Chapter 1

“Wherein the seeds are sown for a dangerous harvest.”

21 st October 1820.

It was a fine day, a touch of warmth still lingering in the air, the countryside gilded with the faded glory of the distant summer months and burnished by the afternoon sun, their vivid colours all turned to gold.

Miss Beatrice Huntingdon turned her face up to the sky, closing her eyes for a moment as the horse swayed hypnotically beneath her. She would have preferred a good gallop, but her cousin Dorothy was a timid creature and anything above a brisk trot would scare her half to death. So a sedate walk it was, with a groom in attendance for propriety. They rode through the village of Tenterden, about a mile from her uncle’s house. Uncle Charles had become her guardian upon the death of her father eighteen months ago. It had been a year and a half of strife and conflict and had left Beatrice weary beyond belief and sick at heart.

Unlike Dorothy, Bea was not timid. Her father had been an unusual and brilliant man and had believed Bea had a will and mind of her own. Sadly, he’d also had a romantic notion that one's family would always do what was best for one. He had never seen that his brother was not as kind and loving man as he and cared only for the money. Uncle Charles had been jealous of his title and his success, for her father had been a shrewd man and invested wisely, gaining a reputation for having a Midas touch others envied but could not emulate. Well, Charles had the Viscountcy now, and the entailed properties, and Father had left him a tidy sum, but the bulk of his enormous wealth had been left entirely to his only living kin, Bea.

Thinking of Papa made her feel worse than ever and she shook the feeling off as best she could, telling herself not to be such a wet blanket. Papa would have told her off for that. As they rode through the village, Bea looked about her. Tenterden was a prosperous place and busy and Bea enjoyed watching the people as they went about their business. A pretty girl of about Bea’s age was laughing and blushing at something a handsome fellow had said. He looked like a blacksmith, and she was carrying a basket of shopping over her arm. The fellow was offering to carry it home for her if Bea’s guess was correct. She wondered what their lives were like. Would they fall in love and get married? Perhaps they would live in a dear little cottage and raise their children together. They would laugh and grow fat on the young woman’s cooking, and love each other, and their children and grandchildren, as they grew old together.

“What nonsense,” she scolded herself. For all she knew, if they married, the handsome blacksmith would beat his wife, and the young woman would regret having ever met him. Perhaps they would not have enough money for food, or for a doctor when their child got sick. Believing others had it better than you did was a dangerous business; her father had taught her that. Everyone had their own troubles, and one ought not to judge or pretend to understand what they could not comprehend until they had lived it themselves.

“What was that, Bea?”

Bea turned, distracted, to discover Dorothy looking at her oddly. Not an unusual occurrence. Belatedly, she realised she had spoken aloud again.

“I beg your pardon, nothing at all. Shall we take a different route home today?” she suggested, for if she must follow the same path again, she might just run mad.

“Oh,” Dorothy said, her tone doubtful. “Well, I don’t know. Papa wouldn’t like it, I think, and—”

“Nonsense,” Bea said, knowing her force of will was far stronger than Dorothy’s, who could not stand up to anyone. “I’m sure there are other routes that are just as safe, aren’t there, Rogers?”

The groom flashed her a swift grin. “Aye, miss. That there are. I know a pretty route that you’ll enjoy.”

He looked just as relieved as she was, for it must be tedious for the poor man to go plodding about behind them and following the same circuit day in, day out.

Rogers was right, Bea discovered as he led them on a winding trail that brought them to the top of a hill where the countryside spread out before them like a patchwork of green and gold.

“Beautiful,” Bea said, drinking in the scenery and taking a deep breath. She felt as if she could breathe for the first time in months up here.

“I’m not sure Papa will approve of us being here,” Dorothy said, her pretty face screwed into a little moue of displeasure. “That’s Lord Rutherford’s estate.”

“Aye, Miss Dororthy, but we’re not on his land here so there’s no harm,” Rogers replied placidly.

“The Earl of Rutherford?” Bea said in surprise. “Truly? Good heavens.”

She gazed at the handsome red brick house. It was a sprawling Jacobean mansion and looked romantic and beautiful in the golden autumn light. Looking closer, it also looked in desperate need of repair. Ivy scrambled up the walls and over the windows, and the gardens looked to be a tangled wilderness. Yet it was lovely indeed, and strange to think such a beautiful property belonged to such a wicked man.

“Aye, he’s there, right enough,” Rogers said.

