LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      London—early April, 1833

      ‘You’re certain you won’t come with me?’ Temperance Lattimar’s twin sister asked as she looked up from the trunk into which she’d just laid the last tissue-wrapped gown. ‘I know Bath isn’t the centre of society it used to be, but there will be balls and musicales and soirées to attend. And, with luck, attend without whispers of Mama’s latest escapade following us everywhere.’

      Temperance jumped up from the window seat overlooking the tiny garden of Lord Vraux’s Brook Street town house and walked over to give Prudence a hug. ‘Much as I will miss you, darling Pru, I have no intention of leaving London. I won’t let the rumour-mongers chase me away. But I do very much hope that Bath will treat you kindly—’ though I doubt it, London gossips being sure to keep their Bath counterparts updated about the latest scandal ʻ—and that you will find that gentleman to love you and give you the normal family you’ve always wanted.’ Letting her sister go, Temper laughed. ‘Although, growing up in this family, I’m not sure you’ll recognise “normal” even if you find it.’

      ‘You mean,’ Prudence asked, irony—and anger—in her voice, ‘not everyone grows up with a father who won’t touch them, a mother with lovers tripping up and down the stairs every day and rumours that only their oldest brother is really the son of their father?’

      ‘Remember when we were little—how much we enjoyed having all those handsome young men bring us hair ribbons and sweets?’ Temper said, trying to tease her sister out of her pique.

      Pru stopped folding the tissue paper she was inserting to cushion the gowns and sent Temper a look her twin had no trouble interpreting.

      ‘I suppose it’s only us, the lucky “Vraux Miscellany”, who fit that sorry description,’ Temper said, changing tack, torn between sympathy for the distress of her twin and a smouldering anger for the way society had treated their mother. ‘Gregory, the anointed heir, then you and me and Christopher, the...add-ons. Heavens, what would Papa have done had Gregory not survived? He might have had to go near Mama again.’

      ‘Maybe if he had, they’d have reconciled, whatever difficulty lay between them, and we would have ended up being a normal family.’

      Temper sighed. ‘Is there such a thing? Although, to be fair, you have to admit that Mama has fulfilled the promise she made to us on our sixteenth birthday. She’s conducted herself with much more restraint these last six years.’

      ‘Maybe so, but by then, the damage was already done,’ Pru said bitterly. ‘How wonderful, at your first event with your hair up and your skirts down, to walk into the drawing room and hear someone whisper, “There they are—the Scandal Sisters”. Besides, as this latest incident shows, Mama’s reputation is such that she doesn’t have to do anything now to create a furore.’

      ‘Not when there are always blockheaded men around to do it for her,’ Temper said acidly. ‘Well, nothing we can do about that.’

      After helping her twin hold down the lid of the trunk and latch it, she gave Pru another hug. ‘Done, then! Aunt Gussie collects you this morning, doesn’t she? So take yourself off to Bath, find that worthy gentleman and create the warm, happy, normal family you so desire. No one could be more deserving of a happy ending than you, my sweet sister!’

      ‘Thank you, Temper,’ Pru said as her sister crossed to the door. ‘I shall certainly try my hardest to make it so. But...are you still so determined not to marry? I know you’ve insisted that practically since we were sixteen, but...

      Shock, his suffocating weight, searing pain... Sucking in a breath, Temper forced the awful memories away, delaying her reply until she could be sure her voice was steady. ‘You really think I would give up my freedom, put myself legally and financially under the thumb of some man who can ignore me or beat me or spend my entire dowry without my being able to do a thing to prevent it?’

      ‘I know we haven’t been witness to a...very hopeful example, but not all marriages are disasters. Look at Christopher and Ellie.’

      ‘They are fortunate.’

      ‘Christopher’s friends seem to be equally fortunate—Lyndlington with his Maggie, David Smith with his duchess, Ben Tawny with Lady Alyssa,’ Pru pointed out.

      Temper shifted uncomfortably. If she were truly honest, she had to admit a niggle of envy for the sort of radiant happiness her brother Christopher and his friends had found with the women they’d chosen as wives.

      But the possibility of finding happiness in marriage wasn’t worth the certainty of having to face a trauma she’d never been able to master—or the cost of revealing it to anyone else.

      ‘Besides,’ Pru pressed her point, ‘it’s the character of the husband that will determine how fairly and kindly the wife is treated. And we both know there are fair, kind, admirable men in London. Look at Gregory—or Gifford!’

      Gifford Newell. Her brother’s best friend and carousing buddy, who’d acted as another older brother, tease and friend since she was in leading strings. Although lately, something seemed to have shifted between them...some sort of wordless tension that telegraphed between them when they were together, edgy, exciting...and threatening.

      She might be inexperienced, but, with a mother like theirs, Temper knew where that sort of tension led. And she wanted none of it.

      ‘Very well, I grant you that there are some upstanding gentlemen in England, and some of them actually find the happy unions they deserve. I... I just don’t think marriage is for me.’ Squeezing her sister’s hand, she crossed to the doorway. ‘Don’t forget to come say goodbye before you leave! Now, you’d better find where your maid has disappeared to with the rest of your bonnets before Aunt Gussie arrives. You know she hates to be kept waiting.’

      Pru

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