I have enclosed another flower for you. This one is Geranium pratense, more commonly known as the meadow cranesbill.

With great regard,
Phillip Crane

Eloise remembered that day well. She had sat in her chair, the one by the window in her bedchamber, and stared at the carefully pressed purple flower for what seemed like an eternity. Was he attempting to court her? Through the post?

And then one day she received a note that was quite different from the rest.

My dear Miss Bridgerton—

We have been corresponding now for quite some time, and although we have never formally met, I feel as if I know you. I hope you feel the same.

Forgive me if I am too bold, but I am writing to invite you to visit me here at Romney Hall. It is my hope that after a suitable period of time, we might decide that we will suit, and you will consent to be my wife.

You will, of course, be properly chaperoned. If you accept my invitation, I will make immediate plans to bring my widowed aunt to Romney Hall.

I do hope you will consider my proposal.

Yours, as always,
Phillip Crane

Eloise had immediately tucked the letter away in a drawer, unable to even fathom his request. He wanted to marry someone he didn’t even know?

No, to be fair, that wasn’t entirely true. They did know one another. They’d said more in the course of a year’s correspondence than many husbands and wives did during the entire course of a marriage.

But still, they’d never met.

Eloise thought about all of the marriage proposals she’d refused over the years. How many had there been? At least six. Now she couldn’t even remember why she’d refused some of them. No reason, really, except that they weren’t . . .

Perfect.

Was that so much to expect?

She shook her head, aware that she sounded silly and spoiled. No, she didn’t need someone perfect. She just needed someone perfect for her.

She knew what the society matrons said about her. She was too demanding, worse than foolish. She’d end up a spinster—no, they didn’t say that anymore. They said she already was a spinster, which was true. One didn’t reach the age of eight and twenty without hearing that whispered behind one’s back.

Or thrown in one’s face.

But the funny truth was, Eloise didn’t mind her situation. Or at least she hadn’t, not until recently.

It had never occurred to her that she’d always be a spinster, and besides, she enjoyed her life quite well. She had the most marvelous family one could imagine—seven brothers and sisters in all, named alphabetically, which put her right in the middle at E, with four older and three younger. Her mother was a delight, and she’d even stopped nagging Eloise about getting married. Eloise still held a prominent place in society; the Bridgertons were universally adored and respected (and occasionally feared), and Eloise’s sunny and irrepressible personality was such that everyone sought out her company, spinsterish age or no.

But lately . . .

She sighed, suddenly feeling quite a bit older than her twenty-eight years. Lately she hadn’t been feeling so sunny. Lately she’d been starting to think that maybe those crotchety old matrons were right, and she wasn’t going to find herself a husband. Maybe she had been too picky, too determined to follow the example of her older brothers and sister, all of whom had found a deep and passionate love with their spouses (even if it hadn’t necessarily been there at the outset).

Maybe a marriage based on mutual respect and companionship was better than none at all.

But it was difficult to talk about these feelings with anyone. Her mother had spent so many years urging her to find a husband; as much as Eloise adored her, it would be difficult to eat crow and say that she should have listened. Her brothers would have been no help whatsoever. Anthony, the eldest, would probably have taken it upon himself to personally select a suitable mate and then browbeat the poor man into submission. Benedict was too much of a dreamer, and besides, he almost never came down to London anymore, preferring the quiet of the country. As for Colin—well, that was another story entirely, quite worthy of its own paragraph.

She supposed she should have talked to Daphne, but every time she went to see her, her elder sister was so bloody happy, so blissfully in love with her husband and her life as mother to her brood of four. How could someone like that possibly offer useful advice to one in Eloise’s position? And Francesca seemed half a world away, off in Scotland. Besides, Eloise didn’t think it fair to bother her with her silly woes. Francesca had been widowed at the age of twenty-three, for heaven’s sake. Eloise’s fears and worries seemed terribly inconsequential by comparison.

And maybe all this was why her correspondence with Sir Phillip had become such a guilty pleasure. The Bridgertons were a large family, loud and boisterous. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret, especially from her sisters, the youngest of whom—Hyacinth—could probably have won the war against Napoleon in half the time if His Majesty had only thought to draft her into the espionage service.

Sir Phillip was, in his own strange way, hers. The one thing she’d never had to share with anyone. His letters were bundled and tied with a purple ribbon, hidden at the bottom of her middle desk drawer, tucked underneath the piles of stationery she used for her many letters.

He was her secret. Hers.

And because she’d never actually met him, she’d been able to create him in her mind, using his letters as the bones and then fleshing him out as she saw fit. If ever there was a perfect man, surely it had to be the Sir Phillip Crane of her imagination.

And now he wanted to meet? Meet? Was he mad? And ruin what had to be the perfect courtship?