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M adeleine was sipping her tea when her eyes alighted on the announcement in the morning post.

. . . the betrothal of the Duke of Troubridge to Miss Sarah Watson . . .

The tea went everywhere and the wave of nausea she had been battling all morning sent her flying for the chamber pot.

Madeleine sat clutching the chamber pot, tears running down her cheeks, as the fantasy she had been nurturing for months was well and truly punctured.

She really did need to find another protector, because the duke had indeed found a wife as he had said he was going to do. He wasn’t coming back to her as she had hoped, even persuaded herself, that he would.

*

“Robert, you cannot be serious! It will be impossible to pull together a wedding in only a month, and besides, it is the middle of the season. What of Ava’s come out ball? It is scheduled for next week! Are you trying to ruin your sister’s debut?”

“Not at all. We can still hold her ball before we leave for The Castle. You know very well that the wedding will become an event of the season. Any of Ava’s beaux worth their salt will make the trip just for the chance to steal a march on his fellows.”

The duchess regarded him with an arrested expression. He could see the thoughts ticking away behind her eyes as she considered his comment.

“You are perfectly correct!” Mama’s eyes lit up with a sparkle.

“In fact, we will make it the event of the season.” She touched his arm.

“It will be so exclusive that everyone will want to be invited!” She clapped her hands, taking a pace about the room.

She turned back to him. “But a month is still not long enough!”

He smiled. “That’s the dandy, Mama. You will contrive to manage it—you have an army of servants to do your bidding.

And it will also give you the opportunity to put Sarah in the way of things, introduce her to the staff, and get her comfortable with her responsibilities, by being able to observe how you pull together a big event without her being responsible for any of it. ”

“That is very thoughtful of you, Robert.” She paused and sighed. “If you are set on its being held in a month’s time?”

“I am.”

“Why the haste?”

“I do not wish to wait,” he said, flushing.

His mother eyed him thoughtfully. “You do realize that such unseemly haste will cause gossip, don’t you?”

“Yes, but we can weather that.”

“Very well, I shall make it happen, somehow.” She patted his arm again. “I am pleased you have at last found the woman you’ve been looking for, my dear. I had almost given up.”

“So had I, Mama,” he said awkwardly. He cleared his throat and went on, “You will be patient with her, won’t you?

Remember, she is not accustomed to the kind of pomp and ceremony we take for granted.

And she has no worldly ambition—she didn’t set her cap for me.

In fact, she was deuced hard to convince,” he admitted.

“I knew that first evening that I liked her. And if you love her, my dearest, I will learn to love her, too.”

Robert flushed again and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Mama.”

Mama was a gem to accede to his desire to push forward with the wedding so rapidly, for it would mean a great deal of work for her and would be a distraction from Ava’s season though Ava was far too fond of him to object to the interruption.

It seemed he had fooled his family into thinking he had formed a strong attachment to Sarah, for which he was grateful. The truth was not so sanguine.

His fury over being entrapped by Lady Holbrook, was nothing to Sarah’s. He’d had no moment alone with her to discuss it, but the daggers she threw at him and her cold manner told him that she believed him to have been complicit with Lady Holbrook in the affair.

The fact of the matter was he’d had no choice but to make their betrothal a reality upon being discovered in such a compromising position with Sarah.

His reputation, as well as hers, was at stake.

The last thing he wanted was a scandal, particularly in the middle of Ava’s come out season, nothing could be more ruinous to her chances than to have her brother embroiled in a scandal.

They had managed to avoid one at Vauxhall, though he was still not quite sure why or how.

The fact that the alliance suited him was almost irrelevant.

*

Sarah was livid. Sarah wasn’t sure who she was more angry with, Daphne or the duke. That they had conspired to entrap her she had no doubt.

Being perfectly aware of the terms of her great-aunt’s will, she knew the benefit that would accrue to Daphne in orchestrating Sarah’s marriage to a duke.

It was a significant jointure that would see her comfortable for the rest of her days.

And Daphne’s refusal to apologize was even more galling.

She stuck to it hammer and tong that she had acted in Sarah’s best interests, and she would thank her for it one day.

Sarah was so flabbergasted by this she just stared at her duenna. “You cannot be serious!”

