Chapter 1

1

London

1817

I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.

Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 4

April

According to Margaret Arden's mother and aunts, the thing Margaret required most in life was a wealthy husband; according to Maggie herself, what she needed was to see her name embossed on the spine of a novel. Every person had a raison d'être, and Maggie had been aware of hers almost since the spark of consciousness. Her imaginative cup overfloweth, and so, naturally, she had begun telling stories to anyone who would listen (usually, her much-put-upon father) and later, when furnished with pen and ink, set these ideas down on paper. This obsession had culminated toward the middle of her twenty-second year, when she completed her third (and to date, best) novel, The Killbride . That same accomplishment, painstakingly copied in her best hand, was now improbably bundled in one of her sister Violet's shawls and tucked under her arm. It was heavy, the manuscript, and the room was very warm, and she worried increasingly that the book was going to be soaked in sweat by the time it was delivered to its destination.

Her younger sisters—Violet and Winny—were her coconspirators in everything. They stood beside her at the edge of all the mingling in their aunt's salon. They were both aware of the plan, and, cursed by that knowledge, fidgeted. Winny was even sweatier than Maggie, her ivory skin drained of blood. Papa, God rest him, had always referred to Maggie as his summer, bold, golden, and warm. Violet was his winter, with her lush, dark hair and frosty blue eyes. And Winny, Mr. Arden's youngest, was a shy and delicate spring, sweet yet trepidatious. Maggie missed their father every minute and tried not to resent him for the precarious social climate his early passing had created.

If Maggie was being honest with herself, and she usually was, she needed a rich husband and she needed one now. There were several prospects present at this event, but to her they were vague blurs in the crowd. The girls were in town to pick out suitable attire for an upcoming stay at their cousin's country home and his wedding, and their aunt had been gracious enough to float them down Frith Street to a fashionable modiste, where Violet and Winny made themselves apoplectic over silks while Maggie fretted over ways to make their brief time in London productive. It had come to her attention that her aunt ran in the same social circle as one of the editors who had received a copy of Maggie's book in the post. He had never responded, which had to be a mistake, because The Killbride was exceptional stuff and the people cried out for it. It had only taken minimal nudging from Violet, who possessed the theatrical charms of Sarah Siddons and the oratory cunning of the prime minister, to convince their aunt that this editor should receive an invitation to her poetry salon that coming Sunday.

"No room should be this warm," said Violet, squishing around in her shoes beside Maggie. They had been barricaded by several ladies locked in conversation with the guest poet in the library, and though the fireplace was clear across the room, it was abnormally hot. "I think my hair is going to catch fire," she added. "Hurry up and humiliate yourself, Maggie, so we might go outside to relieve the heat."

"Yes, do hurry," added Winny, who looked equally miserable. Her golden-brown ringlets were beginning to droop frightfully.

"You look ridiculous with that thing under your arm," said Violet.

"It's practical," Maggie replied, but it was a weak defense. "How else am I to convince Mr. Darrow to publish my work? He has to see it to experience its excellence."

"You're not to do it at all," Violet reminded her. "You're to throw that sweaty kindling in the fire where it belongs and do as Mother wishes. You're to go on Auntie's arm to Mr. Gainswell or Mr. Terrington, make introductions, and bat your eyelashes until one of them loves you and then we can move out of the cottage and into a real house."

"Impossible." Maggie sighed. Violet was right, of course, but reality wasn't about to get in the way of her dreams.

"I can smell Mr. Gainswell's gouty feet from here," said Winny, sensibly and in a whisper.

"See? Do you want to live in a stinky-foot house?" asked Maggie, glaring at Violet. Violet was somehow impervious to the damp heat in the room and looked perfect, as always, striking and pointed as a stuffed viper.

"If it's grand enough," Violet murmured.

"There is Aunt Eliza," said Winny, pointing. "You should have her make introductions."

"How are you going to explain that thing under your arm? She's going to notice," added Violet.

