Chapter One
London
June 1818

Dear Cousin Michael,

For the next few weeks, I shan't be at the school, but in London chaperoning Lady Amelia while her father and stepmother are in the country. Do continue to send your missives. I'll need your sage advice, for Lady Amelia is high-spirited (dare I say, almost as much as I?) and liable to land us both in trouble before the season ends.

Yours sincerely,

Charlotte

Who would ever guess balls could be boring?

Certainly not Lady Amelia Plume. When she'd first come to London from the tiny seaside town of Torquay, every tea, every ball, every soiree had been a wonder.

But that was two years ago, before she'd realized they were all alike. And the Dowager Viscountess Kirkwood's annual spring ball was no exception, judging from the crowd Amelia surveyed as she entered the rose-bedecked ballroom. It was the same dull people—the same prancing fops and gossipy matrons and frivolous young misses. No aspiring lady adventurer with an ounce of self-respect would stay.

Unfortunately, she'd promised her Scottish friend, Lady Venetia Campbell, that she would. At least Venetia, whom she spotted a short distance away, knew how to enliven a tedious evening.

"Thank heaven you've come," Venetia said as she approached. "I swear I shall die of boredom. There's hardly anybody interesting here."

"Nobody?" Amelia asked, her disappointment acute. "No Spanish ambassadors or explorers newly arrived from the Pacific, or even an opera singer?"

Venetia laughed. "I was thinking more in terms of eligible men."

For Venetia, that meant clever men. Not that she couldn't have her pick of the male crop, clever or otherwise. Besides being obscenely wealthy, she had the sort of beauty men slobbered over, with raven tresses and creamy skin and rather… enormous breasts.

Next to Venetia, Amelia was abominably average—of average height, with average skin, of average tone. Her average figure would never inspire rhapsodies, and her medium brown hair vacillated between being curly and straight.

But she had quite a lot of hair, thank goodness, and kept it lustrous with pomatum and her American stepmother's honeysuckle water. Amelia's eyes might not be the siren's green of Venetia's, but men described them as "sparkling," and her breasts generally commanded attention.

In short, Amelia possessed her share of modest attractions… and modest suitors. Granted, most men only cared about her not-so-modest inheritance and her position as the Earl of Tovey's daughter. But she didn't intend to marry any of them, anyway—neither the Marquess of Pomeroy, an aging general who fancied her and her fortune, nor their hostess's son, the Viscount Kirkwood himself, who'd made overtures to her last year.

She aspired to a more adventurous life—touring Turkey like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, or living in Syria like the legendary Lady Hester Stanhope.

"Actually," Venetia said, "there's one person here we'd both find 'interesting': Lord Kirkwood's American cousin." She nodded to a spot beyond Amelia. "Major Lucas Winter is apparently in England on assignment with the United States Marine Guard."

Expecting some weather-grizzled older fellow, Amelia followed Venetia's gaze. Then stared. Good Lord, how had she missed him when she'd come in?

Major Winter stuck out in the cramped ballroom like a hawk among pigeons. He wore quite the dashing blue-coated uniform, which bristled with gold braid, and a wide, bloodred sash around his trim waist. Her heart raced just to look at it.

And not only his uniform, either. His inky hair matched his inky boots, and though far from grizzled, his sun-browned skin made the other gentlemen look positively anemic. It hinted at days spent at sea, at battles on the Mediterranean. Oh, the adventures he must have had!

"Now that is a man," Venetia remarked. "They do grow them tall and well built in America, don't they? Even if his features are somewhat rough."

Copyright © 2006 by Deborah Gonzales