Page 1 of Surrender Your Grace
Chapter 1
Mayfair 1862 (May)
A bang shattered the quiet of the drawing room, rattling the windowpanes. Lady Cecilia flinched, her embroidery needle pricking her thumb. She pressed it to her lips to ease the sting, the metallic tang of blood sharp on her tongue.
The sharp click of heels on marble announced Elizabeth’s approach, her agitated stride unmistakable. Moments later, she burst in mid-rant.
“He intends to marry me off to a viscount! Can you believe it?” She flung her gloves onto the settee without so much as a glance. When Cici failed to react with proper outrage, she whirled on her. “Did you hear me, Sister? A mere viscount!”
Not waiting for a reply, Elizabeth squawked and stamped her foot, as though a viscount were a chimney sweep.
“I’m an earl’s daughter, a diamond of the first water, coveted by every Mayfair hostess,” she declared. “Dozens of poems praise my beauty, and he dares suggest I become a viscountess! The humiliation! I refuse!”
Her sister slumped onto the settee, arms crossed, foot tapping furiously.
Cici resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her monumental vanity, but failed to hide her sarcasm when she asked, “Which insignificant lord is Papa parading in front of you now?”
Elizabeth shot her a scathing look before snapping huffily, “Arendale. A great big nobody.”
“He is the duke of Sommerville’s brother, and his heir. Hardly a nobody.”
“Oh, piffle,” she scoffed with a dismissive flick of her hand. “Arendale will never inherit. Sommerville is only thirty-four.Heshould be the one courting me.”
She sprang to her feet, heels clicking a sharp rhythm against the hardwood floor as she paced.
“Ideserveto be a duchess. Or, at the very least, a countess like Mama. I won’t settle for less.”
“I hear the viscount is handsome and extremely wealthy. You would be set for life. You could travel—Rome, Greece, even the great pyramids in Egypt,” Cici said wistfully, wishing she had the chance. “Perhaps you might reconsider? You could do much worse.”
Elizabeth gave her another glare. “Travel? Bah! I want to entertain and be entertained. To see and be seen. Balls, concerts, the theater—those are what matter.”
“I’m sure the viscount can offer all that.”
“Can he make me a countess, a duchess, or even a princess? No,” she snapped without giving her a chance to reply. “He cannot, and I shall not consider him.”
Cici studied her sister. Tall, slender, with honey-blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes, Elizabeth was undeniably beautiful. When she made her debut, everyone expected her to have her pick of the most eligible lords. Yet, halfway through her third season, she had rejected so many lesser suitors that even the most eligible had stopped calling.
It wasn’t hard to guess why the dukes and earls kept their distance. At twenty, Elizabeth was haughty, spoiled, and notoriously hard to manage. Unless she changed, she’d be lucky to land a simple Sir—let alone a lesser lord, like a baron. Ciciloved her sister, but she was trying at the best of times. What man with options aplenty would choose a shrew for a bride?
Their mother was to blame. Eugenia Edwards had cosseted her firstborn, giving her the finest of everything, commissioning paintings and sonnets to extol her beauty. Cici couldn’t recall a single time in her life their mama had told Elizabeth no.
A baron’s daughter with no season of her own, Eugenia had married well—far better than expected. But her husband, the Earl of Benton, lacked the wealth and influence to elevate her as high as she wished. When she presented Elizabeth to the ton, she saw her chance to live vicariously through her daughter—and grabbed it with both hands.
The earl usually ignored his wife’s scheming and Elizabeth’s tantrums, stepping in only when absolutely necessary. He wasn’t openly affectionate, but he cared for his family—or rather, he cared about keeping the peace. And peace meant indulging his wife and elder daughter. Cici, with her needlepoint and books, was easy to overlook. But this sudden matchmaking, paired with Elizabeth’s outrage, struck her as strange.
“You must help me.”
“Me?” Cici blinked. “What can I possibly do?”
“Now that Papa has given permission, the viscount can court me. But he can’t propose unless he finds the opportunity. That’s where you come in.”
“How, exactly?”
“And you’re supposed to be the witty one,” Elizabeth muttered. “He’s attending the Easterlys’ ball tonight. Your task is to stay glued to my side—and keep him distracted.”
“At the risk of being called a dullard, again, how?”
She waved a hand. “Ask him about himself—men love that. Or talk about literature, something tedious. No one can feel romantic when discussing Wordsworth and his odd obsessionwith daffodils. Or”—she added with a smirk—“you could chatter inanely, like you usually do.”
