Chapter Five

Alexandra catapulted awake, her heart pounding, limbs flailing.

Oh no! She'd fallen asleep! Her shoes! Bunty would take her shoes!

Memories clattered into place like falling dominoes: A carriage ride. Prison. And the last one:

Brightwall.

Whereupon her heart gave a hard, sharp lurch. Not unlike an allegedly stolen carriage being pulled to an abrupt halt.

She gulped in steadying breaths and in came sweet, clean air, scented with hints of blossoms and linseed oil lovingly applied

to furniture. She exhaled in relief.

Not her own bedroom, with its canopy bed. She was now in a room at a boardinghouse improbably named The Grand Palace on the

Thames.

Thank God.

Albeit in a suite she would apparently be compelled to share with her erstwhile husband.

She had clearly gotten as far as the bed, but she didn't remember anything that had happened between that moment and this one. She must have toppled into a black and dreamless sleep straightaway.

She was still buried beneath her estranged husband's wool coat and... what was this?

Her fingers skimmed another layer she seemed to have acquired. A pink knitted coverlet.

She didn't recall pulling it over herself.

She tentatively gathered a handful of its dense, soft weight. She knew it represented hours of careful feminine labor and

it smelled faintly of lavender. Which reminded her of her mother, who had died when she was thirteen years old.

And something about that coverlet made her feel more cherished than she had in longer than she could remember.

Her eyes began to sting. She gave her head a rough, admonishing shake.

She was not a child anymore. She was just tired.

Another blessing to count: her mother would never know she'd shared the family's bloodstain removal receipts with a husband

stabber at Newgate.

She could think of no reason yet to leave this almost outlandishly comfortable bed. She wasn't certain how long she'd been

asleep, but neither her meal nor her bath had yet arrived, so she propped herself up on the bosomy soft pillows and had a

look around the room.

Despite the little thundercloud of dread hovering on the horizon, dawning pleasure was difficult to suppress. Everything about

the room seemed designed to soothe and comfort.

Alongside the bed, a rag rug braided in soft shades of pink and gray and green invited her toes to test it.

Neatly lined right in the middle of it were the satin slippers she'd kicked at her husband.

The gloves she'd peeled off and flung at him rested on the corner of a little writing desk, next to a vase from which sprang

a tiny riot of wildflowers.

Most of the men she knew would never have dreamed of picking a woman's shoes up off the floor, let alone ones she'd hurled

at them. A woman's shoes on the floor would have, in fact, been all but invisible to a man raised with servants.

She was tempted to ascribe significance to the neatly arrayed slippers.

It was an odd sensation, to know he must have seen her sleeping. She'd never spent a single night alone with him.

Feeling only a trifle guilty, she slipped her hands into his coat pockets again, and inspected the artifacts she found in

there.

A folded ticket, in Spanish—he'd gone to an opera in Spain. This, for some reason, surprised her. He'd lived a whole life

in Spain for the past nearly five years, just as she'd lived her life in London, and apparently this included amusements.

And why shouldn't it? He didn't seem the sort who would have much patience with opera.

She thumbed open the tiny silver box, wondering if she would find lavender pastilles, or tobacco, or rolled cheroots.

Inside was a gleaming little scrap of pink satin.

She stared at it, frowning faintly. Puzzled.

And then her breath left her in a gust.

Goose bumps spangled her arms.

She touched it gently, remembering.

A week into the fateful house party, she'd risen very early, ruthlessly secured her bonnet with pins against a morning wind

that was already bending the tops of trees, and took her sketchbook out deep in the grounds, near the gate where she met Paul

for her chats at twilight, when he went home to his lodgings.

Paul Carson was her brother's tutor. They were in love. It was the perfect secret affair: forbidden and star-crossed but chaste

and sensible, conducted primarily at twilight with the back garden gate between them. He lodged with their neighbor, and a

small wooded area separated the properties. He was homesick for his family in Northumberland, her life felt threateningly

shambolic, and though neither one of them had stated this in those terms, they had found in each other an oasis. They talked

about poetry and mythology and birds and art. They both knew not a thing could or would come from their romance, in large

part because he was nearly destitute, and would be leaving for a teaching position in Africa soon. Neither one of them made

a fuss about this, but it was a poignant undertone in all their conversations.

She loved the way Paul looked at her with his soulful dark eyes. He was slim and sensitive; his profile would not look amiss etched on a coin. He'd touched her hand only once; this was the limit of the physical affection he dared express. She supposed she was lucky he was so thoroughly a gentleman, but then, she had never been drawn to rakish types. They struck her as exhausting, and her life was complicated enough as it was.

