Chapter One
“Who am I. . .?”
“Selena Savage, heiress, and sister to the Earl of Saville.” Theodosia King cast her a sidelong look. “This is known.”
“But what does thatmean?” Selena asked her good friend as she stared, with a mixture of emotions, down at the betting book of White’s and a pair of Turkish trousers that were nestled in the center of her bed. The book had been stolen from White’s weeks ago but had been handed over to her by Harriet Hillstow, the Marchioness of Leeds, only a few days ago. The trousers... well, those had been delivered to her front door by an anonymous source.
“It means you are rich, titled, and have the world at your fingertips.”
“But it’s not atmyfingertips, is it? It’s at my brother’s. I’m merely an extension of him.” Selena glanced at her friend, her eyes widening as a thought—horrible, yet ridiculous—occurred to her. “Oh, Lord, does that mean I am a fingertip?”
“Don’t be silly.” Theodosia pointed at the book. “Just because a few men decided your best and worst attribute is your brother, doesn’t mean that they are right.”
Her friend made a good point. Selena had all but accepted that most men were lechers. Not that she’d ever been treated as anything but a lady, but she had grown up watching her brother and his friends break the hearts of many a woman without a second thought to what the women themselves might be feeling.
Tales of their debauchery had filled the halls of her home. Of course, they never caught on that she had, at times, blatantly eavesdropped entire conversations. Other times, she’d overheard snippets of their excursions she rather wished she hadn’t. Yet those tales had given her a certain, rather unwelcome understanding of men.
Any romantic ideals she might have fostered as a little girl were questioned, shattered, and crushed one tale at a time.
She no longer trusted charming smiles. Charm and sincerity seldom went hand in hand. Nor did she believe pretty words to be anything but empty flattery. What a man whispered to a woman in a sweet moment was rarely ever what he meant. From what she understood, charming smiles and empty flattery not only formed part of a gentleman’s duty to the fragile opposite sex but also served as a means to attract a temporary mate, like a peacock displaying its feathers to enthrall a female.
Nothing romantic about that.
Which was why Selena’s view on romance had dimmed. She didn’t need the fuss, and she didn’t want the trouble. What she wanted, no man could offer.
In some ways, she was grateful to her brother and his friends for removing the scales from her eyes. In other ways, she wanted to throttle them.
But for now, she’d settle for escaping.
Her brother had all but imprisoned her in their home. No callers of the male variety were accepted either. This new protective attitude supposedly stemmed from the part he had played in the chaos that seized London. Chaos she had also had a hand in creating. But it was chaos he had helped set in motion.
“This is all his fault . . .”
“What are you muttering about?”
“My brother.” She clenched her hands. “At first, I saw it as my duty to take the men of society down a notch to remind them that we women are a force to be reckoned with.”
“We did. We are.”
“Then why do they go about their days as if the trouble we caused them is nothing but a fly buzzing about their dinner plate, easily swatted away? Why am I still being ordered about?”
Theodosia laughed.
“It’s not funny, Theo. It’s infuriating.” What she hated most was being told what to do. Had she been born a man, she’d have boxed her brother’s ears and left him in the dust. Not only was he the cause of all her recent misfortune, but he had also assigned a guard dog to fend off the very rogues he was responsible for setting on her path! And unfortunately, it was one guard dog that was proving difficult to shake...
“One act of defiance won’t change centuries of belief and partiality,” Selena continued. “That’s why we are wearing these trousers.”
“Areyou going to wear them or not?” Theodosia asked, fumbling with the waistband of her trousers. She’d already shrugged into hers while Selena’s mind had run wild with their purpose. “They are strangely comfortable. And,” she grinned at Selena, “it’s one step closer to proving you have the world at your fingertips.”
“They are also quite colorful, aren’t they?” Selena eyed her pair, still untouched on the bed.
“I believe that is the point.”
“Do you think it’sthemwho distributed these trousers to the lovely women in Mayfair?”
“You mean the women who started a secret club?”
Selena nodded. “I still cannot believe we have not been invited to this club. Shouldn’t we be invited? After all, we did do all the work when it came to stealing the betting book anddistributing copies of the wagers all over London. We exposed their husbands’ silly hobbies. We are the ones on that heiress list.”
