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collar. The cat looked on from the windowsill with an air of disdain, twitching her fluffy tail, collar sparkling in the sunlight.
    “It makes perfect sense when you think of it,” Gerald endeavored to explain, pausing in his restless march through the room. “There were only the four grandchildren in our generation for her to have chosen from as her heirs. Charles here is already handsomely well off, as the future marquess. Then there’s Pete, who’s more than able to fend for himself in this world, if he doesn’t blow his own head off first,” he added under his breath.
    Felicity gasped. “How dare you?” she uttered, paling as she took a step toward him.
    “I’m only being honest, coz! You know he came back from the war all wrong in the head. Demmed bloodthirsty, I hear. Even some of his regimental chaps say your precious brother started to enjoy the killin’ just a little too much .”
    Her fists bunched at her sides. “That’s a lie!”
    “Gerald, really,” Charles said with a frown. “Cousin Pete’s a bloody hero. Charging the French lines and all that. We all know you’re just jealous.”
    “He isn’t here to defend himself, either,” Felicity growled, the offended sister.
    Gerald waved it off. “Then there’s you,” he continued, nodding at Felicity. “I, as the only child of our grandfather’s third son, have less than all of you! That’s my point here. It isn’t fair!”
    “You do have damned expensive tastes, though,” the viscount muttered.
    “So?” Gerald retorted. “Am I to live like a peasant? Hardly! I’m from the same lineage as you two.”
    “So find a rich lady to marry. Just not me ,” Felicity said, narrowing her eyes at him.
    Charles sighed and looked at her. “Won’t you just give in and get it over with, coz? You know he is a bulldog and won’t let go once his jaws clamp down.”
    “That’s right,” Gerald said, folding his arms across his chest.
    “Please, just humor him so I don’t have to keep picking up his tabs whenever we go out on the town, hmm?”
    “No!” Felicity retorted.
    “Well, why not?” Gerald demanded. “And don’t say I’m odious again! Lots of women find me charming, as it happens.”
    “Drunk women?” Charles murmured.
    Tempting as it was, Felicity let that point slide and stuck to the topic at hand. “First of all, if Aunt Kirby had wanted you to have a piece of her fortune, she would’ve put it in her will. She did not.”
    “She forgot me! Senile old bat.”
    “No, Gerald. She thought you were a bully. And I assure you, her wits were sharper than yours.”
    Gerald ranted on, but Felicity looked at the ceiling, paying him no more attention than she would the throaty barking of a neighbor’s dog.
    Her thickheaded, thick-bodied cousin had always been exasperating, but at least he was honest about his intents.
    Much worse were the other fortune hunters who’d been calling on her for the past few days, offering their phony sympathies. The stampede of eligible bachelors with empty coffers to fill had officially begun. They accosted her in the park or pestered her at the shops as the news about her inheritance spread. Some were polite, but others had the nerve to pretend they had long been acquainted in Society and truly cared what she was going through.
    Ugh. Felicity wasn’t fooled a whit. She scoffed at their compliments and even refused to learn their names, for they had scarcely bothered learning hers until she’d inherited her fortune. Their false praise was so unsettling that she was glad she’d have to be in mourning for a while, unable to dance with these would-be suitors at balls or even be seen too frequently in Society. Maybe by the time her somber observance was over, they’d have forgotten about her.
    Just like Jason had…
    These two, though, she had known all her life; as her relatives, it was harder to make them go away. Felicity glanced up at her aunt’s portrait and wondered what she would’ve thought