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at her.
    The hands were fisted on her hips again. “Your name, sir. Whatever am I to call you?”

Chapter 2
    I know you asked to hear more about my school, yet I have to believe you are being more polite than truly curious. But since you professed an interest, I will say with all honesty life at Miss Emery’s is a dreadful trial. The dear lady, who is purported to have groomed some of the finest ladies in Society, must be suffering from an early form of dementia, for last year she admitted an impossible girl. An American, of all things! I suppose we all have our crosses to bear, and I fear mine is Miss Sarah Browne, a most odious creature who just last week…
    —An extract from a letter to the Marquess of Standon from Miss Felicity Langley, November 1810
    “Gracious heavens! Listen to this, Staines.” Lady Geneva Pensford pointed down at the paper unfolded on the table before her. “Lady Bellinger was accosted on the Thames. How terrible for poor Winifred.”
    “Disgraceful,” the poised butler replied as he refilled the lady’s cup with a steaming and fragrant pekoe.
    “On the Thames?” Thatcher asked from the doorway of the opulent dining room. With a flick of a glance he took in the trays overflowing with breakfast delights, and the abundance of liveried footmen standing poised and waiting for the slightest indication that their services were needed—even though the only two people currently living in the splendid Hollindrake mansion were himself and his aunt, Lady Geneva. “Pray tell, however was Lady Bellinger accosted on the Thames?”
    “Why, you are up far too early, Your Grace,” his aunt replied from the far end of the long dining room table, a place she had sat at for as long as Thatcher could remember. In an elegant pink day gown, with her red hair still untouched by gray and done up in a formal knot, she looked the perfectly fashionable lady. She had taken after her mother’s side of the family, much to the old duke’s chagrin, but Geneva had made up for her lack of dark hair and eyes by perfecting the Sterling stare and being the Sterlingest of all the family. And right now she was giving him her most elevated look of disapproval. “Yes, you are up too early. Especially when Staines informs me you didn’t return home until an unseemly hour. Whatever were you doing out so late?”
    “Staines, you old dog!” Thatcher said, nodding to the family butler. “I would have thought you had gotten too old to carry tales to my aunt.” As for Geneva, she wasn’t the only one who could pin someone with a glance. “As to my whereabouts, madame, and the hour of my return, do you really want me to tell you?”
    “No,” she replied, adjusting her napkin. “But really, Your Grace, I do hope you don’t intend to take up with your old friends and spend your hours idling about those horrid haunts of theirs.”
    He laughed, for that was exactly what he’d done when he left Miss Langley’s. He’d gone off in search of any of his old friends—Mad Jack Tremont, Temple, even Lord Stewart Hodges would have been welcome company. But all his“horrid haunts” were either shuttered and closed or filled with young cubs and loungers he didn’t recognize. And he’d realized in an instant he was far too old to join their youthful company.
    Truly, his only bright spot the entire day had been those fifteen minutes in Miss Langley’s madcap company.
    Miss Langley. Answering her own door. In red socks, no less! He’d spent most of the evening trying to fathom how this blindingly pretty chit could be the woman his grandfather had chosen. Living in a nearly empty house, with a sleepy chaperone and a dog his troops would have viewed as a nice treat with tea.
    He even considered that he’d called on the wrong Miss Langley, and would still be dwelling on such a reassuring notion if the scent of bacon wasn’t tickling his senses. Taking a glance at the overladen buffet, he happily ambled down the long table until