Chapter 1

1816 England

THERE WAS A TIME and place for being around people. Now was not it. Solitude in the library was much preferred. It housed at least one vase of flowers she could fiddle with and arrange to her liking. She wasn’t in the mood to add another flower sketch to the small book in her pocket. Arranging or drawing flowers. Either activity qualified to fill her time.

Despite being at a house party, Lady Philomena Wentword assumed that her presence would not be missed. Although she didn’t have impenetrable evidence to prove her conclusion, it didn’t take a genius to acknowledge a cold, hard truth. She was only attending this house party because her sister, Paulina, was a candidate to wed the duke.

Her duke. Henry, the Duke of Ruxbergh. Philomena knew the time would come when she should no longer refer to Henry as her duke. Lord knew she wasn’t going to marry him, even though he was a good friend. Perhaps her best friend. All the same, Philomena hadn’t expected to have to give up that possessive pronoun for her sister. Paulina didn’t even want her duke. Paulina was only there, playing along, because she had practically been summoned by Henry’s mother, Gertrude, the dowager duchess. And Paulina always behaved as a paragon of propriety.

Paulina. The pretty one. The duchified one. The one ready to become a duchess. In fact, the one sought after to become the very duchess that Philomena only dreamed of being. Though, truly, did Philomena really dream of becoming a duchess? No. She dreamed of marrying Henry. It wasn’t the same thing as wanting to be a duchess. And even that dream of marriage was just clouds in the sky. They were friends. In the haut ton , friends did not marry. Couples wed due to convenience, finances, or scandal. Any of which could often be arranged by their parents. Love was not a factor. Friendship was certainly not on the table, let alone a requirement.

Ideally, a couple would develop a friendship and perhaps come to love each other in some way, but marriage for love was pure fantasy.

Philomena pulled a few peony stems from the vase. She wanted the flowers to feel as though they were coming alive. It only took a few attempts, but after popping them in and pulling them out of a few spots, she found the asymmetry that caught her eye and her heart.

It was true that Paulina was a typical beauty: thin and blonde. While Paulina was a stem, Philomena was more…like a peony. Curves for days. Curves in all the places. Curves everywhere. Personally, Philomena loved it. She looked at herself in the mirror and felt beautiful. She just wasn’t sure if men (Henry mostly) thought she was beautiful. Of course, Henry gave her compliments, like any gentleman would do, but she couldn’t be sure of anything more than that he was doing his duty. And, well, being a good friend. Of that, she had no doubt.

She also knew, without a doubt, that Henry’s parents were particular about who he wed. He had told her on more than one occasion that he had resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be picking his bride. Even with his father gone, his mother, Gertrude, still had a heavy hand on the affairs of the family.

It was this heavy-handedness that planned the current house party Philomena was avoiding. It was all with good intentions, Philomena reassured herself, that Gertrude planned to have Henry betrothed by the end of the house party. The man was seven-and-twenty. It was about time for him to start his married life and beget an heir.

Philomena sighed. Soon her friend would no longer be as accessible. Surely his future wife would not allow it. Maybe, if Philomena was lucky, the future wife wouldn’t be too controlling. And if she were really lucky, the future wife wouldn’t be Paulina. That might be almost too much to bear. Being able to see him at any time for any good reason yet witnessing him have the life she wanted with her own sister. With any luck at all, one of the other two women on Gertrude’s discreet-not-so-discreet list would marry Henry.

Luck.

That was all she needed.

The word vividly brought to mind her luckiest moment. Incidentally, Henry had been there.

The two had been walking down Bond Street with their families. Philomena would have been around eighteen, Henry twenty. Philomena had seen something shiny on the ground and, knowing Henry’s fascination for coins, she bent over to pick it up so he could add it to his collection. If it was worth anything.

