Chapter 1

Northamptonshire, England

Three Weeks Later

“Come, Pippa,” Eleanor said for the sixth time, “we must return to the house so you can dress for dinner.”

As she had done the previous five times, Pippa did not rise from her place kneeling in the straw. “Just a few more minutes,” she said, burying her face in the downy-soft fur of a black and white kitten.

Eleanor sighed. She hated to rush her sister. When they’d left Yorkshire one week ago, they’d had no choice but to leave Pippa’s three cats, Pepper, Ollie, and Crumpet, behind. The family that had bought the house had kindly agreed to look after them. They had two girls and a boy, and the children seemed delighted by their new pets. The oldest daughter had even pledged to write to Pippa each month to let her know how Pepper, Ollie, and Crumpet were faring.

But, even knowing that her cats were in good hands, Pippa had been distraught. Eleanor had not been the least bit surprised that, upon overhearing a maid mention “the kittens in the barn,” Pippa had come straight out, not even bothering to change out of the plain taupe muslin gown that had been dingy even before it became dust-stained from four days of travel on the mail coach.

As much as they needed to get Pippa cleaned up so she could make the right impression at dinner, Eleanor didn’t have the heart to begrudge her this moment of respite. This was the first time Eleanor had seen her youngest sister look happy since they had left her cats behind in Yorkshire.

They had just arrived at the country estate of their mother’s second cousin, the Countess of Milthorpe, and her husband the earl. Lady Milthorpe had come through for the Weatherby sisters yet again, with an invitation to attend this house party. Although her husband had forbidden her from offering her Weatherby cousins a permanent home, this invitation provided them with two weeks of shelter, and Lady Milthorpe had provided some additional intelligence.

The seventy-two-year-old Baron Oglesby, who was also to be a guest, was in search of a fourth wife. Lord Oglesby had produced an heir and a spare four times over, so finding a bride with a noble lineage was less pressing than it once had been. The baron’s estate was also productive, so he could afford to choose a bride without a dowry. He wanted someone pretty and sweet-tempered to look after him in his dotage, and the Weatherby sisters stood as good a chance of catching him as anyone.

Buoyed by this news, Eleanor had suggested they go straight upstairs and dress with care for dinner. Unfortunately, on their way up, they had passed a pair of maids who were chattering about the four orphaned kittens out in the barn.

A brace of oxen could not have dragged Pippa up to her room after hearing that.

And so, this was how Eleanor and her sisters had come to be standing in the old thatched-roofed barn Lord Milthorpe’s staff used to store fodder for the horses, when what they needed to do was leave said barn with all possible speed, so Pippa could clean herself up and attempt to ensnare a man old enough to be their grandfather.

“Pippa, dear,” Eleanor said yet again. “We really must go.”

Ignoring her sister, Pippa held the kitten aloft, touching its nose to her own. “If you were mine, I would name you Wellington. Because you don’t just have socks, you have boots!”

“The kittens will be here for our entire stay,” Eleanor noted.

Settling Wellington in her lap, Pippa reached for one of his sisters. “I would call you Lavender because your fur is so grey it almost has a lavender hue.”

“Help me,” Eleanor entreated Clarissa and Kate, who were watching in silence. Clarissa’s only response was a shrug. Meanwhile, Kate continued staring at the far wall of the barn, not seeming to have heard at all.

“You would be Midnight,” Pippa continued, oblivious, scratching the solid black ball of fluff behind the ears. “And you would be Bathsheba,” she cooed at the grey tabby with a white belly that had crawled into her lap, “because I’ve always wanted a cat named Sheba.”

“Pippa!” Eleanor exclaimed. At last, her sister deigned to glance up. “I know how much you want to play with those cats. Truly, I do. But it is imperative that we get you freshened up so you make your very best impression upon Lord Oglesby at dinner.”

Frowning, Pippa returned her attention to the kittens. “You seem to have misspoken, Eleanor. I do not need to get freshened up to make my best impression upon Lord Oglesby. We need to get freshened up so we can all make our best impressions upon the baron. After all, we do not know which of the four of us might catch his eye.”

