Page 1 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife (Cinderellas of Mayfair #1)

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Give me five shillings,

I’ll woo her for you.

Not among Aphrodite de Smith’s more inspired efforts, Athene couldn’t help thinking as she sat at her desk late on a cold Monday afternoon. Her alter ego would have to do better for Ivor Bilson than that.

She sighed. It was a chore to come up with a convincing rhyme for “Petronella.” “Petronella dressed in yeller?”

Lady Petronella Fitchett was the fashionable beauty du jour, which meant hordes of adoring gentlemen lining up for Athene to pen poetic tributes.

It had been easier last season, when the object of feverish male attention had been Frances Killigrew.

Although Athene had ended up relying far too much on “Frances” and “dances” for her effects.

Not that it had mattered in the end. Lady Frances had scorned her London suitors and eloped to Italy with her music master. Athene, who knew far too much about the consequences of loving unwisely, hoped that Lady Frances had better fortune than she herself ever had.

None of which unhappy recollections helped her to complete the current list of requests for odes to Lady Petronella. Could Athene get away with rhyming “Fitchett” with “wretched?”

“Why are you smiling?” Sylvie asked from the doorway leading from Athene’s cramped office to the gilded splendors of Sweet Little Nothings, London’s most fashionable bonbon shop.

While Athene’s poetic creations accompanied bouquets and jewelry and even the occasional puppy or kitten, most of her verses were slipped inside the elegant lavender and silver boxes that encased the finest confectionery sold in Mayfair.

Athene studied her friend, who as usual looked spectacular. Despite being in the shop since six this morning and serving customers all day. It was after five now, and Sylvie looked as fresh as a spring daffodil. How did she do that? In comparison, Athene felt like an ink-stained ragamuffin.

“I was struggling for a suitable rhyme for ‘Fitchett.’ I’ve given up on ‘Petronella.’ What on earth possessed the chit’s parents to saddle her with such a mouthful of a name?”

Sylvie gave a low laugh. “I won’t have you casting aspersions on Lady P. She’s been very good for business.”

“Yours and mine.” Athene had huge respect for Sylvie.

They’d first met when they were both young and poor in Vienna ten years ago.

Since then, Sylvie had managed to parlay a genius for manipulating sugar into a prosperous enterprise.

While Athene had ditched a drunken brute of a lover and found a precarious living through her gift for rhymes.

That both she and Sylvie now operated under false names was just one more thing they had in common.

“‘Petronella Cinderella?’”

Athene responded with a huff of amusement. “She’s heiress to half of Lincolnshire. Cinderella she is not.”

“Perhaps if you join me upstairs for a glass of claret, you’ll feel more inspired.”

“Or I’ll forget Lady Petronella altogether, which is what I’d like to do. It’s time for Aphrodite de Smith to finish for the day.”

“Capital idea. Athene Colton-Heath is much better company. You can resume your role as the doyenne of sentimental verse tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of my humble talents.” Athene laid down her pen and pushed her chair away from the desk. “If Lady Petronella said yes to a feller, t’would release Aphrodite from her plight-ee.”

Sylvia looked appalled. “Two glasses of claret for you, my girl. You always get silly when you’re tired.”

***

“You have to pay your respects to the reigning beauty, old man. That’s all there is to it.”

Sir Hugo Brinsmead regarded his old school chum, Ivor Bilson, with a frown of bewilderment. “Why?”

They were sitting beside the fire and sharing a brandy in White’s gentlemen’s club in St. James’s. Around them, various blue-blooded males snoozed in comfortable armchairs, prompting Hugo and Ivor to keep their voices to a murmur.

Ivor looked stumped, which wasn’t unusual. Ivor was one of the best-natured chaps in the world, but nobody would ever say that he had any brains. “Why?”

Hugo struggled to contain his impatience. “Yes, why?”

“Because it’s what a man of fashion does. It proves you’re a person of taste.”

“But I have no interest in Fenella Fitchett.”

“Petronella.”

“The name alone is enough to make me head for the hills.”

“She’s a pretty filly.”

She was indeed, in the blonde, simpering style. “I suppose so.”

“You danced with her. You must have liked the look of her.”

“Of course I did. I’m not blind. Anyway, Lord Tierney practically forced me to ask her.” The diamond might have held greater appeal, if she hadn’t been more aware of her good looks than Hugo was.

“You were the envy of every man in that ballroom.”

“I don’t know why. She’s got no more conversation than a dormouse.”

“When she looks the way she does, she doesn’t need to talk.”

