Chapter One
2ndJanuary 1822.
Three debt collectors were lurking at the edge of the churchyard, and Olivia Price let out a soft snort of derision, quickly covered with a cough.
She shouldn’t laugh—itwasa funeral, after all—but they’d had a wasted trip. Her father’s coffin had just been lowered into the ground, and the vicar was struggling to say a few kind words about the deceased without perjuring himself.
She dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief, ignoring Uncle Hubert’s disapproving glare from across the open grave.
The only good thing to say about her father was that he was dead.
She should probably feel guilty for her lack of filial grief, but she couldn’t honestly say that she’d miss him. He’d treated her with such casual disinterest that she was relieved he was gone. And now that the full extent of his swindling had come to light, she resented him with a slow, simmering fury.
If he wasn’t already dead, she’d have been tempted to kill him herself.
Sir Arthur Price hadn’t just died, he’descaped—dodging scores of furious creditors, evading justice, and leaving the whole humiliating mess behind for her to deal with. Tens of thousands of pounds that he’d charmed, begged, borrowed, and outright stolen from people he’d had no intention of ever paying back.
Livvy sniffed. Maybe that was too harsh. Perhaps, at the start, he’d meant to repay the debts, but then they’d grown so large, like a boulder rolling downhill, picking up momentum, that it had become an unstoppable avalanche.
Everything would have to be sold. The townhouse in Covent Garden, the manor here in the village. The contents, too; whatever paintings and furniture he hadn’t already hocked to finance one of his mad schemes. Her mother’s jewels had disappeared years ago, despite being promised to her, and even if Father had bothered to leave her something in his will, settling the debts would take precedence over honoring any personal bequests. Livvy wouldn’t get a thing, except for a shameful legacy that would taint her by association forever. He didn’t deserve her tears.
The vicar finally stopped droning on, and his handful of dirt hit the lid of the casket with a dull patter. There hadn’t been funds to pay for more than the cheapest pine coffin from the local cabinetmaker. No black-dyed ostrich plume headdresses and black horses, no fancy black-and-gilt carriage. The burial fees, sermon-fees, and bell-ringing costs had been more than enough.
As her father’s only brother and executor, the task of organizing the funeral and dealing with the estate had fallen on Uncle Hubert, whose sour expression stemmed more from a distaste for being out in the freezing rain than from any love for his sibling.
Livvy shivered, though not from the chill. Uncle Hubert’s dead-eyed stare made her shudder.
With one last glance at the coffin, she turned away and walked briskly across the churchyard toward the house nestled behind the church. She’d lived at the old manor her whole life, until two years ago, when she’d accepted Daisy’s offer of employment at King & Co., and moved to London in a desperate attempt to earn some money of her own. Money that couldn’t be swallowed up by her father’s foolish extravagances.
“Olivia!”
Uncle Hubert’s grating tone made her stiffen, but she slowed her pace so that he could catch up with her and together they crunched down the gravel path and through the front door. Olivia removed her bonnet and cloak, and he swept off his hat and placed it on the hall table. She caught an unpleasant waft of the floral hair pomade he used to slick down his sparse grey hair.
“A word, if you please. In the study.”
With an inward sigh—she’d known she’d have to face him eventually—she complied and took a seat in the chair in front of the desk that had been her father’s.
A few telltale pale rectangles on the wallpaper opposite indicated where paintings had once hung. They’d already been sold or taken by bailiffs with court-issued permits; by men like the ones lingering by the churchyard wall. They’d probably be knocking at the door at any minute, demanding an audience. At least Hubert would have to deal with them and not herself.
Hubert stalked around the other side of the desk and sat, his watery blue eyes studying her with an unnerving intensity. He steepled his thin fingers together, elbows on the desk. “I assume you’re aware of the extent of your father’s folly?”
“I am. Mr. Wright, the solicitor, explained it to me.”
“Then you know that your prospects are dim. Very dim indeed. I doubt there will be anything left for you, once the debts have been discharged.”
“I know that.”
“To put it bluntly, you are ruined.” Livvy couldn’t hide her wince, but he ploughed on, uncaring. “Socially ruined, at least.” He shook his head, feigning sympathy. “If you hadn’t been so foolishly willful . . . if you’d considered marriage—as I advised on many occasions, if you recall—then you might have been spared this unfortunate situation. A husband would have provided you with a house, clothes, security.”
A husband would have dictated every part of her life.
He sighed. “But now it will be almost impossible to find a suitor who’ll overlook your lack of dowry and the fact that you’ll be excluded from almost every drawing room in theTon.”
His eyes studied her face, then roved over her chest in a slow perusal that made Livvy clench her fingers into her skirts.
“How old are you now, girl?”
“Twenty-four.”
