Chapter 1

1

Summer 1814, Pryde estate

“Miss Rose, are you lost?”

As the question jabbed her in the gut, Miss Anne Rose’s gloved hand involuntarily clenched around the skirt of her dark blue gown. Several pairs of eyes stared at her, including those of the lady who had asked the question, Lady Virtoux, a matron in her sixties with an exquisite chignon adorned with silk tulips, ornamental birds, and jewels.

Do not crinkle your gorgeous new gown , Anne told herself and forced her hand to let go of the material. The dress was a gift from her sister, Patience, the new Duchess of Rath, who had sent it along with a dozen more a few weeks ago in preparation for the Duke of Pryde’s house party, which would last for several weeks.

“Am I?” Anne asked, looking around. “Is this not where ladies are due to gather for the hunt?”

Along with four dozen or so very respectable ladies and gentlemen, Anne stood in front of Pryde Manor, the Duke’s country estate house. The sun was shining brightly, and the air felt thick, hot, and humid, making sweat mist her skin under her new corset. A beautiful park, rolling hills, and woods surrounded the palatial, three-story house with its tall columns and large windows.

The gentlemen of the group—there were two dozen of them, including seven dukes who seemed to have a bond thicker than blood, one of whom was the Duke of Rath, Anne’s new brother-in-law, dashing in his crimson hunting coat and with his coal-dark hair—intermingled with the ladies, chatting as they waited for the hunt to begin. He was talking to Patience, who was blonde like Anne, with bouncy curls, big blue eyes, and a short, curvaceous figure. The love was clear in their gazes. Plagued by wrath, Dorian Perrin was a wounded soul, thinking himself unworthy of love, but Patience had transformed him…and she’d grown, too. From a naive and innocent country girl, she’d become a true duchess, a true partner for the Duke.

Anne’s heart swelled with joy for her sister. And, it seemed, Patience was now on a mission to make Anne as happy as she.

Hence, Anne was here, at her family’s insistence, to try and find a husband.

The Duke of Pryde, host of the party, leaned down to pick up a glass of sherry from the tray carried by a footman in dark blue livery—the Pryde colors. The rest of the seven, the Dukes of Luhst, Enveigh, Eccess, Irevrence, and Fortyne, exchanged private jests with each other.

There were at least a dozen more gentlemen astride their glossy mounts, decked out in hunting coats, breeches, and boots. Many of them were quite dashing, and Anne’s mama’s words came to mind as she straightened her gown.

“You had no prospects for a good marriage before Patience married the Duke. But now you’re sister-in-law to a duke. Our family is no longer an unwanted connection. You might have a chance at happiness, darling. Perhaps, there’s a gentleman at that party for you.”

Only, Anne’s heart still belonged to one man… One who’d broken it four years ago.

“Are you not supposed to be with the spectators?” asked Lady Virtoux, looking at Anne with her nose in the air.

Anne glanced at the thirty or so spectators, including farmers, tenants, and villagers. Servants were loading the cart with roast beef, game pies, and seasonal vegetables, as well as ale, wine, and spirits.

Her mouth opened and closed. Only a few months ago, that was exactly where she would have thought she belonged. But now… Hadn’t her circumstances improved? Was the ostracism of her family not over?

“Miss Anne Rose is exactly where she belongs,” came a male voice…smooth, cultured, a pleasant baritone.

The voice ran down her spine in a shiver, making her lungs spasm in a desperate attempt to take in air, which was suddenly completely lacking in her chest.

The voice that had read books with her, told her jests, given her compliments, solved mathematical problems with her…

She turned her head. Among the groups of beautiful ladies, was one dashing gentleman in a tailored green riding coat. Tall, athletic, and gorgeous, with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and full lips. His hazel eyes were on her.

“She’s the honorable guest of the Duke of Pryde, just like you, Lady Virtoux,” said Justin, Earl of Chans.

The man who proposed to her four years ago and then disappeared.

Leaving her heart in pieces.

