Cainewood Castle, the South of England

Summer 1808

It was almost like touching him.

Lady Alexandra Chase usually sketched a profile in just a few minutes, but she took her time today, lingering over her work in the darkened room. Standing on one side of a large, framed pane of glass while Tristan sat sideways on the other, she traced his shadow cast by the glow of a candle. Her pencil followed his strong chin, his long, straight nose, the wide slope of his forehead, capturing his image on the sheet of paper she’d tacked to her side of the glass. Noticing a stray lock that tumbled down his brow, she hesitated, wanting to make certain she caught it just right.

Someone walked by the open door, causing Tris’s shadow to flicker as the candle wavered. “Are you finished yet?” he asked from behind the glass panel.

“Hold still,” she admonished. “Artistry requires patience.”

“It’s just a profile.”

Alexandra flushed, though she knew better than to take offense. He was simply impatient. He’d always been an admirer of her work.

As well he should be. Alexandra made excellent profile portraits.

”You promised you’d sit still,” she reminded him, injecting authority into her girlish voice. “Just this once before you leave.” She’d been asking Tris to sit for her for months, but he never seemed to have the time. This would be her only chance.

“I’m sitting,” he said, and although his profile remained immobile, she could hear amusement in his tone.

She loved his good-humored forbearance, just like she loved everything about Tris Nesbitt.

She’d been eight when they first met. Her favorite brother, Griffin, had brought him home between school terms. In the six years since, as he and Griffin completed Eton and then Oxford, Tris had visited often, claiming to prefer his friend’s large family to the quiet home he shared with his father.

Alexandra couldn’t remember when she’d fallen in love, but she felt like she’d loved Tris forever.

Of course, nothing would come of it. Now, at fourteen, she was mature enough to accept that her eminent father, the Marquess of Cainewood, would never allow her to marry plain Mr. Tristan Nesbitt.

But that didn’t stop her from wishing. It didn’t stop her stomach from tingling when she heard his voice, didn’t stop her heart from skipping when he looked at her with his silver-gray eyes.

Not that he looked at her often. After all, as far as he was concerned she was little more than Griffin’s pesky younger sister.

Knowing Tris couldn’t see her now, she skimmed her fingertips over his silhouette, wishing she were touching him instead. She’d never touched him, not in real life. Such intimacy simply didn’t occur between young ladies and gentlemen. Most especially between a marquess’s daughter and a commoner.

The drawing room’s draperies were shut, and the low light seemed to enclose them together—alone!—in the room. She desperately wanted to say something clever or diverting, something he would remember after they parted. But she could think of nothing. ”Where are you going again?” she asked instead, although she knew.

Let him think she’d barely noticed he was leaving.

“Jamaica.” He sounded excited. “My uncle wishes me to look after his interests there. I’m to learn how his plantation is run.”

“Is that what you wish to do with your life?”

“He doesn’t mean for me to stay there permanently. Only to acquaint myself with the operation so I can manage it from afar.”

“But do you wish to become a man of business? To manage property? Or would you rather do something else?”

He shrugged, his profile tilting, then settling back into the lines she’d so carefully drawn. “He paid for my education. Have I any choice?”

“I suppose not.” Her choices were limited, too. “How long will you be gone?”

“A year or two at the least. Perhaps more.”

Everything was changing. Griffin would leave soon as well—their father had bought him a commission in the cavalry. Although Griffin and Tris had spent much of the past few years away at school and university, these new developments seemed different. They’d be oceans away. It wasn’t that Alexandra would be alone—she’d still have her parents, her oldest brother, and her two younger sisters—but she was already feeling the loss.

“Two years,” she echoed, knowing Griffin would likely be gone even longer. “That seems a lifetime.”

Tris’s image shook as he laughed aloud. “I expect it might, to one as young as you.”

He seemed so much older, already twenty years of age. Alexandra could scarcely imagine being two decades old. And young boys experienced more of the world than girls, leaving home as adolescents to pursue their educations. They spent time hunting at country houses and carousing about London while girls stayed at home with their mothers.

She was counting the months until she’d finally turn sixteen and have her first London season. She used to spend hours dressing up in Mama’s old gowns and playing with her younger sisters, imagining the balls, the finery, and the grand young lords who would sweep them off their feet. One of those charming gentlemen would be her entrée to a new life as a society wife. And she would love her husband, she was certain, although right now she could hardly imagine loving anyone but Tris.

