The scandalous Miss Fernhill was a delightful young lady. Initially, when the duchess’s daughter-in-law and her sister had brought Miss Fernhill into Eleanor’s pleasant parlour, she had been clearly nervous and very formal. But she quickly relaxed as her future sisters-in-law chatted cheerfully with Eleanor, being careful to include her in the conversation.

Last time Sophie and Felicity had been here together, they had been very worried about their brother, the Earl of Hythe. He had a list of what he required in a wife, and his sisters worried that he had not made any allowance for love. “Besides, Aunt Eleanor,” Felicity had said, “a woman who matches every item on the list will never loosen dear Hythe up. He needs someone to make him laugh, someone to tease him a little, someone fun.”

Amaryllis Fernhill might not have checked off every item on Hythe’s list, but his sisters clearly thought she was just perfect. Even if she had jilted her previous groom at the altar and disappeared for three years. Hythe had ignored these facts; definite evidence he was making a love match. And Miss Fernhill, or Rilla, as Hythe’s sisters called her, was totally besotted with Hythe, as was evident in the way her eyes shone whenever she mentioned him, which was often.

Eleanor smiled to herself. A love match. If one wanted to guide Society’s opinion in favour of a couple, a love match was a very good place to start.

The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill is one of the stories in Chasing the Tale: Volume II, to be published next month. Hythe and Rilla meet and fall in love over a chessboard in The Husband Gamble, in The Wedding Wager, now on KU.