As Justin sank into the blue eyes of the angel he had never stopped loving, his stomach churned with guilt. His chest tightened as he watched the laughter drain from her eyes, replaced by a dim, hollow sadness. Each snide comment from the matron sliced through the air, and he clenched his fists, feeling a helpless rage simmer beneath his skin.

Heavens, she’d grown up. Once a pretty seventeen-year-old, she’d become a truly lovely young woman of twenty-one. She still had soft curls, big, bottomless eyes—the color somewhere between a cool gray and a dove blue—and a slightly pouting mouth with plush lips that simply begged to be kissed.

He’d tasted them once, on the day when he had proposed to her and she’d said yes. The best day of his life.

And the worst day, too.

“Do you know Miss Anne Rose?” asked Lady Virtoux.

Justin forced himself to tear his gaze away from Anne and meet the cold, gray eyes of the Marchioness who eyed him with a single brow raised.

From the corner of his eye, he saw how the Duke of Luhst, the biggest rake in all of London, walked towards Lady Chastity Perrin, the Duke of Rath’s sister. Poor Lady Chastity was seemingly trying to flirt with a gentleman, but was doing it so awkwardly, she was sweating. Her spectacles misted with perspiration. Luhst came to her rescue, a compulsion Justin understood.

“I know Miss Rose very well,” he replied to Lady Virtoux. “We were great friends growing up. Were we not, Miss Rose?”

Anne looked so beautiful in her blue gown, sewn no doubt to match the latest fashions of the ton. But it was not the gown that made her shine.

It was who she was. A brilliant mathematician who calculated in her head so fast she answered almost before problems were fully posed. A friend who was the keeper of his deepest secrets. A woman who never left his most intimate desires and dreams.

She met his gaze straight on, and he was pleased to see the beaten, shy, insecure woman was gone, and anger blazed in her eyes.

“I thought we were,” she said. “But it seems our understanding of friendship was quite different.”

Tension crackled between them as the women standing in the circle near them all held their breaths, watching the two of them with acute interest.

Lady Isodora Williams, a handsome, tall, brown-haired young woman from a family with a pristine reputation, whom his mother wanted him to court and marry, shifted uncomfortably to his right. “People do have different views on friendships. Some friendships have their natural end, do they not, Lord Chans?”

But he couldn’t care less what Lady Williams thought.

He had abandoned the love of his life four years ago because his papa and mama thought Anne was not good enough for him. The scandal surrounding her family would drag the good name of the Earl of Chans through the mud. Their heirs wouldn’t have a pedigree. She had no dowry.

She would bring nothing to the marriage.

His parents had taken him to London to separate him from Anne. And as a twenty-year-old man, he had not dared to make his own decisions.

But he’d never stopped loving her. He had lived the last four years in regret, watching her from afar, as he heard of her attempts to get published, and doing what he could to help.

It only took one letter to Sir Poole for him to take a special look at the manuscript of Miss Anne Rose and separate her work from the rest. The rest who of whom were men.

But it was her brilliance that had won over Sir Poole. She’d done that all on her own.

And now he was the Earl. He had no father to report to.

And he wanted Anne.

“Not unless both friends wish the end of the connection,” he replied, never tearing his gaze away from Anne’s. “One friend might have made mistakes and might wish to change the mind of the other party. Friendship might deserve a second chance, might it not, Miss Rose?”

Anne squared her shoulders. A strong gust of wind blew golden locks into her face from under her bonnet, and she blinked before tucking them away.

“I quite agree with Miss Williams, Lord Chans. All things come to end, and it is especially important to never go back to bad habits. I wish you good luck in the hunt.”

And with that, she left the group.

She might as well have punched him in the gut. He watched her back with a sinking heart.

But he wouldn’t give up so easily.

He should never have.

He trotted after her, feeling the gazes of all the house party guests on him, and sending them all to hell.

He’d do all he could to get the love of his life to give him another chance, or he’d live the rest of his days in regret.