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superfluous and untidy.
    She wanted for nothing. She kept a tres elegante house in Mayfair, had gowns beyond counting, and bijouterie to rival that of any mere duchess. Her celebrity was limitless. She travelled in the first circles and often dined at Carlton House. True respectability, however, escaped her. That was part of her cachet. When she was young and vaunted, that hardly mattered. Of all the many things she owned, her most prized possession had been her independence. Self-determination, however, was expensive. In time, she lost her most lucrative clients through the attrition of old age and bad health. Rarely was she remembered in their wills—an indelicacy which left her finances in shambles. The new young bucks were déclassé . They desired nothing but young, fresh flesh.
    Much could be hidden behind a fan, but the lack of elasticity in one’s gluteal furrow was uncompromising.
    Indeed, time was not only a thief, it was outright cruel. Her living was her face, her figure, and her charm. With more than a nodding acquaintance with the second half of her fourth decade, only her charm defied earth’s gravitational pull. When she took uncompromising appraisal, she admitted that her jaw line had begun to soften and a few crow’s feet worried the corners of her eyes. Her waist was still waspish as a seventeen-year-olds’. Her bosom had begun its inevitable droop, but she could counter that through proper stays. As for her complexion, it had not yet failed her.
    She did not take to the street in the daylight, but if she did, she held her chin just a little higher. In bed, she made certain she lay on her back. Granted, morning callers would find her drapes lowered. Eventually, she would see no one until half past four. Time was at hand for her to engage in an enduring association—one that assured her financial security. She did not delude herself in this regard. It was probable that she would have to settle for a man wanting in one capacity or another. Good manners, handsome bearing, and ready capital were rarely united. Of the three, wealth was the one necessity.
    When she cast out her trawling net, her spirits were not particularly high.
    As expected, proposals were offered from an assortment of gentlemen (some of them were even sober). As it was necessary to narrow the field to a manageable number, she pondered three of the most lucrative proposals. Each had their own merit.
    One was from an elderly widower who owned an estate in Somerset, a house in town and had no relatives.
    The second struck a fine figure, but he had a fondness for buggering his footmen. She did not object on moral grounds, but was loath to weather the tittering.
    The third suitor was an unctuous little man of questionable ancestry. His wealth was recently acquired, but substantial. His valour during the protracted hostilities with Napoleon earned him a knighthood. In a bid not singular to him, he hoped to parlay his heroics into a seat in Parliament. A handsome wife would be an asset to him. When introduced, she found nothing notable about him save one small thing.
    When he explained his particular situation, her eyes did not flutter, her throat did not flush. She betrayed absolutely no indication that his neighbours were of the smallest interest to her. Under most circumstances, she would not even think of staying anywhere but London despite the grandness of a country house. His proposal was offered with all the finesse of a plough horse. That was of no importance to her.
    Their marriage was already foreordained the moment he spoke of his estate in Derbyshire and his good neighbour, Mr. Darcy, not five miles away.
 
    Chapter 9
    In Wickham’s Wake
 
 
    As they lived in a festering warren of poverty, the friendship between Daisy Mulroney and Sally Frances Arbuthnot had grown stronger with each season. It had reached its apex when they, united by desire for revenge and a determination to escape the muck-crusted streets of the Dials, exacted