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problem finding one of those.”
    Elizabeth thought the whole scheme sounded mercenary and cold, but Robert shook his head. This time he was the practical one: “You’re a female, love, and you have to wed, you know that all women must wed. You’re not going to meet anyone eligible cooped up at Havenhurst. And I’m not suggesting we accept an offer from just anyone. I’ll choose someone you can develop a lasting affection for, and then,” he promised sincerely, “I’ll bargain for a long engagement on the basis of your youth. No respectable man would want to rush a seventeen-year-old girl into matrimony before she was ready for it. It’s the only way,” he warned her when she looked as if she was going to argue.
    Sheltered though she’d been, Elizabeth knew he was not being unreasonable about expecting her to wed. Before her parent’s death they’d made it very clear that it was her duty to marry in accordance with her family’s wishes. In this case, her half-brother was in charge of making the selection, and Elizabeth trusted him implicitly.
    “Fess up,” Robert teased gently, “haven’t you ever dreamed of wearing beautiful gowns and being courted by handsome beaux?”
    “Perhaps a few times,” Elizabeth admitted with an embarrassed sidewise smile, and it was something of an understatement. She was a normal, healthy girl, filled with affection, and she’d read her share of romantic novels. That last part of what Robert said had much appeal. “Very well,” she said with a decisive chuckle. “We’ll give it a try.”
    “We’ll have to do more than try. Elizabeth, we’ll have to pull it off, or you’ll end up as a landless governess to someone else’s children instead of a countess or better, with children of your own. I’ll land in debtors’ gaol.” The idea of Robert in a dank cell and herself without Havenhurst was enough to make Elizabeth do almost anything. “Leave everything to me,” he said, and Elizabeth did.
    In the next six months Robert set about to overcome every obstacle that might prevent Elizabeth from making a spectacular impression on the London scene. A woman named Mrs. Porter was employed to teach Elizabeth those intricate social skills her mother and former governess had not. From Mrs. Porter, Elizabeth learned that she must never betray that she was intelligent, well-read, or the slightest bit interested in horticulture.
    An expensive couturier in London was employed to design and make all the gowns Mrs. Porter deemed necessary for the Season.
    Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, former paid companion to several of the ton’s most successful debutantes of prior seasons, came to Havenhurst to fill the position of Elizabeth’s duenna. A woman of fifty with wiry gray hair she scraped back into a bun and the posture of a ramrod, she had a permanently pinched face, as if she smelled something disagreeable but was too well-bred to remark upon it. In addition to the duenna’s daunting physical appearance, Elizabeth observed shortly after their first meeting that Miss Throckmorton-Jones possessed an astonishing ability to sit serenely for hours without twitching so much as a finger.
    Elizabeth refused to be put off by her stony demeanor and set about finding a way to thaw her. Teasingly, she called her “Lucy,” and when the casually affectionate nickname won a thunderous frown from the lady, Elizabeth tried to find a different means. She discovered it very soon. A few days after Lucinda came to live at Havenhurst the duenna discovered her curled up in a chair in Havenhurst’s huge library, engrossed in a book. “You enjoy reading? “Lucinda had said gruffly – and with surprise – as she noted the gold embossed title on the volume.
    “Yes,” Elizabeth had assured her, smiling. “Do you?”
    “Have you read Christopher Marlowe?”
    “Yes, but I prefer Shakespeare.”
    Thereafter it became their policy each night after supper to debate the merits of the individual books