“Is it true what they said about him in the scandal sheets, do you think?” Bea asked him, well aware that she was being dreadfully indelicate, gossiping with a servant. Uncle Charles would throw a fit if he found out. She glanced at Dorothy, who looked more disapproving than ever but said nothing, for she surely wished to hear what Rogers said just as much as Bea did.

“Seems so, Miss Huntingdon. He arrived at Chalfont House last month. Up the River Tick without a paddle, so I hear, just like his father before him. Bad blood, I suppose. This time he was shot in the shoulder, by all accounts. In a bad way, too. Infected. I heard he was at death’s door, though you know what people are for gossip.”

“The poor man,” Bea said with a frown.

“Poor man!” Dorothy practically shrieked, gazing at Bea as though she’d said something blasphemous. “Bea, how can you say so? He’s a terrible rogue, utterly dishonourable. He’s been accused of everything short of murder, and this time he admitted to having an affair with Mrs Jenkins… in front of her husband! In public, no less. No wonder Mr Jenkins called him out. He’s the only ‘poor man’ in the situation, for he’s been made a cuckold and to look like a fool. Their divorce has been the scandal of the century. No, Bea, Lord Rutherford is bad to the core and not someone we should be discussing.”

“I beg your pardon, Dorothy,” Bea said, sighing inwardly. If only her cousin wasn’t such a dreadful prude. “I meant no offence; it is only that such behaviour speaks of a troubled mind and a deeply unhappy man. I feel sorry for him, is all.”

“Then you ought to save your pity for someone more deserving of it, like Mr Jenkins,” Dorothy snapped. “Come along. We should never have come this way, for we are bound to be late for tea and that will put Papa in a frightful temper.”

Privately, Bea thought Uncle Charles did not need a reason to be in a frightful temper, but having already ruffled Dorothy’s feathers, she forbore to say so.

Sadly, Dorothy’s prediction was true enough and not helped by Bea refusing to hurry downstairs until she was ready. Though by no means vain, she had come to regard her attire as a form of armour. If she looked her best, she felt stronger, and she refused to face a man intent on bullying her without using every weapon at her disposal.

“Lovely, miss,” her maid, Rachel, said approvingly. She had been relieved when Bea had finally put aside her mourning blacks for half-mourning. “That silver grey colour goes splendidly with your eyes and your beautiful dark hair. That new bran and egg hair wash is splendid too, is it not? Makes your hair shine like silk, though it’s the devil to keep pinned now. Miss Dorothy will be as green as a pea,” she added with a smirk.

“Rachel,” Bea said, lips twitching despite herself. “How unkind you are.”

“Well, ’tis true,” Rachel said with a sniff. “She’s as envious of you as her father was of his lordship, God rest him.”

Bea sighed. She knew she ought not encourage Rachel into speaking so, but she did not have the heart to reprimand her. Besides which, it was true. Rachel was perhaps five years older than Bea and had been with her since Bea’s eleventh birthday. They had always been close, but since Uncle Charles had taken Bea in, Rachel had become her only confidante and friend. He confined Bea to the house except for a daily ride in company with the groom and Dorothy, and she was allowed no society, unless you counted the men he paraded before her as potential husbands, which Bea did not. She had refused every offer of marriage to date, knowing full well that the weak-willed men her uncle had chosen had been picked for their lack of backbone. Bea knew he had every intention of getting his hands on the money her father had left her, and she had no intention of letting him do it.

Uncle Charles had never met a woman with a will as strong as Bea’s and, no matter how he raged, she remained calm and serene. She tried to view his rages as a kind of theatre show, regarding him shouting and banging his fist on the furniture—getting so red in the face she feared for his health—with detached curiosity. This naturally made him wilder than ever, which was a bonus. The truth was, however, that those terrible, violent scenes were wearing on Bea’s nerves. The mere thought of enduring another had her temples throbbing but endure it she would. Her father had meant for her to inherit his wealth, to live a full life with a mate of her own choosing. If only he had lived to secure that future for her… but she knew he had done his best with his will, and neither of them had guessed he would be taken so suddenly.

Her throat closed as she thought of him, the pain of regret heavy in her heart, and she shook off the weight of sorrow with difficulty. If she was to face Charles, she needed her wits about her.

Bea made her way slowly down the stair, knowing Uncle Charles would be furious with her for making him wait.

“I beg your pardon, I’m dreadfully tardy today,” she said with a smile as she entered the parlour.