“Will you bring me something from Jamaica?” she asked, startling herself with her boldness.

“Like what? A pineapple or some sugarcane?”

It was her turn to laugh. “Anything. Surprise me.”

“All right, then. I will.” He fell silent a moment, as though trying to commit the promise to memory. “Are you finished yet?”

“For now.” She set down her pencil and walked to the windows, drew back the draperies, and blinked. The room’s familiar blue-and-coral color scheme suddenly seemed too bright.

She turned toward him, reconciling his face with the profile she’d just sketched. She wouldn’t describe him as pretty. His jaw was too strong, his mouth too wide, his brows too thick and straight. As she watched, he raked a hand through his hair—tousled, streaky dark blond hair that always seemed just a bit too long.

Her fingers itched to touch it, to sweep the stray lock from his forehead.

“It will take me a while to complete the portrait,” she told him as she walked back to where he sat beside the glass, “but I’ll have it ready for you before you leave.”

“Keep it for me.”

She blew out the candle, leaning close enough to catch a whiff of his scent, smelling soap and starch and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. “Don’t you want it?”

He rose from the chair, smiling down at her from his greater height. “I’ll probably lose it if I take it with me.”

“Very well, then.” She’d been hoping he’d say she should keep it to remember him by. “I wish you a safe journey, Mr. Nesbitt.”

She’d called him Tristan—or Tris—for years now, but suddenly that seemed too informal.

His gray gaze remained steady. “Thank you, Lady Alexandra. I wish you a happy life.”

A happy life. She could be married by the time he returned, she realized with a shock. In fact, if he were gone two whole years, she very likely would be.

Her heart sank at the thought.

But at least she’d have his profile. When it was finished, she’d have a perfect likeness of his face, black-on-white in an elegant oval frame. And she’d been alone with him while making it.

As he walked from the room, she peeled the paper off the glass and hugged it to her chest.

---

RATAFIA PUFFS

Take halfe a pound of Ground Almonds and a little more than that of Sugar. Make it up in a stiff paste with Whites of five Eggs and a little Essence of Almond whipt to a Froth. Beat it all well in a Mortar, and make it up in little Loaves, then bake them in a very cool oven on Paper and Tin-Plates.

I call these my magical sweets…my husband proposed directly after eating only one!

—Eleanor, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1728

Cainewood Castle, three years later

June 1815

“Not all of it!” Alexandra Chase made a mad grab for her youngest sister’s arm. “We’re instructed to add a little more sugar than almonds.”

Corinna stopped grating and frowned. “I like sugar.”

“You won’t like the ratafia puffs if they’re all sugar,” their middle sister, Juliana, said as she took the cone-shaped sugar loaf and set it on the scarred wooden table in the center of Cainewood Castle’s cavernous kitchen.

“Here, my arm is tired.” Alexandra handed Corinna the bowl of egg whites she’d been beating, then scooped a proper amount of the sugar and poured it into another bowl that held the ground almonds. Stirring them together, she shook her head at Corinna. “You really are quite hopeless with recipes. If you didn’t look so much like Mama, I’d wonder if you’re truly her child.”

A sudden sheen of tears brightened Corinna’s brilliant blue eyes. She quickly blinked them away. “She always made good sweets, didn’t she?”

“Excellent sweets,” Juliana said in a sympathetic tone, shooting a look at her older sister.

Alexandra felt abashed and maybe a little teary herself. She looked away, her gaze wandering the whitewashed stone walls of the kitchen. She’d meant only to tease her sister, not remind her of their mother. Mama had been gone less than two years, and memories could still be painful.

But the time for sadness was over…after years of loss and mourning, Alexandra and her sisters were finally wearing cheerful colors and ready to face the world again. In Alexandra’s case, she was more than ready to put the sorrow behind her and get on with her life.

During her first London season, she’d received many excellent offers of marriage. But at her father’s sudden death, all thoughts of a wedding had been abandoned, and she’d missed the rest of the season while mourning him. Shortly thereafter her dear mother had passed, followed by her oldest brother, and she’d missed this year’s season in yet another anguished period of mourning.

