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husbands about. Your wife”—he nodded at Cam—“has you, and you live abroad. Esme Rawlings has a husband but they haven’t shared a house in ages. Mind you, he makes no secret of his love affairs. And the last is Lady Godwin.”
    â€œOh,” Stephen said. “That would be Rees Holland’s wife, correct?”
    â€œHe has brought an opera singer to live in his house in Mayfair,” Tuppy put in. “Or so they say.”
    Stephen frowned.
    â€œSo they are all husbandless and free to do as they wish,” Cam said thoughtfully.
    Silence fell over the group, broken only by the gentle slide of Cam’s knife up and down the dart.

4
Domestic Pleasures
    Troubridge Manor, East Cliff
    E mily Troubridge was a woman who considered herself lucky indeed.
    About twenty years previous she had had the good fortune to attract a man whose chief characteristics were years and holdings on the ’Change. In both areas, his possessions were enormous. In fact, as her second cousin had whispered to her on the morning of her marriage, her husband was twice as wrinkled as Methuselah and richer than Midas.
    Not that hers was an enforced marriage. After Troubridge had declared himself captivated by the young Miss Emily, who paired docility with likely fertility, Emily’s mother had not scrupled to point out the advantages of the match. Troubridge was old; ergo, he would not trouble her for long. He was rich; ergo, she would have a maid in country and a maid in the town, and more drunken footmen than she knew what to do with.
    And sure enough, Lord Troubridge quickly went the way of all flesh. Somewhat to Emily’s relief, he suffered a heart spasm after only two months of marital bliss. The funeral was followed by a rather apprehensive fortnight, during which everyone waited to find out whether her presumed fertility was up to task, but after that possibility had been cleared away Lady Troubridge settled down happily to spend as much of her yearly income as was humanly possible.
    Early on she flirted with the idea of remarriage, but quickly realized that she had no interest in a long-term bed partner. Nor, more to the point, did she want a male to hold her purse strings. So she summoned her husband’s heir, Lord Peregrine Perwinkle, also known as Tuppy, assured him that she would never marry, and proceeded to spend every penny of her dear, dear husband’s money that wasn’t entailed.
    In the next few years, Emily Troubridge grew into a woman whom her ancient husband would not have recognized. She adopted an air of authority and command. Her dress took on an eccentric sense of fashion only successful among those who were either very beautiful or (as in Emily’s case) who paid obscene amounts of money to their modiste. Her face was pale and too long, but it daily became lovely through an exertion of its mistress’s strong will combined with her maid’s gift for cosmetic application.
    With the passing of time, Lady Troubridge’s parties—especially those held in the tedious summer months after the close of season and before the return of Parliament—became well known. In fact, invitations were fairly lusted after, given that her gatherings spanned the scandalous and the marriageable. Those seeking to marry and those seeking to undo a marriage could find themselves equally entertained, and since Lady Troubridge had decidedly advanced opinions on horticulture, she dotted the landscape with small Greek temples and circular conservatories, ensuring privacy enough to achieve whatever goal one might wish to advance.
    Young men flocked to hunt Troubridge’s grouse-rich forests, and to flirt with unprincipled young matrons. Where unmarried men went, there went matchmaking mamas, daughters trotting at their sides like beribboned spaniels.
    As well as the cream of the ton, Lady Troubridge always invited a bevy of performers, musicians, painters, and artists, who attended