Chapter 1

Chapter 1

As the last note of the pianoforte lingered in the air, Bridget pursed her lips together, thinking. There was still something missing in the piece she was composing, but she couldn't determine what it was. It simply didn't have the depth that it should have.

"It is an excellent piece."

Bridget looked over her shoulder at Anna, her younger sister and nearly her mirror image. Both sisters had brown hair and green eyes, which they had inherited from their father. They also had their mother's delicate facial features and slight figure. Anna held her sketchbook in hand, and, considering the odd angle at which she sat on the settee, Bridget suspected that the nearby vase of flowers had caught her sister's attention.

"Your latest piece is also excellent."

Anna's latest painting was of the two of them, dressed in white gowns, lounging in a garden. Their mother, Lady Louise Crampton, had declared that the painting was a masterpiece and had insisted on it being displayed in the drawing room.

"It is adequate," Anna said.

"More than adequate!"

Bridget rose from where she sat and strode to the painting. With her fingertips, she traced the details of the flowers and the gowns. Everything was so carefully and lovingly done that it made Bridget's heart swell with pride for her sister's accomplishments. "It is beautiful. I have seen nothing that rivals your talents."

Anna's face pinkened, and she scoffed. "You praise me much too highly. I will concede that it is good, and it ought to be given how often I have painted over the years. It would be most shameful if I had developed no talent for artistry. However, it is not as good as you say."

Bridget hummed and turned her back to the painting. "You know our mother would not have insisted on hanging it in the drawing room if that were true," she said. "She has wonderful taste in aesthetics."

Anna shook her head with that familiar look of conceding because she knew victory was impossible. Bridget grinned victoriously; she was not an especially gifted rhetorician, but she was determined.

"Enjoy your sketching," she said. "I have an engagement with Rose this afternoon."

"I shall inform you if any suitors come searching for you," Anna said.

Bridget doubted that they would. The Season had scarcely begun, but Bridget had seldom received calls in the previous Seasons. As a young lady of twenty years, she was not unmarriageable, but she had already noticed her lack of suitors with heavy dread. There were only a few Seasons left before she would be put on the shelf.

However, she did not wish to burden her sister with such thoughts, so Bridget forced an easy smile for her sake. "Thank you."

She stepped lightly from the drawing room, past the morning room and her father's study. A low, masculine voice drifted from behind the closed door, and Bridget paused. She had been unaware of her father having any visitors.

"You know what my price is." The voice belonged to the Marquess of Thornton. "I have told you how you might emerge unscathed, if you will only agree."

Escape from what?

The Marquess of Thornton was a familiar presence in Crampton House. He and Bridget's father, the Duke of Crampton, had known one another since their days at Eton. After that, they attended Oxford together, and now they were business partners and friends. Although Bridget had always thought there was something cold about the marquess, she was cordial to him out of respect for both his position and his long friendship with her father.

"The price you ask is far too high," Bridget's father said. "I cannot ask that of Bridget."

She drew in a sharp breath, her pulse quickening. She ought not listen to her father's private conversation, but how could she not? He had just uttered her name in the company of his business partner and friend.

"It is her lot in life," said Lord Thornton. "Is it not, Your Grace? A young lady must be wed, and we know that you cannot afford a dowry for her. I do not imagine that you will find a better offer than mine."

Bridget put a hand over her mouth to muffle the gasp that emerged without warning. Her father could not have gambled away her dowry! Lord Thornton must have misunderstood something, and surely Bridget's father would soon correct him. But a long silence followed, broken only by the sound of Bridget's racing heart and her quickened breath.

"I ask no more of her than any other man," Lord Thornton continued. "I want an heir. Any other suitor would expect the same of Lady Bridget."

"I have always promised Bridget that she might find a love match," her father said. "I must keep that promise to her. She wants so desperately to marry for love, Thornton."

"Noble," replied the marquess, "but you do not have the means to ensure that she can marry for love. Surely, I am a better alternative to condemning her to a life of spinsterdom or worse—a governess! You cannot possibly expect Lady Bridget to suffer such indignations."

Warmth rushed to Bridget's face. Her mouth gaped, followed by a sharp jolt of repulsion. She did not think herself an uncharitable woman, but the thought of bearing an heir to Lord Thornton, a man old enough to be her own father, made her stomach lurch.

"And you will pay all my debts," her father said, his voice barely carrying past the closed door, "in return for Bridget's hand?"

Bridget felt ice claw at her spine. Was she to be treated like—like a mare or a piece of livestock, then? Was she to be sold to this man, merely because she could bear an heir? How long had her father known that she would have no dowry? How long ago had he gambled it away, along with her future?

The corridor, usually so airy and open, seemed suddenly too small and constricting. She lifted the skirts of her gown and hurried into her bedroom. Elizabeth, her lady's maid, was carefully arranging Bridget's walking gown for her promenade with Rose. The slight, fair-haired maid curtsied at her entrance.

"My lady."

"Elizabeth," Bridget said.

The maid cast her a puzzled look, doubtlessly noting Bridget's dour mood. She was too polite to comment on it, however.

Bridget sighed. "We should make haste if I hope to meet Rose at the agreed-upon time."

That was untrue, but Bridget could not bear being in the house any longer, having heard what she just had.

***

"I can scarcely believe it!" exclaimed Rose, her blue eyes wide and her face scandalized. "How can your father even consider such a proposal?"

