Chapter One
When her fathershifted from making vague threats about one day marrying her off to the unpleasant, yet undefined, man of his choosing into concrete plans involving dinner dates and a selection process among a set of specific suitors, Leontina Tavian understood that it was time to escape.
At last.
What shocked her was that even though she’d known all along that this would happen and had worked out a plan to address this situation the very moment she determined that her condition could no longer be hidden, it still managed to shock her that the moment itself had arrived.
In the form of the person least likely to notice any changes in her, because he barely saw her.
Her father did not skulk about, much less sneak, and therefore could not possibly know what Leontina’s plans were. Much less why she’d had to make them.
And yet here he was, filled with his usual bluster.
She’d been minding her own business in the family castle—though, really, the castle was nothing more than a monument to her father’s boundless self-regard—reading in the library. The library where, she’d been told, her late and long-lamented mother had spent the bulk of her time when she, too, had lived under Umberto Tavian’s thumb.
This was only one reason the library was Leontina’s favorite place in the castle. Another reason was that while she assumed from context clues that her father was literate, she had never actuallyseenhim pick up a book in her life. And certainly none of the usual hangers-on who flitted all around him in the hopes he’d throw some of his money or influence their way could be accused of such a tedious pastime that could not possibly benefit their aspirations.
The library had always been Leontina’s safe space. Since her father had not seen fit to pay any sort of attention to her education, she’d had to take matters into her own hands. Meaning that she had managed to readalmostevery book in this library, an enterprise that had taken her years. Particularly as some of the books in this library had clearly been placed here for aesthetics, not information or entertainment.
Still, one of the few things she knew about her late mother was that she had been a champion of education, and Leontina felt she had no choice but to try to follow in her footsteps. It was never a bad thing to have more knowledge rather than less.
Today, however, the footsteps that eventually disturbed her studies belonged—as unlikely as it seemed—to Umberto Tavian himself. Her father.
Who never, ever, came in here.
Or near her at all if he could help it.
Leontina was so startled that she almost gave him the satisfaction of flinching when she looked up to see him standing there. He was scowling down at her as she sat in her favorite cozy chair, her feet propped up and a stack of books at her elbow.
“My God, you’ve turned out scraggly,” was her only living parent’s touching remark.
Umberto was not a nice man. He was not a kind man. It perhaps went without saying that he was also nothing in the broader neighborhood of agoodman, either.
Unlike her older brother, Giaco, who liked to put on a show when in their father’s presence, Leontina had always preferred to avoid the man entirely. Better to actually hide away, out of his sight, she’d always thought. Rather than what Giaco did, which was to parade about in plain and scandalous sight instead, thumbing his nose at their father at every opportunity.
But then, Giaco always had been the flashy one.
“Can I help you find a book to read?” she asked, because she couldn’t imagine why else he was here. It was second nature by her twenty-fourth year to keep her voice neither too sweet—because that would set off her father’s alarms, distrustful ofsweetas he was, having no experience with it—or too deliberately bland, which would only enrage him.
Leontina liked to aim somewhere in between. It allowed her father to think that she was an idiot.
That he fully believed this, she was certain, was what had kept her safe for years.
“I’ll need your appearance sorted out, and fast,” he growled at her. Ignoring what she said, of course. “I’ve invited a selection of potential suitors for dinner tonight. You are to be entertaining, but not too bold. Demure, but not shy. Appealing, obviously, but nothing too tarty.”
Leontina felt everything inside her go cold, though she knew better than to show it. She shook her head instead, as if she was confused. That was easy because she genuinely was confused.
“I’m sorry, but what sort of dinner party is this?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard the wordsuitors.
“The only point in having a daughter is marrying her off advantageously,” Umberto barked at her. “How many times must I tell you this?”
She knew better than to answer the question. That drew undue attention, and Leontina’s stock in trade was her ability to disappear. Right here in plain sight, if possible—though today he hadn’thappened uponher. He’d come looking for her.
Her usual tricks weren’t going to work.
“We have no choice but to make haste with this,” Umberto continued in the same exasperated growl heavily laden with distaste, clearly not expecting her to answer him in the first place. It was the wise choice for a reason. “Your brother has ruined everything.”
Leontina didn’t knowexactlywhat her infamous brother had done, only that it had driven her father utterly mad with rage. He’d come back from a business meeting in Madrid—the sort of thing he usually dominated and liked to brag about to his acolytes—in a grim fury.