Meanwhile, a few other handsome, titled young men had been orbiting her with caution-tempered ardor, as her depleted dowry

and unruly family were as well-known as her charms. She expected she would eventually marry one of them, but on this particular

morning that day seemed remote and she'd rather hoped it was. She could not yet imagine falling in love with someone else.

Her favorite part of their vast garden was nearest the little gate; it was semi-wild, and growing wilder and shaggier now

that they could only afford an occasional gardener. The signs of decay made her increasingly nervous.

She'd just paused to swiftly sketch a robin posing charmingly high up on the fine twigs of a poplar when the red crayon she

was gripping slipped her grip. She scrabbled to catch it, but it fell and promptly rolled into the ivy beneath a wild and

tangly cluster of shrubs and twiggy trees.

"Blast," she muttered. Money for things like little luxuries like pastel crayons was increasingly scarce, and the red was

so useful.

She ventured into the thicket to fish around in the ivy. She was vaguely aware that her bonnet ribbons had come undone; they softly lashed her face and danced about her head in the stiff wind as she futilely scrabbled in the ivy, dodging the grabby twigs of the trees.

Conceding defeat, she finally stood. And that's when she discovered the wind had whipped her bonnet ribbons up into the twiggy

branches of a young tree, where they were almost picturesquely entwined.

She stepped backward in an attempt to tug free of it.

And somehow managed to pull the ribbon into knots.

And since her bonnet was firmly pinned to her head, she was essentially snared in the bushes like a hare.

It was a patently ridiculous and entirely novel predicament.

"Well, bloody hell," she said aloud. It marked perhaps the second time in her life she'd used those words.

She froze at the sound of a footfall crunching.

Colonel Brightwall was standing at the edge of the ivy. Hands clasped behind his back. Hatless, the wind whipping his hair

about.

"Colonel Brightwall," she managed faintly. "Good morning."

He bowed. "Good morning, Miss Bellamy. I was just enjoying a stroll about your grounds. My apologies if I'm intruding upon

your morning ritual of cursing in the shrubbery."

Judging by the temperature in her cheeks, she was as scarlet as the crayon she'd lost.

"Oh my goodness... I deeply regret—I am so terribly sorry you were compelled to hear me..."

"As well you should be. I'd so hoped to never again hear that kind of language outside of a battlefield."

His expression was pure, grave disapproval.

His eyes were positively brilliant with wicked, wicked amusement.

How peculiar to be trapped in a bush, equal parts mortified and pleased beyond all proportion to be teased by a famous colonel.

She smiled at him.

He craned his head. "It appears as though... are you... tethered to the bushes?"

He said this as if perhaps loath to insult her if this had been her goal all along.

"I'm..." She sighed heavily. "Well, yes. I suppose I am, after a fashion."

He took this in. "Do you... want to be?"

What a thoroughgoing rogue. She was hideously embarrassed and absolutely delighted.

She regarded him sternly and levelly for a silent beat or two.

"Do you think perhaps you're having a little too much fun with this, Colonel Brightwall?"

His shout of laughter was so warmly, unapologetically impudent she burst into laughter, too.

Then she sighed. "It's simple, really. I dropped my crayon and holder as I was sketching a pretty bird. It rolled into the shrubbery, so I went in to fetch it. I didn't realize that my bonnet ribbons had come loose until I stood up again and discovered they were snagged in the twigs, and when I pulled away, I realized they had tightened into knots, and..." She made a sweeping gesture at the result.

He'd nodded along with all of this. "Of course. A similar sequence of catastrophes led to our defeat at the Battle of Dos

Montanas."

They smiled at each other again.

"Shall I have a look?"

"I should be obliged, sir."

And so into the shrubbery he waded.

"Good God. I knew trees could on occasion be traitorous fiends," he murmured, his big hands sliding over the ribbon as gently

as though inspecting a bone for a break. "But I've never known them to take a hostage."

She laughed. "But they have us surrounded, Colonel," she breathed with great melodrama. "There's a whole battalion."

"Oh, they wouldn't dare try anything dastardly," he said distractedly. "My reputation for mercilessness precedes me."

She fell abruptly quiet, as this was true. I heard Brightwall ordered deserters shot immediately , her brother, Theo, had mentioned on a hush over dinner a few weeks ago. It was his misguided attempt to deflect a little

of the well-deserved censure aimed his way. He'd been expelled from university.

