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S erenity looked toward her father. It was the night before their departure from the Dales to Town and they had gathered in the dining room for dinner.

She was feeling nostalgic already about the house she’d been raised in.

The duke, on the other hand, was currently waving a sheet of paper with a look of consternation.

“You had better tell us, Papa,” she said.

“I can guess already,” Winsome said. “Nobody sends a letter that aggravates Papa more than our aunt.”

“You are correct,” the duke said to Winsome. “Lady Misery has taken her irritating impertinence to new heights this time!”

Valor laughed. “It’s so funny when you call her Lady Misery. It’s even funnier when she hears it, she gets so mad.”

“Because it’s so apt,” Verity said. “A very common thing.”

Serenity was used to Verity naming all and sundry a common thing when she in fact knew little about it.

In this case, though, she might be right.

An insult might be felt harder when the victim of it guessed it might be true.

She still vividly remembered Winsome calling her the Queen of the Weeps a few years ago, even though she could not remember what she had been weeping about at the time.

Lady Misery was, of course, their aunt and known in the wider world as Lady Marchfield. While the lady meant well, at least they must suppose she did, she was rather miserable.

As it was the moment they were to travel to London for the season, and as letters had arrived at such a moment in prior years, and as each of those letters had outlined the importance of employing a butler in Town, Serenity presumed that was the current subject of communication.

For three seasons, Lady Marchfield had been determined that a duke must have a butler and had so little faith in his hiring one that she’d installed one herself.

For three seasons, their dear housekeeper, Mrs. Right, had driven those butlers out of the house.

Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, Mr. Button, and Mr. Grimsby had all been shown the door, or run out the door, as the case might have been.

The duke had no wish for a butler, as Mrs. Right ran his household to his liking and did not fan herself over his sometimes unusual habits.

“This time,” the duke said, “she has somehow got in league with that vicar who depends on me for his living.”

“Oh, Papa,” Serenity said. “They must have planned it when our aunt was here for Patience’s wedding.” She paused. “What is it they planned, exactly?”

“She’s determined to install another butler. He’s a relative of that vicar’s, Mr. Cremble is his name. Apparently, he was meant for the church but could not get a living. So now, I am supposed to give him a living? I already support one ridiculous churchman in that family.”

Valor snorted. “Mrs. Right will make Mr. Cremble crumble. Or she will make Mr. Cremble tremble.”

The duke laughed, “That’s good, that’s very good, Val. How about this—for however long he is in the house in Town, which I hope will not be long, I will call him Crumble or Bumble or Mumble or Tremble or Fumble—the possibilities are endless.”

“Will he be unhappy all the time like the vicar is?” Verity asked. “It’s understood to be a common thing among vicars.”

Winsome looked as if she would like to challenge that statement, as she was always keen to challenge Verity’s pronouncements. However, she said nothing. Serenity supposed she was forced to agree with the assessment.

“He’ll be far worse, my girl. Lady Misery writes that she has been assured this fellow is as pious a man as ever lived.

Pious, of all things. Pious people look down their nose at everything and everybody—nothing is ever dull enough for them.

They should all be locked up together to frown at each other for eternity. ”

“If he looks down his nose at Nelson or even frowns at him,” Serenity said, the notion suddenly presenting itself and making her eyes water, “I will be devastated.”

The dog in question was currently under the dining table, making the rounds to see what might be dropped, or directly handed to him.

They were all exceedingly sensitive to Nelson’s effect on people.

He had an unfortunate past, which had resulted in an unfortunate appearance.

He was a three-legged dog, blind in one eye, with a rough coat that could not decide if it wished to be straight or curled.

His tongue seemed rather long, and was known to drop out of his mouth as if he’d forgotten he had one.

His eyes were rather bulgy, and Winsome speculated that they’d got that way because he only had one that worked.

Serenity had spotted him outside of an inn and had prevailed upon the duke to have him.

“He will not dare look down on Nelson,” Winsome said. “If he tries it, I will inform him of Nelson’s tragic past, surviving on scraps at an inn. Nobody wanted him because he tragically lost a leg and is blind in one eye, even though he’s the best dog living.”

Valor nodded her head in full agreement. “We might even ask Mr. Cremble if he’s ever tried to survive on scraps with only one working eye and three legs. Let him speak from experience, if he can claim to have it.”

The duke roared with laughter. “If Mr. Cremble turns up with three legs, I will be very much interested to see it.”

And so they went on, making various predictions on how long Mr. Cremble would last as the latest of Lady Marchfield’s butlers and how superior a dog Nelson had proved to be, despite his outward deficiencies.

Serenity followed along the conversation, though her mind was forever drifting elsewhere.

On the morrow, she would begin her great journey.

The journey every lady must take if she wished to settle herself well.

She would go to Town and be seen by society.

She would meet with gentlemen, and dance with them, and most likely wed one of them.

She might have done all of that last year, but she’d begged off using the excuse that Patience would make her too nervous with all the toe-tapping and hurrying she did.

Though they were twins, they were not identical.

From a temperament standpoint, they could not be more different. Patience had gone forward without her.

That had not really been the reason she did not wish to come out in society last season, though. Patience was always toe-tapping and trying to hurry everybody, but Serenity was well used to it. She did not avoid Town for a year because of Patience. She avoided it because of herself.

When she’d been younger, she supposed her wildly swinging feelings had been adorable.

At least, that was what Mrs. Right said.

Their dear housekeeper claimed there was nothing more entertaining than watching a five-year-old explain to the vicar that biscuits should be available at breakfast because their absence made her weep and God must be against her weeping.

