Mr. Newell removed his spectacles, wiped them, then put them back on. “I fear Mr. DeWitt has ordered arrangements made for you to return home.”

“Cancel them,” Cassandra said. “We can both stay here. For my part, I shall not even notice him.”

That sounded very sensible, and Cassandra would have been proud of herself, except that Mr. DeWitt chose that moment to enter, yawning, wiping a hand over his eyes, and generally making a mockery of her bold statement.

For she could not fail to notice him.

To notice, particularly, his state of undress.

He looked as though he had barely stumbled out of bed and down the stairs. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead, the stubble had grown into scruff, and a fresh purple bruise on one cheekbone suggested that his night had been more eventful than her own.

But worst of all: He had neglected to put on any clothes other than breeches and a loose-fitting wine-red banyan. That in itself might not have been horrific, except that the silk dressing gown whirled open around him, revealing an expanse of male chest. Very naked male chest.

“Oh dear, Mr. DeWitt,” she said, staring in helpless fascination. “You forgot to get dressed.”

Her husband stopped short, frowned those dark brows, and tilted his head as though trying to work out who she was. Then he rubbed both hands vigorously through his already disheveled hair. When he lifted his arms like that, the banyan fell back further and the muscles in his chest and abdomen shifted.

Good heavens.

He glared at her. “You would, wouldn’t you?” he muttered nonsensically. “Well, of course you bloody well would.”

“Please, Mr. DeWitt. Your language.”

“If you don’t like my language, don’t sit at my breakfast table looking all …” He waved his hand at her in disgust. “Fresh and friendly and innocent as if you are unaware that you have thrown out my entire schedule.”

“Your entire schedule involved you going to Liverpool, and even now you are not keeping to your own breakfast routine. In a house this size, we should be able to go days without seeing each other, with a little cooperation.”

“Stop being so bloody reasonable,” he grumbled. “Can’t stand it when people go around being reasonable before I’ve had my coffee.”

With another yawn, he tumbled into the chair across from her. She kept her eyes firmly on his face, but the memory of his naked chest danced in her mind. She thought it bore a smattering of dark hair. She thought it reminiscent of the gods and warriors in paintings.

She thought she had better not look again.

“Mr. DeWitt—”

He made a long rumbling sound. “Coffee before conversation.”

As the footman poured his coffee from a silver pot, Mr. DeWitt stared at the cup with such fierce intent one might think he were filling it himself through the power of his will. The moment the cup was full, and the aroma filled the room, he wrapped both hands around it, sipped and sighed, his eyes closed, his expression stirringly ecstatic.

That coffee so dark and hot … It reminded her of something. Then his eyes snapped open. He looked right at her.

Oh yes. That was what the coffee reminded her of. His eyes.

“Go home,” he said. “If I’m running behind schedule today, it’s your fault for making me stay out late last night.”

“You amaze me, sir!” She spluttered with laughter despite herself. “It cannot possibly be my fault. By the look of you, perhaps the blame lies with drink.”

“Perhaps you drove me to drink.”

“Mr. DeWitt never drinks,” Mr. Newell chimed in, and Cassandra started, for she had quite forgotten he was there.

Mr. DeWitt whipped his head around and scowled at the secretary, then he returned his attention to his coffee and took a hefty swallow. “Newell, you’re fired.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Newell popped a forkful of ham into his mouth.

“Mr. Newell, you are not fired,” Cassandra said. “You can’t fire him. He’s my secretary.”

“I hired him as Secretary In Charge Of Matrimonial Affairs. That makes him mine.”

“And I am the Matrimonial Affair, which makes him mine.”

“That is specious logic. I refuse to entertain specious logic at the breakfast table.” He waved his arms again, the footman by the wall watching the trajectory of the coffee cup nervously. “His job is to deal with you and your affairs, so I don’t have to. He failed, because look, here we are.”

“Which is your fault for changing your schedule.”

“Which wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t disobeyed me.”

“Which I wouldn’t have done if you had been reasonable.”

“I am always reasonable.”

“You are … Oh! You will drive me to drink.” She caught herself waving her arms around too—heavens, even Lucy never inspired her to such transgressions!—and brought them under control. “This is why we need Mr. Newell,” she said. “We cannot possibly communicate with each other directly.”

It seemed that Mr. DeWitt took this as a challenge.

In an exaggerated gesture better suited to the theater, he carefully put his cup to one side. In another slow, deliberate movement, he placed first one hand, then the other, flat on the table in front of him.

Then he half-rose and leaned toward her, that broad, naked chest drawing near.

“Newell,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “Tell my wife to go home.”

