The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2)(4)

With their straitened finances, the Sheffields could manage the funds for only one trip to London. Renting a house—and a carriage—and hiring the bare minimum of servants for the season cost money. More money than they could afford to spend twice. As it was, they’d had to save for five solid years to be able to afford this trip to London. And if the girls weren’t successful on the Marriage Mart…well, no one was going to clap them into debtor’s prison, but they would have to look forward to a quiet life of genteel poverty at some charmingly small cottage in Somerset.

And so the two girls were forced to make their debuts in the same year. It had been decided that the most logical time would be when Edwina was just seventeen and Kate almost twenty-one. Mary would have liked to have waited until Edwina was eighteen, and a bit more mature, but that would have made Kate nearly twenty-two, and heavens, but who would marry her then?

Kate smiled wryly. She hadn’t even wanted a season. She’d known from the outset that she wasn’t the sort who would capture the attention of the ton. She wasn’t pretty enough to overcome her lack of dowry, and she’d never learned to simper and mince and walk delicately, and do all those things other girls seemed to know how to do in the cradle. Even Edwina, who didn’t have a devious bone in her body, somehow knew how to stand and walk and sigh so that men came to blows just for the honor of helping her cross the street.

Kate, on the other hand, always stood with her shoulders straight and tall, couldn’t sit still if her life depended upon it, and walked as if she were in a race—and why not? she always wondered. If one was going somewhere, what could possibly be the point in not getting there quickly?

As for her current season in London, she didn’t even like the city very much. Oh, she was having a good enough time, and she’d met quite a few nice people, but a London season seemed a horrible waste of money to a girl who would have been perfectly content to remain in the country and find some sensible man to marry there.

But Mary would have none of that. “When I married your father,” she’d said, “I vowed to love you and bring you up with all the care and affection I’d give to a child of my own blood.”

Kate had managed to get in a single, “But—” before Mary carried on with, “I have a responsibility to your poor mother, God rest her soul, and part of that responsibility is to see you married off happily and securely.”

“I could be happy and secure in the country,” Kate had replied.

Mary had countered, “There are more men from which to choose in London.”

After which Edwina had joined in, insisting that she would be utterly miserable without her, and since Kate never could bear to see her sister unhappy, her fate had been sealed.

And so here she was—sitting in a somewhat faded drawing room in a rented house in a section of London that was almost fashionable, and…

She looked about mischievously.

…and she was about to snatch a newspaper from her sister’s grasp.

“Kate!” Edwina squealed, her eyes bugging out at the tiny triangle of newsprint that remained between her right thumb and forefinger. “I wasn’t done yet!”

“You’ve been reading it forever,” Kate said with a cheeky grin. “Besides, I want to see what she has to say about Viscount Bridgerton today.”

Edwina’s eyes, which were usually compared to peaceful Scottish lochs, glinted devilishly. “You’re awfully interested in the viscount, Kate. Is there something you’re not telling us?”

“Don’t be silly. I don’t even know the man. And if I did, I would probably run in the opposite direction. He is exactly the sort of man the two of us should avoid at all costs. He could probably seduce an iceberg.”

“Kate!” Mary exclaimed.

Kate grimaced. She’d forgotten her stepmother was listening. “Well, it’s true,” she added. “I’ve heard he’s had more mistresses than I’ve had birthdays.”

Mary looked at her for a few seconds, as if trying to decide whether or not she wanted to respond, and then finally she said, “Not that this is an appropriate topic for your ears, but many men have.”

“Oh.” Kate flushed. There was little less appealing than being decisively contradicted while one was trying to make a grand point. “Well, then, he’s had twice as many. Whatever the case, he’s far more promiscuous than most men, and not the sort Edwina ought to allow to court her.”

“You are enjoying a season as well,” Mary reminded her.

Kate shot Mary the most sarcastic of glances. They all knew that if the viscount chose to court a Sheffield, it would not be Kate.

“I don’t think there is anything in there that’s going to alter your opinion,” Edwina said with a shrug as she leaned toward Kate to get a better view of the newspaper. “She doesn’t say very much about him, actually. It’s more of a treatise on the topic of rakes.”

Kate’s eyes swept over the typeset words. “Hmmph,” she said, her favorite expression of disdain. “I’ll wager she’s correct. He probably won’t come up to scratch this year.”

“You always think Lady Whistledown is correct,” Mary murmured with a smile.

“She usually is,” Kate replied. “You must admit, for a gossip columnist, she displays remarkable good sense. She has certainly been correct in her assessment of all the people I have met thus far in London.”