Daphne dabbed at her eyes and sniffed. “I am perfectly serious. The duke is an absolute gentleman, and he most sincerely esteems you—anyone with eyes can see that. He will make you a splendid husband, you just haven’t the sense to see it yet, but you will!”

Sarah turned and left the room, unable to support a moment longer with the woman she had once thought her friend.

And as for the duke, she was so angry with him she refused to receive him. She kept to her room entirely for the first day after the announcement of the engagement, only emerging the next morning to resume her early morning walks.

She felt his betrayal, if anything more keenly, because it cut to the quick of her burgeoning affections toward him.

She had assumed, wrongly, that he was a man of integrity.

She now felt that she didn’t know him at all and that every construction she had put on his behavior was false.

He cared only for money and consequence.

Her thoughts thus were quite dark as she entered the gates of Hyde Park trailed by Esme and the faithful James. It was a gloomy day, which suited her mood, and she hunched into her pelisse against the cool breeze, her eyes on her feet.

“Good day, Miss Watson.” The familiar voice brought her head up with a start and her steps to a halt.

It was the Earl of Lannister again. But this time he did not appear to be the worse for drink.

He was impeccably dressed in a jacket, breeches, and top boots under a caped greatcoat, shaven and quite bright-eyed.

He bowed. “I understand congratulations are in order,” he said with a quizzical smile.

Feeling entirely unequal to dealing with the earl’s double meanings and bantering manner, she tried to assume the demeanor of a just-engaged lady who was happy about it. Acknowledging his bow with a curtsy and a nod of her head, she said, “Thank you, my lord.”

“Will you let me take a turn about the park with you?” he said, taking her hand before she could protest and slipping it into the crook of his arm.

Esme and James had fallen back a bit, although they were still in sight, as the earl tugged her gently along the path.

There were few people out this early, and the air was still misty with dew upon the grass.

“What are you doing here, my lord?”

“Waiting for you. I waited yesterday, too, but you didn’t show.”

“I-I had the headache yesterday,” she said, flustered.

“Did you?” He looked down at her. “Forgive me, Miss Watson, but you look like you still have the headache.”

“What do you want, my lord?”

“I wanted to ascertain if you were happy with your new circumstances. From the look of you, I can only conclude that you are not.”

She didn’t respond, for what could she say?

“I must say that I am surprised at the duke. I would not have thought he would stoop to underhanded means to obtain what he wanted.”

“You are mistaken, my lord,” she said in a strained voice.

“Am I? I don’t think so. In any case, he cannot compel you to marry him, and I wanted you to know you have an alternative if you choose to take it.”

“My lord, this is outrageous!”

“No more outrageous than forcing a young woman into a marriage not of her choosing. I am a blackguard, Miss Watson, and even I would balk at that.”

“Thank you, my lord. I’m sure your offer is kindly meant, but I cannot accept it.”

“No? Very well, you can’t blame a man for trying.

” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and removed a small card.

“There is my direction. Should you change your mind, a note to that address will bring me swiftly to your rescue. I suspect that henceforward it will be virtually impossible for me to have any conversation with you. You are about to be swallowed up by the ducal machine.” He doffed his hat, bowed, and strolled away.

Sarah watched his back for a moment or two, unsure of what she was feeling.

Even if she loved him, which she didn’t, marrying him would cause such a scandal it would ruin her sisters’ chances and defeat the purpose of her marrying anyone at all.

Angry as she was with the duke for trapping her, she recognized that to spurn him would ruin her.

She was a vicar’s daughter, and he was a duke.

The unevenness in their stations would ensure that.

*

When Robert received the intelligence from Bridges that Sarah had met with Lannister that morning in Hyde Park, he was stupefied.

“Find Lannister’s address for me immediately!”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said Bridges with a bow.

An hour later, the duke knocked on the door of a narrow multi-story building in Ryder Street, where Lannister was reputed to have rooms. The landlady, much flustered when she learned the duke’s identity, let him into the building and directed him to the second floor.

The door was opened by Lannister’s man who informed the duke that the earl was not at home.

“I believe he has gone to his club—Boodle’s, Your Grace.”