Chapter 1

“Tell me Ara, surely one gentleman here has caught your eye?” Leonard Burk asked his sister, a twinge of annoyance coating his words.

This question pulled Arabella Burk out from her spiraling thoughts and back to the present moment. She understood why Leonard may have been a bit annoyed with her. After all, this mansion party was grander than any he had put yet.

“It’s been nearly six months, Ara. As the Earl of Thorne, it is my duty to find you a suitable husband. However, as your older brother, I want you to be happy. Can you not at least try to find a silver lining here? These parties have been for you, you know,” He pointed out to her, trying to keep his tone polite.

In her head, Arabella wanted to throw something; perhaps a plate, and perhaps at Leo’s head.

“I have tried, Leo, I really have. I do not expect you to understand what a broken heart can do to one’s spirit. As you have clearly never experienced it, but it is not easy to just move on,” she said, stealing a small truffle cake off the buffet table and setting it on a plate.

“You are right. I have not experienced it. I cannot imagine what it is like, but I had hoped that maybe you may be ready to move on. It has been some time. Perhaps there is someone who could make you feel the way you did with His Grace, the Duke of Green,” he said.

“Leo, I have told you this already. I am afraid no one ever will.” She sighed, her head hurting from the boisterous crowd of people filling the family’s banquet hall, all chattering amongst themselves. She did not let it show, though, as that could be seen as indifference to those watching. “Who knows if the next gentleman to woo me will betray me again.”

To be frank, she was rather excited about the house party that evening. She had intended on using it as a distraction of sorts. For so long did she see his face haunting her thoughts and even her dreams.

In a cruel twist of fate, she had actually began feeling better that morning. She had felt like a weight of unprecedented proportions had been lifted off her chest. They say that time heals all wounds, and perhaps that was true for her. She had thought that maybe today was the day she began moving on and could finally start living her own life. Only this time she wanted to live it her way.

The world around her looked down on spinsters, women who never married and were responsible for their own well-being. But Arabella envied those women. They lived a life that was entirely their own, no man dictating how they should live nor how many children they should bear. To her, that thought had begun to feel welcome and even desirable. She knew that she shouldn’t think that way, as it was not the way a proper lady should think, but one couldn”t always help the way that they felt.

“Leo, did you actually look at who was on the guest list when you invited everybody?” She asked him, looking around and noticing all of the clearly middle-aged men on the prowl for a young wife.

“Age is but a number Ara,” Leo responded, taking a small bite of his pastry. He, too, looked a little displeased with the turn out. “Mother and Father were about fifteen years apart, and they were madly in love with each other.”

“Mother and Father were one in a million. I doubt a two-generation love match is attainable,” she said, not realizing how whiny she had begun to sound.

Leonard set down his plate of small hors d”oeuvres and got into his all too familiar big-brother-is-about-to-lecture-you stance, his brows furrowed, and his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Arabella Burk, you are almost twenty-three years of age and you are yet to be wedded. You are beginning to sound like your younger sister when you go against everything I have tried to build for our family. I don’t even want to imagine how difficult this will be with Madeline. God have mercy on my soul.” Leo chastised, sighing and picking up his plate again. “I know these last few months have been difficult for you, and I want more than anything for you to marry for love, but sometimes that isn’t in the cards for everybody. It is time you grow up. Perhaps I should find you a worthy suitor.”

While his words may have rung true, they still stung. Ara was once in love with the idea of love, but now those feelings had changed. She knew there were tangible things that came with love and marriage and those were things that she would like to experience someday, but she didn’t necessarily feel the need to fall in love again. Not if it was going to hurt her the way it did a few months ago.

“Look, Sarah should arrive soon with her husband. Maybe you two could talk about things?” Leo suggested, not really knowing how women dealt with such emotions. “Because you know, they did not marry out of love, but they became best friends and fell in love regardless. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from her.”

Internally, Ara rolled her eyes, but on the outside, she smiled and told him, “Perhaps you are right, brother.”

It wasn’t too long until Sarah and Richard, the Duchess and Duke of Ridlington, arrived. Luckily, it was before Leonard could lecture her further. Ara”s beautiful older sister was adorned in a baby blue ruffled dress that expertly defined the shape of her torso without being too immodest. The blue complimented her pale skin and light brown hair, as well as made her dark brown eyes pop.