All of the marriage-minded gentlemen who’d courted her had long since found other brides. But Alexandra wasn’t sure she could endure another season, with all the attending frivolity, competition, and intrigue. She just wanted to be someone’s wife. She wanted to forget past hardships and start over, to feel settled and secure in a new place and a new situation.

As for her younger sisters, they’d yet to be presented at court and were beside themselves at the thought of finally having a season. It seemed all Juliana and Corinna could talk of were parties, balls, breakfasts, dances, and soirees.

“I can hardly wait for next spring,” Corinna said, echoing Alexandra’s musings.

Juliana added a few drops of almond extract to the egg whites. “If Griffin has his way, we’ll all be married long before spring. We’ll never have a season.”

“He cannot get you both matched up so quickly.” Alexandra idly stirred the almonds and sugar. “You two will have your seasons. He’ll have to be content with my marriage for now.”

“If the 'magical’ ratafia puffs do their job.” Corinna handed the bowl of eggs back to Alexandra. “Here, now my arm is tired. This is hard work.” Mopping her forehead with a towel, she looked pointedly through an archway to where a scullery maid stood drying a towering stack of dishes. “I cannot understand why you won’t ask her—”

“If the magic is to work,” Juliana interrupted patiently, “we must make the ratafia puffs ourselves, not relegate the task to a servant.”

“Ladies aren’t supposed to work in the kitchen.” Corinna tossed her mane of long, wavy brown hair. “Holy Hannah, it’s blazing hot in here with the coal burning all the day long! “

“Chase ladies work in the kitchen,” Alexandra said with a pointed glance at the ancient, stained journal that lay open on the long table. The heirloom volume was filled with recipes penned by Chase women going all the way back to the seventeenth century. Their foremothers and been renowned for their skill with sweets. ”It’s a tradition,” she added, still beating the eggs. “Will you be the first to break it?”

“I might. Unlike you, I don’t put much stock in tradition.”

Alexandra beat the eggs harder. “Well, perhaps you should—”

“Girls.” Always the peacemaker, Juliana took the bowl of stiffened eggs and dumped the almond and sugar mixture into it. “Why is there no ratafia in ratafia puffs?” she asked, adeptly changing the subject.

“Perhaps we’re supposed to serve ratafia with them,” Corinna suggested.

Alexandra laughed. “Griffin invited Lord Shelton to take tea, not spirits. I expect they’re called ratafia puffs because they taste of almonds like ratafia does.”

Corinna dipped a finger into the sweet mixture and licked it off. “Do you think Lord Shelton will propose today?”

Juliana rolled her lovely hazel eyes. “Alexandra could feed him dirt and he’d propose. Have you not seen the way he looks at her?”

“Like he’d rather eat her than the sweets?”

“Oh, do hold your tongues.” Alexandra’s cheeks felt warm. She had noticed the way Lord Shelton looked at her, and though she found it pleasing, she’d never confess as much to her sisters.

He really was quite perfect.

He was handsome and kind. He possessed a fortune of his own, so she knew he wasn’t after her sizable dowry. And he lived nearby, so she would see her family often. What more could she possibly require?

As a fanciful child, she had basked in the illusion of romance. Now she knew better. Love wasn’t a fairytale; it was two well-suited people choosing to make a life together.

And she was choosing to love Lord Shelton.

With any luck, the ratafia puffs would work their magic, she thought as she dropped shiny dollops of the batter onto a paper-lined tin baking sheet.

The Chase sisters were long overdue for some luck.

---

For the first time in more than three years, Tristan rode over Cainewood Castle’s drawbridge and into its quadrangle. As a groom hurried from the stables, he swung down from his black gelding, his gaze skimming the clipped lawn and the four stories of living quarters that formed a U around it.

Cainewood didn’t look any different, although there was no reason it should. If he remembered right, the castle had been in Chase hands—save during the Commonwealth period—for close to six centuries. He shouldn’t have expected it to change in the last three years.

But he’d changed, so it felt odd that this place hadn’t.

Three years ago, with his new Oxford degree in hand and his comfortable future as a man of business assured, he’d been anticipating adventure. A far-flung paradise of—he’d imagined—fine weather, sandy beaches, and pretty girls awaited him.

Two years ago, he’d been unexpectedly called back from Jamaica to become the next Marquess of Hawkridge.

