Chapter 1
London, 1881
“Mr. Pedifer appears to be looking this way. He has one thousand per annum and nearly half of his teeth, despite his age,” murmured Cousin Timothy.
“Sir Grinchetyl is at the other corner of the ballroom. Only has five hundred a year, but the title should quite make up for it,” said Uncle Dennis at her other elbow. “You would like to be Lady Grinchetyl, wouldn’t you?”
Marianne Vyler cast her eyes about the room, trying to find something to say that wouldn’t get her yanked, pushed, or bruised by her guardians, charged with her care since she was orphaned eleven years earlier.
“Don’t eventhinkabout the duke as a prospective husband,” said Cousin Timothy. “He’ll never look upon you with favor.”
“Yes, don’t waste time mooning over FitzOsbern,” sighed Uncle Dennis. “The clothes for your coming-out cost a king’s ransom. And they’re an investment in getting you off of our ledgers and onto those of a husband.”
Marianne could barely see the duke; he was so far away. She considered standing on tiptoes to see this exalted and untouchable aristocrat, but it would only enrage her guardians, who resented the expense of renting a modest place in town and new clothes to marry her off quickly.
Uncle Dennis and Cousin Timothy had grown so agitated over the outlay that they’d undertaken to cheat the butcher, baker, and staff out of owed funds. They thought they’d pulled a trick over on the lower classes. The truth was quite different:
Marianne Vyler, a debutante of nineteen, had been sneaking out of the house to earn wages by playing the harp. It was a particular talent of hers, though her guardians discouraged performing before others and making a spectacle of herself.
It was in a London townhouse with a curious partition between the ballroom and orchestra that she’d plucked her first notes in public and allowed the music to transport her while in the company of others. Her fellow musicians sent glances when she’d improvised the sound of wind in the trees based on the decor she could see, but they’d eventually heard the wind, too, and filled the space with spectral notes.
Music that only partially covered the sounds of what was going on. Marianne wasn’t the least worldly debutante in London, so she had some sense that there was something illicit happening under those trees. But what?
It was when the tapestry partition suddenly came down during a performance that she learned what was happening just on the other side of the divide: men were cavorting in the nude while wearing stag masks, likely in some sort of pagan ritual.
After seeing for whom she played, Marianne should have withdrawn from the orchestra. It was clearly a gathering of libertine followers of demonic gods. But Lucy in the kitchen had a son who needed medicine. And Cattermole, the coachman, and Dinah, the scullery maid, were finally expecting a child after a decade of marriage, and the baby would need clothes. The butcher sent decent cuts that didn’t turn her stomach now that their bill was current.
And so she’d continued going to that townhouse and playing for the pagans.
It had nothing to do with the sight she’d beheld when that tapestry wall had first come down, the nude man standing before her, the antlers of his mask seeming to reach into the heavens like the tops of those spindly trees and the heavy thing between his thighs, the first of its kind she’d seen on a grown man.
And he was certainly grown. Tall and broad of shoulder. Unflinching when she stared. A master of all he surveyed. In each performance, she played until her fingers threatenedto bleed, wishing for that partition to come down again. Unfortunately, the wind, if composed only of musical notes, could not knock down even fabric walls.
“I believe Sir Robert is coming this way,” said Cousin Timothy. “I should prepare you…”
Marianne shook off her daze. “Yes?”
“He’s unsteady on his feet and might use you to remain upright as he dances. For the sake of all that is holy, do not give him trouble should he place his hands on your person.”
“On my person,” repeated Marianne, catching on.
“That’s what I said,” snapped Cousin Timothy. “Bear up. You’re not so dowered that a man doesn’t want an early feel of the goods he might buy and support for the rest of his natural life.”
And thus, Marianne was reconciling herself to a dance that would be little more than an evaluation of produce at the market when someone stepped before her.
Someone tall and broad. Master of all he surveyed. Her eyes were on his boots, finely made and polished to a shine. Then up to his evening clothes, the tailoring precise. She paused at his neckcloth. A diamond of considerable size secured it.
And then she allowed her eyes to take in his neck, somehow thick and elegant at the same time. His jaw was sharp, andso was the razor that must have removed his daytime stubble. Her eyes also roved up his deceptively soft cheeks until the champagne sips she had been drinking fizzed in her stomach.
Finally, his eyes. Glittering and hard, dark and warm. Her next inhale became a shudder.
“Would one of you gentlemen introduce me to your companion? I am Frederick Clare, Duke of FitzOsbern, and I’m sure we’ve met at some point,” he said with a wave, the rest of him solid and stationary before her, while Marianne thought she might be fluttering so much that taking flight was in the realm of possibility.
Her guardians were silent, shock having descended upon them.
“I require an introduction,” he repeated, trying to rouse them, “because I’d like to request a dance.”
Chapter 2
