At nineteen, Agatha Bowen has no mother, no guardian, and no intention of marrying, not until she meets two brothers who upend everything she thought she wanted. Major Frederick Harper is charming, worldly, everything a society girl should desire. His brother Nathanael is his opposite: quiet, mysterious, impossible to read. While her married friends despair over her stubborn independence, Agatha, who keeps her own rooms and her own black kitten, insists she doesn't need a husband. But as she navigates their very different attentions, she discovers that choosing a partner isn't about society's expectations: it's about knowing who you are and what you actually want. Written with wit and warmth by the author of John Halifax, Gentleman, this is a sharp Victorian romance that treats its heroine as a thinking, feeling person capable of making her own decisions, even when they're painfully wrong.
