Sublime

He happened to be a Wundersmith and a psychopath. Unfortunate combination,

hadn’t brought all of his mistresses with him on the trip—just his ten or fifteen favorites.

When one said a man was “dependable” or “nice,” one was damning him with faint praise. But she had spent three seasons observing the caprices of gentlemen who were rakish, absent-minded or irresponsible. Dependability was a wonderful quality in a man.

“They seem nice fellers.” The General’s eye, hostly, strayed. “I’m going to rescue Mellaby. He’s had ten minutes of undiluted Trubshot, and that’s enough for any man.”

His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.

Disgruntled at having to leave his bed in the middle of the night, Felbrigg came down to his study with a dressing robe thrown over his nightclothes. With his ginger whiskers, short, spindly build, and the flaccid nightcap with a tasseled end dangling over the back of his head, he looked like an elf. An irate elf.

Her mother inclined her head—tacit acknowledgment. “He’s rich as the devil, I’m told.” Felicity refrained from telling her mother that she knew the Devil, and he was richer than anyone she’d ever known.

So Gabriel turns into an even-better-looking man named Gorcher Gomble, which is just too embarrassing to say out loud. Meet my husband, Gorcher. But she’s struck a handsome vein: the next husband is, if anything, more attractive again, with glossy white teeth and a slow American accent. He is a bewildering presence in her home, which has changed on