Chapter One

"Your Grace, you have to actually get out of the carriage."

Albion Winter blinked. "What?"

"We've arrived, Your Grace," his friend, Ben Lomax, replied with a knowing smile. "You have to get out of the carriage, or folks are going to start thinking you're not supposed to be here. Took a wrong turn somewhere and came up the wrong driveway. I have to say, you're a sly one—never knew you had yourself a house like this when we were knee deep in French mud."

Albion shuddered. "Don't call me ‘Your Grace.' I know you're just doing it because you find it funny, but don't."

"Well, I can't very well call you ‘Captain' anymore, can I?" Ben grinned.

"Why not?"

"Because you're not a captain now, you're a duke."

Albion groaned. "Don't remind me." He glanced out of the carriage window at the grand sandstone manor that stretched upward and the rose borders his mother had insisted on now in full bloom along the front terrace. "I might be mistaken, but I'm sure coming home is supposed to feel… better than this."

"When was the last time?" Ben asked, his tone turning more serious.

"Four, five years ago."

Ben nodded. "Be patient with yourself, Captain. This isn't exactly an ordinary return home. Bad news is never easy to bear, and you've been struck twice—hard, at that."

"He sent me a letter three months ago. I was too distracted to reply, but he seemed… happy." Albion shook his head, like it could shake out the crushing thoughts. "This is not a command that thrills me. I was happy where I was."

"And that makes you all kinds of mad, Captain," Ben teased. "I suppose that's a trait we all share. Why else would we do it if we weren't a little bit insane?"

Albion bristled as the front doors of Whitecliff Manor opened with a shriek of old hinges, and a familiar—albeit more weathered by time and grief—face peeked out. His mother, Constance Winter. Her lips pursed at the sight of the carriage, her blue eyes squinting at the window Albion stared out from.

"Onward," Albion muttered, opening the carriage door. Like any good captain, he would do his duty regardless of the circumstances and whether he wanted to proceed or not.

His stiff muscles complained as he crunched across the gravel toward the porch steps while the muscles in his lips did their best to remember how to smile. He had no idea what the result might be, but the disapproving look on his mother's face suggested it was not as affable as he had been aiming for.

"You are late," his mother said curtly, flinching at the sight of his face.

He had worn his battle scars for so long that he had forgotten they were there, but his mother's expression served as a ripe reminder.

"I wasn't aware I was expected at a certain hour," he replied coolly, wondering if she might have preferred him in a mask.

Her disapproval transformed into horror. "What is the matter with your voice?"

"My voice, Mother?"

"You sound so… so… common!"

Ben popped up behind Albion, raising a hand. "That would be my fault, Your Grace. Well, my fault and the fault of the rest of the soldiers this fine fellow was in charge of. We could never understand him when he spoke like he had a plum in his mouth, so he adapted accordingly."

"Who on earth are you?" Constance asked, nose wrinkling.

"My second-in-command on leave from the Continent," Albion answered stiffly. "He wanted to accompany me on his way to see his own family. I wasn't going to make him journey in the same direction on his own."

Constance folded her bony arms across her chest, bristling in her black bombazine. "He has a manor nearby?"

Ben snorted. "Alas not, Your Grace. I'm but a simple man. My pa is a blacksmith in Dovecote; my ma a laundress."

"Oh goodness," Constance whispered under her breath. "Will your… second-in-command be staying with us? I suppose not since his family is not far."

Albion clenched his jaw. "He will stay until the morning. The least I can do is offer him somewhere to rest and wash and eat after he has come all this way with me."

And has been through so much more with me, he neglected to add. His mother would not want to hear it. She had always resented his decision to join the military, and she took pride in his position as Captain when she wanted to have a story to tell her friends, nothing more.

Isaac was the golden son… but Isaac was gone, now. No loss had hit Albion harder, to the point where he still had not yet accepted that Isaac was actually dead. He could not get his mind to understand the truth, not really, not even standing in front of the manor that was now his.

"The solicitor, Mr. Henderson, is in the drawing room," Constance said, her tone clipped. "He has been waiting for you since nine o'clock this morning. I will have the butler show your friend to a guest chamber while you should not delay Mr. Henderson any longer."

"Do not make demands of me," Albion said in a firm voice, his eyes hardening. "You are my mother, not the authority in this house."

She practically recoiled at the remark. "Would you have us lose his services? Isaac never?—"

"Isaac is not here," Albion interrupted. "Speaking of which, when is the funeral?"

His mother had the decency to blanche. "We had it."

"What?" Anger jabbed at his chest.

"We did not know when you would return, and as you did not bother to return for your father's, I assumed you would not hurry to return for your brother's," she retorted, no hint of sorrow in her voice, just acid. As if it were somehow Albion's fault.

Albion closed the gap between himself and his mother, grasping her upper arm a mote too forcefully. "You buried my brother without me?"