Maggie frowned. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Tell a story, sister, it's what you do best." Violet was not being encouraging. She didn't understand the pressure of being the eldest, of having to save the family from ruin while casting aside all thought of her dreams. Maggie wanted impossible things—to write her books and share them with the world and marry well enough to drag her mother and sisters out of poverty. They were surviving on their aunt's charity, for without a son, their father's sudden death had been a devastating blow, emotionally and financially. She couldn't decide what dear Papa wanted from her. As he lay dying, he had urged her to look to the family, and specifically to her sisters, to set an example, guide them, and help them find their way in a world unforgiving and unkind to the "wrong" sort of girl.

The sort of girl that spent more time worrying about her novels than her future.

The sort of girl who never bothered much with thinking about marriage prospects.

And yet Maggie's life up to his death suggested he wanted more for her. She was born on April 23, just like Shakespeare. She had been loudly imaginative and theatrical until early adolescence, when such behavior was no longer considered charming or permissible. All of that bursting color lived inside her now, hidden, allowed to come out only in her work, which was something her father had understood. She remembered him finding her asleep at her writing desk, ink smudged across her cheek, the candles melted to puddles. Papa would scoop her up and carry her to bed and sing no lullabies but recall the lives of the poets and storytellers he admired.

Maggie watched their aunt threading her way through the guests toward them. She was a tall, slender woman with fine, birdlike features and graying blond hair. Their mother had married for love, their aunt had married for status, and it showed. Maggie didn't think this with any nasty intent—their uncle was kind enough, but she could see the void of emotionless ambivalence that grew day by day between him and Auntie. There was nothing but cold recognition when their eyes met across a room, and their aunt kept a full social schedule to avoid spending time with her husband, Mr. Burton. Maggie dreaded such a life, though she tried to console herself with the thought that it would at least allow for plenty of time to write.

No, it wouldn't, you silly goose, that sort of husband would discourage your passions and imagination at every turn.

"Girls! Look at you packed back here like tinned herrings; you look utterly stifled." Their aunt frowned and motioned them forward, dispersing the women and poet with a wave of her fan. "Violet, stop slouching. Winny, my dear, are you well? If you're going to faint, please do so over here, where there are sofas. Heavens, you are all so shiny, some blotting would not go awry."

"Your timing couldn't be more wonderful," said Maggie, shoved forward by Violet. "I thought we could take a turn, dear aunt, and you could introduce me to more of your fine guests. Some of the men, perhaps."

"Now, there is the spirit, my girl." At once, Maggie's aunt took her by the elbow and whisked her away, leaving Violet and Winny to melt or expire or whatever was least intrusive and most feminine. "Mr. Gainswell has just returned from the Indies with the most amusing stories. Have you been introduced?"

"We have," said Maggie.

"And? Your impressions?"

The Burtons' elegant townhouse in Mayfair was packed wall to wall, but on Auntie's arm, the crush was navigated with ease and grace. Less busy functions were perhaps more fashionable, but their aunt enjoyed showing off just how eager society was to attend her music and poetry salons.

"He's quite…" Maggie flailed for a word, not because she didn't have any, but because any misstep would be reported to her mother. In fact, Maggie's season had been recalled in moment-by-moment, excruciating detail to her mother in a letter that, in Maggie's opinion, somewhat overused words like "disaster" and "catastrophe."

The bachelors are put off by her scrutinizing opinions, which are far too much for a young lady desirous of matrimony. One suggested to me that Miss Margaret made him feel like "a caged lion at Vauxhall, helplessly observed." Something must be done, sister, to curb her unruly appetite for expression. I remember you said she was serious and restrained, but that is not my experience so far. What changed in her?

It was not a flattering letter. She did ask who had contributed the lion at Vauxhall line, because she judged that promising and perceptive. Maybe all the eligible rich men in London were not dullards after all. Her aunt had declined to name names.

"He's quite something," Margaret finished. "I like his hair?"

"Really, niece, for such a lover of words, you reveal yourself."

"He has an interesting odor."

"With five thousand a year, he can provide you with any number of nosegays."

"One is forced to wonder if he could also afford a physician."

Aunt Eliza sighed, leading them through an archway to a black-and-white gallery exploding with plants and richly hung with portraits. It was less populated, and Maggie was grateful for the rush of cooler air. "One is also forced to wonder what it is you're hiding under your arm, dear. Yes, I saw it. If you are going to make a scene at my salon, I would appreciate forewarning."

