Chapter 1
By Eliana Piers
It was supposed to be simple. Not easy. But simple. It was a three-step plan. What could be more straightforward? Show up. Buy the land. Save her family. Thus proving to her dying fatherthat they would not perish.The rest of the family, that is. She bit back her tears.
Really, she exhaled loudly to her and her horse, nothing could be more necessary and more basic. But the stakes couldn’t be higher. If she wasn’t able to secure this adjacent piece of land, her only other option was to marry into a fortune. That option would have produced a sarcastic laugh if it weren’t for the hot tears on its heels. Only a decade of marketability had failed her.
Felicia pulled at her waistcoat, tugging it down over the pillow underneath. The blasted thing was causing her a more severe headache than the corset her lady’s maid had laced her into for her debut in naive hopes of securing a husband. She snorted. No corset could be tied tight enough to nab her a husband in a market of men shopping for thinly sliced collops over a nice, juicy, round beefsteak. Personally, she preferred the beefsteak. And didn’t men, too?
Bah. It was a terrible analogy. She blamed the wig and its itchy hairs falling into her eyes for her inability to think straight. But if ever there were a day, a definitive hour, in fact, in which she needed to think straight, this was it. She needed to think clearly and channel Charles. Shudder. Despite him being the last man on earth her family would have her venerate for any reason, he was the most familiar (besides her father who was far too old to consider).
Charles.
Push the hatred aside. Push the twenty-odd years of family feuding aside and be a man of the peerage. A very important man. A well-respected man—to everyone but the Montclairs. A man who others would listen to should he snap his fingers at them.
Simply put, everything she was not.
The weight of her thoughts would have drowned her except that a man was quickly heading toward her, giving her no moretime to prepare. There wasn’t enough time in the world to prepare for what she was about to do though. She was desperate for this property that lay adjacent to both her father’s land and the duke’s. She shuddered again at his name for too many reasons to unpack in the moment.
Shuffling papers and checking his pocketwatch at the same time negated the man’s attempt at efficiency by spilling papers all over the ground. He grunted as he bent over, picked them up, and stuffed them back under his arm. His eyes darted around, looking for something, but not really seeming to take in anything. Even when they landed on her, they hardly registered any emotion. This was to Felicia’s great advantage.
Finally, he spoke with the backdrop of a bankrupt estate taunting her. “Mr. Loxley, I presume?” he asked at last. “Land Steward to the Earl of Oakbridge?”
She cleared her throat at the address and, with the deepest—and most discreet—inhale of her life, lowered her voice and offered up a swift prayer before responding. “Yes, Mr. Fernbottom.” Land steward. Daughter. The difference was negligible. “A pleasure to meet you.”
Then she waited.
Waited for his laughter at her disguise.
Waited for recognition to dawn.
Waited for something. Preferably good, though her curled toes and nails digging into her palms predicted much less than that. Complete and utter ruination, to be precise.
When she chanced a look at Mr. Fernbottom, she caught an unexpected posture, for he, too, was waiting. Odd, that.
“Ahh… there he is now.”
He?He, who? Before turning to follow his gaze, she did her best to school her features.Remain neutral.Albeit from a distance, she had observed Charles often enough to memorize some of his stoicism. Some of his domineering manner.
“Now see here—” she started in her best attempt at dominating the conversation.
Ignoring her completely, he spoke, “Your Grace.” Mr. Fernbottom acknowledged the new arrival with a bow.
Her stomach mimicked the bow, only it didn’t return to its original position. It stayed helplessly around the vicinity of her feet. Perhaps under them. Because she knew… She just knew.
There was only one possible option to make this the uneasiest,unsimplest plan she had ever braved to undertake.
The very man she loved to hate and, quite frankly, had loved to love. The same man she was channeling despite her inner misgivings toward him. The man her family loathed beyond recognition. The only man who could quite possibly make her life a living purgatory had arrived.
The Duke of Kenbrooks. Charles.
It would be both heaven and hell to lay eyes on him. For this, she needed to steel her spine. Her whole body, for that matter, since it usually turned to pudding in his presence.
She turned on bated breath.
And the sight that greeted her told her she was in far too deep.
His muscular, god-like leg swung over the horse’s back, and he dropped to the ground in a cloud of magic.
