“Don’t know,” the marquess said, lifting his wineglass. “Imagine it’s only a matter of time before he does.”

“Who knows what Michael knows,” her mother scoffed. “No one in polite society has seen the Marquess of Bourne for years.”

Not since he disappeared in scandal. Not since he’d lost everything to Tommy’s father.

Penelope shook her head. “Did you try to return it to him?”

“Penelope! Don’t be ungrateful!” the marchioness trilled. “The addition of Falconwell to your dowry is a shining example of your father’s generosity!”

An example of her father’s desire to rid himself of his troublesome daughter.

“I don’t want it.”

She knew the words were a lie even as she said them. Of course she wanted it. The lands attached to Falconwell were lush and vibrant and filled with memories of her childhood.

With memories of Michael.

It had been years since she’d seen him—she’d been a child when he’d left Falconwell, and barely out when his scandal had been the talk of London aristocrats and Surrey servants. Now, if she heard of him at all, it was in snippets of gossip from more experienced women of the ton. He was in London running a gaming hell, she’d once heard from a particularly chatty group of women in a ladies’ salon, but she’d never asked where, seeming to know instinctively that ladies like herself did not frequent the place where Michael had landed when he’d fallen from grace.

“You don’t have a choice, Penelope. It’s mine. And soon it will be your husband’s. Men from across Britain will come for a chance to win it. Marry Tommy now or one of them later, if you like. But you’ll marry this season.” He leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands over his wide girth. “One day, you’ll thank me.”

You’ll marry this season.

“Why didn’t you return it to Michael?”

Needham sighed, throwing down his napkin and rising from the table, through with the conversation. “He was careless with it in the first place,” he said simply before quitting the room, Lady Needham fast on his heels.

It might have been sixteen years since she’d seen him last, but a part of her still considered Michael Lawler, Marquess of Bourne, a dear friend, and she did not like the way her father spoke of him, as though he were of little value and less import.

But then, she really didn’t know Michael—not the man. When she allowed herself to think of him, more often than she’d like to admit, he was not a twenty-one-year-old who had lost everything in a silly game of chance.

No, in her thoughts, Michael remained her childhood friend—the first she’d ever made—twelve years old, leading her across the muddy landscape on one adventure or another, laughing at inopportune moments until she could not resist laughing with him, muddying his knees in the damp fields that stretched between their houses and throwing pebbles at her window on summer mornings before he headed off to fish in the lake that straddled Needham and Bourne lands.

She supposed the lake was part of her dowry, now.

Michael would have to ask permission to fish there.

He would have to ask her husband permission to fish there.

The idea would be laughable if it weren’t so . . . wrong.

And no one seemed to notice.

Penelope looked up, meeting first Pippa’s gaze across the table, wide blue eyes blinking behind her spectacles, then Olivia’s, filled with . . . relief?

At Penelope’s questioning glance, Olivia said, “I confess I did not like the idea of a sister who had failed at the marriage mart. It’s much better this way for me.”

“I’m happy someone can be satisfied with the events of the day,” Penelope said.

“Well, really, Penny,” Olivia pressed on, “you have to admit, your marrying will help us all. You were a significant reason for Victoria’s and Valerie’s settling for their boring old husbands.”

It was not as though she’d planned it that way.

“Olivia!” Pippa said quietly, “that’s not very nice.”

“Oh, tosh. Penny knows it’s true.”

Did she?

She looked to Pippa. “Have I made it difficult for you?”

Pippa hedged. “Not at all. Castleton sent news to Father just last week that he was planning to court me in earnest, and it’s not as though I’m the most ordinary of debutantes.”

It was an understatement. Pippa was something of a bluestocking, very focused on the sciences and fascinated by the insides of living things, from plants to people. She’d once stolen a goose from the kitchens and dissected it in her bedchamber. All had been well until a maid had entered, discovered Pippa up to her elbows in fowl entrails, and screamed as though she’d stumbled upon a Seven Dials murder scene.

Pippa had been scolded profusely, and the maid had been reassigned to the lower floors of the manor house.

“He should be named Lord Simpleton,” Olivia said, frankly.

Pippa chuckled. “Stop. He’s nice enough. He likes dogs.” She looked to Penelope. “As does Tommy.”

“This is what we’ve come to? Choosing our potential husbands because they like dogs?” Olivia asked.

Pippa lifted one shoulder simply. “This is how it’s done. Liking dogs is more than most husbands and wives of the ton have in common.”

She was right.

But it was not as it should be. Young women with the looks and breeding of her sisters should be choosing their husbands based on more than canine companionship. They should be darlings of the ton, with all of society in their hands, waiting to be molded.