Well, that's because you can't just go and casually leave the army during a war to drink and carouse with actresses on a whim , her father had said with bitter irony. Unlike university. Except with university, they don't shoot you, more's the pity, they send you home to be a burden to your

father.

The colonel set to work.

He seemed inclined neither to flirt nor to fill up the silence with words, which is what most men would do when presented

with a literally captive female audience.

Perhaps he knew his mere presence was profound enough to transcend the need for speech. A bit like a mountain.

Or maybe he just didn't know what to say to her.

He was no prettier in very close proximity. The sunlight and shadow filtering down through the leaves made him look like some

ageless, majestic beast lying in wait in the underbrush. But drama and mystery, even a certain allure, lurked in the crags

and hollows of his face. His hair was streaked in a half dozen subtle colors, from brown to sun-bleached gold, like a lion's

mane, and dashed through here and there with threads of silver. His eyelashes were flaxen at the tips, like a little boy's.

She found this incongruously rather sweet.

"I heard a story about you, Colonel Brightwall."

"Only one?" He sounded amused. He appeared to be struggling a bit with the knot.

"Something heroic to do with highwaymen. It involves you bashing them with a musket and tying them up."

He smiled slightly. "Are you suggesting that if I'd been required to untie them rather than tie them, I'd likely still be there on the side of that road to this day?"

"I would never imply such a thing," she vowed, with faux wounded sincerity. "Take all the time you need with my little satin ribbon."

It felt bold to tease him. She did it because she felt awe encroaching. Awe was a great inhibitor of conversation, and unlike

Colonel Brightwall, she wasn't entirely comfortable with silences.

Thankfully, he did smile again. But he didn't take his eyes from the knot. "What if I told you that every heroic thing you've

ever heard about me is both true and untrue?"

"I fear I would then be compelled to ask why you are speaking in riddles. Although I don't mind riddles, on the whole."

"What is perceived as heroism, Miss Bellamy, is often just some poor bloke doing their job."

"Come, Colonel. Surely even you have heroes."

She worried then that she'd been too bold, but he smiled at this, too, thankfully. "Oh, certainly I admire dozens of people

for many reasons. I have the privilege of knowing a number of truly great men. But I've learned that the moment we decide

someone is a Hero or a Scoundrel or a Boor or what have you—imagine all those words writ with capital letters, like labels—we've

a tendency to go blind to qualities that might contradict our assumptions, which can often be a grave tactical error. I'm

suspicious of pedestals, on the whole. They just beg to be knocked over. And I'm disinclined to judge."

Briefly she amused herself by imagining him crashing through a museum, swinging a musket at pedestals. But she was, in truth, enthralled at this peek into his mind. She'd heard it said that the few enormous, sometimes controversial, strategic risks he'd taken during the war—promoting talented men from the ranks, demoting other officers ahead of an important battle, for instance—had proved to be the best, and even obvious, choices when viewed after the fact. She knew from playing chess that strategy had its roots in an ability to critically assess every piece's position on the board.

She thought of her charming, loving father, who found it so exhilarating to take wild chances with finances he'd consigned

his family to a life lived on a perilous seesaw of uncertainty, and who was in danger now of needing to sell the ancient,

unentailed family home lest they face penury. Her older brother, Theo, who had a quick wit, a quick temper, a tender, easily

wounded heart, and a reckless streak of hedonism that got him thrown out of university. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, who

was recovering only slowly from a long illness from which she'd nearly died, and not doing it that noble way so beloved of

novel writers. She was instead peevish, bored, resentful, and jealous of everyone else's good health. Alexandra didn't blame

her at all, but keeping the peace often meant coddling her and keeping her own effervescence tamped.

That was her job in the family, ever since her mother died. She restored peace. She was the smoother of feelings, the tonic for bitter arguments, the adroit manager of upheavals, the jollier out of dark moods. She was a confidante, a rescuer, a nurse, and a friend.

"It seems to me, however, that blindness to certain qualities might be beneficial to maintaining harmony among people." She

ventured this gingerly. "Provided harmony is what's desired, of course."

Brightwall paused in his ribbon ministrations to regard her. "Oh, certainly," he said easily enough. "Perhaps. Particularly

in families, I should imagine. But is that really blindness? Or is it forbearance?"

This seemed so startlingly close to the bone that she went abruptly silent.

"Well, it's love, I should think," she finally replied, somewhat awkwardly. "And loyalty."

His smile was enigmatic and faint, as if her answer surprised him not at all.