Things hadn’t turned out quite like he’d imagined.

The young groom tipped his cap. “Take your horse, my lord?”

“Yes, thank you.” Tristan handed over the reins. As his mount was led away, his gaze wandered Cainewood’s ancient keep—still as tumbledown as ever—and past it to the old tilting yard that lay beyond. He smiled, recalling games played there with Griffin—and often, Griffin’s little sisters—running through the untamed, ankle-high vegetation. Those summers spent here during his school years were memories he cherished. Griffin’s family had been a jolly remedy for the lack of his own.

“Tristan. Or I suppose I should call you Hawkridge. Whichever, it’s been entirely too long.”

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Griffin approach, but now Tristan’s pleasant nostalgia was replaced by apprehension. He’d no idea what sort of greeting to expect. Steeling himself, he turned and extended his right hand.

“Oh, hang it,” Griffin said, and pulled him into a one-armed hug.

Filled with gratitude, Tristan clapped his old friend on the back. “Yes. Entirely too long,” he echoed as he drew away. “Am I supposed to call you Cainewood?”

“Strikes the ear wrong after all these years, doesn’t it?” Like the castle, Griffin’s crooked smile was familiar. “Griffin will do. I didn’t expect you until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Your note sounded urgent.” Tristan walked with him toward the entrance. “I’d no idea you’d left the army.”

“I haven’t been here long. Just these few months past.”

“I was sorry to hear about your parents. And Charles.”

Griffin waved away the condolences. He’d never been one for solemnity.

Before they reached the front steps, the double oak doors opened. Cainewood’s longtime butler stood between them. “Welcome back, my lord,” he said with a little bow.

“Why, thank you, Boniface,” Tristan returned, pleased to see him again. The man was aptly named, for he had a bonnie face—a youthful countenance that belied his forty-odd years. No matter how hard he tried to look stiff and serious, he never quite succeeded. And other than a touch of gray at his temples, the years hadn’t changed him a bit.

Tristan couldn’t say the same for Griffin. “You look older,” he said as they climbed the steps. Faint lines were beginning to form around his friend’s eyes and mouth.

Griffin nodded. “An old man at twenty-four.”

Tristan chuckled. “Hardly.”

“I’m aging quickly these days.”

Tristan was surprised. “Surely managing the estate is less stressful than fighting a war.”

“You would think so.” They stepped inside. “But management is the least of my concerns. I’ve got three sisters to marry off—”

“They cannot already be old enough to wed!”

Griffin’s rueful laugh echoed through the three-story-high entrance hall, all the way up to its stone-vaulted ceiling. “Mathematics never was your strongest subject.” He led Tristan up the carved stone staircase. “Corinna—the baby—is nearly sixteen. Which means nearly old enough to find a husband.”

Tristan frowned. “And Juliana and Alexandra?” he asked.

“Sixteen and seventeen.” They turned on the landing and went up a second level to the family’s private apartments. “Mourning has kept them from the marriage mart, but now it falls on me to see them all settled—and soon.”

He ushered Tristan into a dark wood study. Waving him into a leather wing chair, he went to open a cabinet.

Tristan sat warily. Surely Griffin wasn’t leading up to…? “Look, old man, I sympathize, but your letter implied a need for my assistance, not—”

“Ah, yes.” Rather than sitting behind the massive mahogany desk, Griffin chose the chair beside Tristan’s. “And I appreciate your response.” He set two crystal glasses on the small table between them, unstoppered a matching decanter, and began to pour. “Despite your seclusion and, ah, recent troublesome circumstances—”

Tristan grimaced. He disliked any reference to his circumstances.

“—it seems you’ve become rather renowned as a talented manager, particularly of agricultural enterprises. Imagine my surprise!” He grinned to show he was fooling. “You must have learned a thing or two out on that island. I understand you’ve been able to make some remarkably clever—and profitable—improvements to the Hawkridge estate. With these qualifications in mind, I resolved to seek you out and implore you to consider—”

“I do not wish to marry!”

“—lending me your expertise.” In the midst of handing Tristan a glass, Griffin blinked. “Marry? Do you presume I asked you here for the benefit of one of my sisters? Perish the thought!”

