The earl and countess were nothing if not pragmatic, and given the childhood mortality rate, they were aware that Sebastian had quite a good chance of becoming the eighth Earl of Westborough. Soon after, Julianna, Christina, and Ariana arrived in rapid succession, and as it was apparent at a very young age that all three would become beauties, much attention was paid to them. Advantageous marriages could do much to fill the family coffers.

A few years later a stillborn boy arrived. No one was particularly happy about the loss, but then again, no one grieved overmuch. Five attractive and reasonably intelligent children seemed an abundance of riches, and truth be told, another baby would have been simply another mouth to feed. The Blackwoods may have been living in a magnificent old house, but it was a trial each month just to pay the bills. And it certainly never occurred to the earl to try toearn a living.

But then tragedy struck, and the earl was killed when his carriage overturned in a rainstorm. At the tender age of ten, Damien found himself with a title. The family scarcely had time to mourn when much to everyone's surprise, Lady Westbor-ough discovered that she was once again with child. And in the spring of 1787, she produced one last baby. The effort was exhausting, and she never quite regained her strength. And so, tired and irritable, not to mention more than a little worried about the family finances, she took one look at her seventh child, sighed, and said, "I suppose we'll just call him John. I'm too tired to think of anything better."

And after that somewhat inauspicious entry into the world, John was-for the lack of a better word-forgotten.

His family had little patience with him, and he spent far more time in the company of tutors than relations. He was sent off to Eton and Oxford, not out of any great concern for his schooling, but rather because that was what good families did for their sons, even the youngest ones who were irrelevant to dynastic lineages.