The trouble began with brandy.

Or perhaps it was fairer to say—fairer to the brandy, at least, which ought not be blamed for all human failings—that the trouble was already there, and the brandy simply brought it to light.

Cassandra was not well versed in the effects of brandy, but as she stood in the doorway to the ballroom at midnight, watching Lucy sing and dance alone in the pool of light cast by a candelabra, it was clear to her that drink was involved.

First clue: Lucy did not dance with her usual grace. Rather, her waltz—if it could be called a waltz—was punctuated by hiccup-like hops and skips. It did not help that she wore one of their mother’s ornate gowns from the previous century. The gown’s skirts, blue with gold brocade, were three times as wide as Lucy and trailed on the floor, threatening to trip her up. Lacy sleeves flared out over her forearms and one of Mama’s old wigs wobbled on her head.

Second clue: Lucy was singing a bawdy song about a lass losing her virginity. That was not surprising in itself, but she sang it off-key, and only one thing made Lucy sing off-key.

Which brought Cassandra to the third and most obvious clue: The brandy bottle that Lucy clutched like a dance partner.

Cassandra sighed, causing the flame of her candle to flicker. If she were less tired, after having passed yet another evening staring futilely into the fire in Papa’s study, she might have found the sight comical, but there had been too many scenes like this one in the past year. Not that Lucy needed brandy to make a scene. But clearly, it helped.

“Cassandra!” Lucy cried, spotting her. “Am I not splendid?”

She whirled to a stop and flung out her arms. The remaining cognac sloshed in its bottle, and her wig toppled onto the floor, landing dangerously close to the candelabra.

Then, arms still extended, she began to spin.

Brandy, plus spinning, plus long skirts, plus naked flame. This was not going to end well.

“Splendid is one word that comes to mind,” Cassandra said, moving toward her. “I can think of a few others too.”

“I’m going to Lunnon!” Lucy announced, still spinning. “I’ll go to court and become the king’s mistress!”

“They say he’s mad, so you may well appeal to him.” Cassandra held out her free hand. “Why don’t you give me that bottle now?”

Lucy stopped spinning, stumbled, and took a defiant swig. “What do you think it’s like, being a mistress?”

“I hope neither of us ever finds out.”

“Ha! You don’t even know what it’s like to be a wife, Mrs. DeWitt, and you’ve been married two years!”

After another swig, Lucy lurched into a reel and bellowed out a new song, something about avoiding the pain of wedded life because “a Wench is better than a Wife.”

Oh dear.

Most of the time, Cassandra felt she was managing.

She took care not to brood over the past or worry about the future. She remembered to be grateful for what she had, and buried her yearning for what she could never have. She kept the estate running profitably and the household running smoothly and faced every situation with a smile. She even kept her mother’s wretched goat out of the rosebushes. Most of the time.

Yes, most of the time, she managed.

This was not one of those times.

“Give me the brandy, Lucy.”

With a shriek, Lucy leaped away and the inevitable happened: Her skirts caught under her feet, the bottle flew out of her hand and smashed against the wall, and she crashed onto the hard floor with a shriek. Brandy fumes filled the air, and the flames quivered with anticipation.

Cassandra darted forward, hoping her sister wasn’t hurt, but Lucy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter. And at least the brandy was no longer a problem. Really, Cassandra was making excellent progress.

“Shall we go up to bed, now, oh splendid one?” she said.

Lucy looked up, her dark hair tumbling about her shoulders, her beautiful face slack from drink. “I want more branny! It was Papa’s branny, you know.”

“Yes, I know. But the brandy is upstairs,” Cassandra lied. “So let’s go up.”

*****

Somehow, Cassandra managed to coax Lucy up the stairs without either of them breaking their neck or setting anything on fire. As they neared the top step, Cassandra cast a longing look down the dark hallway, to the safe haven of Lucy’s bedroom. Almost there.

“The branny is French. I wanna be French,” Lucy said. “The French have more fun!”

“No doubt.”

“England is boring. Sunne Park is boring. Cassandra is booooooring.”

“And Lucy is bosky.”

“Bosky!” Lucy crowed, as she stumbled up the last step. “Bosky! Bosky! Bosky!”

“Hush. You’ll wake Emily and Mr. Newell and Mama.”

“Nothing will wake Mama. She’s been asleep for years.”

In vino veritas.

Cassandra said nothing and concentrated on maneuvering Lucy around the landing. Fortunately, Lucy had forgotten about the next round of brandy. She had also forgotten how to walk. She tripped and slid, Cassandra barely catching her before they both went tumbling down the stairs.