She was unsettled by his astuteness. But perhaps she only felt that way because her family was what she loved best, and was

therefore her greatest vulnerability.

"This is all just to say that no mere man is worthy of worship," he concluded simply.

She wanted to return the conversation to its previous lightness. "Are any mere women worthy of worship?"

She met the dry look he cast her way with one of mischievous, utterly feigned innocence.

His little smile informed her he was far too wise to answer that question.

A silence fell again.

It occurred to her that he might be deliberately lingering over the ribbon. She wondered whether she might be the reason,

if so. She recalled then that Brightwall's rooms overlooked this part of the garden.

In truth, it mattered little. Being in love with Paul meant she felt disinterested benevolence toward all other men, and that

included Brightwall.

"It strikes me as a rather bruising responsibility, being a hero in the public eye. One could get to feeling as though he

could never put a foot wrong. And I imagine it would be crushing if word got out that one isn't good at... well, everything." She tipped her head very subtly toward her knotted ribbon.

To her delight, he laughed.

She never would have guessed that this fortress of a man would be so easily able to laugh at himself. It had to do with his

unnerving and absolute self-assurance, she suspected.

"I'm admittedly better with weapons than knots, Miss Bellamy. In my defense, the point of knots is to secure something one

doesn't want to escape, and this one is performing its job exceptionally well. Perhaps what you need is a sea captain, instead."

"Sea captains are particularly good at knots?"

"Yes."

"We neglected to invite one to the party, alas."

"Mr. Perriman would likely have found him more stimulating company."

She laughed.

But all at once an epiphany swooped in. How disorienting it must be to step from the ceaseless clamor and tension and violence

of war into a country house party teeming with pampered strangers. How did one pretend to care about pigeons after the brutal

things he had witnessed and endured? The friends and compatriots he had lost?

She supposed anyone would stagger a bit to regain balance after laying down a heavy load. Even Brightwall the Beast.

Perhaps this accounted for the silences in their conversation.

And now his brow was furrowed over the puzzle of a pink ribbon.

An almost painful rush of sympathy swelled her heart.

"As your hostess, I hereby declare you entirely exempt from any expectation to amuse anyone for the duration of your visit.

I would imagine that nearly everything seems trivial or even foolish in comparison to what you've recently experienced. A

bit like a strange dream, I expect."

He went still, then lifted his eyes to hers. They were surprised and almost wary, as though she'd uncovered a secret. He was

not a man who would tolerate gushing, she suspected.

He seemed to be considering how to reply.

"I say this in all seriousness, Miss Bellamy: we fought that war in large part so women can worry about ribbons and Mr. Perriman can natter on about pigeons. It is in fact a privilege to stand in a shrubbery with you, fighting instead with a satin knot. I am grateful to do it."

"Thank you," she said shyly, after a moment. "For all of it."

He nodded almost curtly.

There was a little silence.

"But when in doubt, just tell the story about the cat in a coat."

He gave another little shout of laughter, then sighed. "Miss Bellamy, if you'd like to be freer sooner rather than later,

I've a knife that will do the trick. But I did hope to save your ribbon." He glanced up at her. "I know such things as ribbons

and bonnets and crayons do not come cheaply."

This concern for a ribbon was almost touching.

Or... perhaps it was more that he was familiar with her family's financial straits.

At once this likelihood made her cheeks go hot.

He was here, after all, on a matter of business to do with her father.

She fell abruptly quiet.

Neither of them spoke for a second or two.

"Ah. Very well. There's one knot undone," he muttered.

She cleared her throat. "Perhaps you'll have an opportunity to target shoot while you're here," she ventured. "We often get

contests up during house parties."

"Oh, it would hardly be fair to the other gentlemen," he said offhandedly. "I always win, which is rather dull for everybody, including me. A man's pride is his armor, and there's no real pleasure for me in stripping a fellow of it for the sake of recreation."

There wasn't a shred of arrogance in this remarkable statement. It left her momentarily speechless.

She understood then she had never been in the presence of this sort of confidence: the... embodied sort.

When she said nothing, he flicked his gaze up to hers.

This time it lingered, as if snagged, like the ribbon in the branches.

She had a strange, disorienting conviction then that the essence of the man shone from his eyes, as strangely beautiful and

dangerous as the sun glinting off the barrel of a rifle.

And in that moment she was held fast between two confusing warring impulses: to take a step back, away from him, as he suddenly

seemed too compelling, like a wild wood she'd never explored. Or to take a step toward him, as if he was the only refuge from

all of life's vicissitudes. Neither impulse seemed particularly rational.