"Why, do you think it would have changed anything?" Constance shot back, lip curling. She wrenched out of his grip and smoothed out the rumpled sleeve.

"I will give you some grace because of your grief, but don't mistake me—I am displeased," he rasped.

In truth, he was beyond displeased, well into the realm of furious, but to lose his temper would only weaken his position. Cold, calm, and collected tended to work much better in unnerving someone who had wronged him.

It seemed to work, a flustered demeanor jittered on her cool fa?ade. "We can hold another… service for him if that is your will," she said sheepishly. "But, for now, would you please be so kind as to speak with Mr. Henderson? His patience will not last much longer."

"I don't care about his patience," Albion replied, "but if it means getting everything in order quickly, I'll see him once I've shown Ben to his chambers, changed my own attire, and splashed some water on my face. If he can't wait that long, perhaps we need a better solicitor."

He walked past his mother into the house he had actively avoided for years—a manor that now belonged to him. Ben hurried after him, leaving Constance on the front steps, no doubt fuming at the fact she no longer had any control over her youngest son. She was not his General.

After spending the better part of half an hour refreshing himself and remembering where all the rooms were, Albion found his way down to the drawing room.

"Your Grace!" Mr. Henderson chirped, far too enthusiastic for someone who was supposed to be helping a grieving family. "What a pleasure to see you, at last! I have heard so much about you."

Albion tossed him a dry smile. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

The apology was an empty one, but the solicitor did not seem to notice.

"Goodness, not at all—I have been well occupied," Mr. Henderson replied, his mouth twitching slightly. "I know there is a great deal for you to do, so I shall not waste another moment of your time."

He flipped open a weighty dossier on the drawing room table between the brocade settees that had not been there the last time Albion was.

"It is the usual business," the solicitor continued. "Details of your income, the rents owed, the tenants and their occupations, and an inventory of belongings, smaller properties, and heirlooms, should you wish to sell anything. Your father himself had very few debts and none of them considerable—most were taken care of by your brother, who I suppose had no time to conjure any debts of his own."

Albion's eyes narrowed. "No, I suppose he didn't."

"But there is the small matter of a debt owed to your brother," the solicitor continued obliviously. "Now, that is a considerable debt. An agreement was close to being made when the tragedy occurred, and I took the liberty of asking if the debtor would still consider the same agreement with you. His reply came last night—he would be delighted. Then again, why would he not be when he is ridding himself of his debt in one fell swoop?"

Mr. Henderson laughed. Actually laughed in the face of a grieving man who had no notion of what the fellow was talking about.

"What agreement?" Albion hissed, his temper flaring. He blamed the fatigue of the journey for loosening the tight reins he usually had upon his emotions.

Mr. Henderson blinked, his laughter dying. "He is willing to give his cousin's hand in marriage in exchange for wiping the debt away. She will come with a favorable dowry, so it is not a true loss."

Albion had to sit down. A few weeks ago, he had a purpose he cared about, far from the English shores he had worked so hard to escape. Now, all of the things he had sought to avoid were crashing down upon him at once. He would have taken latrine duty over this.

He tugged on his collar, loosening it. "I have not slept in two days."

"Be that as it may, I think this would be to your benefit," Mr. Henderson said more cautiously. "Think on it. I will be returning in a few days anyway, so you can give me your reply then, once you have rested from your long journey. But… yes, I do think this would be a very fortunate choice for you. Society does not trust a solitary Duke, but a married one—the world would be your oyster, Your Grace."

Albion sat back and closed his eyes. He had been home but five minutes, and already he was getting a headache.

"I will consider it," he murmured, barely hearing the eager shuffle of Mr. Henderson leaving the room. No doubt, the solicitor thought that was as good as confirmation.

"Have I told you this morning how dearly I despise you?" Matilda asked, putting on her most saccharine voice. "My constitution suffers if I forget, and I should hate to not digest my breakfast properly."

Her cousin, James, glowered over the rim of his teacup. "No, but you said so twice last night, so I assume it carries over. My constitution tends to suffer whenever we are in the same room together."

"Well, you know how you might remedy that, do you not?" Matilda tore into a piece of toast, imagining it was James's head.

"I am not going anywhere, Matilda. I know you do not like that this manor is now mine, but that is hardly my fault. It is your father's for not doing the honorable, dutiful thing and remarrying after your mother passed. My mother and father hounded him to do so, but he would not listen," James replied, knowing just what to say to make Matilda erupt at the breakfast table.

Not today,she told herself. Today, I shall finish my tea without dousing him in it.

"Yours for now," she corrected instead.

James rolled his eyes. "Your petition to the Royal Court will never work. It is too late. I have already inherited. Indeed, it has been almost a year already! Even if I had not, who do you think you are—the Countess of Grayling? She only won her petition because she is exceptionally beautiful, and all the men were too dazed to realize their foolishness. You are not even passably beautiful."

