“What you need, my dear, is a trip to the country.”
Venetia Dunham lay stretched out on a chaise, a Gothic novel abandoned in her lap as she stared up at the intricate crown molding of the ceiling in her Mayfair townhouse. She lowered her gaze to the speaker, her grandmother, Gwendolyn Dunham, the Dowager Countess of Latham.
She was Gran to Venetia, but Gwen or Lady Latham to everyone else. The old woman looked frail only because of her delicate bones and the walking cane she was never without. But anyone with even a passing relationship with the dowager countess knew that those bones encased a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit, and the cane was more of a weapon than a crutch, as many young men of the ton would attest to.
GranGwenLady LathamtonShe was Venetia’s constant companion, th