Somewhat to her surprise, her uncle wasn’t foaming at the mouth and ready to ring a peel over her. Instead, and far more alarming, he looked somewhat uneasy. He seemed to struggle to meet her eyes, and Bea felt a dart of alarm stab her in the chest.

“Think nothing of it, my dear, we know what you ladies are for making yourself beautiful for guests,” her uncle said with patently false good cheer, the words putting her all on edge.

Refusing to allow her disquiet to show, Bea belatedly turned her attention to their guest and noted that Dorothy was not in the room. Alarm bells rang.

“Allow me to introduce you,” her uncle went on, gesturing for the man to come closer. “Miss Huntingdon, may I present Mr Arnold Runcible? Arnold, my niece, Miss Beatrice Huntingdon.”

Bea dipped a curtsey, a sick sensation swirling in her stomach as she took in the gentleman before her. He was of an age with her uncle, perhaps five and sixty, and looked as though every year of that life had been spent in dissipation. His nose was red and bulbous, spidery veins blooming over ruddy cheeks. He smiled at her, showing teeth that were yellowed and rotten—those that remained, at least—and a waft of foul breath drifted towards her.

“Miss Huntingdon, how enchanting to meet you at long last. Your uncle has told me so much about you.”

It was all Bea could do not to snatch her hand away as Mr Runcible bowed low and lifted her hand. She could not help the flinch, however, as his wet lips pressed against her fingers. Taking her hand back the moment she could, she surreptitiously wiped it on her gown, determined to wash her hands thoroughly the moment she could do so.

“I’m afraid he has told me nothing of you at all, Mr Runcible,” Bea replied, wishing her voice had sounded more tart and less anxious. Still, she had refused every proposal of marriage so far. She could do it again and endure the ranting that would follow. No doubt another proposal was her uncle’s plan, though why he believed she would give in to this foul creature when she had refused far less appalling prospects, she had no idea. Indeed, Lord Romsley had been a dear, and terribly handsome… just terribly stupid too, the poor man.

“Ah, and Lord Worth warned me you were a forthright girl, but you don’t frighten me, my dear.”

His expression roved over her as he spoke and Bea took a step back, disgusted. Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth, and she watched in horrified fascination as one droplet flew off and settled on the lapel of his coat next to what looked like a greasy stain. She swallowed hard as he continued speaking and leering.

“I like a challenge, and you are certainly worth the effort of schooling properly. Quite, quite lovely.”

“A challenge, sir? I cannot think under what circumstances you believe I should present one to you,” she replied coldly before turning to her uncle, whose temper was rising, judging by the set of his jaw. “Uncle Charles, I seem to be at a disadvantage. Is there something you would like to tell me?”

“Damn you, girl. Mind your manners,” he growled, though his voice lacked the anger that would normally accompany such a command.

“I am minding them, sir. Only it appears there is a conversation in progress, and I am the only one who is not taking part in it. I simply ask that you enlighten me,” she said, striving to sound as calm as always when her heart was thundering in her chest.

Her uncle shook his head, his expression one of a man forced to endure an unpleasant scene. “Very well, as you will have things your way. Mr Runcible here as asked for your hand in marriage, and I have accepted on your behalf.”

Despite having known this was at the heart of it, Bea’s stomach dropped. For a moment, terror seized her, and she could barely breathe, let alone think. Finally, her wits returned to her as anger bloomed in her chest. Her father had warned her about giving into her temper but in this instance, she welcomed it, the burn of it giving her strength. She did not show it to her uncle, nor the disgusting Mr Runcible, instead she put up her chin, fighting to appear calm. “Indeed, Uncle. Then I beg your forgiveness for disappointing you both. I shall not be marrying Mr Runcible, not under any circumstances.”

“Oh, but I think you will, this time, Beatrice,” her uncle replied.

Bea felt suddenly cold, instinct telling her that something was very, very wrong. She did not speak, for fear held her captive. Not that she needed to speak; for her uncle seemed to have decided to get the thing over with and quickly.

“I will be leaving in the morning. Most of the staff have been given paid leave to visit family and Dorothy will accompany me. Mr Runcible here will be staying. You will be confined to your room, Beatrice. Mr Runcible alone will have the key. You will remain there until Mr Runcible persuades you of the er… ardour of his feelings and you agree to marry him.”

For the first time in her life, Bea feared she would swoon. What her uncle proposed was so sickening, so… so villainous, she could hardly believe it possible. She had known him to be selfish, unkind, and ruthless, but this was immorality of a kind she had not believed could exist in her own kin.