Tristan breathed deep of the brandy as he wavered between relief and annoyance. Never mind that he had no desire to wed any of Griffin’s sisters—or anyone else, for that matter—he couldn’t help feeling stung by the frank dismissal. “Why did you summon me, then?”

“I need your help. I’ve heard you’ve worked miracles with Hawkridge’s vineyard.”

“I had a hand in reviving it, I suppose. We’ve had two good harvests—last year’s wine is particularly excellent. Or so I’m told.” Tristan shrugged. He was more of a brandy man. “You’re in need of wine?”

Griffin lifted his own brandy and took a sip that was nearly a gulp. “Charles,” he said, referring to his late older brother, “planted grapevines some three years ago—”

“Charles wanted to make wine?”

“It’s the latest thing, apparently. With prices soaring during the war against France, I suspect he thought to make a killing.” With affectionate satire, he added, “Charles always was a swell of the first stare.”

“Yes, he was.” Tristan sipped. He remembered the elder Chase son as a tall, dark man with an impressive air and impeccable taste. “Go on, then.”

“I’ve been told not to expect a yield suited for production for another year at the least. But the vines should be bearing fruit by now, shouldn’t they? They’re not producing anything.”

“Three years with nothing at all? Not even the odd bloom?”

“Nothing beyond leaves. I fear they may be dying. And I haven’t the foggiest idea what to do. I was trained for war, not managing land and livestock,” he said plaintively.

“Not to mention winemaking, which is another venture entirely.”

“You do sound as if you know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t bother concealing your astonishment,” Tristan said dryly. He finished his drink and placed the glass on the table. “But do enlighten me on one point. With an estate the size of yours, you cannot survive the loss of the vineyard? This is your emergency?”

Griffin colored. “I apologize if my letter made it sound dire. But…this was Charles’s principal project. He invested quite a measure of our fortune in the vineyard, and I’d hate to see it fail.” He hesitated. “I’d hate to think I failed where my brother would have succeeded.” Finally, he met Tristan’s eyes. “To be perfectly candid, I’m not at all confident that I’m ready for this role. I’ve never sought it, never wanted it. But I mean to make the best of it.”

Griffin leaned back against the chair and downed the rest of his drink. Military men didn’t make a habit of baring their souls, Tristan supposed. He appreciated his friend’s honesty.

“I understand,” he said aloud. “I wasn’t raised to be a marquess, either.” Quite the contrary, he’d been born the son of a second son, a mere mister who’d attended the right schools only on the largesse of his uncle. “You’ve only been doing the job a couple of months. You’ll settle into it. I did, eventually.”

Griffin nodded, looking uneasy.

“Shall I have a look at your vineyard?” Tristan began to rise.

“It will have to wait until tomorrow.” Waving him back down, Griffin refilled their glasses. “It’s a good hour each way by horseback, and I’m expecting another caller shortly. A very acceptable suitor for Alexandra’s hand.”

Alexandra. Tristan had always had a soft spot for the eldest Chase sister. He pictured long dark curls and round, thoughtful eyes. She would be seventeen now, no longer a schoolgirl. He wondered how she’d look all grown up.

“We’ll ride over in the morning,” Griffin added. “You’ll stay, won’t you? At least long enough to evaluate the situation?”

“I’ll stay as long as I’m needed.” Though Griffin’s crisis wasn’t as pressing as Tristan had imagined, he wouldn’t turn his back on a friend.

Especially as he didn’t have many to spare.

---

“You look lovely, Alexandra.” Standing in the high gallery, Juliana tweaked her sister’s low, ruffle-edged neckline. “Lord Shelton won’t be able to resist you.”

“Especially after he tries your magical ratafia puffs.” Corinna grabbed one of the small sweets from the tray on a marble side table and popped it into her mouth. She sighed as it dissolved on her tongue. “François said they turned out perfect.”

“Lord Shelton won’t be able to try one if you eat them all first.” Alexandra lifted the silver tray, smiling at the little golden puffs, which had been beautifully arranged by François, their French cook. “Come along, now. Lord Shelton is surely waiting.” She hurried through the gallery, lifting her blue sprigged muslin skirt with one hand while carrying the fancy tray with the other.

Her sisters flanked her going down the wide stone staircase. “Gentlemen expect to wait for ladies,” Juliana said. “It’s not the thing to appear too eager.”