The vicar had counseled her not to be so dramatic and certainly not to drag God into her childish concerns, so she promptly gave him an example of her weeping fits.

Her lack of control over her feelings was no longer adorable. She had hoped that as she matured, her feelings would settle.

They had not settled, though! Her feelings were always climbing steep mountains of bliss and diving down to the depths of despair. She did not know why they did so when she did not wish them to. At least, she did not always want them to. Sometimes she enjoyed a good cry.

Serenity fully recognized that it was not rational, but she had difficulty in correcting it.

So far, at least. She’d been hoping an extra year might do the trick and perhaps she had improved a little, but she still did not go through life with the calm and unruffled assurance that other people did.

Serenity had not the first idea how they did it.

Her papa said it was just her temperament and not to be condemned too much. She did condemn herself, though.

She was well-known in local circles for weeping over dead bees wherever she found them. Any insect who had lost its life in the gardens was upsetting, but bees particularly broke her heart. That nobody understood why she was so affected was neither here nor there.

Serenity had been stung once when she’d been very young. Mrs. Right had thought to console her by revealing the fate of the bee that had done it. It would die for its impertinence.

That had not consoled her at all. She’d felt responsible for the bee’s demise.

Why had she swatted at him? She had provoked him.

What would his friends in the hive think when he did not come home?

Did they know it was her that had killed him?

Had his friends all loved him dearly, and now they were bereft? She would never know!

After Mrs. Right had run her stung arm under cold water, plucked out the stinger, and treated it with spirit of Minderus, Serenity had gone out to the garden to see if the housekeeper had been right about the fate of that poor bee.

After running back to the site of the encounter, Serenity had bent down and looked around for over a half hour. She’d eventually found him under a blade of grass. He was dead.

She had cried for quite a while and apologized to all his friends, though she did not know where they were. Then, she thought very hard on how she could honor his memory and his too-short life.

As she’d been only six, her ideas had not been very many or elaborate.

At first she’d kept him by the fire in her bedchamber, tucked under a blanket of warm ash.

She thought he’d be comfortable there while he made his trip to heaven.

Now, of course, she realized she’d been drying out his poor little body so it did not mold.

After she’d been confident he was with the angels, she’d ended by putting him in a small wood box.

It was to be his crypt and she would keep him in her room so if his spirit chose to revisit the world he would see that he’d been interred with respect.

He had not rested in peace alone in that box, either.

Every dead bee she found had made its journey through the warm ash, or in the height of summer a windowsill with full sun, and then been relocated into the bee crypt.

After all, that first bee that she had murdered might be lonely.

They might be his friends. It was just impossible to know.

She seemed to find more dead bees than one would have thought. Serenity suspected that when one was looking for a particular thing, one saw it everywhere.

Serenity was old enough now to know that the whole thing was absurd.

She’d probably always known it, as she’d avoided telling anyone about her crypt of dead bees.

She had to get over it, all of it! The dead bees were just an example of how her feelings were irrational and ran away with her in the stupidest manner possible.

Serenity Nicolet was to go to Town and pretend she was a grown lady and all along she had a wood box of dead bees in her bedchamber.

From the outside, she did look grown. On the inside was another matter.

What were the chances that nothing would occur to send her into fits of weeping when she was out in society? Not very good, she did not think.

She had come close to asking her father if she ought to see their family doctor about her high-strung emotions. Perhaps there was some sort of cure she could take. She’d not asked though, as the duke had joked that the doctor had given him something for his nerves.

Clearly, he was just as worried about how she would conduct herself as she was.

She burst into tears and covered her face with her napkin.

“Serenity, not a thing has happened. We are just sitting here talking—what’s set you off?” Winsome asked.

“Nothing,” she mumbled into the linen.

“And here we go,” the duke said. “Hold on girls, the next months are likely to be the ride of our lives.”

“Oh, Papa, do not make me laugh,” Serenity said, laughing and weeping at the same time.

He was not wrong, though.

“Don’t be sad, Serenity,” Valor said. “Mrs. Right says we will do a lot of shopping and we can even go to Lackington & Allen, and buy as many books as we like.”

“Books, ribbons, bonnets, shoes, and all the rest,” the duke said. “At the end of it, we’ll see what foolish gentleman is to remove my fourth daughter out of the house.”

As was to be expected, this caused various laughing protestations from her sisters. At least, from Verity and Winsome. Valor had just dropped her fork.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Papa, you want Serenity to get married?”

“What else?” the duke asked. “That’s what the season is for.”

“I didn’t know you were going to keep going on with it, though,” Valor said. “You already miss Felicity, Grace, and Patience—why would you keep going? I thought we went to Town just for shopping this time!”

“Why would you think that, though, Valor?” Winsome asked.

Valor seemed to be searching her mind for why she thought that. Finally she said, “Because it makes sense. How many people have to get married? It makes no sense that Serenity does.”

“Valor,” Verity said, “everybody knows a lady has to be married. It is a long-established fact.”

Valor gripped her fork. “Stop with all your facts!” she cried.

“Never mind it, girl,” the duke said kindly. “You’ll see the sense of it when it’s your turn.”

“ My turn? I won’t take a turn. Serenity,” Valor said, clutching at her hand, “you should not take a turn either. You did not even want to go last season. You should stay here with us. You can’t be forced to have some strange gentleman in your room all night, staring at you while you sleep.

Mr. Stratton does that with Felicity and it’s terrible. ”

Serenity squeezed her hand back. “I do not think our Felicity finds it so terrible. In any case, Val, it is the way of the world.”

“Not my world,” her youngest sister said darkly.

Goodness, Valor was taking the idea rather hard. Of course, Serenity was taking the idea hard too, if for different reasons.