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"Indeed. Quite the cad, if I might be permitted to offer an opinion." 

"You may, as it corresponds with mine perfectly," Diana said, smiling slightly at Godfrey, who inclined his head in response. He didn't smile back, but she hadn't expected him to. She was beginning to understand him better and now realized that much of her discomfort in his presence was due to the fact that she had been a shy and awkward teen when she'd first met him, not at all the sort of mistress who would inspire respect in a proper butler of three score years. He had also been an eyewitness to her sorry history with Mr. Boyle, something that she was cognizant of whenever she interacted with him. But she was now a mature widow, and it was up to her to set the terms of their relationship. Besides, Godfrey had demonstrated this evening that he could be of assistance to her, and she had need of him. 

Because she was going to discover exactly who this dastardly Mr. D was and expose him as publicly as he'd exposed her.

CHAPTER TWO

Maxwell Dean had seen too many of his friends fall in love with the wrong women.

It wasn't that the ladies were unprincipled or ill-tempered or possessed some other negative character trait that made them unsuitable. No, the obstacle to these matches was one that the women could not be blamed for, but that indisputable made them the wrong choice: they were poor. And while that might not be an impediment for some gentlemen, Maxwell and many of his friends were younger sons with no fortune of their own, and thus a poor wife was a luxury that they, quite literally, could not afford.

Max was not in such dire financial straits himself, as he had received his mother's modest dowry as an inheritance; but his income just covered his own expenses. Of course, he was not accustomed to practicing strict economies, and lived the life of a society bachelor with all that it entailed, but children almost inevitable followed marriage, and while he could afford to take care of a wife (though perhaps not in the degree of luxury she might desire), his income could not stretch to include any progeny that might come along. Poets and romantics might rail against a marriage undertaken for anything but love alone, but Max had a more practical view of the matter. He believed that it was just as possible to love a woman of fortune as it was to love a penniless woman; a woman who should be looking elsewhere for a match, as well.

He himself was in no great hurry to wed, though he'd recently begun to think it was time he started looking for a bride. His brother had been married for five years already by the time he was eight-and-twenty, Max's current age, and now had four children under the age of six. (Max took a moment to pity his sister-in-law and wonder that since his brother now had an heir, a spare, and two extra for good measure, he didn't leave off breeding for a while.) Maxwell had met his sister-in-law before she'd married his brother, and she'd been the one woman who had inspired Max to consider matrimony. But when she had used her acquaintance with him to pursue his brother instead, Maxwell had learned a valuable lesson about his own eligibility, or lack thereof. He had quickly recovered from any infatuation he had felt for his sister-in-law, but the caution she'd inspired in him about courtship and marriage had remained these past seven years.

Maxwell's thought had recently turned again to marriage, not because a certain young lady had captured his fancy, but because he'd witnessed a friend of his, Jack Winston, another younger son, suffer a similar disappointment in love. He and Max had been guests at the wedding breakfast of one of their more fortunate friends, a rich young earl who had had his pick of women and had married a lady whom Jack was enamored of.

"I wish I'd never met her," Jack had muttered sadly, as he watched the couple accept the congratulations of their friends.

Maxwell wondered why Jack had paid court to someone who could never bestow her hand on a man just as poor as she was. Wouldn't it be better, Max reasoned, for younger brothers, like themselves, to confine their attentions to women who could afford to marry them?

And he had been struck by a brilliant notion: What if there were a directory of all the single wealthy women in and near London that younger brothers, such as himself, could peruse before beginning a courtship? It would save any number of young men—and women—the heartache o a doomed love affair.

He had never considered that a lady would not want her name in such a directory, supposing that she would be pleased to find herself the object of his friends' attentions, all of them very good chaps. And, he reasoned, the information was accessible to anyone who made an effort to discover it, so it wasn't as if he was revealing anything of a confidential nature.

Perhaps he'd felt some qualms, even if he was not conscious of it, as he had been reluctant to sign his name to the document, limiting himself merely to his initials. But his primary reason for doing so was because he had been rather proud of his work and did not want to be accused of blowing his own trumpet. He never imagined his altruistic action would—instead of accolades—reap scorn, animosity, and blame.