Chapter 1

One

Many years earlier. The Duchy of Bexton.

T hroughout Lady Henrietta Stafford's childhood, Mr. Hartwell visited Bexton Manor many times. He was a friend of her father, the duke, and the two men would sit and drink spirits in her father's study. Perhaps talk and laugh together, too.

Almost certainly, her father would laugh as it was rare that he did not. But, on second thought, maybe Mr. Hartwell wouldn't. Henrietta had never even seen the gentleman smile.

He lived far away in the Lake District, but he often had occasion to travel to London and the duchy of Bexton was a convenient stopping place. His wife—or rather, wives—never came with him.

Mr. Hartwell expressed no curiosity about Henrietta or her brothers and sisters. But she had always been curious about him. So stern, so grave, so silent. So unlike her playful father who had the energy of an unbroken colt. So different from her long-winded mother who couldn't help but speak her mind, especially when it came to her twin passions—Anglo-Saxon runes and her husband.

Sometime between her thirteenth and fourteenth years, Henrietta would often find herself idling outside the study when Mr. Hartwell came to visit. Hiding her large, tall body was an impossibility, so she didn't even try. She boldly held her head up and stole as many looks at him as she dared when he and her father finally emerged.

His face was all strong planes and sharp angles. His narrow body was all elongated sinew and bone, and he overtopped her very tall and broad father by several inches.

A solitary lock of ebony hair was the one thing that defied the orderliness of Mr. Hartwell's outward form and somberness of dress. When the weather was wet, that lock would spring loose and dangle over his dark brows, a rebellious and naughty curl. She came to love the rainy days that coincided with his visits because she might get a peek at that curl.

And, yes, she found herself thinking of him when she touched herself in her bed at night. Stroking her already-unwieldy and still-growing breasts. Learning her nipples puckered in response to even a light brush of her fingers and a sharp pinch in the same place caused an equally sharp thrill. Allowing her hand to wander over the dome of her belly, down to the place between her thighs where a throb ached under the ginger hair there.

He was married, of course. By the time she had discovered how to bring her private pleasure to a satisfying end, he had a second wife, the first having died. But his marital circumstances made no difference to Henrietta. It wasn't as if she really thought anyone as attractive, as mysterious, as serious as Mr. Hartwell would ever admire someone like her.

Occasionally, she made an earnest effort to turn her nightly thoughts away from him. She would try to think of Lord Ramsey's son. Geoffrey was a nice, simple boy who would become a nice, simple man who would make a good husband for a nice, simple, girl like herself.

And her father's title paired with her generous dowry would make her a good match for Geoffrey. Henrietta didn't really have anything else to offer. She wasn't beautiful like her restless middle sister Ellen or clever like her sharp-tongued youngest sister Amelia.

Still, Geoffrey might choose Henrietta. His parents often hinted at a future union between the two families when they paid neighborly calls at Bexton Manor.

But, despite her best intentions, when her drenched finger brought her to the cusp of ecstasy, Geoffrey's ordinary brown eyes would invariably turn into Mr. Hartwell's smoldering gray ones.

Such a goose she was.

A goose with a honking, hearty laugh just like her father's. She had gotten that from him, along with his red hair and large frame. And like her mother, she had blue eyes, a big bosom, and no secrets.

Well, she had one secret. A tendre for the unreachable, unknowable, unbearably desirable Mr. Oliver Hartwell.

The second Mrs. Hartwell died in childbirth the same day Henrietta turned sixteen. When the letter arrived with the news, she couldn't help thinking how sad Mr. Hartwell must be. She knew there was nothing she could do for him herself, but she urged her father to pay a visit.

The duke resisted. "Hartwell wouldn't want to be bothered when he's mourning. Believe me."

Still, she kept after her father, cajoling him to go see his friend. Finally, he had the carriage made ready and took the three-day journey to Crossthwaite, Mr. Hartwell's property near Woldenmere.

Her father returned a fortnight later and came and found her in the stables where she was currying Zephyr.

"You were right, Hen," he said, holding out his hand for the enormous black gelding to investigate with his muzzle. "The man needed company."

Henrietta straightened up from brushing the silky, white feathering around Zephyr's ankles. "You did him some good?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I did my best."

She threw her arms around her father's strong neck and bussed his bristly cheek, so grateful he had listened to her and gone to visit Mr. Hartwell. "Thank you, Papa."

Henrietta did not think she should ask for more details of how Mr. Hartwell fared, but she kept her ears open at dinner, knowing her mother would coax something from her father.

"How goes the baby?" her mother asked.

"Poorly. Very weak."

Ask about Mr. Hartwell , Henrietta willed her mother.

"And Oliver himself?" her mother said, right on cue.

"He's—" Her father wiped his mouth. "It's hard to tell. He's a private man."

"But how does he look? Is he drawn? Is he sleeping and eating?"

Her father only shrugged. "He'll weather this. He's weathered worse."

"Hssst," her mother warned her father and cast a meaningful look around the table at the rest of the family.

Worse? What could be worse than having your wife die? Twice now for Mr. Hartwell. Henrietta's heart ached for the poor man. She must think of something she could do from a distance to ease his grief.

The next day, an idea came to her during her morning ride, and when she came back into the house, she went down to the kitchens.

"Mrs. Blaire, would you teach me how to make custard?"

"Custard, my lady? Why would you want to know that?"

In the main, Mr. Hartwell ate very little, but Henrietta had noticed he loved Mrs. Blaire's custard, often finishing two platefuls of it at a single meal. But she couldn't possibly admit her real reason for wanting to learn how to make custard.

"Is it very difficult? Do you think I could manage it?"

Several days of instruction followed with Mrs. Blaire unfailingly producing a perfect custard, while Henrietta's was either a curdy clump or a gritty soup. Mrs. Blaire's custards were not wasted but sent up to grace the dinner table each night. Henrietta's attempts weren't wasted, either; they went to the pigs who would eat anything.

When a flustered, sweaty, covered-in-egg-yolk Henrietta finally produced a gorgeously yellow, thick, silky custard and Mrs. Blaire pronounced it as good as hers, she glowed with a deep satisfaction.

"Now," she said, looking around the kitchen. "What kind of pot should I put it in to send it off?"

Mrs. Blaire frowned. "Send it off? Where, my lady?"

As always, when someone nudged close to Henrietta's secret, she felt herself get hot.

"Oh." The cook nodded knowingly. "To the neighbors. That strapping Ramsey boy. I see."

Until that moment, Henrietta had not remembered Geoffrey also liked Mrs. Blaire's custard and had even been known to pick up his plate and lick it when he was younger.

"What? No, no, no," Henrietta said, horrified. "I want to send it?.?.?.?far away."

"You can't preserve custard and send it off like jam, my lady. It will spoil in a day. How far away did you want to send it?"

"No matter." Henrietta fled the kitchen.

That night, her sister Ellen complained about having custard as a sweet for the fifth night in a row.

"Nothing beats Mrs. Blaire's marvelous custard," her father said and deposited a large spoonful in his mouth.

Henrietta almost blurted out she had been the one to make this particular custard, but that would almost certainly lead to questions about why she had and she didn't have a ready excuse that didn't include mention of Mr. Hartwell's fondness for custard. Henrietta was a woefully bad liar, and, unlike Mrs. Blaire, her older brother Alexander would needle her until he got the embarrassingly true answer he was after.

So, she kept her mouth shut, only opening her lips to eat the rich custard as her mother began to regale the table with the fact that the word sweet came from the Old English swēte and the word was likely over five thousand years old.

It was a very good custard.

And it was unjust, Henrietta decided, that a word could last for five thousand years and a very good custard could only last a day.