Chapter 1

London, England

Mayfair

Winter 1815

I n a world where women were largely powerless, one might expect the daughter of a duke and goddaughter of the King and Queen of England had some power. At the very least, power over her own life.

The world, however, would be wrong. As the Duke of Devonshire’s daughter, Lady Diamond Glain Carmichael knew that very well. From the subjects taught by her governesses. The pastimes she must learn and adopt as hers. The food she ate. Even the books she read. Certain topics and studies and authors were deemed appropriate.

Most were not.

Glain had learned early on and long ago the expectations had for her. The Duke of Devonshire and the long line of stern, soulless governesses he’d employed had drummed into Glain, precisely what fate and future awaited her as a duke’s daughter, and also the way he, along with Polite Society expected her to behave.

Unfortunately, her younger sister, Opal, had proven a far less apt study.

Seated upon the striped Hepplewhite sofa that overlooked the quiet London streets below, Glain added another diamond stitch to her whitework embroidery. The winter season brought with it a welcome peace. This time of year, when the ton retreated to their country estates, always brought a reprieve from the inanity of it all.

Or, at least it usually did.

“You are being ridiculous,” Opal whispered, stomping her foot in a noiseless way upon the rose-pastel carpet.

That attempt at silence proved Opal may have gathered more than Glain had credited.

It didn’t change anything.

“No,” Glain said calmly, threading the tip of her needle through the monochrome background in her frame. She paused to assess her needlework, angling the fine muslin. “I am being rational. That is entirely different and eminently better.”

“I shan’t ever become you, Glain. Never, ever.” With every reiteration of that word, her sister stamped her foot for emphasis. “ Ever !”

Alas, her sister would. At fourteen, however, she’d just not realized it.

Unlike Glain whose earliest remembrances were as a small child when her father had entered the nursery and discovered her writing her own fairytale stories upon the empty pages her kindly governess had provided.

The duke had stormed the room, grabbed the sheets, and into the hearth they’d gone.

The governess whom she’d loved, a woman who’d encouraged Glain, even at that young age, to think bigger, to dream of more, had been sacked, only to be replaced by a new sterner, colder, pinch-mouthed woman, who’d been unafraid to wield a switch to Glain’s knuckles when she’d deemed Glain’s work inappropriate.

Eventually her sister who loved both art and books with the same intensity Glain once had, would realize the limitations placed upon them both. Opal had simply managed to escape the certainty of her future until now.

She’d discover what Glain had, and what all women ultimately did—their voices weren’t their own. Neither were their interests and passions. In the end, first their fathers, and then their husbands dictated who a woman must be.

To resist was futile.

A small hand waggled before Glain’s face, and Glain went briefly cross-eyed as she concentrated on those paint-stained fingers.

“Hullo? You’re not even listening to me. Have you heard any of what I said?”

“On the contrary.” Glain angled her frame and resumed her sewing. “I’ve heard everything . It’s why I’m now ignoring—”

Opal yanked the wood frame from her sister’s fingers, hid it behind her own back, and glared. “I don’t know why you always insisted on being called Glain. Diamond suits you far better. They’re cold and icy. You are incapable of feeling anything.”

It was because of their mother. Her mother had been the one who’d chosen the name Glain…the duke had insisted his daughter be a ‘Diamond’ in every way. As such, Opal’s charge struck in a place deep within her heart, the pain making a liar of her sister.

“I am capable of making safe decisions,” she said calmly, keeping her features perfectly even.

“Safe,” Opal’s face pulled. “Bah, how dull and how very boring.”

“Dull and boring essentially mean the same.”

“It is a circulating library,” Opal entreated. “A circulating library. Why can’t I go?”

“Because there is no board of directors who oversee the type of books offered. The library is largely sponsored by the Duke of Strathearn.” A duke whose reputation preceded him.

“Well, if a duke is a sponsor, that should be good enough for Father.”

One would think .

“It would be, if the establishment was more selective in who it allows memberships to.”

Her sister stared confusedly back. “And who is that?”

“Anyone and everyone, regardless of station or…reputation.” Prostitutes. Notorious mistresses. Self-made men.

Opal wrinkled her nose. “That’s snobbish.”

“I don’t disagree, but my opinion doesn’t matter.” In a tyrannical world, no woman’s did.

Fury poured from her sister’s eyes. “I hate him.”

There was an area they could come to a consensus on.

“Opal,” Glain tried again. “You have books here. Ones—”

“Ones hand-picked by father, and boring and dull.”

