Tied With a Bow

grain of salt. But . . .
    “Hartfell? He is a bastard.”
    “Amy!”
    “I do not criticize his character, you understand. But he is Amherst’s natural son.”
    Many noblemen had children out of wedlock. But eleven seemed excessive, even for an earl as wealthy as Amherst.
    Personally, Aimée did not care what Mr. Hartfell’s birth was. But she worried her cousin might be courting heartbreak. Lady Basing did not in any way espouse the Revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and sovereignty of the people. Surely she would not approve of such a connection.
    Julia tossed her curls, moving away from the mirror. “Lucien’s father is an earl. Papa is only a baronet.”
    “But Hartfell has no fortune,” Aimée said.
    “I believe the earl has settled some unentailed property on him. Anyway”—Julia lifted her chin—“what is the point of having a large dowry if I can’t buy the husband I want?”
    “Your parents will never consent,” Aimée warned.
    “Mama has already invited him. She’ll do what I want,” Julia asserted with all the confidence of a girl whose wishes had been indulged for the past eighteen years. “And Papa will do what she tells him.”
    Aimée raised her eyebrows. “The perfect model for marriage, in fact.”
    Her memories of her parents’ marriage were colored by the golden haze of childhood, when she had been safe and secure. But she liked to think they had loved one another. Certainly they had loved her.
    Julia met her gaze, her eyes alight with mischief. “Precisely. A purchased husband will be so much easier to manage, don’t you think?”
    Aimée laughed and shook her head. “I will tell you after I have met the gentleman. He may be less tractable once he has control of your fortune.”
    “Unless he falls wildly and madly in love with me.” Julia did a little twirl of glee, almost knocking into the bed. “Oh, Amy, it’s going to be the most delightful Christmas ever.”
    Aimée raised her eyebrows. She had always enjoyed the church service on Christmas morning, but the holiday was marked primarily by presents to the servants and children. She found it difficult to understand her cousin’s enthusiasm. “You expect Mr. Hartfell to present himself tied with a bow?”
    Julia giggled. “No, silly. Mama’s promised to hold a ball on Christmas Day. A masked ball, just like at Vauxhall. Isn’t that exciting?”
    A masked ball. At Moulton. On Christmas Day.
    Just for a moment, Aimée’s heart lifted as if she were quite as young and pretty and privileged as her cousin. Her head swirled with visions of candles, dresses, and dancing.
    “I shall be Venus, goddess of love and beauty,” Julia said dreamily.
    Aimée smiled wryly, recalled to reality. “Naked on a clamshell?”
    “I won’t be naked, silly. Mama has hired Mrs. Pockley from the village to make my costume.”
    Aimée smothered a sigh of relief. At least she would not have to add costume sewing to her other duties. “I don’t remember Venus wearing many clothes.”
    “Diana, then. The virgin huntress, fair and unattainable as the moon. With lots of silver drapery and diamonds like stars in my hair. And you must dress up, too.”
    Aimée wondered what Lady Basing would say about that. Certainly, there would be no diamonds for her hair.
    Her throat tightened. She had a sudden, poignant memory of Maman, her hair dressed high and a jeweled locket—a gift from Papa—at her throat, swooping down to envelope Aimée in a warm embrace and a cloud of perfume.
    Gone now. All gone.
    But such thinking was foolishness.
    Aimée straightened her spine.
    She would not give in to self-pity. She was grateful to her mother’s cousin for the roof over her head and the food she ate and . . . Well, she was grateful. With the servants already run off their feet with preparations for the house party, it would be her duty to make all of Lady Basing’s arrangements go as smoothly as possible, to keep track of the guest list and write the invitations, to assist with the menu and the decorations and the hundred and one other details that must accompany a ball, even in the country.
    This was her life now. Aimée stabbed her needle at a large darn, ignoring the jab at her heart.
    What she made of it was up to her.

Chapter Three
     
    Lucien had always scorned the London marriage mart, the annual parade of well-bred chits trotted out like fillies at auction by their fond mamas and ambitious papas in hopes of attracting a