“Sisters are supposed to be devoted. Perhaps I’ll write an air to show off Lady Lily’s voice.”

“Cousins are supposed to be devoted.” Clonmere took off across the street, entirely frustrated with the time spent with Falmouth’s daughters. He’d undertaken the call to get the initial introductions over with, and to gather information regarding the best means of courting Lady Iris.

“How can a woman be so firmly un-courtable?” he asked.

Cousin Thomas hung back, not quite keeping pace, not quite falling behind. “Lady Lily is eminently court-able. She’s intelligent, knowledgeable, pretty, soft-spoken, knows Beethoven from Mozart and is pretty.”

“You mentioned that.” Twice.

“Well, she is. If you hadn’t been so busy stuffing yourself with tea cakes, you might have noticed that she’s the pick of the litter.”

“Stop languishing at my elbow. Falmouth’s daughters are not puppies.”

Cousin Thomas picked up his pace, barely. “As your cousin, I feel honor-bound to express my opinion that Lady Lily would make you an excellent duchess. The other two are chatterboxes who haven’t outgrown sibling rivalry.”

“And Lady Iris?”

Cousin Thomas linked his hands behind his back, a pose he probably practiced: Composer looking handsome in a creative fog.

“Lady Iris is a perfectly pleasant woman but she lacks…. Sparkle. A duchess should sparkle, tastefully.”

Clonmere barely restrained the urge to shove Cousin Thomas into the street. “She sparkles. You’re too blinded by music to see it.”

“Are you daft, Clonmere? I mean Lady Iris no insult, but she’s not youthful, she’s not musical. She’s not… I have danced with Lady Iris several times in an effort to gain closer acquaintance with Lady Lily. Lady Iris is oblivious to my cause, and now I know why.”

Thomas presented as a placid, dreamy soul who would nonetheless work himself to exhaustion when in the grip of inspiration. He was in the grip of something now, something interesting.

“I say Lady Iris is the most duchess-like of the sisters,” Clonmere retorted. “She is gracious, kind, dignified, selfless, and uncomplaining.”

“And that won’t result in any grand finales.”

“What are you going on about?”

“Molto appassionato,” Thomas said, waving his hands. “Vivace, Con brio. Fire, Clodpate-mere. I fear the Portuguese sun has addled what few wits God gave you, if you can’t see those qualities in Lady Lily.”

Clonmere had read Cervantes, and he knew a man enthralled when he saw one. “You are an honorable man, Thomas, and a good cousin.”

His shoulders slumped. “You’ll marry Lady Lily then?”

Hercules had pulled off more than one of his labors with the aid of loyal companions. In a pinch, a cousin could be recruited to that role.

“I haven’t made up my mind. I’ve only met the ladies, and marriage is forever.”

Thomas paused at the next crossing. “If you break Lady Lily’s heart, I will break your nose.” He’d do it, too, despite the damage to his own knuckles.

“Good decisions are made based on good information. I don’t know enough about Lady Lily to make any decisions about her.”

“Then you’re a dunderhead, though we knew that about you.”

“Take pity on a dunderheaded duke and get to the know the lady. I must find a way to pry the twins apart long enough to become familiar with them individually. That will take effort and time, leaving you to scout the terrain where Lady Lily is concerned.”

Thomas gazed off across the square. He was a handsome devil, his dark hair fell over his forehead a la Byron, and while he was tall, he wasn’t a brutish looby who went around lifting carriages in public.

“Lady Lily will need friends,” Thomas said. “Especially if she’s to become your duchess, she’ll need friends.”

Clonmere clapped him on the shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. Now, do you happen to know which clubs Amherst and Derwood frequent?”

Thomas brushed at his coat sleeve as if a cousinly display of affection was unwelcome. “They frequent them all, depending on where they have credit left. This time of the month, the Brigadier is your best bet. The ale is good quality, the spirits reasonably priced. Nobody plays too deeply.”

“Then I’m away to the Brigadier. My thanks for your assistance.”

Thomas sidled off down the walkway, humming a minor tune. Clonmere let him go and ducked into the nearest flower shop. He sent a bouquet to the ladies of Falmouth’s house—sweet pea, in thanks for a lovely time—but for his lapel he chose an iris.

IRIS WATCHED Clonmere dance with her sisters at one ball after another, watched as each lady grew in confidence and grace for having become one of very few whom His Grace partnered. She listened to the envious speculation of the wall flowers, the sighing asides of the chaperones.

And she’d smiled more in the past three weeks than in the previous four years, then gone home and hugged her pillow in solitude.

Clonmere was nothing if not conscientious about getting to know her sisters. Soon he’d make his choice, and Iris could retire to country with Cousin Hattie.

Though the countryside had few bookshops, and Iris didn’t have any friends there.

Then too, Puck would be a member of the rural household, and he had a disagreeable habit of leaving evidence of feline dyspepsia on carpets and stairs, and cat hair everywhere.

“I’ll have you to cheer me up,” Iris said, patting Rosie’s shoulder. Though Rosie was getting on in years, and she preferred driving to going under saddle, while Iris loved a good gallop.

Iris’s groom was a good dozen yards back, chatting with another groom. The path ahead was quiet with the stillness of pre-dawn, a good time to feel sorry for oneself or to canter away regrets.