Her husband, Richard, was a handsome man with dirty blonde hair and grass-green eyes, though he was not necessarily Ara”s cup of tea. She found herself drawn to men who sported dark hair and eyes, though she wouldn’t let her preferences known.

Richard was dressed in matching colors to Sarah’s dress, tailored to flaunt his broad shoulders and his bulky stature. She had talked to him a few times since he and her sister had wedded, and from those short conversations, she had found it incredible that he and her sister had ever bonded over anything.

“Ara, you look absolutely ravishing in that dress!” Sarah exclaimed once she saw Arabella and her brother. “Yellow is your color for sure, sister.”

Arabella opened her arms and embraced her. She missed her dearly since she got married, and nights like these were always treats.

“Thank you, Sarah, though I don’t think yellow looks as good on me as blue does on you,” she said, taking in the sight of her sister in her dress a lot more now that she was right in front of her. Blue really was a great color on her.

Sarah turned to her brother and asked, “Would it be all right if I stole our sister for a few minutes? I desperately want to catch up on things with her. It’s been too long.”

Leonard pulled a handkerchief from his front pocket and dabbed his forehead. Clearly, the stress of the evening was taking its toll on him, and Arabella feared she may have been partially responsible for that.

“That is all right. But please do not steal her for the entire night as Arabella and I have things to discuss,” he said, gently tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket. He gave Arabella a knowing look, and she nodded, receiving the message.

Leonard then seemed to remember that he had also not seen their older sister for the first time in a while, as his expression softened. He walked over, lifted Sarah’s hand in his own and pressed a small kiss to it. “It is great to see you, Sarah. I hope my parties will be just as memorable as father’s.”

“I’m sure they will, brother. This one looks extravagant,” Sarah said, assuring him with a small but genuine smile.

“Please do ensure you stay shadowed with her,” Leonard told her. “Your Grace, would you mind coming after me?”

Richard nodded.

“Ara, Let’s go outside and enjoy the fresh air. I have a feeling you might need some,” Sarah said, all but whispering that last part to her.

The two ladies made their way through the boisterous crowd of excited partygoers and dancing couples, periodically turning a few lonely men’s heads.

They reached the back double-glass doors that led to the outside garden and pushed them open, the crisp air raising the hairs on all three of their arms. As much as Ara enjoyed a good party or ball, she was never a fan of how stuffy and overwhelming they could be.

Sarah pulled her along the garden hedges that they used to play in as children, and Ara remembered when they would often play hide and seek in this garden. The memory of those precious moments brought a small smile to her lips as well as a somber reminder that those days were long gone.

“So, is Leo trying to marry you off tonight?” Sarah leaned over and asked her bluntly, taking Ara a little bit by surprise.

“You could not tell from the way he dressed me?” She snorted. “I keep trying to tell him that it will not work, but his head is dead set on sending me off regardless. He is so insufferable sometimes.”

“Please do not think our brother wants to send you off. If anything, this is probably more stressful on him than it is to you,” she told her, sitting down on a bench in the middle of a large flowerbed. “Are you still so shut off to the idea of marriage?”

“It is no longer appealing to me. It lost its luster,” Ara confessed, hanging her head. Her cheeks reddened, and they felt warm. She wasn’t one to profess her feelings like that.

Sarah took a moment, possibly contemplating her words, and with sweetness lacing her voice, she said, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but your duty as a woman comes before your heart.”

A bitter laughter erupted from Ara’s chest, but she quickly covered her mouth with her hands to stifle the inappropriate bluster. She took Sarah’s gloved hand in hers and responded, “Sister, I do not wish to wed. At least not now. I know I am becoming almost too old, but there is still so much of life that I have yet to understand. How do you do it, Sarah?”

“How do I do what?” she asked.

Ara didn’t know how to broach this subject. How would she ask her sister that she lived every day possibly not living her own truth? How would she ask her if she was tired of being whittled down to the prize of a man? How would she ask her to move on from the one person that she thought she might have spent the rest of her life with? How was she supposed to overcome that kind of rejection in a timely manner?

Instead, she asked her, “Excuse my impertinence, sister. But… do you love His Grace?”

Sarah looked taken aback by that question, but she quickly regained her composure and put on a soft smile. Ara had always been a little blunt.

“I do. He is like my best friend in many ways, but it took us time and dedication for us to reach that point.”