Maggie clutched the swaddled manuscript closer to her side. "It's…" She tried to remember the warm, charitable feelings her aunt often inspired in her, and all the ways in which they owed this woman their continued comfort and safety. "It's my book."

"And why are you carrying it like a stolen infant through my house?"

"Because I would like to present it to Mr. Darrow, if you would introduce us."

Aunt Eliza paused, swiveling to hold Maggie at arm's length. The light in the hall was serene, beautiful, but now tinged with foreboding as a shadow flickered over her aunt's face. "That would be the Mr. Bridger Darrow of publisher Dockarty and Company, who Violet so insistently pressured me to invite to this event?"

"The very same." Maggie tried smiling but felt insane, and instead let her shoulders sag with frustration. "Please, you know how much this means to me."

"Sometimes, my dear girl, I must do what is in your best interest, and right now that means refusing, even if it makes you angry." She shook her head and touched Maggie's chin lightly. "I should have intervened sooner and moved you here to be with me in town. Your parents were always too permissive, too fanciful." Aunt Eliza pressed the fingertips of her right hand to her heart. "I was like you—faced with a difficult choice—yet I saw my position not as a burden but as an opportunity to make my family proud. I wasn't the eldest daughter, but I had to act like one."

"And I feel the same way," Maggie replied. "I simply want to provide for them with my work."

Aunt Eliza coughed with laughter. "No young woman of quality seeks employment, dear."

At that moment, a great commotion erupted from the way they had come. The words "girl" and "fainted" began reaching them. Whether it was Winny or Violet, and whether it was intentional or accidental, Maggie chose to see it as divine intervention. Their aunt scowled and hurried away, then remembered herself, turned, and pointed an accusatory finger at Maggie. "You. Stay. Right. There."

This window of opportunity would not remain open long.

While the hall emptied out, guests rushing past to inspect the chaos in the adjoining room, it occurred to Maggie that she didn't know what Mr. Darrow looked like. She needn't have worried, for it quickly became obvious that there were precious few candidates left behind. Her attention shifted to two men at the far end of the corridor, their heads bent together in low conversation while they stood sandwiched between a pair of arcing ferns. Some sour-faced ancestors glowered down at the men from their portrait, as if disapproving of the overheard subject matter.

Maggie felt like her throat had filled with nettles. This was beyond impropriety, but she hadn't lugged the manuscript around all night just to turn chicken now. Papa liked to read to her from Julius Caesar, even though her mother disapproved of the treachery and violence. Her father had been a navy man, and he always made the gory parts feel real and terrifying.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

That was perhaps a bit dramatic, given she was just a writer facing down an awkward social interaction, not armed senators waiting to ambush her with knives, but the grandiosity spurred her on. What were we but the players in our own dramatizations, amusing an ever-shifting audience of family, friends, and strangers? Maggie charged forward, arriving just as the two men finished speaking. One had been whispering, a short, round man with a friendly face and tiny spectacles perched on his nose. He had a scholarly appearance, and so Maggie dredged up her courage, Caesar-style, and shot out in front of him.

"Mr. Darrow?" she asked, voice bright with hope.

"Me? Oh, heavens, no," the man said with a laugh, and as he went on his way, tapped the other fellow on the shoulder. "Darrow? There's a lady here for you."

That little tap seemed to pull Mr. Darrow back from worlds away. He spun toward her, hair mussed, intensely dark eyes snapping to her with alarm. One hand was tucked under his chin, and there was a faint smudge of ink on the bare flash of skin between glove and sleeve, not unlike the ink staining Maggie's fingers beneath her gloves. Maggie's nervousness vanished, a new, unfamiliar emotion replacing the last: desire.

She had desired things in her life before—a secure future for her family, longevity for her parents, to see her book in the hands of readers across England—but never had she wanted a specific person. The heroes she had imagined for her stories paled in comparison, for they were concocted of words and punctuation, and this man before her was real, warm. It radiated from him, an intoxicating heat, and those searching, powerful eyes of his fell on her with genuine curiosity. If she had felt hot in the other room, now she felt fit to explode.

