Chapter 1

"It's barely mid-day, Father," Miss Marian Sullivan pointed out, fixing her father, the Baron with her iciest glare. "We've yet to have luncheon. At this rate, you'll be in your cups by dinner."

Marian was not a woman to suffer fools gladly. It was not in her nature. And when the fool in question was her own, bird-witted father, she was inclined to tolerate even less.

Her estimate was a conservative one. She knew perfectly well that her father would be unlikely to make an appearance at the dinner table that evening. By her estimation, he was already on his second flask of brandy, and once the third was produced, she would be fortunate to get a single coherent word out of the man. Which meant she had to seize the moment.

"Papa," she said, bringing her fan down smartly on the table beside her to gain his attention. "Please. If you won't do it for yourself, then at least think of me."

The Baron passed a weary hand over his eyes.

"Enough, Marian," he said, his voice already furred with alcohol. "You weary me with your nagging. Your Mama would never have spoken to me thus."

Marian's elegant fingers clenched the fan a little tighter at the mention of her mother. "Mama wouldn't have tolerated your current behavior any more than I," she said, speaking a little more sharply than she intended. "But as she's not here to tell you that herself, you leave me no choice but to do it for her."

She looked around the room, her blue eyes taking in the faded curtains, the threadbare rugs, and the surfaces which hadn't seen a duster in months. Her mother wouldn't have tolerated any of this either, she knew. But her mother was dead, a fact that did not get any easier for Marian to accept, no matter how much time elapsed since the moment her world changed forever. Today was day seven hundred and fifty-two since the fever had taken her. Most of the servants had given notice on day four hundred and seven, or thereabouts, when there was no money left to pay them, and the Baron's drinking, which had started on day two, had only increased since then.

Marian did not yet know on which day the money would run out for good, but she knew for certain that if she couldn't get through to the man slumped in his chair before her, they would be reaching that point sooner rather than later.

And that just would not do.

"Father!" she exclaimed again when he failed to answer her. "Please, I beg of you, this cannot continue. Unless you wish to end up in the debtor's gaol, of course?"

"I said enough, Marian." Her father's watery blue eyes, which were a faded version of her own, snapped open. "It is not seemly for a lady to talk about money. You must leave these matters to me; there's a good girl."

Marian knew perfectly well it was not seemly for a lady to scream in frustration either, but then again, she had never troubled herself too much with matters of seemliness, and the sound that escaped her throat was an expression of all seven hundred and fifty-two days' worth of pent up emotion. Grief, frustration, anger, fear: all four tumbled out of her at once, making her father start out of his chair in surprise, and Mrs. Grant, the loyal housekeeper, who had remained with the Baron and his daughter even though her duties were now vastly beneath her station, came running to see what was wrong.

"What happened, Madam?" she cried in panic. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing has happened, Mrs. Grant," said Marian, getting to her feet. "Or nothing that hasn't happened almost every day since Mama died, at least. But everything is wrong. And unless I leave this room, I'm afraid everything will get very much worse."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father start to stand up in protest, but alas, the brandy he'd drunk since this morning had not treated him well, and he slumped back in his seat almost immediately, his eyes closing as if he could shut out the world that way.

On another day, Marian might have felt some sympathy for the man. He was her father, after all, and she loved him in spite of everything. But on day seven hundred and fifty-two, Marian could not find a single shred of remorse for what she had said, and so, instead of rushing to his side as she might have done on any of the days prior, she simply turned her back and stalked out of the room, her back ramrod straight, and her shoulders set defiantly back.

She would go for a ride. Her father had not yet had to sell her horse, thankfully, and the manor was set deep enough in the countryside for her riding out unchaperoned to go unnoticed. It was one of the few advantages she could think of to their lack of a fashionable London address, and Marian meant to make the most of it. A ride would do her good. It would clear her head, exercise her lungs, and give her some much-needed time to calm down, and work out what to do next.

And that's what she would do.

* * *

The woods surrounding Sullivan Manor were as familiar to Marian as her own face, but this afternoon, she rode blindly and without thinking, her anger and fear occupying her mind to the exclusion of all else. Which meant that, by the time the light started to creep from the sky, and she decided to turn back towards home, Marian realized she was well and truly lost.

"Come, Beauty," she said, reaching down to pat her mare on her glossy black neck. "You must know the way, surely?"

