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Late June, 1825

Eyeworth Manor, near Fritham in the New Forest, Hampshire

Wife, wife, wife, wife

Michael Anstruther-Wetherby swore beneath his breath That refrain had plagued him for the last twenty-four hours When he’d driven away fro breakfast, it had run to the rhyth to the steady clop of his bay gelding’s hooves

Lips setting, he wheeled Atlas out of the stableyard and set out along the drive circling his home

If he hadn’t gone to Ca, he’d already be one step closer to being an affianced ht of ; aside from the fact that his sister Honoria, Duchess of St Ives, had been the hostess, the wedding had been a fa and he valued family ties

Familial links had helped hi his position as Meing his path upward through the ranks, yet that wasn’t the wellspring of his appreciation; fareat deal to him

Rounding his house, a sturdy, three-storied aze went—as it always did when he passed this way—to the e halfway between the house and the gates Set against the dark-leaved shrubs filling the gaps beneath the tall trees, the simple stone had stood for fourteen years; it er brother and sister racing home in a curricle in the teeth of a stor tree He and Honoria had witnessed the accident froh above

Perhaps it was si one had lost

Left shocked, grieving, and adrift, he and Honoria had still had each other, but with him barely nineteen and her sixteen, they’d had to part They’d never lost touch—they were, even now, close—but Honoria had since met Devil Cynster; she now had a family of her own

Slowing Atlas as he approached the stone, Michael was acutely aware that he did not His life was full to bursting, his schedule perennially crammed; it was only in moments like this that the lack shone so clearly, and loneliness jabbed