“That’s where we disagree,” said Newbury. “My own Margaret kept her thoughts to herself. We had a splendid union.”

“Stayed out of your way, did she?” Lord Vickers said.

“As I said, it was a splendid union.”

Annabel looked at Louisa, sitting so properly in the chair next to her. Her cousin was a wisp of a thing, with slender shoulders, light brown hair and eyes of the palest green. Annabel always thought she looked like a bit of a monster next to her. Her own hair was dark and wavy, her skin the sort that would tan if she allowed herself too much time in the sun, and her figure had been attracting unwanted attention since her twelfth summer.

But never-never-had attentions been any less wanted than they were right now, with Lord Newbury staring at her like a sugared treat.

Annabel sat quietly, trying to emulate Louisa and not allow any of her thoughts to show on her face. Her grandmother was forever scolding her for being too expressive. “For the love of God,” was a familiar refrain. “Stop smiling as if you know something. Gentlemen don’t want a lady who knows things. Not as a wife, anyway.”

At this point Lady Vickers usually took a drink and added, “You can know lots of things after you’re married. Preferably with a gentleman other than your husband.”

If Annabel hadn’t known things before, she certainly did now. Like the fact that at least three of the Vickers offspring were probably not Vickerses. Her grandmother, Annabel was coming to realize, had, in addition to a remarkably blasphemous vocabulary, a rather fluid view on morality.

Gloucestershire was beginning to seem like a dream. Everything in London was so…shiny. Not literally, of course. In truth, everything in London was rather gray, dusted over by a thin sheen of soot and dirt. Annabel wasn’t really sure why “shiny” was the word that had come to mind. Perhaps it was because nothing seemed simple. Definitely not straightforward. And maybe even a little slippery.