But, unfortunately for Marian, Beauty was better known for her placid nature than for her intelligence or sense of direction. The mare had no more idea where she was than Marian herself, and so it was that the two found themselves wandering still deeper in the woods, turning this way and that, and yet somehow never finding the path home.

"Hound's teeth," muttered Marian under her breath, glad there was no one around to hear the unladylike curse. "Am I to sleep under the stars tonight, then? Are things not bad enough without me having to add this to my list of troubles?"

Beauty's ears flicked back at the sound of her mistress' voice, but there was no other sound to disturb the quiet of the forest, and still nothing to point the way home.

"So we'll pick a direction and ride that way until we find something," Marian decided, finding solace in the sound of her own voice. "The woods can't go on forever after all. Nothing bad does."

She wasn't quite sure this was true. The desolation she'd felt at the loss of her mama, and the reduced circumstances she and her father had been living in ever since, were so far showing all the signs of continuing indefinitely. But Marian was not the type of woman to easily admit defeat, so it suited her to think she would surely soon find a way out of the forest. And, just as the sun dipped below the horizon, she did.

It was just not the way she'd hoped.

Despite the confident words she'd uttered aloud as nightfall approached and rain started to fall, Marian, who had never left the house alone after dark, had started to fear that she would be riding through this wood forever, never finding her way home. She had also started to fear that something worse than merely being lost might befall her if she didn't find shelter soon, and although she had but a vague idea of the evils that could befall an unprotected woman, out alone in the dark, she knew enough to be very, very afraid — which made the light shining through the trees a welcome sight indeed.

"A light, Beauty!" she exclaimed, urging the horse forward. "And where there's a light, there must surely be a person to have lit it?"

As she finally cleared the edge of the wood, however, and found herself looking down a grassy, moonlit valley to the house below, Marian suddenly wasn't so sure that her luck had, indeed, changed for the better.

The house — which would more properly be described as a manor, she supposed — was huge and ornate: one of the grandest country homes she had ever seen, in fact. Or, at least, it would have been if it had at least been inhabited.

This house, however, looked fully abandoned. Ivy sneaked up its walls, smothering the brickwork and entirely covering some of the many windows. The wide, tree-lined road that led to the imposing front door was choked with weeds as if it hadn't been used in many years. Even from a distance, the air of neglect was clear, and Marian, who was no stranger to neglect, felt her heart sink with disappointment.

"Bother!" she muttered aloud. "Just when I thought I was safe."

But then there was that light.

It shone from a window on one of the upper stories of the manor, its orange glow weak but still a clear sign that someone was at home.

The question was, would this someone welcome a knock on their door at this late hour from a strange woman who had not the slightest clue where she was or even whose door she knocked upon?

Marian couldn't answer that. Nor, however, could she afford to turn back and risk losing her one chance at shelter for the night, so, her heart heavy with foreboding, she urged Beauty forward. Marion guided the mare down the hill and along the unkempt road until she reached the wide steps that led to the double doors at the front of the manor.

Like the rest of the place, the steps were overgrown with weeds and sagged gently in the middle as if they'd given up hope of ever being returned to their former glory. The doors, meanwhile, had once been highly polished, but now, the paint on them was flaking, and when Marian timidly gripped the brass knocker to bang it against the wood, she was afraid it might come off in her hand.

"Poor old house," she said softly, gazing up at the unlit windows as she waited for her knock to be answered. "You must have been beautiful once and loved. But you and I have both fallen on hard times, haven't we?"

She stood on the top step for five full minutes in the rain before daring to knock again. From behind the doors, she heard the sound of her knock echo around the house, but there were no hurrying footsteps and nothing at all to indicate that anyone was at home.

Except that light.

In despair, Marian knocked a third time, slamming the brass ring against the wood with all her might. At the bottom of the stairs, Beauty stamped a hoof in surprise. The door, however, remained stubbornly closed. Marian shivered in the cold night air, pulling her cloak around her for warmth.

If no one answered her forth knock, she decided, she would take Beauty around to the back of the house and see if she could find some stable or barn to sleep in for the night. It would be the most frightening thing she had ever done — and with a bit of luck, ever would do — but there was no choice, and so she straightened her shoulders and blinked back the tears that had sprung up behind her eyes, determined not to give in to the rising panic.

I can do this. I will do this.

Fortunately for Marian, however, she didn't have to.

At the exact moment she turned her back to the house and prepared to walk down the steps and put her plan into action, she heard the sound of a key in a rusty lock, and with a creak that sounded almost like a groan, the huge door swung open.