“I don’t care to play those sorts of games,” Alexandra said, gazing down at her sister.

Juliana was exceedingly short—so short she made Alexandra feel tall, although she and Corinna were rather average in height. Juliana, Alexandra had noticed in the brief time Griffin had been inviting his friends to pay calls, attracted young men like bees to honey—most especially the shorter ones.

Thankfully, Lord Shelton was tall.

On the first floor, Alexandra paused in the picture gallery outside the drawing room’s door. Masculine voices drifted out. Griffin must have been entertaining her guest—or, more likely, pestering him into a proposal.

With any luck, his efforts would pay off.

She schooled her expression into a welcoming one and rounded the corner into the room. “Lord Shelton,” she said graciously, “please excuse my tardiness. I hope these sweet confections will redeem me.”

Lord Shelton turned and smiled, walking toward her. But her gaze shifted past him, to where another young man stood with her brother. As he turned slightly and she met his eyes—silver-gray eyes—her heart gave a little skip.

Tris.

He still had the same strong jaw, the same long nose, the same heavy, straight brows. His skin was unfashionably bronzed, as though he’d spent too much time outdoors, and his streaky brown-blond hair still looked tousled, as it used to—and still made her want to run her fingers through it.

The sight of him robbed her of breath.

“Good afternoon, darling,” Lord Shelton said. “I was more than pleased to receive your invitation to take tea.”

She tore her gaze from Tris. Lord Shelton looked wan by comparison, his skin pasty, his hair the lightest blond, his eyes an innocuous blue. Odd that his paleness had never made an impression on her before. It seemed as though he’d faded.

And he wasn’t as tall as she’d thought.

And come to think of it, she didn’t much like being called “darling.”

“Thank you for accepting the invitation,” she murmured, struggling to remember her manners.

“Girls, I’m certain you recall Tristan,” Griffin called out.

Juliana and Corinna curtsied. “Mr. Nesbitt,” they said in unison.

Dazed, Alexandra followed suit. “Mr. Nesbitt.”

“The Marquess of Hawkridge now,” her brother informed them.

Tris was titled? How had that happened? And where had he been all this time? She had a million more questions. She hadn’t seen him in…good heavens, was it three years? While she hadn’t precisely forgotten him in all that time, she had forgotten how looking at him made her insides melt like butter.

“Lord Hawkridge,” she corrected herself.

“Lady Alexandra,” he returned with a vague if polite nod. “And Ladies Juliana and Corinna. You’ve certainly all grown up since I saw you last.” He turned back to Griffin. “Do you know what time of year Charles planted the vines?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Griffin replied.

Alexandra stood blinking. Next to the familiarity of their old relationship, Tris’s dismissal felt rather frosty. Paradoxically, its effect was to heat her insides even further, past melting and on to simmering.

Lord Shelton stepped closer. “Lady Alexandra.” His tone was syrupy sweet. Alexandra supposed he was trying to sound intimate and romantic. She probably would have reacted positively to that yesterday, but today she found it aggravating. She feared steam might begin pouring from her ears.

He lifted her gloved hand and pressed a kiss to the back. “Darling, you look exquisite.”

She didn’t feel exquisite. Right now she felt about as appealing as a puddle of steaming, boiling human-entrail soup.

Juliana elbowed her discreetly. “Perhaps Lord Shelton would like to taste one of your ratafia puffs.”

Alexandra looked down to the silver tray, forgotten in her other hand. “Oh, not quite yet.” Her laughter sounded forced to her own ears. “Don’t you think we should pour the tea first?”

Ignoring her sisters’ puzzled frowns, she walked clear across the room and put the tray on a gilt-legged table that sat against the wall.

Juliana began pouring. “The puffs can hardly work their magic from over there.”

“Magic?” Lord Shelton inquired.

“Please do sit,” Alexandra told him, leaving the tray safely distant while she made her way back across the room. She seated herself on one of the light blue velvet sofas instead of a chair; a tactical error, since Lord Shelton immediately took the place beside her.

That definitely wouldn’t have bothered her yesterday. But his scent—a flowery Oriental mix—seemed suddenly cloying.

When Juliana handed her a teacup, she rose and went to Lord Hawkridge where he was talking with her brother. He smelled of clean soap and starch and that something else that was just him. “Tea, my lord?”

