Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

SAINT NICHOLAS DAY, DECEMBER, 1802

F lora Conway adjusted her posture so as not to crease the lovely silk taffeta of her high-waisted gown—her maid, Raines, had been at some pains to steam the fabric into cascading perfection, and Flora admired and respected the woman’s professionalism too much to be careless with her clothes.

But the sad truth was, not even the lovely, glistening, white silk—for there was no other fashionable color at present for young ladies, even in hidebound Scotland, but especially at Christmastide—could lighten her mood. While the whole rest of society was doing its best to be festive and bright despite the ancient ban against celebrations, she was feeling decidedly unsatisfied with the season.

No, not unsatisfied, but restless. Wondering what was next for her. If she had some purpose in this life other than animating other people’s salons and ballrooms now that she could not hold any salons of her own.

Her maid, Raines, had, in her inimitable Scots way, called her peely-wally , and Flora could only agree. She felt peely-wally, off-color and off-center.

Unhappy.

There—she had named it.

“Why, my dear Miss Conway!” The hostess of the soirée, Lady Augusta Ivers, imposed herself upon Flora’s field of vision, a tall advent candle of a woman, with her purple satin gown and flaming red hair. “Flora, darling.” Lady Ivers clasped her hand and kissed her cheek. “Tell me at once—whatever can be wrong? What on earth are you doing alone?”

“Lady Ivers.” Flora rose and pasted on her polite social smile. “You are too kind. What a lovely party.” And it was a lovely celebration of the Feast of Saint Nicholas. While from the street, Lady Ivers’s townhouse was all restrained elegance, inside, the buffet tables in the dining room practically groaned with platters of food, all manner of meat and fruits and cakes spread from one end of the table to the other.

Which Flora privately thought was a strange way to celebrate a saint who had dedicated his life to serving the sick and suffering and was known for giving his money to the poor—she doubted any poor people were on Lady Ivers’s very exclusive guest list.

“A party which you are not enjoying,” her hostess insisted. “Come, walk with me and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing, my lady, I assure you?—”

“None of that.” Lady Ivers cut her off with a quick tap of her fan. “I know an unhappy girl when I see one. Now tell me, immediately, who has been so careless as to break your heart?”

Flora could only smile at such a suggestion. “I sure you, my lady, not a soul has broken my heart.” In her current state of lassitude, she was entertaining no callers and accepting very few invitations. And, upon reflection, she should probably not have accepted this one.

Lady Ivers raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you quite sure? For my own part, I would put your father or your sister’s name down at the top of the list.”

“My sister?” Flora’s easy, amused smile faded into careful astonishment. “My sister is my dearest friend and confidante and?—”

“And lately married and very happy, judging by the smiles that wreath her and her new husband’s faces! Their delight in each other is nearly indecent.” Lady Ivers’s own warm smile told Flora that she did not truly believe what she said and was only teasing. “But she no longer has as much time for confidences to share with her sweet sister. You would have every right to perhaps feel alone. Especially with your father gone as well.”

Flora opened her mouth to rebut the lady’s words but drew in a deep breath instead. Until her sister Maisie’s marriage, the avowed purpose of Flora’s life had been to see Maisie made happy—a task everyone else had thought impossible. And yet Flora had done it. She had pushed and prodded and plotted and encouraged until nature had finally been allowed to take its inevitable course—Maisie and Archie had fallen madly in love.

But Flora had somehow never thought beyond that. Never planned for what she might want to come after. And although she had tried to act as if Papa’s disgrace and resignation from his position as Lord Advocate had not been a grievous shock, her own accompanying loss of stature within society had been, if not exactly distressing, then certainly revealing.

Society, even in thorny, contrary Scotland, had two different sets of rules for women, depending upon their age and beauty. Though Flora might be accounted beautiful, and was certainly young, with her father now gone, she was judged by a witheringly strict code of conduct. She was looked at askance and treated as an unfortunate, despite having done nothing untoward herself.

Yet, she had steadfastly resisted all suggestions to shore up her position within society by hiding herself away in remorse— she had done nothing wrong! And she refused to bolster her respectability by taking on a companion. She was too independent for genteel companionship. Too used to being in charge to let anyone else take over.

It was a damnably quelling thing to have charge of oneself but be censored for it.

So, Lady Ivers was, she supposed, right. “Am I so transparent?”

“Only to me,” Lady Ives assured her quietly. “Only to the people who care about you.”

The hidden heaviness in Flora’s heart rose to become a lump in her throat. “You are very kind.”

“I am not,” the lady rejoined with mock disdain. “And you are expressly forbidden from saying so. I am not kind—I am Machiavellian and I can’t have one of the most beautiful, most sought-after young ladies in all of Edinburgh making a wallflower of herself in my drawing room. It won’t do.”

“I don’t suppose it will,” Flora agreed on a sigh. But she certainly didn’t feel sought-after. She felt…different. Removed from all the festive gaiety. Too disappointed to enjoy herself. Too independent to join into the spirit of the holidays.

She felt…impossible.

She should have stayed home. St. Nicholas’s Day ought to be a time for families leaving gifts for each other in shoes or stockings and exchanging other small tokens of affection and warmth, such as knitted mittens, embroidered handkerchiefs or ginger sweets the way she and Maisie, used to. But Maisie had a new home of her own now, with her new husband, Archie, and Flora imagined the two of them were following St. Nicholas’s example more closely, by feeding hundreds of poor souls who lived—if it could be called living—in the closes that ran beneath the old city like ribs from a spine.

“Forgive me, my lady, but?—”

“I will forgive you if you come with me now and let me introduce you to several young men—and a few slightly older ones,” the lady added meaningfully. “For you know how profitable such an alliance can be.”

Lady Ivers herself was the independent relic of a much older naval man to whom she was said to have been devoted, going to sea with him for years at a time. When Admiral Ivers died, he left his lady a stylishly rich young widow—although she never remarried, wearing lavender as a sign of her continued grief and devotion to her beloved late husband.

Her example was almost enough to make Flora believe in true love. Almost.

But true love seemed to be rarer than Scots Dumpy hen’s teeth. To Lady Ivers’s wealthy, influential, titled guests, love was a mere afterthought to marriage—fine if it happened, but equally fine if it did not. To them, marriage was all about advantage, not affection.

It was a dull, stupid life that left young women like her with so few chances that weren’t being judged for advantages and being chosen as a wife.

And which was worse, Flora had only recently come to understand that she had been bred—brought up and educated by her father—for the sole purpose of just such a trade. She wasn’t like Maisie—so full of passion and conviction and talent that she could make a life outside the dictates of society. Flora felt she had no profession but charm, no accomplishments but her given beauty.

“So.” Augusta Ivers tapped her fan against her palm, eying her drawing room as if she were a general surveying the field of battle. “What do I have of handsome young men?”

Flora followed her gaze but there was nothing new to see—no one she hadn’t seen before. No one who might be interested in her as a person, not just as a candidate for the position of wife.

It was all too dull. All too predictable. All too disappointing.

“No, thank you, my lady.” Flora firmed her voice. And her resolve. “I find I’m beginning to enjoy my independence.” As limited as that independence might be. But there was one thing she could still choose for herself. “I’ve come to the conclusion that marriage just isn’t for me.”