Sarah took Arabella”s silence as an invitation to continue. “Ara, what exactly happened between you and the Duke of Green?”

It seemed the fresh air did not do much in the long run to help Ara, because she felt her heart beginning to thrum in her chest at the mention of him.

“People don’t often talk of mental scars, but they do exist,” she started, her shaky voice betraying the evenness she was desperately trying to keep. “I spent months moving on and trying to handle the bloody embarrassment it caused our family. After seeing him in an embrace with his American heiress and finding out he”d chosen her for her wealth, I couldn”t live with myself. The worst part was, I had really believed he was going to propose to me that night.”

There was a moment of pause between the pair. Ara was on the verge of tears, thinking about that day, but she had always been good at hiding the welling dam behind her eyes.

Sarah said, her other hand coming up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Ara’s ear.

“I am so sorry, Ara. You are such a wonderful and beautiful woman, and he was a fool to let you go. I too have had my run in with heartbreak.”

“You have? How come I never heard of it?” Ara questioned, shifting towards her in her seat.

Sarah laughed fondly and explained, “When I was twenty years old, father had introduced me to the son of a nobleman related to the Duke of Green, funnily enough. While we were never betrothed, I fell head over heels for him, or at least I thought I did. Our courtship did not last long, as he found his interest lay in another. There was nothing I could do about it, as his decision was final.”

“How did you move on?” Ara asked, astounded that anyone could turn her sister down.

“I reminded myself that he is not the only man out there. I kept my head held high and kept my dignity intact, as I knew I would have others I needed to impress. I will be honest with you. While I do not necessarily agree with it deep in my heart, I know that is my job as a woman.”

“But…” Ara paused, not knowing how to continue with what she had planned on saying.

Her sister had always put up with her wild stories and statements she would tell when they were children and even encouraged her creativity a little bit. But she understood now that she was a grown woman and that she must act like one, even if being a woman meant she must sacrifice what makes her uniquely her.

“What is it, Ara?” she asked, her hand now resting on Ara’s shoulder. “You know you can talk to me.”

Ara sucked in a deep breath and said, “I do not wish to marry. I am afraid that it may happen again, but I do wish to experience the tangible pleasures that come from one, even if I’m unsure of what that exactly entails. But I just don’t know if I could love another the way I did him. As a child, I was infatuated with the idea of a happily ever after. Now I’m afraid all I want is the tangible benefits. Is that wrong of me to wish?”

Her sister looked her in her eyes, her dark brown and all-knowing irises full of womanly wisdom speaking what couldn’t be said. They softened a little, and she said, “While our society around us may find that statement quite troublesome, I understand what you are saying, and I do not think it is wrong. But unfortunately, I am not representing society, and I do not speak for everyone in the ton. I think you are in quite a precarious situation, sister.”

“How so?’

“You mustn’t tell Leo that I told you this,” Sarah said, her eyes glancing around for any eavesdroppers.

Her forehead wrinkled and she grimaced, clearly not proud of the gossip she was about to divulge. “The family’s finances are running thin. My marriage to Richard helped a good bit, but it wasn’t enough. I believe Leo does want the best for you, but he also must think of the family and the estate. If you could marry someone of great wealth or of nobility, we may be able to pull ourselves out of the hole that father’s financial irresponsibility caused.”

Needless to say, Ara was shocked by this turn of events. Leonard had never talked to her about finances or how any of the estate running worked, so it naturally never crossed her mind that they might be struggling.

“I did not know this.” She told her. “But I wish I did because maybe I would have gone easier on him.”

The corners of Sarah’s lips tugged upwards, and she let out a near boisterous laugh like Ara had a few minutes earlier. “You do not have to go easy on him, Ara. He may be in a tight spot, but he is still your brother. You would probably startle him if you started treating him differently.”

Ara joined in on her laughter. “You may be right about that. Still, I would rather be a spinster than marry one of the older gentlemen in there.”

“I believe you may have to give up on that dream. But I will say, Leo is a little too hopeful if he thinks that you would ever agree to marrying someone older than our father was.”

“You have got that right.”

“You know,” Sarah chirped after a brief moment of silence. “Even though you may not immediately fall in love with whoever you end up marrying, you could end up like Richard and me. We were not in love when we first were engaged, but over time we got to know each other. We learned and grew and became better people for it. I can only pray that the same happens for you.”