“Thank you.” He took it while barely sparing her a glance. “Not every variety is suited to our climate,” he said to Griffin.

“You’re welcome,” Alexandra murmured.

“Alexandra,” Corinna called conspicuously, “since you’re up, why don’t you get the ratafia puffs and bring them over here?”

“Not just yet.” Alexandra marched to the sofa and plopped back down, giving her sister a pointed look. “I’ve decided I’m not certain I wish to serve the ratafia puffs at all.”

Lord Shelton glanced between them, clearly confused. “And why not?”

“Yes, why not?” Corinna pressed. “They’re supposed to be magical.”

“Precisely.” Alexandra accepted another teacup from Juliana and sipped. “I’ve no wish to employ magic.”

“Magic?” Lord Shelton repeated.

Juliana stood. “May I speak with you in private?” Before Alexandra could disagree, she pulled her up by the arm and drew her out into the picture gallery, Corinna in their wake.

Juliana’s hazel eyes radiated concern. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Alexandra glanced away, her gaze landing on a solemn ancestor who glared from a canvas on the stone wall, looking exceedingly disapproving.

“Nothing?” Corinna, if possible, appeared even more disapproving. “Why won’t you give Lord Shelton one of the magical ratafia puffs?”

“Magical?” Putting scorn into her voice, Alexandra focused on each of her sisters in turn. “Do you truly believe that eggs and sugar can be magical?”

“Of course not,” Corinna said. “But don’t you think it’s worth a try?”

Juliana laid a gloved hand on Alexandra’s arm. “If they did work,” she said gently, “you could add a notation to Eleanor Cainewood’s entry in the recipe book, verifying her allegation. It’s a tradition.”

“I don’t care,” Alexandra said blithely.

At least, she hoped she sounded blithe.

Her sisters stared at her with wide eyes.

“You don’t care?” Juliana breathed. “About tradition?” She pulled off a glove and reached to touch Alexandra’s forehead. “Are you ill?”

“No.” Alexandra drew away. “I just don’t care about this silly tradition.”

“But, Alexandra…” Juliana hugged herself. “You’re the most traditional girl I’ve ever met.”

It was true. Juliana was known for her wild ideas—always meant to help, of course—and Corinna was a bit of a rebel. But Alexandra always did exactly as she ought. She ran her brother’s enormous household like clockwork; she kept up with her correspondence; she visited the villagers and tenants, both healthy and ailing, always with some famous Chase sweets in hand. She could sing, play the pianoforte, make lovely profile portraits, and embroider—and if she wasn’t exactly renowned for any of those talents, at least she was competent.

Alexandra was a perfect lady. The best single word to describe her was traditional. But right at the moment, tradition could hang for all she cared.

She set her jaw. “I don’t want Lord Shelton to eat any ratafia puffs.”

Her sisters exchanged matching looks of astonishment. “Why?” Juliana asked carefully.

Corinna cocked her head. “Are you that certain he’ll propose without them?”

“I’m not certain I wish him to propose at all.”

Juliana dropped her glove. “What?”

“You heard me.” Alexandra drew a deep breath, relieved the truth was out. “I’ve changed my mind.”

Juliana blinked. “But Griffin expects you to marry Lord Shelton.”

When Alexandra only shrugged, Corinna frowned. “You always do what’s expected.”

“How very tedious. It’s about time I broadened my horizons, don’t you think?”

“Girls?” Alexandra’s flabbergasted sisters were saved from answering when Griffin stepped into the gallery. “What are you all doing out here?”

“Talking.” Juliana bent to retrieve her glove.

Griffin looked toward the stone-vaulted ceiling as though praying for heaven-sent strength. “Lord Shelton is inquiring after your presence.” He lowered his gaze to Alexandra and smiled. “He likes your sweets very much.”

“Oh!” she said, when she wanted to say “Drat!” Not that she believed in magic, but…what if the ratafia puffs worked? She didn’t want to actually turn down Lord Shelton’s proposal. Griffin would never forgive her.

“I’m not feeling well,” she told him—and suddenly, it wasn’t a fib. The thought of marrying Lord Shelton made nausea rise in her throat. “Please give Lord Shelton my apologies,” she said. “I must go lie down.”

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