“I just don’t understand why this happened,” she had whispered, broken-hearted.

“It’s Darlington,” Lucius had told her. “Unfortunately, he is dictating fashion this season.”

“Why would he care about me?” she’d cried, from the depths of her heart. “I’ve never met him, have I? Do I know him?”

“Perhaps it’s because he’s English and you’re Scottish. There are Englishmen who resent the fact that your sisters have made excellent marriages amongst English aristocracy.”

“That’s—That’s not my fault!” It was the eternal cry of the unjustly accused.

“You are not the only one,” he added gently. “Cecilia Bellingworth will have a difficult time shaking the label Silly Billy, and that’s merely due to her unfortunate brother not being right in his head. Darlington didn’t make up that label; I’m not sure who did. But who will be brave enough to marry her?”

“I’d rather be silly than fat,” Josie had said flatly.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Lucius had said. “And you are not fat, Josie.”

But Lucius Felton had no idea of the depths of longing Josie felt to be thin. To dance around the ballroom, gowned in a diaphanous costume gathered with fragile ribbons under her breasts and floating around her like a cloud of pale silk…The whole world could see that Miss Mary Ogilby never wore a corset; why should she? She was as slender as a reed. But Josie wore a corset. If she could, she’d wear three corsets, one on top of each other, if only they could rein in all the flesh that seemed to pop out wherever she looked.

Not that she looked.

She’d had the mirror taken out of her bedchamber months ago and felt life was better without it. No diaphanous gowns for her. Imogen’s modiste—the very best in London—had pointed out that seams were needed to construct an agreeable shape. The words were emblazoned in Josie’s memory.

Well, thanks to that modiste, she had an agreeable shape, presumably. She certainly had a lot of seams. The dress she chose to wear to Imogen’s wedding was designed to hold her in and cover her up in as many ways as possible.

Josie wrenched her attention back to the altar. Finally the bishop seemed to be droning to a halt. Not that Imogen showed any sign of listening to him. She was just looking at Rafe, looking at him in such a way that Josie actually got a lump in her throat. Beside her, Tess was blotting away tears with a handkerchief her husband must have given her, since it was twice the size of her hand. Josie gritted her teeth. If she cried, there was no one to give her a handkerchief.

Her eyes would turn red.

They would swell and her skin would turn blotchy.

They would—

Rafe leaned down, cupped his new wife’s face in his hands, and said quietly, but so that Josie could clearly hear him from where they stood in the first row, “All my life, Imogen.”

In the end, Lucius Felton had two handkerchiefs, which was just like him.

3

From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the First

…She removed her stockings with the greatest delicacy imaginable, Dear Reader. I was transfixed at the sight of her ankle, slender, exquisite. In one rash moment I laid my heart—and my lips—at her feet and worshipped that dear part of her body as it so clearly deserved…

The Duke of Holbrook’s wedding fete

15 Grosvenor Square

L ord Charles Darlington was feeling rather morose. There was no doubt that life was difficult when cravats were so expensive, and the ton so tiresome. Of course, there were pleasures in life, although small.

The pleasure of a well-turned retort was one. One might think that Darlington was something of a monster, but he was not. He knew perfectly well that he was a trivial person, and he never failed to promptly acknowledge the fact, as did his friends.“You are excessively tedious tonight,” Berwick remarked. “At this rate it would be almost more interesting to prance around the dance floor, listening to some chit giggle at me.” Young girls had a tendency to fall into nervous laughter faced with Berwick’s sulky good looks, although his lack of a fortune kept him (in Darlington’s opinion) from becoming fatheaded.

“If I sparked wit for you it would be a misuse of precious resources,” Darlington retorted. “Do you suppose that anyone realizes we are here?”

Berwick looked around the crowded dance floor. “Not a chance of it. The butler of Holbrook’s practically whispered our names—that is, the names we gave him.”

Wisley and Thurman trotted up to them like eager little spaniels. “By Jove, you did get in, Darlington!” Thurman bellowed. “I bet Wisley here five guineas that you couldn’t get yourself invited to Holbrook’s wedding fete.”

Darlington preferred not to mention that he had received no invitation. It was the first time that he had been cut from an important event. Hang it, he was the son of a duke, albeit the third son. Why his mother had to keep turning out males when there wasn’t an estate to keep them in handkerchiefs, he didn’t know. But now he carelessly adjusted the line of his coat (a blush-colored superfine wool that he found immensely soothing to the eye) and said, “Of course I had an invitation, you idiot.”

He did too. He had an invitation addressed to one of his brothers.

“Well, she’s here,” Thurman said cheerfully. “The Scottish Sausage. Except I’m thinking we should come up with a new name. How about the Scottish Saucepan? How do you like that, eh?” He beamed.

“Like what?” Darlington said, an edge to his voice.

“Scottish Saucepan! It came to me in the middle of the night. I hadn’t drunk my chocolate before bed, you see, and I couldn’t sleep, and I was thinking about what a clever turn of the tongue you had, and there it was! Came to me in the night, like—like that writing on the wall they talk about in the Bible.”

“Thurman, you are an utter ass,” Berwick said.

Thurman looked mildly offended. He was an English sausage, if sausages came in a peculiar bell shape. He had a dimpled double chin and glinting, small blue eyes. He’d been called an ass so many times that he likely took it as a compliment.

“Don’t you think it has a Darlington ring?” he demanded. “He’s rubbing off on me. All that cleverness, I mean.”

Darlington turned away. He would be very happy to see the last of Thurman, if only he didn’t need an audience. He was honest enough to know that about himself.

“Let’s see what she’s wearing tonight,” Thurman persisted. “You know all the lads down at the Convent will ask.”

“My wife tells me that if she hears of me at the Convent again, I’m barred from her company,” Wisley said, speaking for the first time. He was a slender man with a discontented mouth traced by a faint mustache that never grew thicker nor thinner. They had all been at Rugby together, and of the four of them, Wisley had done the best. He had married for money, and even Thurman, who had more money than he had need of, admitted that Wisley had fallen on his feet. His bride was fairly pretty; only the most severe of critics would note that her brows met in the middle. Or that her skin was olive. Darlington, who was the severest of critics, had kept his opinion to himself.

“Which would be the tragedy?” he asked now. “To be barred from your wife’s company, or from the Convent?”