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cur.”
    “ A damned cur who will help
you find a bride and keep your fortunes.”
    Blast him. “Fair enough. What else must I do?”
    “ Well, I would suggest we
try a different tactic for gaining introductions to the
marriageable young ladies. Perhaps I should go with you to some
functions, introduce you around. If you are seen alongside me,
maybe your reputation will begin to change.”
    Quin imagined being shackled to
Jonas’s side, only talking to those who the esteemed baronet deemed
worthy of his company. “So you’re going to be my deuced
escort?”
    “ Not exactly. But you need
someone to soften your image. And you need me for another reason,
too.”
    “ What, pray tell, might
that be?” Quin asked, unable to hide the droll tone.
    “ Rotheby wants an heir
within a year. That means you needed a bride yesterday. You should
already be working toward filling your nursery, but instead, you
haven’t even begun the search for the lady to do just
that.”
    “ And how are you involved
in all of this?”
    “ I’ve spent several Seasons
in Town. I know which ladies are most likely to be in desperate
need of a husband. Which I’m afraid you’ll need. Desperation, that
is. Why else would a young miss be inclined to hitch herself to the
likes of you?”
    Why, indeed?
     

Chapter Two
     
    31 March, 1811
     
    Aunt Sedgewick’s voice can
be dreadfully nasally and high-pitched at times. Perhaps it is
because she always speaks with her nose turned high in the air. I
daresay if more people followed her example, we might live in a
country full of nasally-sounding speakers. I should hate to live in
such a country. It would be rather awful enough to keep my
attentions from where I would prefer them to be at the
moment — imagining
what Lord Quinton must be like, should I ever be afforded the
opportunity to meet him. However, I would be stunned to my core if
the man would ever make any statement at all related to Aunt
Sedgewick’s décolletage.
     
    ~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt
     
    The dinner party seemed interminable.
Baffling. Boring. And, as the hostess alongside her father, Aurora
simply could not escape early.
    Try as she might to focus on the
conversation around the table, her thoughts kept drifting back to
her story—which was rapidly becoming the most delightful, and
admittedly risqué, story she had ever written.
    This fact did not surprise her
overmuch. Aurora’s typical story fodder revolved around the
gentlemen who paid her court. Gentlemen much like the ones
currently around her dinner table, discussing the lovely fireworks
they had seen at Vauxhall the previous evening, the soprano who had
performed an aria at Lady Pendleton’s concert the prior week, and
the likelihood of continued sunshine over the next
fortnight.
    Humdrum, all of it.
    Lord Norcutt, a perfectly
amiable, perfectly attired, perfectly boring marquess who had
recently begun to show signs of a developing tendre for her, turned and asked,
“Miss Hyatt, if we are so lucky as to enjoy sunshine tomorrow
afternoon, might I take you for a drive in Hyde Park? My horses are
raring to get out for a good ride, and my curricle has been sorely
lacking in spirited companionship of late.”
    Spirited
companionship ? Had he failed to notice her
slightly less-than-animated participation that evening?
    “ She would be delighted,”
Father said.
    Aurora wished her eyes were bows and
her glare was arrows. Her aim rarely failed, and at the moment, it
was pointed directly at her father’s head. He raised an eyebrow in
reply, then gestured toward Lord Norcutt.
    Blast him. “Yes, of course,” she
finally ground out. “That would be splendid.”
    Aunt Sedgewick slurped up a spoonful
of her soup and a few drops dribbled off her chin. “And Aurora, do
be a dear and try to smile for once. You have enough working
against you already with your mother’s coloring. You make yourself
ever so much more unappealing by constantly frowning at the
gentlemen