Chapter One
Brampton Manor
Hertfordshire
“We will have to be wicked, improper, and terribly scandalous.”
Those words fell trembling from the lips of Lady Maryann Fitzwilliam, a young lady who wouldn’t know what it meant to be scandalous if it slapped her across the face at the crest of each dawn.
It was a concept wholly improbable to the Honourable Katherine Iphigenia Danvers—Kitty to her friends and family—but nevertheless she felt effortlessly captivated. Or perhaps the sinful plan burning within her heart—the one she had prayed for, asking for a sign—was being validated.
It has to be. Ladies who were regulated to the status of wallflowers and spinsters were never wicked…and most assuredly never terribly scandalous.
“Wicked!” all four other young ladies present at their intrepid meeting chorused.
There was a breathless pause, the only sound in the drawing room the strains of the orchestra filtering through the closed doors as they played from the grand ballroom several doors away.
“Yes,” replied Maryann empathically, her gaze piercing her audience with its bright resolve. She stood and sauntered to the center of the room, the hem of her elegantly draped icy blue gown swishing over the Aubusson carpet. How delightful Maryann appeared this evening, yet Kitty knew she had not yet been asked to the dance floor.
Maryann folded her arms beneath her bosom and captured all their attention with a steely gaze. “I am not content with my lot. I cannot believe any of you is happy with your situation. We must be daring and take what we need instead of waiting, wasting away on the shelves our family and society have placed us on. We are all over two and twenty, we’re not getting any younger, and our prospects grow dimmer each year. What have we to lose?”
“I daresay you may be correct, Maryann,” chimed in Lady Ophelia Darby, another member of their society, jokingly named the Sinful Wallflowers. Only they hadn’t done anything sinful, except for the time they had emptied a bottle of Ophelia’s father’s finest whiskey among them, giggling and hiccupping like loons in the night. Ophelia was their most illustrious member, being the daughter of a marquess, albeit without a dowry. Her deep golden-brown eyes were filled with trepidation—and a glimmer of excitement, if Kitty was not mistaken.
“I’ve been out since I was eighteen, and each season is growing more painful than the last,” Ophelia said.
There were several nods, which seemingly granted Maryann more courage, for her shoulders squared, a sparkle lit in her hazel eyes, and determination settled across every line of her willowy frame. “We all want to experience something other than the humdrum that is our lives.”
More enthusiastic nods followed.
“We all want families,” continued Maryann. “Don’t we? Or even just a moment where we are more than what society tells us to be?”
There was another aching, breathless pause as all six members of their private club sat on the edge of their padded chairs, a charged excitement and the sense of something different happening at tonight’s impromptu meeting enveloping the room.
“We want love,” murmured Miss Charlotte Nelson, a flush rising in her cheeks. Everyone knew she was painfully, desperately in love with the Marquess of Sands, and he had not deigned to notice her.
They were all overlooked, of course. Kitty and her friends were rarely asked to dance at balls, or called upon by gentlemen, or asked to ride in Hyde Park, or even to afternoon teas by the diamonds of each season.
“We want love, even passion, and we’ve all endured a few seasons. We are wallflowers with little prospect of ever attaining a well-connected match,” Maryann said fiercely.
The nods turned into longing sighs.
Impatience burned along Kitty’s nerves, and a sense of something new and wonderful hovered, if only she could reach for it.
Kitty and her friends had been withering away in the ton, season by season, with no chances of improving their prospects. They were all fairly attractive but could not be considered great beauties, nor were they especially accomplished, having little useful connections and less dowries to inspire any real serious matrimonial attachments. They were generally ignored by those young gentlemen in society who were looking for a bride.
Yet a lingering desire to wed and have their own families resided in each of their hearts. Or perhaps, they wanted only to feel what it was like to drop their handkerchief in front of a gentleman who would pick it up, ask them to dance, and send them flowers the next day.
“How marvelous if we should all be guilty of doing something wicked, just for once,” Kitty said softly, drawing five pairs of eyes to settle on her person. A wild idea had overtaken her good sense, borne of desperation. It was dredged from a place beyond logic or reason.
Kitty knew who the desires in her heart were for, though they were not traditional desires—Alexander Masters, the reclusive Duke of Thornton. He was the solution to turning ar