Prologue
Summer 1793
Ewan Hoffstead had known his father hated him for every moment of every day of the ten years he’d been on this earth. He even knew why: he’d been unable to speak his entire life. He’d tried, of course. Stood in front of the mirror for hours, pushing and breathing, and nothing would come out. His father had tried, too, whipping him for disobedience when he couldn’t manage anything more than a few helpless grunts.
It was all for nothing. Ewan was mute, and it seemed mute he would stay. His father said it made him stupid and damaged. Ewan felt damaged, certainly, but he wasn’t as certain about stupid. He’d taught himself to read and write, for his father refused to waste time on his education. And when he was with his cousin Matthew and his family, no one seemed to think he was stupid. In fact, he often knew answers to questions before Matthew did and they were almost exactly the same age.
But none of that mattered. The Duke of Donburrow despised him and that was never clearer than when they were visiting Matthew and his father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Tyndale, as they had been for the last week. It was as if seeing a boy Ewan’s age, with none of his failings, made Donburrow all the more vile and hateful.
Now Ewan crouched behind a hedge that stood below a window in his uncle’s estate, watching as the two dukes roared at each other. He could hear their shouting but could not quite make out their words through the glass.
Still, he knew they were fighting over him. His chest hurt with that knowledge. His eyes burned with tears.
“You’re caught! This isn’t a very good hiding place for hide-and-seek, Ewan.”
He jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice behind him and the feel of two hands gripping one of his arms. He turned to find Charlotte Undercross smiling up at him. She was three years younger than he was and the sister of Baldwin Undercross, Matthew’s best friend and the son of yet another duke, the Duke of Sheffield. That family was also in attendance at the small party his father had taken him to.
Charlotte was only seven, but she was already very pretty, with blonde hair and the darkest, greenest eyes Ewan had ever seen. She was always smiling and laughing, and unlike most children who met him, she didn’t seem consumed with curiosity and judgment about his inability to speak.
He liked her, but right now he felt so very hurt and vulnerable, and he didn’t want her or anyone else to see. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Charlotte tilted her head, looking into his eyes like she could see all the way into his soul.
“Are you crying?” she asked, not teasing but inquiring earnestly.
He shook his head, though it wasn’t exactly the truth. He was about to cry, he could feel it swelling inside of him. She lifted on her tiptoes and looked past him through the window. She saw just what he did, the Dukes of Donburrow and Tyndale, still shouting at each other.
“Are they fighting over you?” she asked.
Ewan worried his lip a little and then nodded slowly.
She frowned. “Do you want to know what they’re saying?” she whispered.
He considered that a moment. Part of him didn’t want to know. All those ugly words hurt so much. But part of himneededto hear it. He nodded again. To his surprise, she grabbed his hand and all but dragged him around the side of the house and in through an open parlor door.
“These rooms connect and the walls can be opened to make them one room for bigger parties. I saw Tyndale’s servants do it once,” Charlotte explained as she released Ewan’s hand and snuck to the wall. She unhooked a latch and carefully pushed the wall open in a place Ewan would never have guessed held so many secrets. Then she motioned him over as she sat down and pressed her eye to the crack she’d created between the two rooms.
Ewan could already hear his father’s voice, clear now, booming as he shouted, “I don’t know why you waste so much time defending a child who is hardly more than an animal. He’s touched in the head, Aldous—the asylum is wherethingslike him belong.”
Ewan stiffened and sank to his knees at those words, pushing his face against the crack just above Charlotte’s. An asylum. He’d heard his father talk of such a place often. He’d even driven Ewan by one once, telling him it was where he’d end up if he didn’t speak. But now this sounded more serious.
“The boy is not stupid or touched in the head, nor does he deserve to be put into one of those horrible places,” Ewan’s uncle, the Duke of Tyndale, snapped back. “And you know that. You’re so obsessed with what you think you lost by Ewan’s inability to speak, you refuse to see anything good about him.”
“What good is there in him?” Donburrow all but spat.
“Stephen, you cannot mean that!”
Ewan blushed—he hadn’t realized his aunt Mary was also in the room, but now she moved forward to stand beside his uncle Aldous. She had such a kind face, nothing like her brother’s. Now it was twisted in horror.
“You can afford to collect broken things, Mary,” the Duke of Donburrow blustered. “Your heir is intact and whole. You needn’t be ashamed of your son. So don’t you judge me on how I feel about mine. It is decided. Ewan is going to the asylum and then my dukedom will pass to Josiah. My spares are far more up to the task.”
Panic clawed at Ewan. The asylum. It was finally going to happen. He wanted to run and cry and hide, but before he could do any of those things he felt Charlotte’s fingers thread into his. She said nothing, she didn’t even look up at him. She just took his hand, and suddenly the room stopped spinning just a little bit. He clung to her, a raft in a stormy sea, and watched to see what would happen next.
To his shock, Uncle Aldous took a long step forward and grabbed for the Duke of Donburrow’s lapels. He jerked Ewan’s father forward, and suddenly it was very clear who the superior man was, at least physically.
“You listen to me and you listen very well, you spoiled, inhuman prick. That boy is not going to an asylum. You will take him over my dead body.”
For the first time in his entire life, Ewan saw fear flash over his father’s face. Fear Ewan knew too well, though he didn’t feel sorry for him.
“What will you do, Tydale?” Donburrow choked out. “Take him yourself?”
