For Karen Nesbitt,
Taire Martyn Ruffing,
Alison Bellach Sonderegger,
and Caroline Bellach Quick,
four crazy North Americans who share my love of
music, the UK, and good books
ONE
Trentingham Manor, the South of England
September 1677
STANDING IN her family’s small, crowded chapel, Rose Ashcroft shifted on her high Louis-heeled shoes, wishing she were in a cathedral so there would be somewhere to sit.
Wishing she were anywhere but here watching her sister get married.
“Randal John Charles, Earl of Newcliffe, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will.” The confident words boomed through the magnificent oak-paneled chamber, binding Rand to Rose’s sister Lily.
But Rose wasn’t listening to the ceremony. Instead she heard twenty-one, twenty-one, twenty-one running through her head. Twenty-one and a lonely spinster…while both her sisters had found love.
Happy tears brightened their mother’s brown eyes. She leaned close, bumping against Rose’s left side. “They’re perfect together, aren’t they?” she whispered.
Rose could only nod dumbly, staring at her sister’s petite form laced into a gorgeous pale blue satin wedding dress embroidered with gleaming silver thread. Lily’s hair, the same rich sable as Rose’s, cascaded to her shoulders in glossy ringlets. Beside her, Rand beamed a smile, looking tall and utterly handsome in dark blue velvet, his gray gaze steady and adoring.
The two were so clearly in love, Rose knew they belonged together—and truly, she was happy for her sister.
If only Lily weren’t her younger sister.
The priest cleared his throat and looked back down at his Book of Common Prayer. “Lady Lily Ashcroft, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband…”
Standing on Rose’s right, her older sister Violet shifted one of her twin babies on her hip and gazed up at her husband of four years, Ford. Sun streamed through the stained-glass windows, glinting off her spectacles. “Oh, isn’t this romantic?” she sighed.
Holding their other infant, Ford squeezed Violet around the shoulders. Seated cross-legged at their feet, their two-year-old son Nicky traced a finger over the patterns in the colorful glazed tile floor, obliviously happy.
Rose gritted her teeth.
Her friend Judith Carrington poked her from behind. “I cannot believe Lily’s wedding is happening before mine,” she whispered in a tone laced with dismay. “I was betrothed first!”
Rose couldn’t believe Lily and Judith would both be married before she even received a proposal.
“…so long as ye both shall live?” the priest concluded expectantly.
In the hush that followed, even knowing it wasn’t kind of her, Rose half wished Lily would fail to reply.
But Lily didn’t, of course. “I will,” she pledged, her voice as sweet as she was, ringing clear and true.
A few more words, a family heirloom ring slid onto her finger, and Lily was clearly and truly wed now, the new Countess of Newcliffe.
And Rose was clearly and truly miserable.
When Rand lowered his lips to meet Lily’s, Rose turned away. Behind her, Judith was grinning up at her own betrothed—although only a little way up, since his stature was less than impressive. Lord Grenville was five-and-thirty to Judith’s twenty, and his pale brown hair was thinning on top, but Rose imagined that the way Judith looked at him made him feel like a king. And he looked down on her in a way that surely made pretty, plump Judith feel like a queen.
Rose wanted someone who’d make her feel like a queen. Good God, a duchess or countess would do. Or even a lowly baroness…
As the years crawled by without a husband on the horizon, she was getting less picky. So long as the man was titled, handsome, rich, and powerful, most anyone was acceptable.
The guests parted as Lily and Rand began making their way from the chapel. They’d taken but a few steps when a cat, a squirrel, and a chirping sparrow came to join them.
Rose moved to hug her sister. “It was beautiful,” she murmured. “I’m so happy for you.”
She was. Truly she was.
Lily leaned down to pick up the cat, straightening with a brilliant smile. “Your turn next.”
A hurt retort came to Rose’s mind, but she wouldn’t snap at her sister on her wedding day.
“I’m happy for you, too, Rand,” she said instead, rising on her toes to give her sister’s new husband a kiss on the cheek. But not too far up on her toes, because Rose was a tall woman. Too tall, perhaps, or too slim, or too quick-tongued…or too something.
There had to be some reason she had yet to find love.
Too intelligent, most likely. At one point, she’d thought Rand might be the man for her. Handsome, titled, and a professor of linguistics at Oxford—surely a good match for Rose, given her own exceptional command of foreign languages. But he’d chosen her little sister.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said now, making Rose feel the unluckiest woman.
She’d had better days.
Lily must have noticed her dejected expression, because her fingers stopped stroking the cat’s striped fur. Concern clouded her lovely blue eyes. “You will be next,” she said quietly.
“Undoubtedly so, since I’m the only one left,” Rose quipped. “Unless, that is, Rowan manages to find himself a bride before I find a groom.”
They both swung to look at their eleven-year-old brother where he stood with Violet’s young niece, Jewel, their dark heads close together as they whispered animatedly.
“He may have found himself a bride already,” Rose added dryly.
Lily’s laughter rang through the chapel, echoing off the molded dome ceiling. “Surely someone will claim you long before Rowan gets it in his head to wed. Why, you’re the most beautiful of all of us, Rose!”
Rose had always thought Lily the most beautiful, but she knew she was beautiful, too. Yet beauty, she’d learned, was not
