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settled in Charlotte’s gut.
    She’d thought she was done with Lord Hargate’s sons.
    Last year, both families had tried to promote a match between her and Lord Hargate’s widowed heir, Lord Rathbourne. Charlotte had no difficulty with him. Though he was perfectly courteous, she could tell she might as well be invisible to him. She had only to make sure she did nothing to make herself more visible. To her relief, he had married someone else last autumn.
    “Bear in mind, too, that Mr. Carsington is a man of considerable prestige in the Philosophical Society,” Lady Lithby went on. “This well-regarded gentleman now has charge of the property next door, which your father has always wanted. Kindred spirit or not, in Lithby’s eyes these factors combine to make Mr. Carsington an acceptable marital candidate. We must add him to the list of eligible gentlemen.”
    She went out, closing the door behind her.
    Charlotte stared blindly at the door for a time.
    Then she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said under her breath. “I’ve contrived not to marry scores of men. I can not marry him, too.”
    Meanwhile, at Beechwood
    Darius’s hopes regarding the beautiful girl were dashed within moments of his reaching Beechwood’s stables, for there he met up with her father, who’d come to welcome him to the neighborhood and invite him to dinner.
    Though it took a moment to sort out a pig named Hyacinth from a daughter named Charlotte, Darius soon discovered that his lordship possessed only one daughter, who was not married, unhappily or otherwise, or widowed.
    The other children were four young boys, the two eldest of whom were staying with cousins in Shropshire at present.
    Darius promptly pushed the daughter to the back of his mind as not meriting further thought, and focused on her father, who did.
    Being Logic’s loyal servant, Darius had spent the fortnight before he came to Cheshire analyzing the problem he had to solve and gathering useful information.
    He’d learned that, of all those hereabouts, Lord Lithby was the man most worth cultivating. Generations of his family had lived here. He was the largest landowner. But most important, he was an agriculturalist and a natural philosopher, like Darius.
    Today came an especially agreeable discovery: Unlike Lord Hargate, Lord Lithby had a proper regard for Darius’s work. He even quoted from the pamphlet on pig farming.
    His mood improved by a generous dose of flattery, Darius happily accepted the invitation to dinner.
    Normally, he avoided Fashionable Society, preferring those circles where morals were known to be loose. That way, a man didn’t waste time pursuing women he couldn’t have.
    This time, though, Darius had to make an exception. His lordship was a valuable source of information and advice. Too, some if not all of the guests would be country folk—a breed Darius understood well and with whom he was fully at ease. And among these country folk he might even find an attractive widow or unhappy wife not overburdened with morals.
    He mounted his horse and set out for the inn.
    By the time he arrived, the beautiful girl had crept to the front of his mind again.
    How on earth had he mistaken her for a matron? he wondered.
    He was an intelligent and observant man. What had misled him?
    He brought her image back into his mind’s eye: the delicious face and figure…the trace of huskiness in her voice, with its expected cultivated accents and unexpected animosity. The hostility bothered him. To be sure, not all women melted instantly into his arms, but the few who didn’t never put up more than a token fight, either.
    What an absurd creature she was, as nonsensical as her hat. Tripping over her own feet. Squirming and kicking and elbowing when he tried to help her…
    She was quite good at dislodging a man, actually. For some reason, that had aroused him.
    Her haughtiness was provoking. Still, it had amused him to make a game