“Thank you, sister.” she said, genuinely meaning it. “There is something I am curious about, though.”

Sarah smiles.

”You’re curious about those tangible pleasures?”

“How did you know?” Ara asked, always in awe of her sister’s intuition.

“I, too, was curious before Richard and I wedded.” She explains. “I don’t want to tell you everything, as there are some things you will have to figure out on your own, but I will tell you the basics.”

Ara turned in her seat to look directly at her sister, arguably the most interested she had ever been.

“Have you ever looked in the eyes of a man and felt that intense desire before?”

Ara nodded.

“Well, there are things that happen between a man and woman that amplify that intense feeling, you get to feel it in your entire body. I will have to say much as that would be too inappropriate of me, but when the time sets in, your body will definitely tell the head what to do.”

The answer was just urging enough to leave Ara demanding more. “Is the fierce feeling you talked about a pleasant one?”

To Ara”s surprise, Sarah’s cheeks blushed uncontrollably. “Quite.”

Ara wondered at her sister’s reaction. Yes, she loved the relationship her sister and brother in law shared but a cage was still a cage and good or bad, she could never see marriage as anything other than a cage that some enjoyed.

“Is it possible that one can feel such things outside of marriage?” She asked her sister who stared at her with such a scandalized look.

“I mean is it only married people who feel these intense feelings?”

“Oh my.” Sarah said, red in the face. “Well, yes, there are people who”ve had such feelings outside the marriage, but after such nights of passion, they are left with more regrets than bliss.”

“Why?” Arabella asked with a frown.

“Because, Ara dear. One night of passion could get you with child or worse.”

Arabella tried to wonder what fate could be far worse than having an unplanned child.

“What could be worse than.” Arabella didn”t complete her words, as one of their upstairs maids, Jasmine, had appeared.

“What is it, Jasmine?” Sarah asked, sharing a look with her.

“Lord Thorne looking for you, my ladies,” she announced.

“Alright.” Sarah nodded. “Where is he?”

“He’s at the foot of the stairs with a guest.” She answered.

The warmth of the house pricking her skin as they opened the doors to get back in the merriment. She felt so much better about her tribulations after talking with Sarah. Maybe she could handle this.

“Which guest?”

“The worst rake in all of London.” Jasmine whispered, leaning closer.

Arabella’s eyes widened.

“I heard no maiden is safe around him. He...”

“I think that’s enough out of you, Jasmine.” Sarah interrupted. “I will not tolerate you slandering anyone under this roof.”

“Yes, my lady.” Jasmine curtsied. “I’m sorry, my lady.”

That’s when her whole world stopped for the briefest moment. Standing in front of her, about thirty meters away, was a very tall and handsome man with black hair and dark brooding eyes. His overcoat was an ash-gray color that made his eyes pop. His breeches and undershirt were a stark white which fit loosely yet flattered his waist. His black leather Wellingtons reflecting the candlelight around him.

The deep inhalation of warm air she took only a moment before was forced out of her lungs when she took in the sight of him.

Lord have mercy on my soul,she thought to herself. He is a sight.

Who was that and why had she never seen him before? Surely someone who looked like him would have stuck out in her mind, and she would have not forgotten a face like his. No way. She could tell she was not the only one who found this mysterious gentleman as alluring as she did. Looking around, there were women around her age and some even older casting glances over at him every once in a while.

Sarah caught her staring, and she giggled, gently gripping Ara”s arm.

“Sister, who is that gentleman talking to Leonard?” Ara asked, her eyes fixed directly at the stranger

“I thought you might be fascinated by him. Ara, that is Edward Fitzroy. The Duke of Soulden.”

“Oh my,” se said. “Why have I never seen him before?”

“Because you shouldn’t have.” Sarah answered firmly. “He’s the renowned rake Jasmine had been talking about, and in as much as I don’t like to tell tales, you aren’t safe around him.”

“Why not?” she asked with a laugh, even though her fascination made her want to know more about him. “It’s not like he could steal my virtue from me after just one conversation.”

Sarah sent her a warning look but said nothing.

If the Duke of Soulden was a renowned rake, then that meant he’d know how to pleasure a woman without needing to trap her in marriage.

She smiled internally at how Providence worked. He’d given her the answer to her desires on a platter of gold.

I believe he may be the one I spend my night of passion with.