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Gwendolyn strode through the door of the house almost before their butler, Herald, could open it. He was a tall, stately man

with a head of white hair. He had accompanied them from Wiltham.

“Thank you, Herald,” she said politely before launching into, “Has anyone sent an invitation to me?” The question came out

in a rush of words.

“I—ah, um, no, Miss Gwendolyn,” he managed to stammer out in surprise. She wasn’t usually this forward. Dara was the inquisitor

of the family. “There have not been any cards received.”

She huffed her frustration and then instructed, “Expect one.”

“Expect what?” Dara asked, catching a bit of the conversation. She came from the direction of the back sitting room. She held

a sock she was darning in one hand. “I’m surprised you are home so quickly. Usually you are hours at Hatchard’s. Has something

happened? And look at you, Molly. Why are you so red in the face?”

The maid had come in several steps behind Gwendolyn. She held her hand to her side as if she suffered a stitch. “Miss Gwendolyn ran me home, Mrs. Brogan.”

“I did not,” Gwendolyn shot back at the maid as she handed her bonnet to Herald. She still held the slim book in her hand

and set it on a table beside the door to remove her gloves. “I just set a quick pace.”

“Miss Gwendolyn, your legs are much longer than mine,” Molly didn’t hesitate to complain.

“And mine,” Dara noted dryly.

Gwendolyn frowned and pulled off her second glove before putting it into the bonnet Herald held. Then, taking both items from

him, she handed them to Molly. “Please, carry these upstairs?”

Molly puffed air out of her cheeks in annoyance before mumbling, “Yes, miss.” She marched toward the stairs, her back as stiff

as a governess’s.

“Excuse me,” Herald murmured and went down the hall to see to some other task. He filled several roles in the household.

“What is this about an invitation?” Dara said.

“You hear everything,” Gwendolyn accused her, but without heat. She picked up the book and walked into the front sitting room.

It was more formal than the other rooms in the house. And , there was a window that overlooked the street. She sat on the settee, positioning herself so she could watch the traffic and be the first to notice the arrival of a messenger. She flipped open the book so she could pretend to read. She wasn’t about to share Mr. Steele’s message with her sister—

“What is this?” Dara asked. She bent to pick up something on the floor. Mr. Steele’s card. It must have fallen from the book.

Gwendolyn set the book aside on the settee and came to her feet. “That is mine .” She started for her sister, but Dara was already frowning at the handwritten message. She turned over the card.

Just as Gwendolyn reached her, Dara whispered, “Steele?” Her blue eyes met her older sister’s brown ones. “ He was at Hatchard’s? He gave this to you?”

“No.” That was actually true. Mr. Peters had given it to her.

“Then how did you come by this?” Dara waved the card. “An invitation to what?”

“I don’t know.” Gwendolyn decided not to dissemble. She held her hand out for the card. “I’m waiting to find out. Please,

hand that to me.”

But Dara did not obey.

Instead, she walked right by Gwendolyn and into the sitting room. “This is not good, Gwendolyn. Not good at all.”

“I see nothing wrong with it. He is just advising me to expect an invitation. “

“For something he has obviously orchestrated. And any invitation he could send you would not be to your benefit.”

“I disagree. He has been a good friend to us. Dara, he is the one who saw that we received invitations to our first ball when every door was shut to us. You would not be married to Michael or Elise to Winderton if not for him. I find that admirable.”

“He did those things because he wants something from us. No, not us, you .”

“We owe him a favor. That is the payment for his help, and he has helped us greatly.”

“But at what cost?” Dara shook her head. “He is not accepted in Society. Not truly.”

“Unless they find him useful,” Gwendolyn felt honor bound to point out. “But sooner or later, we need to pay him back. It

is the right thing to do. He is asking me to accept an invitation.” She shrugged. “I see no problem. Let us discover what

the invite is, and then we can argue.”

“The problem is that you find him attractive.”

“He’s an attractive man.” Gwendolyn shrugged as if to pretend Mr. Steele’s looks meant nothing to her, when in truth, she

adored his dark wildness.

“You can do better,” Dara said. “The whole reason we made this trip to London was to find husbands of our social class. You could have married a squire or a pig famer back in Ireland.”

An edge came to Gwendolyn’s tone. “Mr. Steele is not a pig farmer. Far from it.”

“He’s handsome,” Dara murmured with a shake of her head. “But he is no viscount.”

“I turned down Viscount Morley,” Gwendolyn was pleased to say.

Dara’s reaction was as Gwendolyn had anticipated. She collapsed onto the settee in shock. “Refused him? I thought you liked

him.”

“He is a nice man, but I don’t wish to marry him.”

“You could be a viscountess.”

“That is an interesting point, Dara. You don’t have a title. However, I didn’t quibble over your choice, because you were marrying a man who I believed you loved.”

“I do love him.” Dara’s features softened. “He is the most admirable man I’ve ever met. However, all that being said, he is a Member of Parliament. He has a good reputation.”

“Mr. Steele has a good reputation.”

“For doing shadowy things.”

“ And he excels at them.”

Dara looked wildly around the room as if she could not believe what she was hearing, and Gwendolyn took pity on her. She sat

on the settee next to her sister, moving the book she had tossed aside earlier. “Dara, I like Mr. Steele.”

“You more than like Mr. Steele,” her sister muttered.

“True. And I appreciate that you would prefer for me to be viscountess.”

“I’m not trying to be pompous. I just want to save you from a horse thief.”

“Mr. Steele is not a horse thief.”

“We don’t know what all he does,” Dara reminded her.

True. It was also true that if he was a horse thief, Gwendolyn would still be madly attracted to him.

