Prologue
The day Lady Lavinia Ellsworth lost her heart, she fell head over heels, quite literally, for the most beautiful man in all of England. Other than it being her birthday, the day was as normal as could be, or at least it ought to have been.
That is…until he walked into the room.
He was not what Vivy would have expected to be the man of her dreams…he was so much better.
He had broad shoulders and he was tall…taller than any man had a right to be. His coat fit him perfectly and there was nothing foppish about him. He wore fashion the way one might wear armor...as a requirement and not because it made him feel anything resembling delight. Even the set of his posture suggested he was accustomed to observing everything instead of being the one watched. He measured a room without appearing to do so.
But it was his gorgeous face that held her captive.
His hair was a rich chestnut, catching the light with every movement. It was softly waved and neatly styled, but a few strands escaped and fell over his forehead as if it could never be entirely tamed. And his eyes…
Vivy forgot, for one mortifying heartbeat, how to breathe.
They were hazel, not the muddy sort she had seen in other men at dinners. No, his were clear and arresting, a shifting blend that refused to settle into one color for long. Near the candlelight they seemed warm with gold, like sunlight trapped in a glass. But when he turned his head, green sparked through them—sharp and bright, like the first leaves of spring after a long winter. Those flecks of gold and green made his gaze look alive in a way that was almost unsettling, as if he could see far too much…as if he might look straight through her and find the truth beneath.
He did not smile as other gentlemen did. There was no easy charm and no practiced tilt of lips meant to win a lady’s favor. His mouth was firm, his expression composed, and yet there was something about him that made Vivy think of storms held at bay—powerful, contained, and dangerous if ever released. He was handsome in a way that did not feel like a compliment.
It felt like a fact.
A startling, undeniable fact that left Vivy standing too still with her fingers curled around her reticule as if it might anchor her to the floor. She had seen handsome men before…at a distance, and never any that captured her attention like him.
This gentleman did not laugh loudly, and he did nothing to draw attention toward himself. He simply was…and everything in the room seemed to bend, ever so slightly, toward him. When his gaze lifted and caught hers, Vivy felt the oddest sensation, half fright and half wonder, as though she had been discovered doing something improper when she had done nothing at all.
As though he had looked at her and noticed her staring.
At six and ten, she was dazzled and entirely unprepared for him. She realized with a sudden, luminous certainty that there were men in the world who could alter a person's life simply by stepping into it, and one of them had just walked into hers.
She had to know his name.
As she started to approach him in the hope of an introduction, the worst happened. She caught the hem of her skirt beneath her slipper, curse the modiste and her insistence upon elegance, and pitched forward as if the floor had risen to smite her.
She fell at his feet.
Embarrassment was too small a word for what flooded her then. Heat scorched her cheeks and her stomach dropped as though she had missed a step upon the stairs. For a dreadful instant, she could not decide which she feared more—that every person in the room had seen, or that he had.
Quiet and stillness filled the room. It was polite, sharpened, and absolute, but that eerie silence seemed to ring in her ears. Then he moved and he offered his hand to her.
Vivy lifted her gaze and met his eyes again, he was too close now, and those eyes of his were far too clear for her peace of mind. She saw the quick flicker of surprise, the briefest softening at the edges of his expression, and something that might have been amusement…though not unkind. If anything, it was as though he found the moment less ridiculous than she did.
“Careful,” he said, quietly enough that she suspected no one else heard. “Falling again would not be wise.”
It was not the warning one gave a child. It was the sort of warning one gave someone he believed needed to hear it. As if those words would somehow calm her enough to remember how to walk and breathe at the same time. His patience gave her the strength to ignore the whispers spreading throughout the room.
Vivy’s fingers trembled as she had placed her hand in his. He drew her up with ease, as if she weighed nothing at all. Her slippers landed on the floor again and her reticule swung at her wrist like a cruel reminder of her foolishness. For one horrid heartbeat, she stood so near she could see the faint shadow at his jaw, the clean line of his throat above his cravat, and the calm strength in the way he held himself.
She managed a curtsy that was half stumble and half instinct. “I…pardon…” she began and promptly ruined it by saying nothing coherent afterward. She had lost all ability to form words into sentences and even the politest nicety failed to find its way from her mind to her mouth.
His mouth twitched again, as if he might have smiled if he were the sort of man who did. “Are you unharmed?” he slid his gaze over her, as though injury were the only thing that mattered.
“I am quite…whole,” she whispered, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. She still did not know how she managed even to say that much to him.
His passed his gaze over her quickly again and then he inclined his head with the smallest gesture. A quiet dismissal, a permission that she could go…without forcing her to endure the humiliation of further attention. Because she was six and ten, and she had just flung herself, quite literally, at the feet of the most arresting man she had ever seen, she fled immediately.
Her mortification lent her wings. She slipped out of the drawing room before anyone could prevent her from leaving, before her mother could call her back with that gentle voice that was never truly gentle, and before her father could decide that a lesson in composure was required after her mishap.
She did not stop until she reached the corridor beyond, where the bustle of servants and the safety of anonymity wrapped around her like a cloak. Only then did she press a hand to her burning cheeks and draw a breath.