“Which both still mean the same thing.”

Opal clasped her hands against her small chest, and her eyes took on a faraway, romantic glimmer. “But not all books are the same. These books, Glain, they are…magical.” She whispered that latter word with an awed reverence one might bestow upon a newly discovered land or rare gemstone.

“Magic doesn’t exist, Opal,” Glain spoke gently, but as firmly as she could. She cast a watchful look at the doorway. “And certainly not in the gothic stories you read,” she whispered.

Opal dropped her arms to her side and glared. “They are magnificent, and clever, but of course, you would judge them.”

“ Father will. And when he does, gone they go. Spare yourself that hurt. You are better off not indulging in them.”

“Reading is not an indulgence.”

Opal scrambled onto the sofa and went up on her knees next to Glain. She gripped her with desperate hands. “Look at me and tell me there’s nothing that’s ever brought you joy the way my books do! Because I don’t believe it.”

Glain held her sister’s eyes. “Opal, I was years younger than you when I,” learned , “Accepted how my life would proceed. You would do well to remember that pastimes like reading or painting, or whatever it is…they aren’t worth,” Losing loved ones over. “Angering the duke.”

Opal sank back on her haunches. “It is no wonder you find yourself Princesse de Glace,” she murmured.

Had her sister shouted, glowered, and stomped, it would have been easier than this, quiet acceptance.

Ice Princess.

Yes, the world—Glain’s own sister —believed Glain to be stoical, distant, and so conceited that she, even after two Seasons, hadn’t found a single gentleman in all of England, worthy enough to be her husband.

The world hadn’t so much as an inkling as to how lonely Glain in fact, truly was. Everyone could go rot. She could care less about society’s opinion.

But Opal wasn’t just ‘someone’ or ‘everyone’. The fact Glain’s sister didn’t know the truth? That would never not hurt.

Glain, however, had discovered something altogether more agonizing—having people ripped from her life. Her late mother who’d been banished by their father for daring to encourage Glain’s inquisitiveness and only permitted a handful of visits with her children. The governess who’d been dismissed for daring to encourage Glain’s inquisitiveness.

“Did you hear me?” Opal demanded. “I said you are the Ice Princess. Don’t you even care I’m calling you names?”

“There are certainly worse things than being referred to as a princess, Opal.”

Glain’s was a bald-faced lie. That title cast upon her, whether spoken in the King’s English or French form, stung.

Sadness filled Opal’s light-blue eyes. “You are unbearable, Diamond , and I will never, ever , become you.”

Somehow the somberness with which the younger girl spoke sent an even greater spiral of hurt through Glain.

She made herself speak. “Never, ever, ever.”

Opal cocked her head.

“You forgot one of your ‘evers’, Opal.”

Her sister’s eyes bulged.

With a piercing shriek, Opal tossed her arms up.

Secretly relieved by that familiar show of spirit from the younger girl, Glain still managed to keep her features even.

“Opal,” she spoke calmly. “There are rules of decorum that we, as the daughters of a duke are required to follow. I have committed myself to being flawless in all the ways ladies are expected to be.”

Having delivered that short, but important lecture, Glain gave her sister a firm look. “Now, I’d advise you to heed my advice and quickly, Opal.”

“Why?” her sister asked with an unexpected and sudden calm.

In a reversal of roles, Glain tipped her head in an accidental mimicry of her sister’s early befuddlement. “I don’t…?”

“Why are you so determined to be the flawless lady?”

It was a question never before put to her. Glain found her voice once more. “Because it is the way we are expected to conduct ourselves.”

Fire blazed within her sister’s eyes. “Well, it is a stupid way.”

In Opal’s expressive gaze, Glain saw herself of long, long ago. Back when she’d believed she’d always be as effervescent as her. But then, Glain had been a small child when she’d transformed herself into someone she despised.

Opal, on the other hand? She’d retained hold of her merrymaking ways far longer. Odd Glain should find herself both resenting and envying the girl.

Giving up her seat, Glain joined her sister.

She tried again.

“As I said, you and I must conduct ourselves in a manner that is above reproach, Opal.” She rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder and squeezed lightly, willing her to understand. “You’d be wise to learn that now. Otherwise, you’ll learn what fate awaits those who don’t conform to Father’s expectations.”

“It is only a book,” her sister entreated.

This forlorn side of Opal, one who was so desperate for her books, threatened to wear Glain down.

“You know he’ll not countenance it, Opal.”