“Come on, Miss Bosky.” She hauled Lucy to the safety of the hallway. “Let’s put you to bed before you get yourself killed.”

“Was Charlie bosky when he got himself killed? Was Papa bosky when he got himself killed?”

Abruptly, Cassandra let go of her sister, but Lucy stayed on her feet, swaying. The light from the candle showed Lucy’s face was hard, the way she got sometimes these days: hard and bright like crystal. For too long they stared at each other, the flame flickering between them. It was Lucy who looked away first and burst into a shriek of loud laughter.

A door opened: Emily’s bedroom. Cassandra could just make out the pale oval of Emily’s face through the crack. Mama’s door stayed shut. Mr. Newell would be awake, no doubt, in his room around the corner, but he would have enough sense not to come out.

Lucy picked up her skirts and danced down the hall to her own door.

“I’m going to run away to Ireland!” she yelled.

Cassandra followed after her. “Haven’t the Irish suffered enough?”

“Maybe a pirate will kidnap me. If I’m lucky.”

“If we’re all lucky.”

Finally, Lucy stumbled into her room. The momentum carried her to the bed, and she clung to a bedpost, swaying. Cassandra put down the candlestick with meticulous care.

“Let’s get you out of that dress.” How jaunty she sounded. Perhaps she would laugh too, if she raided Papa’s brandy stash.

“Poor Mother Cassandra! Whatever will you do with me? With naughty, bosky, tipsy Lucy.”

“There is only one thing I can do,” Cassandra said, still with her forced cheerfulness. “I shall sell you at the market.”

“Sell me?” Lucy spun around, eyes wide. “How much do you think I could fetch?”

“You’re so pretty in that dress, I wouldn’t accept a penny under twenty pounds.”

“Twenty pounds.” Lucy repeated it dreamily, but then her demeanor changed again. She leaned toward Cassandra, her teeth bared like a wild animal. “Ha! I wish you would sell me. At least then I could get away. You want to keep me here to grow old and ugly and boring like you, you with your husband who’s so ashamed of you he never even visits. Just because your life is already over, you want us to be miserable too. I hate you!”

Lucy’s spite was so vicious that Cassandra lost her breath in a hiss, which meant she had no breath to yell too, to scream that she was trying, didn’t Lucy see that she was trying, that their family had been unraveling like bad sewing for years, and she was trying to keep it from unraveling further, but she didn’t know how, she had no idea, she didn’t ask for this, but this was what they had. And how dare Lucy mock her marriage to Mr. DeWitt! So what if her husband was a stranger? Papa had chosen him, Papa said he was a good man, and Papa said she had to be married to inherit Sunne Park, so they weren’t cast out if Papa died. She’d done it for all of them, and she wouldn’t regret it, none of it, and if she never saw her husband and couldn’t remember his face, it was best this way, it was best it was best it was best.

But as always, her lips stayed locked. Screaming and theatrics were Lucy’s forte. Cassandra was the calm and sensible one.

Besides, this was her problem, not Lucy’s, and there was already something so terribly broken in Lucy. Something that Cassandra didn’t understand and didn’t know how to fix.

The silence crackled around them, until Lucy released another wild laugh, whirled away, and tripped. Mercifully, she fell facedown on the bed. Even more mercifully, she stayed there.

“Is Lucy all right?” came a soft voice from the doorway. Cassandra briefly squeezed her eyes shut before turning to smile at Emily, who was using both hands to torment the end of her long red plait. Dear, sweet Emily. Fourteen going on ten. “Is she drunk?”

“She’ll have a bit of a headache tomorrow,” Cassandra said. Oh, so jaunty, so cheerful. Yes, she could be cheerful. Most of the time.

“Better an aching head than an aching heart,” Emily said.

“What?!”

“That’s what Lucy says.”

“Heavens.”

“I’ve never been drunk,” Emily volunteered.

“I should hope not.”

“Have you?”

“No. It’s not a nice thing for a lady to do.”

She reached out to pull Emily into a hug, but her little sister backed away.

“She just wants to enjoy herself!” Emily cried. “Why can’t you let her? Why do you have to be so mean?”

Emily ran back to her room and slammed the door behind her. Cassandra breathed deeply and let her go. One sister at a time.

Her smile was real, though, when she spied the fresh violets on Lucy’s bedside table and inhaled their sweet scent. Cassandra had found the violets only that morning, bursting up under the hedgerows along the laneway. The sun had broken out several times during the day, and what with the larks singing and the magpies building their nests, she had been intoxicated by the delicious excitement that came with the early spring. She had gathered scores of the violets and put them in everyone’s rooms, so they could all feel the spring.

