Prologue

PROLOGUE

LONDON, EIGHT YEARS AGO

A swirling blur of laughter and light…the ballroom’s dancing floor too crowded with bodies too hot and vibrant with energy both banked and exerted…smiles too carefree to give a toss about anything approaching respectability…hearts beating too fast and reckless with fizzy effervescence…

The atmosphere of Almack’s season-opening spring ball was much too everything.

At least, that was how it felt to Lady Beatrix St. Vincent.

She’d been whirled across gleaming mahogany these ten dances in a row with ten different eligible gentlemen, and she felt not a twinge of ache in her feet or a care for the perspiration beading down her spine.

She only felt the triumph of the night.

Her triumph.

In the ladies’ retiring room, she dipped her fingers in a bowl of fresh lavender water and pressed cooling fingertips to flushed cheeks. Just a quick respite to collect thoughts and emotions that were fluttering much too chaotically in her brain for her to catch hold of even one.

Actually, that wasn’t true.

In the mirror, she gazed into her own gray eyes. Reflected back was the single, overwhelming emotion she’d gone nearly buoyant with…

Irrepressible joy.

Tonight was her come-out ball.

Yes, it was taking place at Almack’s alongside seven other young ladies making their debuts, which was significantly less magnificent than what society would’ve expected of the daughter of a marquess. But the marquess in question was the Marquess of Lydon, a charming scoundrel from the moment he could cock his lopsided smile. As Beatrix’s mother had perished within a couple of years of having given birth to her only child, society would suppose it a lack of interest on the marquess’s part that had his daughter making her debut at Almack’s.

By contrast, two years ago, her bosom friend, Lady Artemis Keating, had a lavish private ball thrown for her by her brother, the powerful and wealthy Duke of Rakesley. Though Beatrix hadn’t been out, Artemis had insisted she attend, and it was the most glorious ball she could ever have imagined.

Beatrix was pragmatic.

A glorious come-out had never been in the cards for her.

No matter.

This come-out at Almack’s would do, and really, it had to, for it was the best she could muster.

Indeed, she was the daughter of a marquess—which was only partially what had gained her entrance into this ballroom.

In actual fact, she’d achieved this night through her own planning and determination. She’d dreamt o f a future that would be nothing like her previous twenty years of life and now, at last, it was within reach.

A good, solid husband with whom she would beget good, solid children.

Really, was a good, solid future too much to ask?

Society would credit her father with this achievement. It was what fathers did for their daughters, no?

Except Lydon’s idea of a good, solid childhood had been to take his daughter to the horse races two or three times a week. Well, take her to the horse races implied her presence had been desired. More accurately, she’d been treated like an extra appendage one was obligated to drag everywhere one went.

At those race meetings, she’d amused Lydon and his wastrel friends. They’d taught her to exclaim, “Blimey!” and they slipped her a bit of betting money—sometimes a penny, other times a guinea. It depended on how fortune treated them the previous night. They’d all gotten a grand old jolly out of watching the little lady stroll up to the betting post and place her wagers.

But she’d made the most of it, hadn’t she?

At first, she’d bet on the horses with the silliest names or the jockeys with the prettiest silks. Over time, however, she’d learned to wager based on odds and weather conditions and whispers about a horse’s soundness. She’d become quite skilled at it. After all, what was a little, extra appendage to do but keep her ears ready and her eyes keen and soak in her surroundings and develop skills that might’ve done her no favors in a ballroom, but provided a compensation she wouldn’t have attained otherwise— money .

Her own money.

Race after race, year after year, she squirreled away those winnings.

So, if she felt a trifle smug with triumph tonight, she’d earned the feeling. Those squirreled-away winnings had gained her a place at Miss Adelaide’s School for the Refinement of Young Ladies, enough new dresses for a season, and a come-out ball.

This .

A chance at a good, solid future.

A real future.

As she exited the ladies’ retiring room, she smiled a greeting toward a young lady she knew from Miss Adelaide’s. In the smile reflected at her was the same giddy excitement she’d met in the mirror not thirty seconds ago. Before she reentered the ballroom, she tucked herself into a quiet nook and attempted to quiet her heart that begged leave to race again. She took one deep breath, then another, before she heard it—the low murmur of male voices on the other side of the silk screen.