"Of course, her beauty was the only thing that won her petition." Matilda rolled her eyes in return. "It has nothing to do with the fact that she is highly intellectual, exceedingly cunning, dangerously powerful, and made a petition so ironclad that none could refuse it."

James waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever her reason for succeeding, you are not her, will never be her, and the longer you keep insisting upon flaunting this Spinsters' Club nonsense around the ton because you think you are like her, the more you become a useless drain upon my resources."

"I am part of your inheritance," she pointed out savagely, eyeing her full teacup. "There is nothing you can do about that."

James muttered something rude into his own teacup. "Just do everyone a great favor and get married for goodness' sake!" he snapped. "My mother and I are tired of you. Exhausted, in truth. It is no wonder your father?—"

"Get married?" Matilda interrupted, for his next words might have prompted her to hurl a butter knife at him instead of the usual spray of tea. "I have no reason to. I have never wished to. I could never be anyone's obedient little wife. I shall repeat this to you until it finally penetrates that thick skull of yours. Your usurping of my father's lands and titles has not changed that, nor shall it. I am the Spinsters' Club."

"Then, what is the alternative?" James rasped. "Are you just going to be idle for the rest of your days, surviving off my generosity and the meagre sum your father left for you?"

Matilda sat up straighter, a smile stretching across her face. "I will be a writer, cousin, with a legacy greater than anything you could hope to achieve. No one shall remember you as anything other than the cousin of Matilda Elkins, and I hope you live long enough for it to drive you quite mad."

"A writer?" James snorted. "Of what? Unsavory novels, like that Radcliffe woman?"

Matilda raised an eyebrow, smothering the sharp stab of hurt under her ribs. "That Radcliffe woman? I have never heard of her, but you seem to know an awful lot. Is she one of your favorites? Is that what you do in your study while you are pretending to tend to estate matters—read unsavory novels?"

James paled, his eyes wide.

A dark chuckle slipped from her throat. "Oh, I know you are not tending to estate matters, for they are all coming through me, just as they did before my father passed." She sipped her tea. "As for what I shall write, I am already writing it. A book of herbal remedies for those who cannot afford a physician."

After that, a book on astronomy, then perhaps arithmetic, then one pertaining to engineering—all aimed toward women, not simplifying or patronizing, but making everything she relished as relatable as possible to close the gap between the respective educations of the sexes. But she did not add that bit for fear of James's head exploding across her father's finest table linens.

James laughed so hard that tea dribbled out of his nose, and he began to choke, grappling for a napkin to clean up his face. Red-faced and still choking slightly, he managed to wheeze, "If they cannot afford a physician, it is unlikely they are able to read, you dolt!"

"Of course, you would think that. And of course, you would think me ignorant of that—there will be illustrations to accompany the writing, so all may read and use it."

"Who would care about herbal remedies anyway?" He dabbed at his nose.

"Women, mostly. Just as they will care about my other books: books of science, books of mathematics, books of everything they have ever desired to know but been prevented from learning."

He began to laugh again, crueler this time. "Women do not care about things like that. You are the weird exception. That is why no one wants to marry you. All women care about is finding a good match, getting married, birthing children, fine embroidery, and the latest fashions. They are not intelligent enough to involve themselves in those other things; that is why they are reserved for the realm of gentlemen."

"And you are not intelligent enough to notice that your nose is still dribbling," she shot back. "Nor do I imagine you would have any notion of what a woman wants or dreams of, for I do not see ladies lining up to wed you either. I fear it is your personality. It has this natural way of repulsing the fairer sex. I could find you an herbal remedy for that if you would care to read my book? Although, perhaps the lady would have to take the herb to become blind to your character and general appearance."

He tossed his stained, sodden napkin onto the table, simmering fury bubbling behind his bland eyes. "There will be a change, Matilda, and I, for one, cannot wait to see that smug smile smacked off your face." He stood sharply, his crisp white shirt also splashed with dots of brown. "Soon enough, you will no longer be my responsibility. I will be taking care of the matter imminently."

"What matter? Laundering that shirt of yours? What a mess you have made of yourself." She tutted as if he were a child. She could not help herself. Just having James in her breakfast room, uninvited, unwelcome, made her want to spew venom until she had nothing left.

He smiled tightly. "The matter of your marriage. It will be dealt with sooner than you think, and I, dear cousin, shall be cheering the loudest at your wedding. Your father let you do as you please, but it is time for you to grow up, Matilda." He stalked to the door, turning on the threshold. "And no, before you ask, this is not something you can prattle your way out of. The agreement is all but signed, and if I must lock you up and march you to your wedding myself, then so be it."

For once, to her abject horror, he had seized the final word.