Lucy probably hadn’t noticed.

A dark mark on Lucy’s foot caught her attention: a small smear of blood. Lucy must have caught a shard of glass after all. She’d not mentioned the pain. Perhaps she never felt it. Perhaps there was something to say for getting drunk.

“Oh, I remember that gown. I wore it the night of the Beaumont ball,” she heard her mother say from the doorway. Mama had awoken after all. Cassandra turned and studied her. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Mama seemed lucid. “The night I met your father, when we laughed and danced and fell in love.” Mama pressed her hands together and sighed happily. “That’s all Lucy wants, you know. You should let her enjoy her youth.”

“Et tu, Mama?”

“I beg your pardon, dear?”

“Nothing.”

Her mother gazed into the distance and when she looked back at Cassandra, she wore that radiant smile that neither age nor grief could dim. “You will look so beautiful when you make your debut, Miranda, and you will find such a wonderful husband. Nothing less than a duke for you!”

Cassandra smiled and smiled, because what else could she do? Four daughters was a lot to keep straight. It was only to be expected that Mama would get them confused. “I’m Cassandra, Mama. And Miranda and I already have husbands.”

Neither of whom was wonderful, or a duke, but still.

“Ye-es,” her mother said uncertainly.

Then she smiled again, started warbling a song, and wandered back to her room. Cassandra would check on her later too.

First, Lucy. She tugged the heavy dress off Lucy’s floppy limbs and wrestled her into a bed jacket over her chemise for warmth. She rolled off her stockings and gently washed away the blood. It was hard to tell in the candlelight, but she could not detect any shards. She would check it again in the morning.

When Lucy was snoring delicately under the covers, Cassandra placed the dirty cloth and blood-stained stocking next to the basin on the dressing table, went out, and shut the door. She hesitated. Already she regretted leaving the cloth and stocking like that—a petty, passive reproach that was beneath her—but she did not want to go back into that room. Not after what Lucy had said.

No. It was not the words. It was the look in her eyes. That look of utter hatred.

Gripping her candlestick, Cassandra headed back along the hallway, cold, dark, and lined with closed doors. At the empty master bedroom, she paused. She imagined the door opening, imagined Papa standing there, beaming as he always did, with his cheeks pink and his thinning red hair in a mess. “Well, Cassandra, my dear, what’s our Princess Lucy done this time?” he would say fondly. “Let’s go steal some cake and you can tell me all about it.”

“Oh Papa,” Cassandra whispered to the door. “I am trying to look after them for you, but they don’t make it easy. Why did you have to … ”

She sighed and looked back down the deserted hallway. Sunne Park had stood for three hundred years, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it all came tumbling down, brick by red brick, right now, as she stood here. Their family had always seemed so solid, laughing, loving, beautiful, popular, with Mama and Papa at their center, and then Miranda and Charlie and Cassandra and Lucy and Emily. Yet one by one, everyone was disappearing, claimed by death or marriage or melancholy. She had been trying to hold the rest of them together, but they did not want to be held.

It was time for Lucy to go. Last Season, they were still in mourning for Papa, and Cassandra had been foolish, cowardly, and yes, selfish, to think she could delay yet again. First Lucy and then Emily: Sooner or later, they would both go and leave her here with Mama, and the sooner they went, the better for them. She and Mama would be fine here alone. She loved Sunne Park, and she loved her mother, and that was enough.

Most of the time.

*****

Cassandra pulled herself together, walked around the corner to Mr. Newell’s room, and tapped on the door.

“Mr. Newell?” she called softly. “I know you’re awake. You cannot have slept through that.”

Faint rustlings and rumblings issued from within, and then the door opened to reveal her secretary, candle in hand, somber dressing gown fastened primly over his round middle. His kind face was creased with sleep and his nightcap was askew on his adorable bald head. He glanced nervously over her shoulder down the hallway. Not one of the world’s fearless soldiers, was Mr. Newell.

“Mrs. DeWitt? How can I be of assistance? Miss Lucy, is she … ”

“We must make plans, you and I, to go to London.”

“London?” He straightened his nightcap, only to tilt it again when he pulled his hand away. “But Mr. DeWitt prefers you to remain here.”

“I believe his actual words were that he couldn’t have his wife running around the country and I ought to stay where I was put.” At least, those were the words in the letter that Mr. Newell brought after she last expressed a desire to go to London. According to Mr. Newell, Cassandra’s husband dictated all his letters to a legion of secretaries, who thoughtfully edited out the curses. “Unfortunately for Mr. DeWitt, the situation calls for me to be …” She paused dramatically. “A nuisance.”