Eleanor sighed. Her sister did have a point. She was eaten with guilt to be offering her youngest sister up like a sacrificial lamb to a man four times her age. But really, what were the odds that Lord Oglesby would choose one of the three older sisters?

Clarissa was actually quite beautiful, with blonde hair, brown eyes that sparkled with intelligence, and a classical symmetry to her features. But ever since her jilting at the hands of Rupert Dupree, she had developed a deep cynicism when it came to the male sex, and she was more likely to use her daunting intellect to cut a man to ribbons than to entice him with her quick wit. Compounding the problem, she insisted on dressing in what Pippa referred to as dirt-colored dresses, preferring to bury her charms beneath a swath of ill-fitting brown muslin. Clarissa put on a good front, but Eleanor knew she had been wounded by Rupert’s rejection, and she wore her brown dresses like armor. By making sure that men did not notice her, Clarissa ensured they could not scorn her, and that was all she cared about.

Kate was equally pretty, tall and slim with brown hair, blue eyes, and delicate features. Kate had always been taciturn by nature. She was never going to be the belle of the ball, but a bookish sort of man who wanted a peaceful home would find Kate’s quiet nature tremendously appealing.

But Kate was suffering through even more than their father’s abandonment. Before he departed to catch his ship, he had attempted to extract a promise that Kate would never mention the fact that she was the creator of her own watercolor illustrations. Kate had always signed her works K. Weatherby. It turned out that their father had given people to understand that the “K” stood for “Kenneth.” He had been claiming credit for Kate’s work all along.

Kate had always assumed that she was building a reputation as a scientific illustrator, much like her idol, Sarah Stone, who had been the in-house artist responsible for documenting the Leverian collection back before the museum had closed.

Instead, it turned out that she had no reputation, as no one in the scientific community knew she existed.

Kate hadn’t agreed. She had been on the cusp of speaking when Eleanor had snapped, “She isn’t promising you anything, and you should be ashamed of yourself for taking credit for her work!” The four sisters had once again stormed out of the breakfast room.

Since learning of this new betrayal, Kate had been not merely taciturn, but morose. At the moment, she was about as lively as a funeral—not the sort of demeanor likely to catch a man’s eye.

And as for her? She was the ugly duckling of the family, except she had passed the point at which she might grow into a swan. No man wanted a bride of seven and twenty who was built like a farmwife and had a beak for a nose.

As if her looks weren’t disqualification enough, Eleanor very much doubted Lord Oglesby wanted a wife of her temperament. Eleanor had been forced to take over the running of her father’s household at the age of seven, and to say that his household ran on a shoestring budget was a grave insult to shoestrings. Most seven-year-old girls of good family spent their days reading, sewing, and playing with dolls. Eleanor, on the other hand, had spent hers browbeating the butcher into giving them a joint of pork for a quarter of the usual price, hectoring the neighbors until they agreed to loan their books to Clarissa and their art supplies to Kate just to get rid of her, and transforming an old brocade tablecloth from the previous century into a Sunday dress for Pippa.

These were household skills, of a sort, but not the right sort. Most gentlemen wanted a wife who was accomplished on the pianoforte, not one who could negotiate like a fishwife. Just as bad, after twenty years of having to demand that the world make a place for her and her sisters, Eleanor was intimidated by next to nothing. Instead of being demure and ladylike, she was outspoken and brazen.

For Pippa’s sake, she would try to feign a little feminine modesty. But she doubted she could keep up appearances all week. The truth had a way of coming out.

Clarissa finally spoke up. “You’re the pretty one, Pip.”

Pippa gasped, looking a thousand times more wounded than she would’ve done had the insult been directed at her. “I think you are all very pretty,” she said with quiet dignity.

Eleanor sighed. Lord Oglesby would be a lucky man, getting a wife as kindhearted as she was beautiful. “It’s a fair point. We will all go and freshen up and see what the party might bring. Now—”

She was cut off by the creak of the barn door. The four sisters froze, spines straightening.

Eleanor turned to see who had interrupted their solitude but couldn’t make out much of the figure who stood framed in the late afternoon light, beyond the fact that he was a man.

“Oh, dear,” a sonorous voice said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”