I might even meet that paragon.’
‘And when you do?’
‘Why, we will confess the truth and the toadeaters will come home by weeping cross and serve them right.’ She paused. ‘Charlotte, say you will do it. At the first sign our ruse is not working, I shall make a clean breast of it, I promise, and I shall say it was all my doing.’ She could see the idea growing on her cousin and pressed home her advantage. ‘Go on, tell me you are not tempted by the thought of playing the lady and having all the eligibles at your feet. You will, you know, because you are very fetching. You will return to Freddie with such a tale to tell, he will be filled with admiration and no harm done.’
Charlotte laughed and gave in.
Lady Fitzpatrick’s carriage was old, creaky and scuffed and the unmatched horses leaner than they should have been. It took them safely about town to do their shopping but the image it created was certainly not the one Sophie had in mind. Even though she intended to stay in the background, she wanted Charlotte to shine, for how else were they to flush out the fortune hunters as she had so succinctly put it to Charlotte the night before?
Mentally she put a new equipage on their shopping list, though that would have to wait for another day; buying gowns for morning, afternoon, carriage rides and balls, not to mention riding habits, bonnets, pelisses, footwear, fans and underwear took the whole of their first day.
Sophie’s choice of garments, while not exactly dowdy, was certainly not in the first stare of fashion. She chose plain styles and muted colours and let Charlotte be the peacock, encouraged by Lady Fitzpatrick.
‘Charlotte, my dear,’ her ladyship said, as the young lady eagerly pounced on a pale-green crepe open gown over a satin slip, while Sophie chose brown sarcenet, ‘I do not wish to scold…do you not think you could be a little more generous towards your cousin? She is to be brought out, too, you know.’
‘But Sophie is…’ Charlotte, who had been going to say Sophie held the purse strings and could buy whatever she wanted, stopped in confusion.
‘I am quite content, ma’am,’ Sophie said, all innocence. ‘Any man who offered for me must take me as I am. It would be wrong of me to pretend I am of greater consequence than I am.’
‘Sophie, Lady Fitzpatrick is right,’ Charlotte said. ‘It will look mean of me, if you do not choose at least one or two fashionable gowns for special occasions.’ Blue eyes twinkling, she added, ‘Please do not consider the cost, you know I can easily afford it.’
Sophie choked on a laugh; Charlotte was doing better than she had hoped. ‘Very well, but I shall not be extravagant.’
They returned home with the carriage piled high with their purchases and more to be delivered the following day, all to be paid for on Miss Roswell’s account, which would, of course, go to her uncle. The only thing they lacked was that first important invitation.
It arrived the following day. It was for a soirée being given by Lady Gosport, an old friend of Lady Fitzpatrick’s.
‘It will only be a small gathering, but it will set the ball rolling,’ her ladyship said.
The girls looked at each other. The time had come to test their masquerade and they were half-eager, half-fearful.
Chapter Two
The two men had enjoyed a morning gallop across the heath. The horses had gone well and now they were walking them back towards town. Both were tall and sat their mounts with the ease of cavalry officers used to long hours in the saddle; both wore impeccably tailored riding coats of Bath cloth, light brown buckskins and highly polished riding boots. Richard, Viscount Braybrooke, the older at twenty-nine, and slightly the bigger of the two, had been silent ever since they had turned to go back.
‘What ails you, Dick?’ Martin asked. ‘You’ve been in the dismals ever since you went home. You found no trouble there, I hope?’
‘Trouble?’ Richard roused himself from his contemplation of his horse’s ears to answer his friend. ‘No, not trouble exactly.’
‘Then what is wrong? Grandfather not in plump currant?’
‘He says he isn’t, but that’s only to make me toe the line.’
‘What line is that?’
‘Marriage.’
Martin shrugged. ‘Well, it comes to us all in the end.’
‘It’s all very well for you, you haven’t got a dukedom hanging on your choice. It would not be so bad if I had been born to inherit, but Emily was the only child my uncle had and the estate is entailed. My own father, who was the second son, died when I was still in leading strings and my uncle died of a fever while we were in Spain, so I came back to find myself the heir.’
‘You knew it might happen one day.’
‘Of course I did, but I thought I would have plenty of time to look about for a wife. The old man is holding my cousin Emily over my head like the sword of Damocles.’
Martin grinned. ‘Quite a feat for an elderly gentleman. I believe she is quite a large girl.’
Richard smiled in spite of himself. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘She is not to your taste?’
‘She was a child when I went away to war and it is as a child that I think of her, my little cousin to be petted and indulged, not as a wife.’
‘She is of marriageable age now, though.’
‘Seventeen, but her mother has spoiled her abominably and she is still immature, without a sensible thought in her head. I should be miserable leg-shackled to her and so would she.’
‘Has His Grace given you no choice?’
‘Oh, I have a choice. Find a wife of whom he will approve before the end of the Season, or it will have to be Emily.’
‘Why the haste? You have only just returned to civilian life, a year or so enjoying the fruits of peace would not come amiss.’
‘So I told him. I also pointed out that Emily should be allowed more time to grow up and make her own choice, but he says he has no time to waste, even if I think I have. He is an old man and likely to wind up his accounts at any time. He wants to see the next heir before he goes.’
They had arrived at the mews where the horses were stabled and, leaving them in the charge of grooms, set out to walk to Bedford Row where the Duke of Rathbone had a town house.
‘Do you know, I begin to feel sorry for Emily.’
‘So do I. Choosing a wife is not something to do in five minutes at a Society ball. It needs careful consideration. After all, you have to live with your choice for the rest of your life.’
‘Some don’t,’ Martin said, as a footman opened the door of the mansion and they passed into a marble-tiled vestibule. A magnificent oak staircase rose from the middle of it and branched out at a half-landing to go right and left and up to a gallery which overlooked the hall. ‘They marry someone suitable
