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      To all the wonderful writers I have met through

      the UK Romantic Novelists Association and the

      Romance Writers of America

      Upcoming titles inthe Brides of Fortune series

      SCANDALS OF AN INNOCENT

      UNDOING OF A LADY

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      Prologue

      Go, take thine angle, and with practiced line

      Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;

      And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,

      In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.

      —Thomas Doubleday

       Brooks’s Club, London, July 1809

      “SHE REFUSED ME!”

      Sir Montague Fortune swept through the library of Brooks’s Club, scattered the gambling counters on the faro table with the edge of his sleeve and gave no apology, and deposited himself in an indignant flurry in a chair beside the Earl of Waterhouse. He smoothed one shaking hand over his hair and beckoned impatiently to a club servant to fetch him brandy.

      “Ungrateful minx,” he muttered. “That I, one of the Fortunes of Fortune’s Folly should seek to ally myself with the servant classes and be rejected!” He swallowed half the glass of brandy in one gulp and gave the assembled group a furious glare. “Do you know what she called me? A bibulous country squire with watery eyes!” He reached for the brandy bottle that the servant had thoughtfullyleft on a low table beside him, refilled his glass and frowned slightly. “What does bibulous mean?”

      “Damned if I know,” Nathaniel Waterhouse said comfortably. “Dex was the one who shone at Oxford whilst the rest of us were running wild. Dex?”

      Dexter Anstruther, thus applied to, raised his shrewd blue gaze from The Times and looked from the squire of Fortune’s Folly to the brandy bottle and back again.

      “It means that you drink too much, Monty,” he drawled. He looked across at Miles, Lord Vickery, the fourth member of the group, who was smiling quizzically at Montague Fortune’s indignation.

      “Am I missing something here?” Miles inquired. “Who is the discerning lady who has rejected Monty’s suit?”

      “You’ve been in the Peninsular so long you’ve missed the on dit, old fellow,” Waterhouse said. “Monty here has been paying ardent court to Miss Alice Lister, a former housemaid, if gossip is to be believed, who is now the richest heiress in Fortune’s Folly. He offered her his hand and his heart in return for her money but the sensible female has evidently rejected him.” He turned to Monty Fortune. “Surely you have not traveled all the way up to London just to bring us the bad news, Monty?”

      “No,” Montague Fortune huffed. “I have come up to consult my lawyer and study the Fortune’s Folly estate papers.”

      “Very laudable,” Dexter murmured. “Exactly what one would hope for in a responsible landowner.”

      Monty Fortune glared at him. “It is not for the benefit of my tenants,” he protested. “It is so that I can get my hands on the money!”

      “Whose money?” Dexter asked.

      “Everyone’s money!” Sir Montague barked. “It is not appropriate that half the population of Fortune’s Folly should be richer than the squire!”

      The others exchanged looks of covert amusement. The Fortunes were an old gentry family, perfectly respectable but with an inflated view of their own importance, and Sir Montague’s single-minded pursuit of money was considered by some to be very bad Ton.

      “What does Tom think of your plans, Monty?” Dexter asked, referring to Sir Montague’s younger brother.

      Sir Montague looked annoyed. “Said I was a grasping leech on other people’s lives and went off to spend my substance at the gambling tables,” he said.

      The others laughed.

      “And Lady Elizabeth?” Nat asked

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