Bridget had taken a coach to the park to meet Rose, and the journey had given her ample time to think through the conversation several times over. As loath as Bridget was to admit it, the Marquess of Thornton made a reasonable argument. She would have to wed eventually.

However, her father had always promised her a love match. Surely, it was not too much for her to expect him to honor his word? Of course, there was the matter of the debt and her spent dowry, but if Bridget let herself think too much on those, she felt as if she might drown beneath the injustice of her situation.

"He is desperate," Bridget said, sighing. "There is no other explanation."

"But your dowry!" exclaimed Rose, her hands twisting anxiously at her lilac skirts. "Oh, Bridget! What shall you do?"

"I know not," Bridget replied. "What do you think I ought to do?"

The two ladies walked in silence for a long moment, Elizabeth and Francesca, Rose's lady's maid, following at a respectable distance to serve as chaperones. After several moments, Rose sighed forlornly.

"I do not know. If I were in your situation, I would feel so helpless. What choice do you have?"

"I suppose I could refuse," Bridget said, "but if I truly do have no dowry, the marquess is right. Father will receive no better offer for me."

"It is horrid," Rose said. "Perhaps you have some relation who may be able to help you?"

Bridget suspected Rose was thinking about her own guardian, the wealthy and aloof Duke of Hamilton. After the death of her father, Rose had become the Duke's ward; her mother Lady Victoria still lived, but she had not yet emerged from grieving. To the horror of the ton, Lady Victoria had chosen not to wed an aristocrat. Instead, she had married a baron's fourth son, a solicitor, and had vanished from the ton until her husband's death. She emerged to give Rose her first Season before vanishing again.

Bridget did not think that Rose and the duke were very close; they were only distantly related and, prior to the death of Rose's father, had rarely seen one another. There was no denying the Duke of Hamilton's wealth or the dowry that he had for Rose.

Bridget looked at her friend's fine gown, a bolt of anxiety curling in her chest. Did her own father dig them deeper into debt each day by purchasing all those fine things that the ton expected? How much damage had Bridget's own wardrobe for the Season already caused?

"I doubt it," Bridget said, answering Rose's query. "Our family is small anyway, and if there were such a relation, I am certain that my father would have considered that before Lord Thornton's proposal."

"It has not been settled yet," Rose said. "Your father has not even spoken of it to you. Perhaps he will decide not to do as the marquess suggests."

Bridget wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. "Perhaps."

Her father hadn't sounded as though he intended to launch a very spirited defense, though. Bridget tried to think about what good might come from the arrangement. If she wed the Marquess of Thornton, her father's debts would be forgiven, and Bridget would likely be able to secure a dowry for her sister. At least one of them could find a love match.

"Or maybe the marquess will decide that he does not wish to wed you," Rose said optimistically. "He could marry any lady in the ton and receive an heir. There is no particular reason for it to be you."

"I suspect he wants a young lady," Bridget said, heat rising to her face. "I realize I may sound disreputable in saying so, but I dread the thought of marrying a man I do not love. Of being intimate with a man I do not love."

Many ladies of the ton might have blanched at such a candid mention of marital intimacy, but not Rose. Her friend only gave Bridget a pitying look. "I am terribly sorry. It sounds dreadful."

"I wish my father would realize that," Bridget replied, "but I am sure that he cares little for how I feel."

"I am sure there are many lords whose daughters would willingly marry such a man," Rose said. "He does not need to bargain to wed an unwilling lady."

Bridget shook her head. "No, but if the Marquess of Thornton retracts his offer, that will not remedy my father's financial situation. I will still have no dowry and no marriage prospects."

Rose bit her lip and looked askance at her.

"I do not know how to help him either," Bridget said, her voice softening. "It is not as if I am a man and can embark on some new business venture, and I do not know enough about gambling to make a fortune that way."

"But the title is still worth something," Rose insisted. "Even if your father does not have money, someone will surely find the daughter of a duke worth pursuing. And surely, you will love one of those suitors."

Bridget frowned. "Thus far, there have been too few suitors."

She could not quite say why, either. It was not as though Bridget was unattractive or unintelligent. She seldom spent balls languishing as a wallflower and was frequently invited to festivities. It was only that, while the lords of the ton seemed to find her company enjoyable, they did not wish to marry her. Bridget wondered if rumors about her diminished dowry had spread or if her own expectations for a husband were too extravagant.

As she and Rose reached the park entrance, having completed the circuit, a carriage hurried down the street. Bridget realized too late that they stood beside a dip in the road, filled with mud and water. The carriage thundered through it, mud flying through the air and soaking the hem of her gown. She gasped, in a mingling of surprise and outrage.

The carriage halted just a few paces ahead, and the smartly dressed footman hurried to open the door. Bridget's face was so hot that she felt as if she had ducked her head into a furnace. At least the footman had the grace to look embarrassed on her behalf.

The door opened and a gentleman stepped from the carriage. He was a tall man, his well-muscled frame apparent and complemented by his perfectly tailored jacket. His hair was dark blond, and his eyes green like Bridget's own. Their gazes met, and Bridget had the strangest sensation that he could strip her bare with the heat of his gaze alone.

She shivered, a strange and primal awareness awakening within her. Bridget could not have said what that awareness was or what it meant, but the moment of insight was gone in the next, placed with utter mortification and indignation over her ruined dress.

"Oh! Your Grace!" Rose exclaimed, gesturing toward Bridget. "Look at what your driver did!"

Your Grace? Bridget inhaled sharply. At last, she was meeting the infamous Duke of Hamilton—and she looked utterly wretched.