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Prologue

Once upon a tio

(or, to be exact, March 1812)

there was a girl as destined to be a princess Though to be absolutely precise, there was no prince in the offing But she was betrothed to a duke’s heir, and froood as a crown

This story begins with that girl, and continues through a storht, and a series of tests, and if there’s no pea in the tale, all I can say is that if you read on, you will encounter a surprise in that bed: a key, a flea--or perhaps a marquess, for that matter

In fairy tales, the ability to perceive an obtrusion as tiny as a pea under the irl who arrives on a storht is indeed a princess In the real world, of course, it’s a bit more complicated In order to prepare for the rank of duchess, Miss Olivia Mayfield Lytton had learned soe She was prepared to dine with a king, or a fool, or Socrates hi as Italian cole dried pea was all that was needed to determine the authenticity of the princess, one crucial fact deteribility for the rank of duchess: she was betrothed to the heir to the Canterwick dukedoins Olivia enty-three and still unmarried, that her father had no title, and that she had never been given a compliment such as a diamond of the first water Quite the opposite, in fact

None of that mattered

One

In Which We Are Introduced to a Future Duchess

41 Clarges Street, Mayfair

London

The residence of Mr Lytton, Esq

Most betrothals spring froreed or love But Olivia Lytton’s was fueled neither by an exchange of assets between like-minded aristocrats, nor by a potent mixture of desire, propinquity, and Cupid’s arrows