“You would not dare,” she managed, taking a step away from her uncle.

“You’d be surprised what I dare,” he said grimly. “If you had only done as I bid you, we need not have come to this pass, but now I shall have things my way. I’m sorry, my dear, I regret having to force your hand, but I have no more time to waste on making you see sense. I suppose it is not really your fault but that of your fool of a father. I told him no good would come of educating you and treating you like a reasoning creature. If you had only heeded me, you could have been safely married by now. Women have no reason, have no sense of what is good for them.”

“And you think this… this disgusting old man will be good for me?” she demanded in outrage.

“Give me a chance, sweetheart. I’ll grow on you. You’ll see,” Mr Runcible replied amiably, apparently not dismayed in the least by her words.

Even her uncle seemed somewhat disgusted by that idea, his lip curling. Nonetheless he turned his attention back to Bea.

“Mr Runcible and I have an agreement. He gets you and a generous dowry, and I get the rest. What you make of the situation is up to you,” her uncle said with stunning nonchalance. “I suggest you accept it, and quickly.”

Bea stared at him, daring her uncle to avoid her furious gaze. “If my father could see you now, he would be sickened by your betrayal, but you were never the man he was and never will be. You despicable, vile—”

The slap came out of nowhere. Bea stumbled back, clutching her cheek, tears in her eyes despite her best efforts. No one had ever laid a hand on her before and the shock of her uncle inflicting the blow was breathtaking, an undeniable illustration of just how powerless she was.

“Enough of this. Harper!” Her uncle bellowed this last, and Bea turned in dismay to see a burly man with shoulders like an ox come into the room. “Harper here is your guard, Beatrice. He will be outside your room from now on, keeping you safe, and making sure no one gets in unless they are supposed to.”

“Like Mr Runcible,” she said bitterly, glaring at her uncle with loathing.

“Quite. Well, Harper will see you to your room. Your dinner will be brought up to you this evening and afterwards Mr Runcible will visit you for a little chat. I do hope you will not put up too much of a fight, Beatrice. You will make things quite needlessly unpleasant for yourself.”

Bea did not have the fortitude to make a clever retort, nor to appear anything but terrified. She fled the room, uncaring if Harper was following or not. When she got to her bedroom, she slammed the door and scrambled for the key, only to discover it gone. A moment later, she heard the unmistakable snick of the lock turning and knew Harper had indeed locked her in.

“Rachel?” she called, but Rachel was not there.

Had she gone to visit relatives too, believing Bea had agreed to it? No. Not Rachel. She would not leave without saying goodbye. For a moment, Bea gave in to tears and sank to the floor, weeping hysterically, but the reality of her situation was too dangerous to ignore. She must get away and she must do so at once. But no matter where she went, she would be at risk until she was married. Her uncle was her guardian until she married or until she was five and twenty, another three years yet. Though the money was hers and he could not touch it thanks to her father’s instructions, neither could she without his signature. Not until she was wed.

Getting out of here was one thing, but she could not live without money, and she had no money if her uncle did not sanction the withdrawal. She was entirely trapped unless she married. There must be a way. There simply must .

“Think, Bea, think,” she told herself, just as her father would say it when he was impatient with her for not seeing an answer he thought entirely obvious

She could run to Tenterden and marry the blacksmith, she thought wildly. A man like that would surely leap at the chance of riches beyond his wildest dreams. Yet then she’d be married to a blacksmith, shunned by all his kind and ostracised by her own. No, no, that would not do. She needed someone of her own class, someone as desperate as she was. More than that she needed someone she could get to quickly before her uncle caught up with her.

The answer came to her, so shocking it stole her breath, and yet, why not? If she was to be forced to marry a monster, why not let it be one of her own choosing? Lord Rutherford was at least a young man, even if he was a cheat, a liar, and a libertine. He was desperate for money, according to gossip, and he’d be a fool to turn down her proposal. If Dorothy’s words were true, she might be a widow soon enough, in any case. Bea winced at the wickedness of her thoughts, but she was too frightened to be anything but pragmatic. What her life might be like married to such a man was something she dared not consider in too much detail. Imagining her uncle’s fury on learning of what she’d done was spur enough for her to put her own fears aside. She might be about to put herself in the hands of a man even worse than Mr Runcible, a man who would squander her fortune and use her no better than Mr Runcible would have, but at least she would have thwarted her uncle and that would have to be solace enough.

For the moment, she had a more immediate problem. She had to get out of the house before her would-be husband came calling.