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Chapter One

April 1837

London

It was ti As she climbed the stairs of her parents’ house in Upper Brook Street, Henrietta Cynster mentally rehearsed the news she would have to ied at Lady Montague’s ball

Henrietta sighed Reaching her bedroom door, she opened it and halted on the threshold, arrested by the sight of her younger sister, Mary, riffling through the jewelry box on Henrietta’s dressing table

Mary acknowledged Henrietta’s arrival with a flick of her eyes and continued pawing through the jus, brooches, and beads

Movement drew Henrietta’s attention to the ar out Henrietta’s new royal-blue ball gown, silances at Mary’s slender back

Stepping inside, Henrietta shut the door Like her, Mary was still in her day gown and hadn’t yet changed Curious, she studied Mary’s intent expression; the baby of the fale- she wanted “What are you looking for?”

Mary threw her an i one drawer, she reached for the last, the botto, her fingers, Mary’s face transforers of both hands “I was looking for this”

Eyeing the necklace of fine gold links interspersed with polished a, then noting that Mary’s expression now held the satisfaction of a general who’d just learned his troops had captured a vital enemy position, Henrietta waved dis for me You’re welcome to have it”

Mary’s vivid blue eyes swung to Henrietta’s face “I wasn’t looking for it for me” Mary held out the necklace “You have to wear it”

The necklace had been gifted to the Cynster girls by a Scottish deity, The Lady, and was supposedly a char her true hero, the man by whose side she would live in wedded bliss for the rest of her life Pragmatic and practical, Henrietta had always had difficulty believing in the necklace’s efficacy

More, in the samatic vein, she’d always considered it was unreasonable to expect that all seven Cynster girls of her generation would find love and happiness in the arms of their true heroes, that it was in the cards that one, at least, would not achieve that outcoirl destined to die an old maid would, almost certainly, be her

As she and Mary were the only two Cynster feeneration yet unwed, her prediction of her spinster-forever state see fact She was already twenty-nine and had never been even vaguely teentleine that twenty-two-year-old Mary, dogged, deter her future life, would not achieve her already trenchantly stated goal—na her hero

Sliding her shawl from her shoulders, Henrietta shook her head “I told you—it’s never worked forI presume that’s what this is about—that you want to use it to find your hero?”

“Yes, exactly” Mary’s expression hardened “But I can’t just take it It doesn’t work that way You have to wear it and find your hero first, and then hand it to elica handed it to you, and Eliza handed it to Angelica, and Heather handed it to Eliza before that—on the evening of your engagement ball”

Turning to set the shawl on a chair, Henrietta hid a smile—that of an older, more mature sister at her little sister’s enthusiastic belief in the char to say it has to work for us all”

“Yes, there is” There was nothe crisp certainty in Mary’s tone; as Henrietta turned back to her, she went on, “I asked Catriona, and she asked The Lady, and it’s The Lady’s char to Catriona, The Lady was very clear The necklace has to go from one to the other of us in the stipulated order Specifically, the necklace won’t work for me if it hasn’t already worked for you and you haven’t had your engagement ball So!” Mary drew in a breath and, jaw set, held the necklace out to Henrietta “You have to wear this From now until you find your hero—and pray to The Lady and all the gods that that will be soon”

Frowning slightly, Henrietta reached out and reluctantly lifted the necklace fro itwasn’t really an option Henrietta ht be older, ht be taller by nearly a head, and she certainly wasn’t any illedto deny Mary so she’d set her heart on was a fool’s endeavor, and that was doubly true if she had a logical argument to bolster her case

Letting the links slide through her fingers, Henrietta once again studied Mary’s face “Why are you so eager to have the necklace now? You know I’ve had it since Angelica’s engageo”

“Precisely” Belligerently, Mary narrowed her eyes back “So you’ve had eight years to wear it and find your hero, and instead you’ve put it in your jewelry box and left it there That didn’t matter while I was still in the schoolroom Even after I was presented, I wanted to look aroundthe necklace wasn’t a pr

oblem But I’m twenty-t, and I’m ready to take the next step I want to find e and set upUnlike you, I don’t want to spend the next seven or er at the necklace—“that you have to wear that now, find your hero, and then pass it on to et on with my life”