It was a question— “And Lady Artemis?” —that had Beatrix pressing her ear to painted silk.

“She was the prize when she debuted,” said another voice. “But that was two years ago.”

“She’s Rakesley’s sister,” said a third voice. “She’s still the prize.”

Beatrix could only agree. Artemis was the daughter of one wealthy, powerful duke and the doted-upon sister of another wealthy, powerful duke. The size of Artemis’s dowry would, of course, make her the prize of every season until she eventually picked a husband.

Even if a small, unworthy part of Beatrix experienced a pang of envy, she didn’t begrudge her friend her freedom. Just as Beatrix couldn’t help the accident of birth that had led to her unlucky parentage, neither could Artemis help that which had granted her the best.

“She’s a headstrong chit, though,” said another gentleman—or perhaps the first. They all sounded alike.

“Why hasn’t she married, anyway?”

Though she’d never voiced as much to her friend, Beatrix wondered the same. The season of Artemis’s come-out, though, there had been a lord. The second son of an earl, in fact. Quite handsome, in further fact. He and Artemis had danced at every ball—then…nothing. Artemis never spoke of him again, and Beatrix sensed she couldn’t ask.

“Word has it that Rakesley has given her access to her fortune.”

“A mistake handing over that kind of blunt to a lady.”

“How many new dresses does a lady need, anyway?”

The round of laughter that followed set Beatrix’s teeth on edge.

In the conversation that ensued, the gentlemen began reciting the names of other young ladies—and their perceived chances in this season’s marriage mart. Breath held, Beatrix waited for her name to be spoken.

And waited…

And waited.

At last, a voice said, “What of Lydon’s daughter?”

A pause followed—one that drew out a few beats too long.

“Do you mean Lady Beatrix?” came a question that sounded…bewildered.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. She might not ever breathe again.

“What of her?” came another question.

Less question and more… scoff .

The thin laughter that followed wasn’t the jolly sort, but rather the sort with a streak of cruelty running through. Her ears began ringing, even as they felt like they’d been packed with cotton. A slick of perspiration coated her palms.

Then came the question—the one that would come to shape the trajectory of her life from this point forward.

“Who amongst us would be saddled with the Marquess of Lydon for family?”

“If she had a curve or two on her bones, one might be tempted…”

“You danced with her, didn’t you, Sadler?”

“It’s her come-out,” explained a voice, presumably Sadler. One could hear the shrug in his voice. “I felt bad for her.”

“Besides,” came another voice, “the patronesses have threatened to ban any gentlemen caught not dancing.”

Beatrix’s buoyant evening of triumph crashed to a sudden and ignoble end.

All her hopes and dreams, too.

Of their own accord, her feet began moving. Not toward the ballroom—this night had provided her with enough dancing to last her the rest of her days—but to the receiving hall, where she communicated a sore stomach to a footman. As she waited for her evening cape, she remembered to have a message sent to the ancient great-aunt-once-removed that she’d left dozing in a corner of the ballroom. The distant relation was serving as her sponsor for the night and chaperone for the season.

A few minutes later, Beatrix was outside, hands clasped tightly before her, fingernails digging crescents into her palms through silk gloves as she awaited the carriage she’d hired for the night. Then she was seated on leather squabs and rattling across wet London cobblestones, the steady clip-clop of horse’s hooves echoing in their wake.

Somehow, she’d managed to accomplish all this with a dense, unresolved sob caught in her chest. Though utterly shattered, she held onto this caught sob, for it felt like the only thread holding her pieces together.

With its release, she would entirely fall apart.

She would not— could not —cry.

She’d endured enough shame for one night.

Yet the question came—and kept coming…

Hadn’t she done everything right?

Except it wasn’t the correct question.

Hadn’t she done everything she could?

The answer was swift and brutal.

It wasn’t enough.

She wasn’t enough.

She never would be.

She hadn’t fooled anyone—only herself.

That good, solid husband and those good, solid children and that good, solid future…

A mirage.

And in the way of all mirages, it had evaporated into nothingness the instant her grasp attempted to close around it. All that remained was endless desert stretching ahead of her for an eternity of miles and years.

Her intellect and wits were all she could depend upon in this world— as ever .

They’d served her this far—and simply would have to keep doing so.