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Amelia did not waste much time in imagining that any conspicuously holy action of her own could redeem her reputation and give her more freedom of choice.

They had discussed this as a family. Lady Keswick, a woman of highly conventional morality, suggested that they frequent services at one of the fashionable churches.

She would have had her niece soberly dressed in a pointedly ugly bonnet and drab colours that suggested half-mourning, carrying a large prayerbook and sighing with deep feeling when appropriate, and shaking her dark ringlets sadly when that should be called for.

But Lord Wyverne, fondly viewing his younger sister’s lively little face and large, mischievously sparkling dark eyes, had offered the strong opinion that – setting aside the matter of quite odious hypocrisy – nobody would believe any of it for more than five minutes.

And if they did by some strange chance believe it, he went on to say, the end result would be offers of marriage from sober, religious young men, perhaps even ambitious fellows in holy orders who might like the idea of a wife of exalted birth and be prepared to overlook the Wyverne reputation for the sake of a substantial dowry.

Did her aunt seriously imagine that this was a good idea?

Could she picture Lady Amelia living in a country rectory, as helpmeet and support to a clergyman?

‘Perhaps she will read Fordyce’s Sermons aloud to her maidservants, as they sit together hemming her husband’s shirts,’ he said, though it required an extraordinary effort of imagination to summon up such a vision.

Lady Keswick, looking at her niece and letting out a deep sigh of her own, had been compelled to admit that he made a good point. Amelia didn’t precisely appear wicked, she agreed, but she didn’t have a noticeably saintly aspect either. Every lineament in her face spoke chiefly of wilful mischief.

While Lady Keswick pondered what could be done, Amelia looked for other solutions. ‘What do you think I should do, Sophie?’ she asked her sister-in-law as they sat together in the Marchioness’s private sitting room in the Brook Street house.

Lady Wyverne was nursing her infant, and said nothing for a moment, her brows creased in thought.

She was an attractive Frenchwoman in her late twenties, of most unusual colouring, with red-blonde hair and bright, dark-brown eyes, but the baby, Louis, Lord Drake, had dark hair, like his father and his aunt Amelia, and, at present, their Wyverne blue-grey eyes.

‘I do sympathise,’ she said at length. ‘It might appear a trivial predicament, yours, in a world that is so harsh and cruel to so many – I know you have told yourself this. But since women of your class – of ours – must be defined by whom they marry, and place themselves entirely in a man’s power, life, liberty and fortune, really it is not trivial at all.

You have as much right to happiness as the next person, and at present, little chance of gaining it.

You cannot spend years stamping on people’s feet in the hope that they get the message. Every feeling revolts at it.’

‘Exactly,’ Amelia replied eagerly. ‘Rafe counsels patience, and perhaps he is right. I am not desperate to marry – do not think that. It is true that I am young, and can afford to wait a number of years. One thing that concerns me, though, is that I am obliged to behave entirely irreproachably while I do so, which you must acknowledge will be hard. I am not by nature a very good person indeed. And even if I do manage that dreary perfection, and maintain such an unnatural state for years, maybe, which is daunting, I cannot see matters ever changing. Why should they? It’s not as though anybody is likely to forget what my father was, and all the shocking things he did, especially not while his wife is alive and present in London to remind them.

And Sophie, I am… I am damned if I will wed someone who behaves as if he is doing me a great favour, condescending to take me despite my many disadvantages. I’d far rather stay unmarried.’

‘Of course you would. I have myself received an offer in such circumstances – not from your brother, I hope it is unnecessary to say – and I agree, no woman of spirit could accept such an insult in the guise of a compliment. But any man should consider himself lucky to have you, ma petite soeur ,’ said the Marchioness seriously, not in the least shocked by her sister-in-law’s ungenteel language.

Amelia had in the past wondered what might shock Sophie, and had so far thought of nothing.

It was something to aspire to, she thought, when she could leave off being so good at last.

‘It’s very sweet of you to say so. But you know it isn’t true.

You’ve seen the way they look at me, the young gentlemen and the older ones – there’s a sort of predatory gleam in their eyes, many of them, as if to say, “That Wyverne blood, eh? I wonder…” And they’re always trying to get me to go out on terraces with them alone, or into dark corners.

They don’t do it to anyone else, as far as I can see, or not half as much.

I must say, it is excessively tedious, and it appears to me that I don’t get any credit from society for always resisting.

Not that I want to go anywhere with any of them, since most of them are quite repulsive, but you know what I mean. ’

‘While the respectable ones are scared of you, and avoid you,’ Sophie agreed with more truth than tact, smiling down at her infant but still listening, since, as Amelia had observed before now, most women, especially mothers, were able to do more than one thing at a time.

‘So what is to be done? I beg you, please tell me anything that comes into your head, no matter how outlandish.’

‘Very well,’ Sophie said. ‘I think we must first establish – and it is fortunate that Rafe is not here just now, for he might consider me a bad influence, which perhaps I am – whether, or how much, you care for respectability. I am not saying that you should not, you understand; I am only asking. Because it makes a difference, as I am sure you can perceive for yourself, in what you choose to do. But I should say also that your grandmother told me once that times are changing and the world becoming stricter, in terms of a person’s reputation, and I am sure she was right.

Nobody cared much for respectability when she was young, and your situation would hardly have been a problem at all.

But then, most marriages between persons of rank in those days were arranged, and often worked out badly, as did her own.