The books in question were gothic stories, ones about dangerous men and innocent ladies and angry ghosts.

“Bah. He’s a curmudgeon. Either way, he barely knows we’re alive.”

That was only true in part. “Barely or not, he knows, and when he finds out—”

“ If,” Opal shot back.

“ When . The duke discovers all. And when he does, he will burn your books and fire your governess, Mrs. Fernsby for daring to encourage your reading such works.”

And she’d not have that for her sister.

Opal’s cheeks went a pale shade of white.

Good .

At last, Glain had managed to penetrate her sister’s pertinacity and seemingly unflagging determination to visit the circulating library.

Mrs. Fernsby genuinely cared about Opal and nurtured the girl’s soul. The sole reason Glain and Opal’s tyrannical father hadn’t removed the woman from her post was because Glain had taken care to shield the governess and her charge from the duke’s scrutiny. She couldn’t protect Opal forever, and eventually His Grace would snatch that slight happiness enjoyed by his youngest daughter.

Opal found her voice. “If he burns my books, Glain, then at least I’ll have had the joy of reading them and will carry the memories of what I read for all of time.”

With that, her sister did something Glain never recalled the younger girl doing—she turned ever so quietly and made a slow, silent march from the parlor. She closed the door not with a bang, but a small, nearly indecipherable click.

As specks of ice lightly pinged against the frosted windows, Glain stared after Opal a long moment, wavering between calling her back or running after her.

In the end, she shook her head and picked up her embroidery.

Nothing she said would make her sister happy. Nothing Glain shared would undo the unwanted truths about their circumstances—both as ladies, and more specifically as the Duke of Devonshire’s daughters.

As she worked, however, guilt and regret all swirled in her breast. Guilt that she’d been the bearer of bad truths for her younger, still hopeful, sister. Regret that their father—that the world, on the whole—was not a better, more tolerant place for women. And frustration…there was that, too.

Restless, her embroidery in hand, Glain pushed to her feet and headed over to the floor-to-ceiling length windows covered with a light frost.

She pressed one of her palms against the chilled glass, warming it enough so that she wiped away the residual of ice there. She pressed her forehead against the slight view she’d provided herself of the quiet Mayfair streets below.

Glain knew when her sister looked at her, what she saw and believed. And not only because Opal didn’t spare anything when it came to telling Glain precisely what she thought of her.

Her sister hadn’t discovered the truths yet. But she would.

In a world where men were free to be whom they wished to be, traveling the Continent or world if they so wished, or studying the subjects they wanted—or as this case would have it—even reading the books they wanted, women of their station found themselves relegated to the role of ornamental objects, voiceless. Powerless .

“You want to go play?”

Glain gasped, and whipped around, finding her other beloved, troublesome, sibling.

Her twelve-year-old brother, Flint, stared hopefully at her.

At Glain’s silence, he joined her, walking with measured steps better suited to a grown man.

Whereas the duke largely ignored his daughters, his son received all his attentions and energies. And for all the ways in which Glain lamented the unfairness that came in being born a female in a man’s world, she also found herself pitying Flint for the pressure and attention the duke gave him—no, suffocated him with.

“Do you?” her brother pressed. “Want to play? You’re looking out the window the way I do when I’m in the middle of my lessons.” He gestured to the lead panes behind her. “I wanted to play with Opal.”

Glain lightly ruffled the top of his blond curls. “And any sister will do?”

“Yes,” he said with all the honesty only a child was capable of. He swatted her hand.

“No,” she said. “I,” can’t , “don’t want to play. I was just…” thinking of how life was and regretting so much of it “…watching the snow fall.” She settled for that easier, simpler answer. “Are you and Opal quarreling?”

Her brother shook his head and similar to the way Glain had moments ago, he cleared himself a spot upon the frosted glass and pressed his nose against the pane. “I can’t find her.”

“Opal is upset,” she explained.

“Why?”

Guilt reared its head once more. “She wanted to go somewhere, and I thought it better we not.”

“The circulating library?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. Even her brother knew that. Which meant it was only a matter of time before the duke did.

Flint puffed out his small chest. “When I’m duke, I won’t care what books my sisters read. I’ll let them buy whatever ones they want, and they shall read them whenever and wherever they wish. Why, if you want to read one of those gory books Opal loves in the middle of Sunday sermons, I shan’t say a thing. Why…why… I’ll see them installed in the pews in place of the boring missals there.”