Something in Ivor’s tone sparked Hugo’s curiosity. “Don’t tell me you’re serious about courting her.”

That elicited an inelegant snort. “As if she’d look at me, a mere mister. I know nobody thinks I have an ounce of sense, but I’ve got the sense to know that the prettiest girl in London isn’t going to give me a second glance.”

“She’s not going to look at me either. I’m only a baronet, and she’ll fancy herself a countess at the very least.”

“You’re dashed rich.” Ivor went a little pink. “And m’sister tells me you’re accounted a good-looking cove.”

Hugo shifted in his leather chair. In general, a chap didn’t remark on another chap’s attractions.

Anyway, he wasn’t in the current style at all.

He looked like a farmer, with his thick fair hair and deep-set blue eyes used to surveying a distant fell, not a crowded ballroom.

He was large and muscular, built for striding across his broad acres in Yorkshire and pulling a stranded ewe out of the mud.

“In the rustic manner. I’ve got no Town bronze.

” A week in London had proven that he didn’t belong here, although he was enjoying his visit to the capital.

The city was only a few hundred miles from Hampden Crags, but it felt as exotic as far Cathay.

“Anyway, I want a wife I can talk to. Winter evenings on the moors are long and dark.”

“You’re missing the point.” Ivor frowned. “You’re not sending Lady P. flowers because you want to marry her.”

“I don’t.”

Ivor ignored the emphatic interruption. “You’re sending her flowers because it’s what a Town buck does. Trust me on this. You’re new to London and I’m just trying to steer you right.”

Hugo’s lips flattened, even as he conceded that Ivor knew his way about the beau monde and he didn’t. At home, he was lord of all he surveyed. Here in London, he was as unaware as a newborn lamb.

He’d left Yorkshire with a vague idea of finding a bride and seeing a bit of the high life.

The weeks leading up to Christmas provided a chance to sample the city’s entertainments without immersing himself in the hectic whirl of the season.

Anyway, it was a quiet time on the farm and he could get away.

So far, society’s complicated customs left him baffled. He found it much easier to deal with sheep. Sheep he understood. “So I need to send her flowers?”

“You danced with the girl, after all.”

“Very well. I’ll get Lister onto it. He’ll know where to go.”

Lister was the valet he’d employed upon his arrival in London, again at Ivor’s suggestion.

Ivor had insisted that Hugo’s perfectly respectable wardrobe needed smartening up, if he wanted to cut a dash in the ton.

Hugo’s old school friend had found an experienced gentleman’s gentleman to undertake the task.

So far, the relationship had proven combative, but Hugo, if pushed, would award the honors to Lister.

It all seemed a lot of damned palaver about nothing, even if in the last week, Hugo had spent a ridiculous amount of brass on clothes. Not to mention he’d been nagged into devoting the same attention to nuances of fashion that a lawyer paid to a rich man’s will.

“Actually I’ve got a better idea. Don’t get Lady P. flowers. Get her bonbons. She likes bonbons.”

Hugo was starting to wish that he’d never sought his friend’s advice.

In fact, he wondered if he might have been better going to York for a month, attending a few assemblies and looking for a bride closer to home.

He couldn’t imagine a good, sensible Yorkshire lass requiring quite this amount of fuss to win her. “You just said to send her flowers.”

“Any blockhead can send a lady flowers. The man of style will buy her candied violets from Sweet Little Nothings in Bond Street.”

“So I’ll send Lister there?”

“Better you go yourself, old man. And don’t forget the poem.”

“The poem?” He couldn’t help it. The question emerged with such explosive force that a few snoozing gentlemen sat up in drowsy confusion.

Hugo’s increasing irritation left Ivor unaffected. He was always a calm center. That unflappable nature made him a top-notch huntsman and angler. “Yes.”

“I have to write the chit a poem? I’ve never written a poem in my life. Wouldn’t know where to start.”

Ivor waved an airy hand, as if he wasn’t speaking utter drivel. “Not to worry, old cheese. Do you think I get busy in the literary way?”

Hugo, who had allowed Ivor to copy his schoolwork at Harrow so the fellow avoided a caning, couldn’t imagine it. He responded with a contemptuous grunt.

“Exactly.” Ivor remained unoffended. “Madame Lebeau at Sweet Little Nothings knows half the chaps in the ton have trouble spelling their own names. She has a tame poet on tap.”

This became more bizarre by the moment. “A tame poet?”

“Just so. Everything will make more sense if you call at the shop.”

“I don’t want to call at the bloody shop.”