“My lady.” The bushes to the right rustled to reveal Clonmere on his gray. “Good day.”

Must he look so delectable in his riding attire? Must he sit that horse like he was born atop it?

“Your Grace, good morning.”

“Keep me company, won’t you?” he said, steering his horse to Rosie’s side. “I’m without siblings today, and the rare solitude has left Boru fidgety.”

“He’s Irish stock?”

“A present from my godfather. So which of the Fallon sisters should I marry?”

Me. You should marry me. Except that made no sense. Iris was the oldest, the plainest, the least outgoing. Her settlements were modest, while her sisters would likely bring handsome sums to the negotiations.

“You should marry the lady with whom you are most compatible, though all three of my sisters would try hard to make a marriage to you successful.”

I’d try harder. The earl would be furious, though, and likely banish his daughters to Surrey. Peter might try to intervene for his sisters, but he was still not of age and had no funds of his own.

Clonmere took a turning onto a narrower path, so that Rosie and the duke’s gelding had to amble along shoulder to shoulder.

“I ask your opinion,” Clonmere said, “because your sisters have given me no clue which of them esteems me most highly. They are all that is charming, they waltz very well, and ask me the polite questions a lady is trained to ask her dance partner, but they are sphinxes when it comes to the matter of their regard for me.”

He sounded honestly puzzled, as if young women who struggled with French might have no instincts when it came to preserving their privacy before a potential suitor.

“You could ask them,” Iris said. “You ask them if they want to marry you. I’m sure nobody has.” Iris certainly hadn’t.

“Fine thing, when a woman is supposed to be thrilled to marry a man because three hundred years ago, his ancestor chose the winning side of some battle or endowed a cause dear to an impecunious monarch.”

Clonmere, a handsome, single, wealthy, young duke, felt invisible, precisely because he was handsome, single, wealthy, and a duke. Oh, the irony.

“I’d marry you,” Iris said. “Not because of your lucky ancestor.”

The horses stopped beneath a canopy of green. “Why would you marry me? I lack refinement, I like making wine, my siblings run roughshod over me, I have the singing voice of a drunken donkey, and I will spoil my children rotten so they can run roughshod over me as well. Any duchess with an ounce of sense will find me utterly unimpressive.”

Do you promise, about spoiling the children? “I would marry you,” Iris said, “because you are kind and honorable, you like to laugh, you enjoy being useful, and you are tolerant of fat felines. Puck’s singing voice does not recommend him, but he seldom wants for the companionship of pretty females.”

The duke fiddled with his reins, then straightened the angle of his hat. “Thomas says Lady Lily’s soprano is extraordinary.”

I lay my heart at your feet, and you bring up Lily’s warbling. “His opinion would mean a lot to her.”

“Could it be that Thomas means a lot to her? Every time I lead her from the dance floor, he seems to be her next partner.”

“And Mr. Dersham and Mr. Amherst have apparently taken an interest in Holly and Hyacinth, respectively. This is your fault, Your Grace.”

He sat straighter in the saddle. “My fault?”

“Because you show such marked interest in my sisters, they have become sought after by all. They are treated differently in the shops, when they go for an ice, when they merely tarry in the churchyard on a fine spring morning. You have caused them to be seen and appreciated for the jewels they are.”

“You say Amherst and Dersham are taken with the twins?”

“You are so busy paying court to your prospective duchesses that you aren’t minding the gossip, Your Grace. The twins have gone driving as a foursome with Misters Dersham and Amherst on three occasions.”

Leaving Iris in the sewing room with Puck, and a bad case of suitor-envy. Dersham and Amherst had, as Clonmere predicted, become best of friends, and they were well situated bachelors. Were Clonmere not in the picture, either man would have made an admirable suitor.

Though Clonmere was in the picture, and looking delectable on his grey gelding.

“I suppose if I marry Lady Lily, then the twins will be pleased to have other options. I believe Thomas has taken a fancy to Lily, though, so marrying her could be problematic. I don’t see a way forward that doesn’t leave somebody disgruntled and unhappy. Have you any advice for me, Lady Iris?”

That he was concerned for the feelings of others, especially for the feelings of Iris’s sisters, spoke well of him, and yet, Iris was annoyed.

Furious, in fact.

“My sisters are not cravat pins, to be chosen among based on your whim or fancy. They are dear young women with feelings and dreams. They didn’t ask for this ridiculous situation, and yet, they will be the ones affected.”

Blue eyes went frosty. “I didn’t ask for it either, Lady Iris.”

“But you agreed to it. You’re a duke. Papa would have had no recourse if you’d asserted your authority. He’s trading on your agreeable nature and your respect for your mama, and you have offered not one word of protest. I had best be going.”

He drew his gelding to the edge of the path. “A moment please.”

In a moment, I will cry. “I will not be your spy, Clonmere. I’ve told my sisters what little I know of you, and that is the extent to which I’m willing to participate in this farce.”

Clonmere passed over a silk handkerchief with his coat of arms embroidered onto the corner. “I beg your pardon, my lady, for having spoken cavalierly about a serious matter affecting those you care for. Your good opinion of me matters exceedingly.”