So much love for him filled her breast. Glain settled her hands upon Flint’s shoulders and gave him a light squeeze. “You are a wonderful brother and will make the best duke,” she said softly. “But until that day, His Grace expects us to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting a nobleman’s children.”

Not unlike Opal of a short while ago, fire lit his eyes. “That’s another thing. When I’m duke, I’m not going to require anyone call me His Grace or duke. Not the way he does. I’m going to order everyone to call me Flint.”

A small smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “What if you don’t order anyone about, and instead, allow them to call you by your given name?”

He scrunched up his heavily freckled nose, a product of his love for the summer sun that left him with those long-lasting remnants through the subsequent seasons. “Very well. I shall invite them to call me Flint. The staff and my friends and everyone. But if they call me His Grace, I shan’t like it.”

Suddenly the boy’s eyes brightened, and his entire face lit up. “Ooh! It is snowing,” he exclaimed, scrambling closer to the window so he could stare out, and shifting the topic as only a child could.

While Flint stared wide-eyed out the window, Glain made no attempt to hide a sad smile.

Alas, her brother would inevitably change. He’d develop a similar expectation of how he’d be treated, and how others referred to him. It was only a matter of time. Right now, the duke ceded nearly all control of Flint’s schooling and life to the tutors whom he’d personally interviewed. But that wouldn’t be forever. One day soon, he’d take Flint under his wing completely, so that he might shape him in his image.

Her brother yanked on her hand. “Why do you look sad of a sudden?” he asked worriedly, sounding very much like the boy who’d gotten into the inkwells in their father’s office, painted the walls with that same ink, only to find Glain and the tutor he’d escaped from upon him. “You can’t be sad. Look!” He lifted his small, slender arms in a way that framed the tiny flakes falling rapidly outside. “It is snow .”

“I’m not sad,” she promised, lying. “I was merely thinking.”

“Thinking about sad things.”

Even at his tender age, he proved entirely too astute, and far more in tune with her or her sister’s feelings than the man who’d sired them.

Leaning down, she placed a kiss on her youngest sibling’s smooth cheek.

Flint instantly blushed a bright bred. “Go on now,” he muttered.

Frantic footfalls echoed from out in the corridor.

Just like that, all the color leeched from his freckled face.

Warning bells went off. “Flint, what have you done?” she demanded on a whisper as the steps drew nearer.

“I…may not have finished my lessons completely,” he muttered grudgingly, scuffing the tip of his buckled shoe along the floor.

She briefly closed her eyes, and instantly springing into action, she gripped her brother by the shoulders and steered him down behind the sofa just as a light knock fell on the door.

“Enter,” she called out in the crisp, aloof tones she’d become well-noted for amongst both Polite Society and the duke’s household.

The panel instantly opened, and a small, wiry fellow with wire-rimmed spectacles and a prematurely balding pate stepped inside.

His small mouth was pinched like he’d been born sucking upon a lemon and hadn’t stopped in the thirty and however many so years he’d been on this earth. “I am looking for his lordship,” Mr. Crowley said in a no-nonsense tone, one that had become more obsequious and curter the longer his tenure with the duke. “He has escaped his lessons.”

“I am afraid he is not here,” she said coolly.

The tutor flattened his lips. “This will not do, at all. The boy has responsibilities, and yet his flights of fancy and his flights in general interfere with his edification. I’ve no choice other than to report his latest escapade to the duke.” Spinning on his shiny black, buckled shoes, Mr. Crowley turned to go.

Glain glanced down to where her brother knelt at her feet still. Dread creased Flint’s high, noble brow and glittered in his panicked eyes.

She whipped her gaze up to the entryway.

“I would advise against that,” Glain said in tones steeped in frost and disdain as only she had managed to perfect these years.

The tutor turned back with a frown.

When he spoke, he did so with all the disdainful arrogance afforded him as the duke’s personal hire for his heir. “My lady?”

Well, Glain could do disdainful arrogance with the best of them. “Do you truly believe His Grace will take well to an incompetent tutor who cannot properly watch after the future duke?”

Mr. Crowley blanched.

Glain continued hammering her point. “I assure you, he won’t,” she said warningly. “You will be the one viewed as responsible for the marquess’s show of rebellion, and it will be you , in return, who finds yourself suddenly unemployed.”

The spindly-looking fellow yanked at his elaborately folded white cravat. “Perhaps…His Lordship can enjoy just a small reprieve,” he said, his voice squeaking. “After all, he proved extraordinarily focused and on-task prior to his es—uh…”

She narrowed her eyes into thin slits. “Break?” she supplied.

