The question was only half in jest.

“I would never be so bold, though you will find among the guests several women of appropriate age and station to fulfill that office.”

The young people burst into laughter as Offenbach rose, handkerchief in hand, to dab at the young sprig’s cravat. A splash of claret decorated the youth’s linen, and his face had turned nearly the same color as the stain.

“I must intervene,” Lysander said. “Offenbach is making sport of another guest.”

“It was an accident,” Cassandra said, keeping hold of Lysander’s elbow. “George will prevent them from coming to blows. You can only create greater awkwardness.”

The slender young fellow bowed to the ladies and left the group, marching across the terrace with an air of injured dignity.

“The problem with having a bad example on hand is that he’ll live down to the role in which he was cast.”

“Meaning,” Cassandra replied, turning Lysander back toward the terrace. “George will make a very fine good example, won’t he?”

George did not need the contrast a bad example provided. He was a son a father could be proud of, an heir more than worthy of the title.

“Then you’ve recruited potential countesses among the guests,” Lysander said. “Do I take it Mrs. Cavanaugh is the good example?”

“She is comely, sensible, young enough but not too young, and has had four sons , all of whom appear to be thriving.”

A summary worthy of the auctioneer at Tatts. “Is there a bad example among the ladies?”

“Of course not. My daughter’s wedding party is a gathering of fine company, and every lady present is above reproach. If there’s an older widow or a spinster among the guests, that’s by happenstance.”

Never underestimate the strategy of women.

“No, it isn’t.” The lone older widow on the premises was Lady Cargill, who’d apparently had only a daughter and one son, was past her child-bearing years or nearly so, rather plain, and given to rescuing spiders.

Not very subtle, but then, Lysander was getting on and Cassandra was nothing, if not determined that he should remarry.

“Oh, there’s Mrs. Cavanaugh sitting all by herself,” Cassandra said, though Mrs. Cavanaugh was on the terrace, and somebody else would doubtless soon occupy the half of the bench she’d left empty. “Why don’t you be a proper host and find her some company?”

Lysander passed his sister his drink. “Subtle, Cassandra. Very subtle.”

She poured his drink into her own. “All I’m asking you to do is keep an open mind.”

She was asking him to surrender his freedom, sire a child or three, and replace Maria with another countess.

“I’ll find the lady some company, then get myself more punch.” He plucked the empty glass from her hand, and prepared to be a proper host.

Again.