I expect a marriage would have been devised for you, and you would have had little or no say in it, nor your prospective husband, for that matter, whatever your reputation might be. Or his!’

Amelia smiled at the mention of her grandmother, who was a quite outrageous person who had once been the acknowledged mistress of a King of France.

‘It’s true. And Grand-mère would tell me – has told me – just to carry things off in the grand manner, and remember that I am an aristocrat and descendant of royalty.

But I don’t really see that as practical advice, especially since one of the monarchs I am descended from is King Charles II, which hardly helps matters.

I don’t know if I do care all that much for respectability, Sophie, but I quite see that to be entirely without it might be excessively uncomfortable.

And I can’t change my mind later, can I?

Once it has gone, it will never come back. ’

‘Generally speaking, that is true, unless one is extremely lucky,’ Sophie said with an odd little smile, stroking Louis’s soft cheek with one finger.

‘So there is no point you suggesting I run off to be a pirate, or join my stepmother on the stage, or anything of that extreme nature, though I quite see that both those things could be exciting. There would be a certain relief, I imagine, to taking either of those paths in life – not having to worry what anybody thought of me any more, because I’d know they’d all had their worse suspicions confirmed.

But I can also see that I’d still have disagreeable men trying to get me alone to paw at me, just as they do now. ’

‘Probably more so, I should think,’ said Sophie seriously. ‘I understand that that happens to actresses a great deal, and must be counted as a grave disadvantage. Though if you were a pirate, Melia, you would have a pistol, and could shoot them, which might be agreeable.’

‘I’d like that. But I don’t suppose Rafe would.’

‘No,’ the Marchioness agreed a little regretfully.

‘He’d probably come round eventually, since he loves you, but one must be sensible and face facts, and for a new member of the House of Lords to have a sister who was a pirate and forever shooting people might be a little awkward, perhaps.

Even if they deserved it. It is a pity, I think, but it is undoubtedly so. ’

‘Yes. Respectability, then,’ Lady Amelia said gloomily.

‘Perhaps you could be a widow?’ her sister-in-law proposed, doing something complicated with muslin cloths that ended with the baby sucking busily at her other breast without any perceptible interruption.

‘If you were a widow, you would have much more freedom, and would not need to be anywhere near so careful of your behaviour. Then later, you might marry someone you truly cared for. And you would look excessively well in black, I think, which is a great consideration.’

‘But wouldn’t I have to marry someone first? And he might not die. Then I’d be saddled with him forever.’

‘We must ask Rafe to enquire if there are any gentlemen he is acquainted with who are actually on the point of death and might like to marry you.’

‘Why would a man wish to, if he’s dying?’

‘That’s true. I suppose it is too much to ask that someone might be in love with you already, and also dying.’

Her sister-in-law agreed that it probably was, since persons on their deathbeds were not, in the nature of things, usually encountered in society. They had strayed rather from the point at issue, she thought.

‘What about a false engagement, then – one that is all for show?’ asked Sophie.

‘I can’t see how that would help,’ Amelia objected reasonably. ‘Even if anyone would agree, and again, I don’t see why they should, I’d be obliged to cry off eventually, and that would do my reputation no good at all. I’d be a sad jilt along with everything else. Why is it so hard, Sophie?’

‘What if you pretended to be engaged to someone quite rakish? Then when you broke it off because of his wicked ways, your reputation might improve because it would be clear that you were not of such a disposition yourself. Maybe.’

‘That’s a better idea,’ Amelia said. ‘But if he was quite rakish, and agreed to such a scheme, wouldn’t he want to… to take advantage of me? Which is just what I don’t want, you know. Though of course I am grateful for all your kind suggestions.’

‘We must think further on the matter,’ Sophie replied. ‘I refuse to believe that there is not a solution, if we put our minds to it. Perhaps…’

‘Perhaps?’ There was a light in Sophie’s eyes that worried Amelia a little.

‘What if you were to be wooed by someone excessively good?’

‘What do you mean?’ Amelia couldn’t help but think that someone excessively good sounded as though they might also be excessively dull, but she was prepared to hear Sophie out.

Soon she would have to dress for the evening, in silks and jewels, so that she could go to another ball with her aunt and listen to whispered comments about her – not quite to her face, but not quite out of earshot either – and whispered suggestions to her, which had at first shocked her but now only made her weary and downcast. If Sophie had an idea with the least spark of merit in it, she could only be grateful, and listen to what she proposed.

‘If someone with a famously unsullied reputation offered for you, Amelia, would it not change people’s opinions?’

‘I’ve already said, though, that I don’t want to be condescended to and treated as though I’m terribly wicked when I’m not, and you agreed with me, not five minutes ago.’

‘Yes, because we were talking of conspicuously moral, holy people. Of course that would be a dreadful idea, it has already been decided. That’s not what I intend at all, though – I have had an idea of genius. You should engage yourself to a hero!’

Amelia had a sneaking idea she had guessed what her sister-in-law meant, or rather whom. ‘Sophie! You surely can’t be suggesting?—’

‘Yes!’ broke in Lady Wyverne with such energy that her son, who had been sucking himself to sleep, started and let out a kitten-like mew of protest. ‘Hush, Louis, there is no need to be alarmed, mon coeur . It is merely that I have realised that all your aunt Amelia needs to do to make everything right is to engage herself to Lord Thornfalcon!’