“A nuisance. Yes. Ha ha,” Mr. Newell said, looking dismayed.

“Altogether too much of a nuisance:” That was the phrase Mr. DeWitt had used to describe Cassandra and her family in Mr. Newell’s letter of introduction, nearly two years ago now. Cassandra had not meant to be a nuisance to her husband. It was simply that her father’s unexpected death, less than a month after their equally unexpected marriage, meant that she—and therefore he—owned Sunne Park and she had naively assumed he might want to, well, if not actively manage the estate, perhaps, ah, visit it? Maybe, at least, say, once?

“I have four factories, three estates, one thousand employees, and a growing fleet,” had come her husband’s reply. “I do not have time to attend to one measly cottage in the depths of Warwickshire. Surely Mrs. DeWitt can figure out how to prune the rosebushes and feed the pigs all by herself.”

Never mind that Sunne Park was a fine Tudor mansion on one thousand acres of rich farmland, whose pigs were the most sought-after breeding stock in the middle of England.

Never mind that Mr. DeWitt was based in Birmingham, which was only half a day’s travel away.

“We agreed to a marriage in name only,” he had added. “Mrs. DeWitt has my name; I cannot see what else she can want from me.”

Nevertheless, he had sent Mr. Newell, newly hired as Secretary In Charge Of Matrimonial Affairs, along with a bright-eyed gray kitten, the latter included “so,” Mr. DeWitt wrote, “the wife doesn’t get lonely and do something foolish.”

Charming man, her husband-in-name-only.

Really, Cassandra was perfectly content to have nothing to do with him, as his letters indicated that he was ill-mannered, and the scandal sheets indicated that he was ill-behaved. She knew little more about him now than she had on their wedding day—the only time she had ever seen him. Joshua DeWitt was a wealthy widower and the illegitimate son of an earl, Papa had told her, when he sat her down in his study and asked her to marry Mr. DeWitt, a week after they learned that Cassandra’s betrothed, the cheerful and charming Viscount Bolderwood, had eloped with someone else.

“Joshua is a good man, for all his ways,” Papa had said. “I wouldn’t marry you off to someone I didn’t trust. With your brother Charlie gone, the lawyers insist the only way for a daughter to inherit this estate is if she is married, and I know Joshua will take care of you all when I’m dead.”

Cassandra had laughed at him. “Heavens, Papa! Why do you talk of dying? You are in excellent health.”

But Papa had pleaded, so she married Mr. DeWitt, and a month later, Papa was dead. Though if Mr. DeWitt was a good man, she had seen little evidence of it.

Yet she was grateful for Mr. Newell, whose avuncular manner and infinite patience made him a favorite with Emily and Lucy. As for Mr. Twit …

A soft head butted her knee and a pair of cat’s eyes gleamed at her in the dim light. Mr. Twit, purring vigorously, rubbed against her calves, telling her to go to bed.

“The fact is, Mr. Newell, it is past time to launch Lucy into London society. In the circumstances, I think it best that I seek my grandmother’s assistance. And as the duchess will be in London for the Season, there must I go too.”

Mr. Newell shifted uncomfortably. “You must understand that Mr. DeWitt—he does not mince words. Once he decides something, he expects it to happen. He was very firm in saying no to you before.”

Given how much control a husband could legally wield over his wife, Cassandra counted herself fortunate that Mr. DeWitt ignored her so thoroughly, and that his only requirements were that she ignore him back and stay where she was put.

Which she was willing to do. Most of the time.

“Unfortunately for Mr. DeWitt, Lucy’s need to be in society is greater than his need to pretend I do not exist.”

“Perhaps a letter to your grandmother would suffice.”

“I had considered that but …” Four times a year, Cassandra dutifully wrote to the duchess, and her grandmother dutifully wrote back. The letters served little purpose other than to acknowledge each other’s continuing existence. “Our relations are strained, so it is best I see her in person. You will not be blamed for my actions,” she added. “You need not fear Mr. DeWitt.”

“I don’t fear him,” Mr. Newell hastened to say. “He is not unkind. He is merely … not restful. He will send you straight home.”

“Not if he does not know I am there.” Mr. Twit flopped onto her feet and she stooped to scratch the cat’s neck. “You say he travels frequently and you are always advised of his schedule, are you not? We simply have to find a time this Season when he is not in London.”

“Hm. I did receive word he is planning a trip to Liverpool. How long do you propose to stay?”

“I need only to convince my grandmother to take Lucy,” she said. “If we plan it properly, we’ll never see Mr. DeWitt at al