PROLOGUE
Lydia Errington bither bottom lip to hide its trembling as her father, Lord Bellingham, folded his hands on top of his desk and glared across it at her. Though he was generally a passive and introspective man, it was never a good thing when he called her into his study for a ‘little chat’.
“The coming Season will be your last Season in London.”
Lydia blinked at him, uncomprehending.
“What? Why? Lady Eugenia Calthorpe is older than I am by a good six months, but her Mama and Papa continue to send her to London for the Season, year after year.”
Lord Bellingham stood, then, a long-suffering sigh whistling out of his large, hooked nose. He turned his back on his daughter and stared out of the window, looking over the expanse of their estate, which was small in comparison to the Calthorpe estate — Thistlewayte Hall — across the river.
“Because having you out in society, in London for the Season, costs a considerable amount of money, Lydia. We simply cannotafford it any longer. Your mother and I have not been as financially fortunate as the Duke and Duchess of Thistlewayte.”
Reeling, and suddenly not quite able to breathe properly, Lydia looked down at the letters and ledgers on his desktop. She scanned them, reading them easily even though the documents were upside-down, a skill she had perfected over the course of many years of being called into her father’s office for ‘little chats’.
Were their investments not doing well enough? She scanned the list in the ledger to her left and one entry in the positive, one of the only ones not bleeding money, stood out to her. Lord and Lady Rosebury were listed along with her father, but she couldn’t see the name of the enterprise they’d invested in together. She’d have to move documents around to be able to see what it was, and she didn’t dare touch them when her father might turn back around at any moment.
“So what, exactly, am I supposed to do if I don’t manage to find a husband this coming Season?”
Lord Bellingham shrugged and turned to face his daughter, pacing over to the sideboard to pour himself a drink, still not meeting Lydia’s gaze.
“I will make it quite simple for you. Either you find a husband by the end of this coming Season, or I take matters into my own hands and arrange a marriage for you. An advantageous marriage to a very wealthy man would be best.”
Lydia barked out a disbelieving laugh and took a half-step back, as if this all might simply be a horrible joke.
“This is Mama’s fault, isn’t it?” Lydia balled her hands into white-knuckled fists at her sides. “What did she gamble away this time, my dowry?”
“That and more, if you must know.” Lord Bellingham hissed. “If I didn’t adore your mother with every fibre of my being, I would be severely tempted to lock her in our quarters and never let her out again.”
“And I would throw away the key.”
Lydia growled the words through gritted teeth. Bitter bile burned in her throat as she glared out of her father’s study window, towards the Calthorpe estate. A sudden realisation struck her. Life was bitterly unfair, and she hated her so-called friend, Lady Eugenia Calthorpe, for having such a charmed, easy life as the daughter of a Duke with seemingly endless funds at his disposal.
If Lydia was to be relegated to a final Season under threat of an arranged marriage, one she more likely than not wouldn’t want for herself, then she would do everything in her power to make Eugenia’s charmed life miserable.
It only seemed fair that someone should suffer with her.
CHAPTER ONE
MARCH 15, 1812, LADY DUNCAN’S BALL
To an outsider’s eye,Lady Eugenia Calthorpe’s life might appear utterly and completely untroubled. After all, what could possibly trouble a Duke’s daughter?What, indeed.It is a pity that there is no soothsayer among thetonat Lady Duncan’s Ball, to whisper a much-needed warning to the Duke’s daughter, to beware the Ides of March.
As Eugenia and Marco Bianchi,Count D’Asti, danced the first set of the evening together, they were so enthralled with one another that they failed to see two individuals glaring at them from across the room.
Percy Gale, the Viscount of Greywood, hardly even blinked, so intense was his focus on Marco Bianchi, the Count D’Asti. Percy loathed the Count unreservedly, for playing quite a heavy-handed part in embarrassing his sister, Lady Henrietta, someweeks ago at Lady Mowbray’s St. Valentine’s Day Ball. Granted, Henrietta might have brought some of the disaster on herself with her little tantrum in Lady Mowbray’s garden, but still. Henrietta was his sister, and the slight against her would not go unpunished, if Percy could help it. The other individual who happened to be glaring at Lord D’Asti and Lady Eugenia was a young woman who appeared to be quite close in age to Eugenia. That would, in fact, be quite an accurate assessment. Lady Eugenia and this particular young lady, with her ash brown hair and grey eyes, were only separated in age by a mere seven months.
Otherwise, the two young ladies were separated by a great many things. Of that much, the Honourable Miss Lydia Errington was acutely aware. She and Lady Eugenia were most notably separated by rank, circumstance, and level of wealth. As children, they had played together, and their mothers still moved in the same circles. Some might even have called Lydia and Eugenia friends, but they’d have found themselves to be mistaken.
Lydia was so busy with her glowering and silent dwelling on Lady Eugenia’s good fortune in life (as opposed to her own sorry lot by comparison) that she was paying very little attention to where she was going, as she moved through the rather crowded room. Then, Lydia crashed into someone so hard that it rattled her teeth. She gasped, staggering back, and struggling to keep her balance as she trod on her gown’s hem.
“I’m terribly sorry.” The words came out automatically. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
She paused, then, actually bothering to look at the man she’d bumped into. He was familiar — she’d recognise his dark hair and hazel eyes anywhere, she was certain — he was a gentlemanto whom she’d been introduced a mere few weeks ago. Lydia wracked her brain, scrambling to remember his title, and, after a moment, it came to her. This was Percy Gale, Lady Henrietta Gale’s brother, and the Viscount of Greywood.
“I rather noticed.” The Viscount answered with a wry grin, even as he reached out and lightly gripped her shoulders, helping her steady herself. “Dare I ask what managed to distract you so deeply that you forgot to look where you were going, Miss Errington?”
His hazel eyes twinkled with amusement at the light-hearted quip, but his gaze tracked back to the other side of the room. Lydia traced his line of sight, then, following where his gaze had drifted to. Interestingly enough, he seemed to be staring at Lady Eugenia Calthorpe and her dance partner, as Lydia herself had been doing, just moments before. Why, Lydia wondered, was he staring at her childhood friend and at Eugenia’s dance partner, the Italian Count, with such keen interest? It took her a moment to realise that he was still waiting for her to answer his question.
