PROLOGUE

“D o you have any idea what you’ve done? You have ruined us all.”

Charlotte Forrester gripped hold of the banister and peered over the staircase into the foyer below. She shivered in the cold night air and wished she’d taken the time to don slippers, but the commotion that had awoken her had sent her flying from her rooms without thought of pausing.

Now she stood here, wide-eyed and scared while her father, who usually barely spoke to them all, bellowed loud enough to rock the chandelier above him; her mother wailed and wept and hung from their Father as though she couldn’t stand on her own, two feet.

And across from them was Jane. Her older sister and best friend, chin tilted upward in its usual, stubborn jut, a stranger by her side.

“Jane!” Ignoring the fact that she was obviously interrupting something monumental, Charlotte flew down the stairs and threw herself into her sister’s arms. It had been weeks since she’d seen her older sister. Charlotte had woken up one morning, and Jane was just gone, just like that.

As it transpired, she had left a note which had caused an absolute uproar. A note that Charlotte had been absolutely forbidden from reading. Naturally, she’d gone looking anyway, but the note hadn’t been anywhere she could find.

But now, here she was. She’d reappeared and didn’t look hurt or harmed in any way.

Jane wrapped her arms around Charlotte’s shorter frame for a brief moment before she Charlotte was rather violently pulled back. “Get back to your rooms, Charlotte. Now.”

“But why?” she asked in response to her father’s demand. “What has happened?”

“Charlotte.” Jane’s attempt at speaking was cut off by Mama’s wail of distress. “What has happened? She has ruined her life, and worst of all, she has ruined yours. Your debut Season. Your chance of a good match? All gone. Destroyed.”

Charlotte’s stomach swooped at Mama’s words. Her Come Out was all planned. A modiste all the way in London was already working on her gowns. She’d been practicing with her fan for weeks. She knew every dance. Every social cue. She was so prepared, and she couldn’t understand how Jane could have ruined it. Why Jane would have ruined it.

“I’m sorry, Lottie.” For the first time since Charlotte had stumbled upon this dreadful scene, Jane’s shoulders slumped, and her eyes, so much brighter than Charlotte’s deep, dark brown, filled with tears. “I never meant for this to hurt you.”

“For what to hurt me?” Charlotte asked insistently. Her eyes darted to the young man to whom anyone had yet to speak. He was tall and handsome and had a concerned, slightly volatile look stamped on his face. Well-dressed but not as fine as a peer or gentleman of the ton. And more importantly, she wasn’t Sir Gerald, to whom she was engaged.

“Lottie, I – I –“

“She ran away to Gretna,” their mother spat. “She ran away and got herself pregnant and married to a nobody. And good society will never welcome us into their homes again.”