Prologue

“Would you like me to plait your hair, Your Grace?” Harriet asked, laying down the hairbrush on the polished mahogany surface of the dressing table, where Joan was regarding her own face pensively in the triple mirror. “Or would you prefer to leave it loose for tonight?”

Your Grace…

The title rang strangely in Joan’s ears— as well it might, considering that her wedding to Tobias, the Duke of Goldfield, had taken place only that afternoon, in the Goldfield estate’s small chapel as snow fell outside, creating a picturesque winter wedding scene that delighted guests when they emerged after the ceremony.

Joan summoned a smile for her lady’s maid, someone who had been at her side since she first came out eight years ago and had staunchly supported her through the most difficult events of her adult life. God knew Joan had lived through some terrible experiences, although she did not want to recall them now on what was meant to be her wedding night.

Hopefully, with her marriage to the Duke of Goldfield, her long streak of ill luck was finally over. She would learn to love her husband in time, bear his children, and lead the life of any other woman of her class.

“Let’s leave my hair down tonight,” Joan said, dabbing a small amount of jasmine and iris-heavy perfume onto her wrists and throat.

“Very good, Your Grace,” Harriet replied approvingly, arranging the long auburn waves artfully around Joan’s pale, green-eyed face. “Your hair looks very well like this in the candlelight. I’m sure His Grace will think so too.”

“Let’s hope so, shall we?” Joan sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, before getting to her feet.

She squared her shoulders in her ruffled, lacy nightdress and took a deep breath, as though readying herself for some ordeal.

“You may go to your bed now, Harriet,” she said, fastening the belt of her light silken dressing gown over her night clothes. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Obediently, Harriet moved to the door but then paused, halfway out. “His Grace’s suite is at the bottom of this corridor on the left. The candles have all been left alight to show the way,” she reminded her, as though Joan could have forgotten this simple arrangement or become lost in the short passage connecting the Duke and Duchess’s private suites. “His Grace’s valet promised me that the doors would be unlocked. There is no need to knock.”

After speaking, Harriet remained hesitant, a slight frown on her plain, capable face under its gray-streaked bun, as though there were still something on her mind and she was reluctant to leave Joan.

The sentiment touched Joan, but she knew she could not let anxiety get the better of her tonight, whether hers or Harriet’s. One way or another, this was her last chance…

“Thank you, Harriet,” she said, smiling and trying not to show her apprehension too much. “You really can go and rest. You’ve been such a support today, but this next part is in my hands alone. Even if I barely know him, the Duke of Goldfield is said to be a good man, and it’s not my first wedding night after all, is it?”

“But it is, really,” Harriet pointed out, with a slight trembling in her lip. “I should know that, of all people. Anyway, I won’t be going to bed for an hour or two yet. I’ll go downstairs first and have some warm milk. If you need me, just use the bell pull.”

“Everything will be well,” Joan said firmly, as much to herself as Harriet. “You’ll see.”

She waited then until the muffled sound of Harriet’s footsteps on the unfamiliar carpet faded away. Then, she snuffed out the candle in her new dressing room and closed the door to her suite.

The corridor ahead of her looked shadowy and forbidding, despite the brightness of the candled sconces lighting her way, just as Harriet had described at least three times that evening. Joan was genuinely afraid of what she would find at the end of that passage. And with good reason.

At the age of only six-and-twenty, this was, in fact, Joan’s third wedding day. And yet, twice widowed, she had still never known married life, never borne a child, nor even lain with a man. It was an exceptional situation.

“And here I am yet again…” Joan murmured under her breath as she walked, shivering slightly and telling herself this was only due to the winter cold. “But this time, it will be different. It must be.”

The house was silent, although she knew many must still be awake, at least some of the servants, and a few wedding guests who were staying overnight and departing in the morning. Helena Snowley and her husband Colin Snowley, the Viscount Linbridge were here somewhere, as was Joan’s cousin, Edward Haynes, the Earl of Windham, since her father had died.

Joan reflected on how good her friends had been to her throughout the trials and tribulations of the past six years—the marriages she had accepted but not sought, the blow of sudden widowhood and public scrutiny not just once but twice, and then her father’s gradual decline and passing last year.

Edward had even given a speech at her wedding feast that afternoon in her father’s place, being her only surviving male relative.

As all her friends know, Joan is a very special woman of beauty, virtue and courage. No man could ever deserve her but let us all wish Tobias the best of luck in trying. To the Duke and Duchess of Goldfield!

Laughter and the clinking of glasses had ensued as the small party of Tobias’s relatives, Joan’s friends and the Goldfield estate neighbors had toasted the new couple, the atmosphere in the large reception room filled with goodwill and jollity.

“To the Duke and Duchess of Goldfield…” Joan whispered now, echoing Lord Windham’s words as she reached the main door to her new husband’s suite and paused outside.

Tobias would also presumably be awake inside, waiting for her arrival. A good-tempered man of her own age, if a little quiet and bookish, Joan imagined her slim, blond-haired new husband lying in bed, already in his nightshirt. Perhaps he would be just as nervous as his new bride, or perhaps he would be eager for her.

Either way, she trusted that he would be gentle with her tonight, and she would not mind even if he were a little clumsy. Joan had seen enough from their handful of awkward meetings to believe that at least Tobias would not be cruel or unfeeling in the marital bed. The act of consummation itself worried her little.

