Chapter One

      London. Late autumn, 1812.

      “Good God! Do you mean to tell me my grandson did not even receive you after you’d travelled I don’t know how many miles to see him?” Lady Cahill frowned at her granddaughter. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Amelia, stop that crying at once and tell me the whole story! From the beginning!”

      Amelia gulped back her sobs. “The house is shabby and quite horrid, though the stables seem well enough—”

      “I care nothing for stables! What of my grandson?” Lady Cahill interrupted, exasperated.

      “His manservant told me Jack saw no one.”

      The old lady frowned. “What do you mean, no one?”

      “I mean no one, Grandmama, no one at all. He—Jack, that is—pretended to be indisposed. He sent a message thanking me for my concern and regretting his inability to offer me hospitality. Hospitality! His own sister!”

      Amelia groped in her reticule for a fresh handkerchief, blotted her tears and continued, “Of course I insisted that I go up and tend him, but his man—a foreigner—would not even allow me up the stairs. I gathered from him that Jack was not ill…just…drunk! He won’t see anyone. And, according to his manservant, he’s been like that ever since he returned from Kent.”

      There was a long pause while the old lady digested the import of this. “Kent, eh? I wish to God he had never set eyes on that poisonous little Davenport baggage.” She glanced up at her granddaughter. “I take it, then, that the betrothal is definitely at an end.”

      “Unfortunately, yes, Grandmama.”

      “Good!” said Lady Cahill vehemently. “He’s well rid of that little harpy and you know it.”

      “But, Grandmama, it appears to have broken his heart.”

      “Nonsense! He’s got a fine strong heart. He’s got my blood in him, hasn’t he? When you’re my age, you’ll stop prating of broken hearts and other such nonsense. Bodies mend and so do hearts.”

      There was a long silence.

      “But that’s just it, isn’t it, Grandmama?” Amelia said at last. “Bodies don’t always mend, do they? Jack’s servant said that Jack’s leg is still very bad and painful, although he can walk.”

      Lady Cahill thought of the way her favourite grandson had looked when he’d come back from the wars in Spain. Such a fine tall, athletic lad he had been, too, before he left. But now…

      She glared at her granddaughter. “Don’t let me ever hear you speaking such rubbish, do you hear me, gel? Never! That boy is as fine a lad as ever he was, you mark my words! He’s got a fine fighting spirit in him.”

      “I saw no fighting spirit, Grandmama.”

      “Do you try to tell me, gel, that my grandson has had the stuffing knocked out of him and hides himself away from the world merely because his betrothal to that beautiful, heartless little viper is at an end? Faugh!” Lady Cahill snorted. “You’ll not make me believe that, not in a month of Sundays.”

      “No,” said Amelia slowly. “But that, on top of everything else…He will never ride again, they say. And so many of his friends have been killed in the war…And, Grandmama, you know how much Papa’s will hurt him—to be left with virtually nothing…”

      “Lord knows what maggot was in your father’s mind at the time,” agreed Lady Cahill. “Bad enough to disinherit the boy, but to leave him ‘whatever is found in my pockets on the day I die”’…Faugh! Utter folly! “Twas the veriest coincidence that he died after a night of cards at White’s. Had he not just won that deed to Sevenoakes, the boy would not even have a roof over his head!”

      Lady Cahill snorted in disgust. Yes, Jack had taken some terrible blows, one on top of another. But even discounting Amelia’s dramatics it seemed he was taking it badly. He could not be allowed to brood like that. He needed something to snap him out of it.

      There was a soft knock at the door. “Yes, what is it, Fitcher?” the old lady snapped, her temper frayed by concern for her grandson.

      “Pardon me, milady.” The butler bowed. “This letter was delivered a few moments ago.” He bowed again, proffering a letter on a silver salver.

      Lady Cahill picked up the letter, wrinkling her nose in disdain at the undistinguished handwriting which gave her direction. “Humph,” she muttered. “Not even franked.”

      She turned it over and broke the seal. She frowned over the letter, muttering crossly to herself as she did. Finally she threw it down in frustration.

      “What is it, Grandmama?”

      “Demmed if I can read the thing. Shockin’ bad hand and the spelling is atrocious. Can’t think who’d be sending me such rubbish. Toss it in the fire, girl!”

      The young woman picked the letter up and smoothed it out. “Would you like me to try?”

      Taking the snort she received from her grandmother to be assent, Amelia read it out, hesitating occasionally over misspellings and illegible words, of which there were many.

      Milady I be right sorry to be addressing you like this it being above my station to be writing to Countesses but I cannot think of who else to turn to…

      “A begging letter!” the Dowager Countess snapped in outrage. “On to the fire with it at once!”

      “I think not, Grandmama,” said Amelia, scanning ahead. “Let me finish.”

      …for my poor girl is now left all alone in the world with no kin to care what become of her but it do seem a right shame that the daughter of gentlefolk should have to skivvy to stay alive…

      Lady Cahill’s eyes kindled with anger. “By God, she’s trying to palm one of your father’s by-blows off on to us!”

      “Grandmama!” Amelia blushed, horrified.

      “Oh, don’t be so mealy-mouthed, girl. You must know your father had any number of bits o’ fluff after your dear mother died, and they didn’t mean a thing, so don’t pretend. But it’s nothing to do with us. Your father would have left any base-born child well provided for. He was a gentleman, after all, even if he was a fool! Now toss that piece of impertinence in the fire at once, I say!”

      But her granddaughter had forgotten her blushes and was avidly reading on. “No, wait, Grandmama, listen to this.”

      And being as I was her old nurse even if some as did say I wasn’t good enough to be nurse to Vicar’s daughter it falls to me to let you know what my girl has come to being as you was godmother to Miss Maria her poor sainted mother…

      Lady Cahill sat up at this and leant forward, her eyes sharp with interest.

      …and her only remaining child so now there be nothing left for her but to Take Service her not willing to be took in by myself and truth to tell there be little enough for me alone so I beg ye Milady please help Miss Kate for as the Lord is my witness there be no other who can yours truly Martha Betts.

      “Do you know any of these people, Grandmama?” said Amelia curiously.

      “I