He smelled incredible, musky somehow, but not unpleasant, like a powerful, wild animal mixed with the fresh blast of the outdoors after rain. It was enough to banish the reek of Mr. Gainswell's unwashed stockings from her memory forever.

"Yes?" He cocked his head to the side. He was tall, well-built, with the strength of a person who rode and looked after their exercise. "Do we know each other?"

He sounded, well, annoyed, but he looked at her with enough inquisitiveness to light a flame of hope in her chest. Did he find her beautiful? Something in his gaze told her it might be so. His eyes were stormy blue, boundlessly dark to the point that they were nearly black. Even so, there was delight there or curiosity. The other hand, the one at his side, impatiently opened and closed around nothing. Whatever conversation she had interrupted, it didn't seem to be a happy one.

"I'm afraid we haven't been introduced," said Maggie, dropping into a polite curtsy as she remembered her long-lost manners. "Miss Margaret Arden. We might be acquainted, sir, but it would only be through the post. Some months ago, I sent you my manuscript, The Killbride ." And here, she hastened to take the bundled pages out from under her arm and its protective shawl covering. She felt stupider by the second as she unwound the fabric, realizing that she must seem to him an absolute lunatic. "And because you never responded, I thought perhaps the pages were lost, or for some unfortunate reason you never received them."

The shawl removed, Maggie held up the fat stack of paper between them.

It was her turn to feel like a lion in a cage as Mr. Darrow slid closer, staring down at the manuscript with one arched brow. "Your only conclusion was misadventure?"

Maggie nodded. "That was my opinion, yes."

"This is rather unusual, Miss Arden, and unforgivably rude."

Bad start.

"I know it's unorthodox, and I do apologize for any offense given, sir, but this novel is not just a passion for me, it's my life and I—"

Mr. Darrow plucked a few pages off the stack, perusing them. "Is that so? If it were as important as all that, then I would think you would take more care in how you present your life."

Maggie's mouth opened slightly, the air squeezing out of her.

It didn't take him long to add, "I regret to inform you, Miss Arden, that I did receive your letter."

"You…you did?" Her heart sank.

"Indeed, I did. These pages are familiar to me, yes, I begin to recall them despite my best efforts. I'm interested in publishing a novel of substance, you see, not an overwrought examination of whose misplaced giggle at the ball made Mamma beside herself or some similar nonsense." His nose wrinkled as if the papers stank. They might, she thought, given where they had spent the last few hours.

Maggie refused to believe things were as he stated. "Oh, but…but that's really just the beginning, and it's completely intentional, for not long after, the heroine—"

"The heroine could sprout wings and fly to America, for all I care, and it would still not interest me," he said with a sigh, dropping the pages back down to their mates. Maggie felt small and na?ve, wishing she could shrink behind the ferns. "The most I can say for your work is that it demonstrates a confident control of language, and there's clarity to the prose. I suppose your penmanship is to be commended also. Thank you, Miss Arden, for making an already unpleasant event that much more disagreeable. Good evening, and good luck with your"—he waved his hand dismissively—"with your life."

Stunned, she watched him stalk away. Never had her opinion of someone changed so rapidly. A moment ago, she would have carved him onto her dance card permanently, now she hoped never to see him again. His enviably handsome face be damned, it was skinned over an empty soul. The coldness. The audacity.

Winny was rushing toward her down the corridor, face awash with concern. Violet was probably still pretending to be collapsed by the fireplace. Maggie turned, facing the ferns, hateful of the tears that gathered in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. This was her life, and whatever Mr. Darrow said about it, she knew it was worth pursuing. It was just one in a long line of unkind responses. Written responses from other publishers had remarked that a young lady ought to concern herself with more high-minded things. Additionally, we find it troubling that a person of your gentle sex should put their pen to describing scenes of violence, passion, and general indelicacy, wrote one mean little grump from the lofty heights of his Paternoster Row office.

Maggie wiped her face dry and pulled back her shoulders. "I suppose good evening to you, too, Mr. Darrow," she murmured, covering the manuscript pages with the damp shawl. "I will tirelessly endeavor to prove you wrong."