Well, in hindsight, it wasn’t worth anything in the monetary sense, but it was worth the lives of an eighteen-year-old female and a twenty-year-old male. A duke-to-be to be more precise. For as Philomena had bent over to pick it up, a rapidly approaching carriage with an oversized load raced around the corner and its bearings flew right over their bent-over backs.

If Philomena hadn’t called, ‘Look, Henry,’ and if he hadn’t bent over beside her and responded with, ‘ Well, won’t you look at that shiny little thing,’ then both of their heads would have been wiped clean off their necks.

It was a sobering thought, to say the least.

And it was the luckiest coin in the world. Partly because it saved both of their lives, but also because Henry had deemed it his lucky coin and thus it lay snug against his heart from that day forward. A year or so later, Henry had given her a similar-looking coin for good luck, and she had kept it in her little treasure box.

It hadn’t quite meant the same thing to him as it did to her, but at least she knew his intentions were kind. And every time she took a peek at it, she remembered the lucky coin she had been able to give him. It meant so much to her that he wore that lucky coin around his neck every day.

Every blazing day, that lucky coin rested against Henry’s heart.

***

HENRY NEEDED A brEAK from the crowds. Just a short break. As much as he loved being around people, even he needed to take a few breaths devoid of observation.

He had just discovered a new coin to add to his collection and it was imperative that he show it to Philomena. He had hoped to share it with her the second he returned home from finding it on the road but she had been nowhere to be seen. Even now, he hadn’t seen her in at least—he checked his pocket watch again—thirty minutes. But he was pretty sure he knew where to find her. She often escaped to the library for short reprieves. He rubbed a hand over his chest where, underneath the fabric, lay his lucky coin.

He could just see her now, rearranging some flowers in an already perfect vase. Perfect because she had probably already arranged them once. Or twice.

He grinned at the thought. She would love his new coin. It had some inscriptions on it that he had never seen before. Ostensibly it was from another country, but he couldn’t decipher which one. The writing almost looked like Chinese characters. That would be his first from the region. He couldn’t contain the bubbling feeling welling up in his chest.

Henry dashed to the library and grinned as he opened the door. He grinned even wider when he caught Philomena wide-eyed behind the vase full of tulips. Or were they peonies? He could never remember. That was what Philomena was for.

“Well, hello there, Mina. I knew I’d find you here.”

“Oh, did you?” Her eyes rounded to large onyx pebbles. He had never known anyone to have such dark eyes.

“Yes, I did.”

“I could have been out in the garden.”

“No, I don’t think so. I know you. I knew you would be here.”

Her dark onyx eyes narrowed in…an emotion he couldn’t quite identify.

“I have something to show you, Mina.”

Her eyes glittered as she held out her hand. “What’s special about this coin?”

“How do you know it’s a coin?”

“Henry, please. The chances of you bringing a new coin to show me are incredibly higher than the chances of you finding me in the library. And those chances are already high.” She bobbed her hand in the open air. “Show me the coin. And stop grinning like you just ate the last raspberry tart.”

“But I did.” He chuckled as he walked over to where she stood behind the desk. “No, I would have only eaten the last tart if it wasn’t the raspberry one. I would have saved that one for you.” He stood shoulder to shoulder with her and opened his palm.

“Look.”

“It looks Chinese.” Her eyes flew to his and a small smile crept over her face. “Is it?”

Henry took a moment to think. He couldn’t remember what he was doing. And what was the question she had just asked? She was smiling about something. He just couldn’t remember what it was. He was rarely—no, never—at a loss for words around Philomena. But there was something in her eyes. Like he was seeing her for the first time. He rubbed his chest, feeling ridiculous.

“You don’t have a coin from China, yet. This would be your first, right?” She held up the coin to her face. “Is the coin from China?”

China? Why were they talking about China instead of what had gone through her mind to turn her gaze into something he could feel on his skin?

His hand floated to her lower back. To steady her. Or himself. “Um…yes, the coin is from China. I believe—”

But he didn’t have time to expand on his beliefs. There were voices just outside the door.