Chapter 1
London, 1815
“Father, Father! You are not listening to me. Pray, stay a minute more, and just truly hear what I am saying to you.”
Alaina froze as she walked down the dark corridor of the Earl of Woolworth’s house. There was just one candle keeping her company as it flickered from the hall table nearby. Alaina carried a silver tray topped with the hot chocolate her mistress liked to finish every night and her latest letters of correspondence.
Yet it seemed her mistress was not upstairs in her bedchamber at all. Lady Caroline shrieked from the Earl of Woolworth’s nearby study.
“I have told you already, Caroline. There is nothing more I can do.”
“Nothing? Nothing more! You can listen to what I am saying –”
“Enough!”
“So, you would sentence me married to a man I do not love? A man I do not even know.”
“Do you wish every member of staff in this household to hear our business and know our struggles? Hmm?”
The guilt coiled in Alaina’s stomach as she heard the Earl of Woolworth say such words, but she could not help it. Slowly, she lowered the tray of hot chocolate onto the hall table nearby, watching as the porcelain cup tremored in its saucer and the ornate silver hot chocolate pot nearly tipped over as she angled it too far. Alaina narrowly stopped it from falling over, then tiptoed towards the study door, pressing her ear close to the gap.
“Why would you do this to me?” Lady Caroline’s voice suddenly took on a sharpness that made Alaina’s stomach knot tight.
Lady Caroline had to be Alaina’s favourite person in the world. She was kind, excessively characterful, and full of life, with such positive energy, and she always found reasons to smile. Alaina rather thought of her as a flitting butterfly. She often hopped from party to party, unable to settle at just one ball for a single evening. Such a woman hardly ever used a harsh tone at all, until now, it seemed.
It was so unlike her to use this voice that scared Alaina.
Alaina pushed the black hair back from her forehead, which often trailed in her eyes, to get a clearer view as she pressed her face to the gap. From the crack between the jamb and door, she could see the study flooded with candlelight, a stark contrast to the darkness of the corridor.
Caroline was standing before her father’s desk, breathing heavily, her shoulders heaving up and down. Her curvy figure, often draped in the most beautiful silks, tonight was only clothed in a plush dressing gown, demure and dark blue.
“You cannot do this.” Caroline shook her head, making her onyx curls dance around her ears. “You cannot marry me to a man neither of us know –”
She was cut off as her father stood from his seat. Though Alaina could not see the Earl of Woolworth, she saw his shadow as it eclipsed Caroline. He was a man who had a habit of making his intimidating presence known with ease.
“You would not find a husband of your own,” he said, his voice quiet yet somehow holding even more harshness in the tones than Caroline had done. “You have been out for years. Years, Caroline, and yet no husband to be spoken of? No betrothed? Do you wish to be a spinster forever?”
“You see a spinster, but I see a happy woman in the mirror. I am independent, enjoying my life –”
“Independent?” he spluttered, scoffing, cutting her off once again. “Do not fool yourself with such illusions, daughter. You are dependent on a man’s income, no matter where you go or what you do in life. You are dependent on my income now, and you will soon be dependent on your husband’s.”
“Not if I don’t marry.”
“Enough!” This time, the earl’s bark was loud and warned her not to respond. Caroline took the smallest of steps back.
Alaina laid a hand on her quivering stomach. Caroline usually never backed down for anyone.
“You must marry,” the earl said again, calmer this time. “You would not take the action alone, so I have taken it for you. The Duke of Peddleton is a good man. He has extended a proposal, and I have accepted. He even suggested you travel to his estate in the country next week so that the two of you could get to know one another before the wedding. Now, that is not the act of a cruel man, is it?”
“I didn’t say he was cruel,” Caroline snapped. “I said I did not know him. Surely you knew my mother before you married her? Surely you knew her heart, her likes, her dislikes, what she thought of you …” Yet she trailed off. Whatever the earl’s expression had to be, it must have been negative. “That was for arrangement too?” Alaina had heard Caroline’s opinions on marriage many times before. Though she knew many people did not marry for love, she had always been insistent that some people married for love, and she wished to be just the same.
“It’s time your idealistic mind grew up, Caroline,” the earl said, sitting down heavily again. “Few marry for something as foolish as love in this world. Now, go.”
Alaina saw his shadow wave a dismissive hand in Caroline’s direction.
Alaina backed up just in time as Caroline burst out of the door.
“Ah!” Caroline struggled to hold onto her squeak of surprise. Together, they fumbled, closing the door to avoid the earl realizing that Alaina had been there at all; then Caroline fell into Alaina’s arms, gripping her tight. “You heard?” Caroline asked, pure panic in her aquamarine eyes as they searched Alaina’s face for an answer.