Her cheeks were considerably pinker than her ribbon now, she expected. They certainly felt that way.

As if making her cheeks pink had been exactly what he'd set out to accomplish, he finally freed his gaze and returned to the

ribbon, his face gone carefully expressionless.

"Mind you," he added, a moment later, "if I see no other way to make a point, I've no compunctions about pride-stripping. But since you're such a conscientious hostess, you'd be run ragged doling consolation out to the losers, and we can't have that."

"Oh. Well. We've plenty of liquor. And what is it for if not consoling the defeated?"

He gave a soft laugh.

Overhead, birds hopped from twig to twig, and the trees shook restively in the wind.

No other guests had yet appeared in the garden. It was awfully early, still.

She cleared her throat.

"I should like to say, Colonel Brightwall... well, forgive me if you're terribly weary of... of... talk of shooting

altogether, after the war," she ventured. "I wasn't certain if... well, say the word, and I promise I won't mention it

again."

He paused.

"It's very considerate of you to think of me," Brightwall said gently. "But there's nothing to forgive. Early in my career,

as a foot soldier and infantryman, I did a good deal more shooting. In the war we just won, my job was primarily to tell young

men where to point their weapons, and at whom. The answer to both was typically ‘at the French.'"

This, she thought, was carrying modesty a bit too far.

"My goodness. It sounds so easy, Colonel Brightwall. Perhaps I ought to go and be a colonel."

"I'm not convinced you wouldn't make a fine one. Diplomacy is half the job."

She fell quiet. On the one hand, it was refreshing to be appreciated for something she did indeed consider a bit of a skill,

and which everyone else rather took for granted. On the other hand, she felt a little like a magician whose tricks have been

exposed. A bit raw. A bit disgruntled.

She was beginning to understand that he saw her through a prism of life experiences entirely different from her own. Or from

those of any of the young men among whom she'd been raised, for that matter.

"It's just that if you need to feed yourself, you'd rapidly learn how to become an expert with a fork," he added. "That is,

provided you're fortunate enough to be possessed of at least one hand or tremendously dexterous feet. It's a bit like that,

I suppose—my gun was the means by which I survived and thrived. I've always been reluctant to view my good aim as anything

like a gift when I had quite a powerful motivation to get it right."

"If you insist. But I think you have refined self-deprecation into an art."

He paused in his knot picking and straightened slowly to his entire formidable height to study her, his eyes warm, yet also

frankly assessing. His expression was undershot with something more somber and intent. A sort of uncertainty. Almost...

a reluctance.

As if he could not, or did not quite want to, believe the wonder of her.

She found she could not look away from this expression. Even as she wanted to, because it confused her, and made her cheeks blaze with heat again.

"What do you do best, Miss Bellamy?" he asked softly.

Her mind blanked with surprise.

There was no reason she ought to feel ambushed by the question. But she did.

Survive. It was the answer that sprang at once through every one of her defenses, through the filters of charm and care and diplomacy.

Survive throbbed at the core of everything she did and said.

And yet this seemed patently absurd. She would never dream of saying something like that aloud to this man, who had saved

the Duke of Valkirk's life almost at the cost of his own. Wasn't she here, on a beautiful and ancient estate, wearing this

year's fashions and a fine bonnet pinned too tightly to her head? Wasn't she the well-loved daughter of a viscount?

But she had fielded deaths and dramas and illnesses and fluctuations in fortunes that had beset their family. She was proud

of it.

But it was as if the colonel's sudden question had held up a mirror. And for the first time, in it she beheld an exhausted

girl.

Brightwall's expression evolved into a sort of gentle, rueful sympathy. As though he knew every thought in her head at the

moment. As if he understood.

Almost as if he'd wanted her to reach the conclusion she'd reached.

She turned slightly away from him. She decided she didn't want to answer his question, and stubbornly refused to introduce

another topic.

"Perhaps you know this, but I'm off to Spain in another month. The crown would like to make a diplomat of me, and I suppose

that will be the end of shooting as a career altogether," he said casually.

"Ah. Spain is warm," she said somewhat inanely.

"It is indeed," he agreed politely. He stood back. "Alas, I fear it's time to bring out the weapons."

"If we must. I'm certain I can repair it in some fashion, regardless." Of course she could. Because didn't she always repair

what needed repairing?

"All right then. Put your hand on the top of your bonnet and hold it fast."

From nowhere he produced a knife, and with a winking flash of the blade he cut the ribbon.

