the country where they faded from the public memory.
The second engagement had been to Theodore Tagler, a virtuoso violinist from France. He’d been touring England with the Oceanous Orchestra when his family came to visit London. Several highborn families had heard about the Taglers’ desire to find a wife for their son—a lady of refined taste and good family, and who wouldn’t mind her husband’s long absences, should she decide not to accompany him on tour. Lord and Lady Grey had immediately suggested Jane—they were still trying to recover from the Hangrot scandal—and the match was approved.
Jane had a fair ear for music and enjoyed many sonatas, minuets, and symphonies. She even liked the occasional opera—her favorites being the tragedies in which the lovers both died in the end as punishment for a small act of mercy—but she hadn’t been fond of her new fiancé’s style of playing, which she found rather boisterous. Theodore himself turned out to be rather boisterous as well. The saying “bull in a china shop” came to mind. How he’d been able to handle such a delicate instrument had been a mystery to her, and it had been the instrument that dissolved this engagement as swiftly as the last.
The violin, a one-of-a-kind Belmoorus from the late violin maker Beaufort Belmoor, had been stolen. Snatched. Thieved. Taken from its place in the home of Beaufort Belmoor’s children. It had been tracked across France and through Spain, all the way to England. The “owner” who’d loaned the violin to Theodore Tagler—as all non-musician owners of instruments do to ensure their possessions are played regularly—had been arrested and, in spite of Theodore’s innocence in the matter, he and his family had also gone into immediate destitution.
The third engagement had been to Walter Williamson, the grandson of a famous but reclusive inventor, though what it was he had invented was said to be a state secret. If it hadn’t been for the whole marriage thing, Jane wouldn’t have minded Walter; he appeared intelligent and well read, and spoke often of the legacy his grandfather had left. He, too, had aspirations of invention. It was in his blood, he said, not that he had ever shown a hint of creativity.
Only a month into the engagement, papers were released revealing Walter’s grandfather had been a thief, imprisoned these last fifteen years. Public regard of the Williamson family plummeted, and (as you can surmise) the result was immediate destitution.
And the fourth engagement—well, the young man turned out not to exist. Jane’s mother (for Jane’s father had died between the third and fourth engagements) had received a miniature painting of a handsome fellow, not realizing it had been a sample work—an advertisement for the artist’s skills. And while Jane’s mother was typically intelligent, she’d been desperate to marry Jane off to someone by now, and had misunderstood the note accompanying the miniature. “I present to you an opportunity fit for someone of Lady Jane’s rank” had meant the skill of the artist, not the imaginary—though incredibly handsome—fellow in the painting. Her mother had announced the acceptance of the proposal before the artist could write back to inquire about travel for Jane’s portrait and a reminder that his fee was non-refundable.
In a fit of anger and embarrassment, Lady Frances told a revised story in which she was the victim of a vicious prank—and so soon after her own husband’s tragic death. This time it was the artist who fell into immediate destitution.
It seemed that agreeing to marry Lady Jane was a very risky business.
If her track record with fiancés was anything to go by, Gifford Dudley’s days—and the days of his family’s prosperity—were numbered.
She almost felt sorry for him.
Jane picked up the second book, the one about E∂ians, and traced the word with her forefinger. What she wouldn’t give to have an animal form. Something no one would dare to bother or force weddings upon, like a bear. But if being an E∂ian was hereditary, as many people insisted, then the trait had skipped her. (No one was supposed to know, but Jane had once overheard her parents arguing about her mother’s E∂ian magic.) And if the gift was bestowed on the worthy (another popular hypothesis, though less scientific), all her efforts to be so deserving had fallen woefully short.
In the distance, a castle jutted into the sky at the top of a steep hill. A bustling village huddled at the base, the villagers stopping to gawk as the carriage passed through the town