“Y-Yes. Th-that. His permitted break. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I was the one who s-suggested we have a reprieve. Why, he’s likely even now headed back to the schoolrooms.”

At her feet, Flint giggled, and Glain cleared her throat loudly, covering the damning giveaway. “Good day, Mr. Crowley.” With her words, expression, and attitude, she imbued all the ice, befitting the moniker Opal had hurled Glain’s way.

The tutor dropped a deep bow and then, backing out of the room, he drew the door shut behind him. Frantic footfalls, these ones departing, filled the quiet of the room, ultimately fading all together.

“Brava!” her brother cheered entirely too loudly and clapped his hands as he did.

“Shh!” She stole a frantic look at the doorway, more than half-expecting that she and Flint had stepped into one of many traps set by the duke to test his children.

“You did it.” He hopped to his feet. “You kept me safe from mean Mr. Crowley.”

He gazed upon her with far more adoration than she deserved.

“I cannot do that forever,” she said. “Soon, you’ll need to begin conducting yourself in a way the duke will approve of.” And then he’d be forever changed.

Flint’s blue eyes flashed. “He can go han—”

She clamped a hand over his mouth, muffling the remainder of that curse upon the duke. “Have a care. He can,” and would , “make your life a misery.”

Her brother shrugged. “Donff care,” he said around her palm.

And she believed it. She believed him . Glain closed her eyes once more. Not unlike Opal, Flint still possessed a backbone that hadn’t been broken, but it would be.

“You will care,” she warned. Because ultimately, the duke determined what a person cared about, and used that to bend their will, and shape people into moldable objects he approved of.

Flint shook his head. “No, I—”

The door exploded open.

Her brother dove to the floor.

Her heart racing, Glain looked to the front of the room.

Only it wasn’t an enraged duke there to take Flint away and twist him into his image. Relief filled her breast.

“Sally,” she greeted her maid.

Relief that lasted only as long as her maid’s next words. “She’s gone,” the young woman whispered, her voice breathless and her cheeks flushed, like she’d run a great race.

She puzzled her brow. “Who—”

“Lady Opal,” the maid rasped.

“She is not.” A master at hiding, Opal often took to sneaking about and remaining hidden until she decided it was time to come out. “I’m certain she’s just—”

“One of the stableboys saw her sneaking outside.”

“Then she’s in the stables,” Glain said calmly, with an ease she didn’t feel.

“Already had one of the footmen look there.” Sally twisted the fabric of her immaculate white apron. “She’s gone.”

“Gone,” Glain repeated dumbly. Where would the girl go? And didn’t she know the wrath she risked if the duke suddenly recalled he had another daughter? One at that who was still unyielding and an even greater handful than Glain had ever been.

“I don’t know, my lady,” Sally whispered. “We have to inform His Grace.”

Oh god. No. This would be the thing that crushed Opal. The duke would never tolerate—

“Don’t!” Flint exclaimed. “She is fine.”

Glain and the maid switched their attention to the boy.

He instantly dropped his gaze to the ivory floral Aubusson carpet.

Glain narrowed her eyes. Presently, Flint shuffled back and forth on that handwoven carpet, putting Glain in mind of a penguin she’d once observed on an outing to the Royal Menagerie with her late mother.

“Flint,” she said warningly.

“She is fine,” he repeated.

Glain looked to Sally.

The girl instantly took that signal, dipped a curtsy, and hastily ducked out of the room.

The moment she’d gone, Glain found herself alone with Flint. “Out with it.”

“The c-circulating library. You wouldn’t go with her, and I wanted to go, but she said I really needed to help provide a distraction.”

She should have expected something was suspicious when he’d sought out her to play with instead of Opal. Glain pressed her palms over her face. “You are going to be the death of me.” Letting her arms drop, she headed for the door.

“Where are we going?” he asked, following close at her heels.

“Where do you think I’m going, Flint?” Not we . “You have your lessons.”

“Well, if you think I’m staying,” he charged, “then I’m going to tell Father.”

“Let’s go.” Glain grated out those two syllables. She didn’t believe for a moment he would, and yet neither was it safer to leave him here alone in possession of that information about their middle sibling.

Her brother flashed a triumphant grin.

If it was the last thing she did, Glain was going to fetch her sister back before the duke discovered her gone and tamped out the younger girl’s fire once and for all.