Chapter One

Never appear to be too captivated by a gentleman, particularly if it is true. Revealing your weakness for him will give him the upper hand, and a woman needs all the power she can muster if she is to triumph.
—An Anonymous Lady, Advice to Young Ladies on Capturing a Husband


London, September 1817


“Eleanor, my dear, the worst has happened! Wrexham is here.”

Her heart leaping at her aunt’s disconcerting news, Lady Eleanor Pierce froze on the sidelines of the crowded hall. “Here? Tonight? At Carlton House?”

“Indeed. His arrival was just announced.” Elea?nor’s proper aunt and chaperone, Lady Beldon, made a sour face. “The nerve of him! He should have the decency to respect your sensibilities.”

Eleanor agreed that Damon Stafford, Viscount Wrexham, had a great deal of nerve. In truth, Damon was the boldest man of her acquaintance. But she had braced her sensibilities against the impact of seeing him again—or so she’d believed until just this moment.

Eleanor smiled in an effort to pretend composure and to slow her all too rapid heartbeat. “I daresay Lord Wrexham has a right to attend Prinny’s fete, Aunt Beatrix. No doubt he was invited, just as we were.”

George, Prince of Wales and currently England’s Regent, regularly entertained at Carlton House, his garishly grand London residence. And Lady Beldon was sometimes included on the guest list, since her late husband had been an intimate of the pleasure-loving Regent’s set.

Tonight the overheated mansion was filled with a crush of elegant gentry and aristocrats. Yet a surreptitious glance...