The fine branches snapped violently back like a slingshot, and took a scrap of her ribbon with them. Leaving her with the

rest, thankfully.

They stared up at that pink scrap clinging to the twig, destined to wave in a breeze until a bird or a squirrel collected

it for a nest, she supposed.

"Free at last, Miss Bellamy."

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Colonel. I suppose we can add my rescue to your lore."

"If you would be so kind as to lie about my skill with knots, I should be obliged."

She laughed.

They regarded each other a moment longer. She had the strangest sense that he was memorizing her.

Perhaps because she was memorizing him, and how he looked in that moment. She would perhaps tell her grandchildren the story

of the time the great Colonel Brightwall had freed her from the clutches of a tree.

"I'll bid you good morning now, shall I, and leave you to your sketching? I hope you find the red crayon you're seeking. I

imagine it's useful for drawing soldiers. And blushes."

His eyes glinted wickedly again.

And without another word he continued his stroll across the grounds of the house her father might in fact be on the verge

of losing. She noticed he favored one leg a very little, and her stomach tightened in sympathy.

After that, it had felt to her that they had become friends: often, she would catch his eye in a gathering, and his would

shine like a coconspirator's.

A few days later he'd touched his ear during a large gathering in the sitting room.

She'd felt proud and mischievous, a heroine, swooping in to rescue the hero from Mr. Perriman.

But then the inevitable house party shooting competition had indeed been got up inside a week. It featured apples propped

on posts of different heights and requirements to stand at various distances, and a few timed bouts, too.

Every man present insisted on having a go.

Brightwall won every single round.

She watched him with that rifle, that so-called utensil of his survival: the choreography of loading powder and shot, the

lift to his shoulder, the minute adjustments in his stance, his deadly, efficient aim. The resulting destruction. He made

it all look as innate as breathing.

But she knew that what she witnessed each time he fired a weapon was in fact a dozen decisions and calculations made in a

matter of a couple of heartbeats. She understood that someone who could casually dismiss such a lethal skill was complicated

and formidable in a way she might not ever be able to fully comprehend. It underscored completely that he was not of her world.

For the first time she paid particular attention to which of the young lords present were good-natured about their losses

and which ones blustered a bit, or went quiet or moped. She supposed gentlemen—the sort raised with money and titles and university

educations—were seldom given opportunities to thusly prove themselves. They were told who and what they were from birth. They

did not necessarily need to become anything.

Brightwall had winked at her when she'd suggested bringing out brandy for all the losers that evening.

So he'd gone back for that scrap of ribbon clinging to the fine branches.

And he'd kept it all these years.

She stared at it now.

Grief swooped down upon her, and an old helpless fury pressed against her chest.

But through it all, something soft and bright seemed to be struggling to break free. Like a ribbon in a tree.

She had known her own heart in that moment.

Or so she'd thought.

She had given very little thought to the contents of Brightwall's heart. Why should she have?

How could she have possibly known how he'd felt?

He'd never said a word about that.

He'd merely politely bought her.

Five thousand pounds.

It had torn her breath away when her father told her.

It tore her breath away still.

And because she'd had a few years of loneliness and self-recrimination to reflect, she understood now why she'd done what

she'd done on her wedding night.

Still. She'd never meant to hurt Magnus.

And because of that money—because of her—her family was at last thriving. Improbably her brother had put his restless energies and lust for a good argument to good use in America, where he was studying law. He loved the newness of everything there. He had been to visit Brightwall's New York estate and reported that it was enviable, an elegant home in a classic style, beautifully situated and well-kept by a staff paid from the account Brightwall kept at an American bank. Courtesy of Brightwall's money, her sister had been sent on a journey to sunny Italy, fully recovered her health, and returned to marry one of the titled boys who had once courted Alexandra. She was temporarily living with her husband in the now repaired and restored Bellamy family home while their own new home was built, but they were currently traveling through Italy together. Her father had gone to visit her brother in New York, and had stayed longer than expected: he'd met a woman, her brother had written to her. She seemed lovely.

But Brightwall had played her family like a chess master. The ruthless strategist, the man who could make a dozen swift decisions

in the span of two heartbeats, had assessed the Bellamys and their circumstances and their relationships like the battlefield

commander he was and knew he could not fail to get what he wanted.

What he'd wanted was her.

I do think we'll suit, Alexandra.

And because he'd known how she felt about her family, he must have known she'd have no choice in it at all.

She supposed it was this she could never forgive.

She closed the lid on that little silver box.

And she put the box back in his coat, like she was tucking her own heart away forever.