Still, left to her own devices, Joan would never have attempted marriage for a third time. Her union with the Duke of Goldfield had been her father’s dying wish rather than any kind of love match. In death as much as in life, her father wished to see his only child securely married and eventually mother to a grandson of his blood if not his name.

Now it was time to secure that legacy that her father had so badly longed for. With another deep breath, Joan laid a hand on the cold brass doorknob and turned it slowly before stepping inside.

As she had imagined, Tobias was lying in his bed, waiting for her, although he had not changed his clothes. Instead of a nightshirt, he still wore the dark suit he had chosen for their wedding. Nor did he react at the sound of her entrance. She noted the presence of an empty glass on the bedside table and felt reassured by it.

While Tobias was not a heavy drinker, this was his wedding day, she supposed, and he might well have drunk more than usual. Despite this explanation, his face looked strange, striking a cold fear into her heart that she was determined to dismiss. It was probably just the flickering candlelight.

Padding over to the bed, she laid a hand on his shoulder and then pulled it back with a horrified gasp. Her husband’s pale blue eyes were wide open and staring sightlessly up at the canopy overhead, his form entirely unmoving.

“No!” Joan cried out hoarsely, shaking her head and stepping backward, part of her mind still convinced that this scene must be in her imagination. “No, no, no…”

Was she the one who had imbibed too much at the wedding reception, had fallen asleep somewhere, and was now experiencing some awful drunken hallucination?

Beginning to hyperventilate, Joan forced herself forward once more and made herself touch his forehead and then his neck. His skin was cool, clammy and entirely without pulse. For the third time in her life, it was a ghastly corpse greeting her on her wedding night rather than a living husband.

“No!” she screamed aloud and drew violently at the bell pull on the wall. “Not again! This can’t be happening again!”

Feeling as though she could not breathe, Joan began tearing open Tobias’s stock and shirt in the futile hope that maybe that was all he needed—more breath, more room to breathe. The lifeless body remained unresponsive, the head only lolling grotesquely with her efforts.

Within minutes, the bell and her screams had summoned others, although Joan could not immediately recognize exactly who was in the room.

“Dear God save us!” She faintly heard Harriet gasp and found herself pulled away from the bed by her maid’s strong arms.

“You must save him!” Joan pleaded wildly, looking around at the blur of half-dressed men and women. “Please, someone save him! You must! He can’t die. Not now. Not like this.”

At the bedside, a man was putting his hand on the Duke’s chest, presumably seeking signs of a life already departed. He shook his head at the housekeeper, Mrs. Thomas, beside him.

“Ride for Mr. Harwich, John, and stop off to tell Reverend Hooton on the way. He’ll be needed again,” Mrs. Thomas instructed one of the footmen.

“Is Tobias dead?” Joan asked, struggling to break free of Harriet’s restraining embrace and return to the bedside. “Tell me he’s not dead. Please, tell me he’s not dead.”

The housekeeper stepped away from the bed and crossed herself, averting her gaze.

Looking around with rising panic, Joan realized that none of the servants were meeting her eyes. The Duke of Goldfield was dead, and his household blamed her, she realized. If Harriet hadn’t been holding her up, she felt she would have fallen to the floor.

“The Duke is dead,” a kind voice said beside her then, and Joan realized that the man at the bedside a moment ago had been Edward, roused from sleep by the hullabaloo. “I’m so sorry, Joan. I’ll get you out of here in the morning, but Harriet will take you back to your rooms for now. I’ll deal with everything here for you.”

“No!” Joan snapped, refusing to believe these words, even from the trusted cousin who had known her from childhood. “He can’t be dead! He can’t!”

“The Duke of Goldfield is dead,” Mrs. Thomas stated, ignoring Joan’s distraught cries and now making a more formal pronouncement as she bobbed a curtsey to the Duke’s still form.

The other Goldfield House servants followed her lead, bowing their heads or curtseying respectfully to their deceased master. Harriet, who was newly arrived at the estate today with Joan, kept a protective arm around her mistress, particularly when the other servants turned towards her again, wearing hostile expressions.

Several maids were openly weeping, and Joan could hear her name in the whispered exchanges between the servants.

“Will there be anything else tonight, Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked coolly. “Or will you retire to bed now?”

Joan turned to leave without answering and then collapsed in the doorway, as her legs finally gave out, her forehead hitting the doorframe before she hit the floor.

“Smelling salts!” She heard Harriet’s call, although the world seemed dark around her. “We need smelling salts!”

“I’ll carry her back to her room,” Edward’s muffled voice said from nearby, but he was quickly overruled by her maid.

“No, I’ll take care of Her Grace tonight, Lord Windham. You’ll be needed to deal with the physician and minister.”

A moment later, a strong smell hit Joan’s nostrils, making her eyes fly open, and pulling her unwillingly back into a cold and awful world of which she no longer wanted any part. At that moment, she only wished she could die too and put an end to her apparently cursed existence.

How was it possible to lose three husbands in precisely the same tragic circumstance? It should not be possible at all.

“I’m cursed, Harriet,” she sobbed as the older woman helped her to her feet and escorted her to her bedroom. “Why is this happening to me? I must be cursed. I wish I was dead!”

“Don’t say such things! You’ve done nothing wrong, Your Grace. Nothing. None of this is your fault.”

Joan said no more as Harriet tucked her into bed, but she heard the same words reverberating endlessly in her head.

A curse seemed the only reasonable explanation for such a heartbreaking event, and she could foresee no end to her nightmare.