Prologue
London, Summer 1812
This damned limp ruins my appearance.
Eighteen-year-old Samantha Douglas watched herself in the cheval glass as she crossed the bedchamber. Her blue silk gown matched her eyes, and her aunt’s maid had dressed her ebony hair in an upswept fashion.
Samantha decided that she had never looked so pretty. No one would ever guess from her appearance that she hadn’t led a pampered life as a member of the Quality. She felt like a princess . . . until she walked.
Why was I the one run over by the carriage? Why couldn’t it have been—?
Samantha banished that uncharitable thought. She could never wish what happened to her on anyone else.
Turning away from the mirror, Samantha tried to calm her nerves by focusing on her bedchamber. This one chamber was larger than the old cottage. She’d only been in residence at the Duke of Inverary’s for two weeks and was still unused to the opulence. She could hardly believe her deceased parents and her aunt had lived almost their entire lives with this luxury.
“Are you ready to meet society?”
Samantha turned at the sound of her younger sister’s voice. “I’m not going to the ball.”
“Are you ill?” Victoria hurried across the chamber.
“My limp prevents me from walking gracefully, never mind dancing,” Samantha said, her expression glum.
Hopping Giles . . . Hopping Giles . . . Hopping Giles.
Samantha recalled the jeering name reserved for cripples that was hurled at her since the carriage accident. Like an old friend, heartache for being different swept through her. The little girl who limped was always chosen last for games with other children. There was no reason to think the young woman who limped would be anything other than a wallflower.
“No gentleman will ask a pathetic cripple to dance,” Samantha said, unable to mask the catch of emotion in her voice.
“A slight limp does not make you a cripple,” Victoria argued. “We have more to worry about than your limp. If anyone discovers we’re frauds, we’ll never find husbands.”
“We are not frauds,” called Angelica, the oldest Douglas sister, walking into the bedchamber. “Father was the Earl of Melrose, and since his passing, I am the Countess of Melrose.”
“Father lost the Douglas fortune,” Victoria reminded her.
“He didn’t lose it,” Angelica corrected her. “Charles Emerson swindled him out of it.”
“We have nothing to recommend us but our wits and the Duke of Inverary’s generosity,” Samantha said. “We are pretending to be wealthy.”
Angelica waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Everyone pretends to have more than they do.”
“Aunt Roxie said you’re going to marry the marquess and become a duchess when the duke dies.” Victoria sighed. “I wonder whom Samantha and I will marry.”
“I’m not going tonight,” Samantha said.
“Get Aunt Roxie,” Angelica ordered Victoria. Then she turned to Samantha. “Why don’t you want to go? You look beautiful. Think how much fun our first ball will be.”
Samantha leveled a skeptical look on her. “All my life I’ve listened to children calling me Hopping Giles,” she said, unable to keep the raw pain out of her voice. “I couldn’t bear for society to whisper behind their hands about me. What gentleman will ask a cripple to dance?”
“Sister, do not let a simple limitation ruin your life.”
“That’s so easy for you to say,” Samantha replied. “No one ever had a cruel word for you. You’re beautiful, talented, and intelligent. The Marquess of Argyll adores you.”
“You have gifts, too,” Angelica said, touching her sister’s shoulder. “You are exceptionally lovely and the kindest and most charitable lady I know.”
“Gentlemen do not value kindness and charity,” Samantha told her. “Gentlemen prefer beauty and talent and intelligence.” When her sister arched a brow at her, Samantha gave her a grudging smile. “All right, gentlemen do not value intelligence in a woman so much as her beauty and talent.”
The door crashed open. Auburn-haired and voluptuous, Aunt Roxie marched into the bedchamber. “What is the problem?”
“I told you,” Victoria said. “Samantha isn’t going to the ball. She—”
Aunt Roxie glared at her youngest niece, and then looked at Samantha. “Don’t sit down,” she ordered.
Samantha bolted to attention. “Why can’t I sit?”
“Your gown will wrinkle.”
“I am not attending the ball,” Samantha insisted, her expression mulish.