itsurgurltookie
A legacy of four daughters -- each as different as the seasons themselves -- find themselves bound together by a fortune as generous as it is perilous.
Upon their parents' passing, the sisters inherit an immense fortune -- but not without condition.
A clause -- meticulously written, unmistakably intentional -- binds their inheritance to a single, maddening stipulation:
The third sister, Lavinia must remain unmarried.
Should she falter, reform, or worse, fall in love, the entire possessions of the Darlingtons will pass immediately into the hands of their detestable neighbors: the Throckmortons, a family so insufferably self-satisfied that even their charity feels like an insult.
And Lavinia, being Lavinia, rises to the challenge with spectacular enthusiasm.
If society demands she remain unwed, then she will ensure it is not merely unlikely -- but unthinkable.
Thus is born the Ton's most delicious outrage:
Lavinia, the Scandal.
And yet, where society recoils, one man watches.
A duke, cold in manner and exacting in taste, known less for charm than for an almost unnerving restraint. He finds most of London tedious to the point of offense. Predictable. Rehearsed. Hollow.
But Lavinia?
She is none of those things.
So while others avert their eyes, he does the opposite.
He observes.
He engages.
He persists.
Because, beneath the spectacle, beneath the laughter and the scandal and the ruin...
He is certain there is a purpose.
And he intends to uncover it.