She also believed she had enough sense of his character to vouch for him. “He is not a horse thief or a highwayman or a pickpocket

or a smuggler—” She stopped. He could be a smuggler. He could always be found at a tavern down by the docks that was rumored to be the haven of smugglers. So she ended her disavowals right there.

Instead, she took Dara’s hand and said as kindly as she could, “I’m not like you and Elise. Your mother was a noblewoman.

Your family has been Irish nobility for generations. I’m your half-sister. I don’t have those bloodlines.”

“Our father was knighted,” Dara declared. “That gives you some weight in this world.”

“Not much,” Gwendolyn countered. “And Father may have been knighted; however, knowing what we do of him, we, his own daughters,

don’t understand why or how . Nor was he ‘Sir John’ when he married my mother, who was just the daughter of a British civil servant. My mother and my

grandfather were wonderful people, Dara, but I have no pretense to nobility—”

“You are my sister.”

“I am your half -sister.”

Dara made an impatient sound. “Half? Whole? Who cares? Those are just words, and they don’t matter, Gwendolyn. You are the

most caring person I know. After Mother died, you watched over and guided Elise and me—and we were so afraid, Gwennie.” She

used the pet name that her sisters had called her when “Gwendolyn” was too much of a mouthful for them. “You let us cling

to you because you understood what it was like to lose a mother. Then, after Gram’s death and Richard taking over our home,

you would have sacrificed your own happiness for us. Again, to keep us safe. Well, now, Elise and I are in a position to help

you. We want you happy.”

“Mr. Steele makes me happy.”

Dara rocked back at the simple statement. She searched Gwendolyn’s face as if testing its veracity. Finally, “I fear he will break your heart. Or worse, you find yourself married to a scoundrel like our father.”

There it was—the truth. Dara had finally admitted it.

“We once adored our father,” Gwendolyn reminded her.

“Yes, before we knew who he truly was.”

Captain Sir John Lanscarr had been proud to be a gambler. When he could have stayed at Wiltham with his motherless daughters,

he’d left, always to search for the next game.

The Lanscarr sisters had spent most of their young lives waiting in anxious anticipation for the moment he paid a visit. What

would then follow were days when they’d done all in their power to please him so he wouldn’t leave again.

He’d always left.

Dara shook her head. “We were misled,” she said.

Another truth.

“Mr. Steele is not Papa,” Gwendolyn said.

“Or so you hope.”

A third truth.

“I will be careful,” Gwendolyn promised.

In response, Dara threw her arms around her and gave her a fierce hug as if offering a cloak of protection. “Elise and I will

always be here for you.”

“I do know that.”

“And Tweedie, too.” She referred to her great-aunt who had traveled with them to London and had served as the Lanscarr sisters’

chaperone.

“Of course.”

They bowed their heads together as they’d done as children. Sisterly love circled them. Yes, Gwendolyn wished Dara was less

managing. Just as, she was certain, Dara wished Gwendolyn was more malleable.

A knock on the house’s front door interrupted them.

Gwendolyn sat up, all senses alert. She rose and moved a few steps so that she could see out the window, even as Herald, pulling

his black jacket over his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, hurried forward to open the door.

Dara came to her feet, as well. The door between the front sitting room and hall was half-open as they had left it. She glanced

at Gwendolyn, who was frustrated she could not see the front step. “Do you see anyone?” she whispered.

Gwendolyn shook her head. She tried to breathe naturally... but she was too aware that something momentous was about to

happen.

You will receive an invitation. Accept it.

They heard someone speak to Herald. It was a young male voice, not Mr. Steele’s. “This is from Lady Orpington. I am to wait

for an answer.”

Lady Orpington? Gwendolyn had never heard of her. She moved now toward the sitting room door so she could discreetly catch

a look at the servant on the step. He wore an expensive-looking wig and was dressed in plum-colored livery.

Dara came up beside her and clamped a hand on her arm, gripping it tightly as if in alarm—or excitement? Her expression was

hard to read.

Herald told the messenger that he should wait on the step. He shut the door. Michael and Dara’s house was a fine one but small. There was no room for messengers to cool their heels and allow the family privacy, so he’d left him outside.

With great ceremony, Herald walked the few steps it took to enter the sitting room and said, “An invitation from Lady Orpington.

She requests an immediate answer.”

Gwendolyn took the letter, her name written with great flourish on the outside. She cracked the wax seal and read what was

written before looking to Dara. “She requests I call upon her tomorrow morning. She will send a coach. Do we know Lady Orpington?”

Her question was Dara’s cue to rip the letter from Gwendolyn’s hands as if she needed to read the message herself. “ Yes , we know of her. Gwendolyn, she is one of the grand dames of Society. The highest of the high. The Top One Hundred Families

of England... and she wishes you to call on her in the morning? How does she know you?”

“Mr. Steele,” she reminded her sister. “He told me to expect an invitation. I am to go.”

Dara shook her head in disbelief, offering the letter back. “How does he find entrée to half the places in Society we have

found him?”

“Society adores a rogue,” Gwendolyn observed.

“More like Lady Orpington owes him a favor.”

“I’ll find out on the morrow.” She said to the waiting Herald, “Please tell the messenger I will be ready at the appointed

hour.”

“Yes, Miss Gwendolyn.” He turned with proud formality to relay her answer.

After the door was shut and Herald had retreated from the hall, Dara said with a hint of worry, “I believe I need to accompany

you.”

“She asked that I come alone.”

“I don’t know if that is wise.”

“And yet it is what is requested.”

Dara looked up at Gwendolyn. “By Lady Orpington? Or Mr. Steele?”

It didn’t matter to Gwendolyn who had invited her. She was going. She kissed her worried sister’s cheek. “I’ll be safe. I’ll

be in Lady Orpington’s private coach.” She picked up the Dante book and started for her room.

She was going to see Mr. Steele on the morrow.

And she was going to look stunning.