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“When I met with her at the auction, she looked at me as though I were a complete stranger,” Anthony said. “She had no earthly idea who I was. She never recognised me from your wedding.”

William blinked, staring at his friend for a full second before bursting into laughter. “My wedding? She stood not ten feet away from you during the receiving line when I married Seraphina. You offered your formal congratulations to my bride, and Leonora was standing right beside her.”

“She was,” Anthony confirmed. “That is why I am so surprised.”

“Of course it surprises you,” William said. “You’re not used to being ignored by women.”

Anthony rolled his eyes. “That is not my point.”

“If you say so,” William muttered. “But that sounds precisely like a Byron sister. They inhabit a world entirely of their own making.”

“Tell me something about her, William. Anything. What do you know?”

William leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I can tell you what the ton says, for whatever rumours and whispers are worth in polite society,” William began. “You must understand that the history surrounding the Byron family is a tragedy most people prefer to whisper about behind closed fans rather than discuss openly.”

“I am listening,” Anthony prompted.

“You remember the catastrophic collapse of her father’s joint business ventures several years ago,” William said, tracing the rim of his glass with his thumb. “It was an absolute financial earthquake. The old man had staked everything on a business venture that went belly-up almost overnight. Society viewed it with a mixture of morbid fascination and harsh condemnation. The ton loves a spectacular ruin, and the father provided them with a masterclass in overextension.”

Anthony nodded slowly, piecing together the fragments. “Yes. I don’t think there is a member of the ton who does not know about the three viscounts who died on the same night. It was a tragedy. I recall having that conversation with you the day you wanted to marry Seraphina.”

“Right. Well, for Leonora, the creditors descended upon the estate like a pack of starving wolves,” William replied. “They stripped the house down to the bare floorboards within forty-eight hours. Every piece of furniture, every family portrait, every carriage and horse was seized to satisfy mountains of impossible debt. The gossips at Almack’s had a field day with it. They whispered about how the father had ignored every warning sign, how he had arrogance written all over his investments, and how he deserved his fate for dragging an honorable name through the dirt.”

“A harsh judgment from people who never risked a coin in their lives,” Anthony observed coldly.

“As you must know, the father was completely broken by the humiliation and the ruin. They found his frozen body the next morning near the edge of the ice in a park. The ton treated his death as the final, dramatic act of a foolish man. They gossiped about it for days before conveniently moving on to the next piece of scandal, leaving the family name utterly disgraced.”

Anthony shuddered. “That is awful. For a girl to go through that so young. The whispers surrounding were always rather venomous, if I recall correctly.”

“While Seraphina, my wife and Euphemia, her other sister seem to have left the past in the past, Leonora has not. Her mother is still in that past,” William continued. “When she vanished shortly after the funeral, the ton’s imagination ran wild. Some gossips swore she had abandoned her daughters entirely, running off to the continent with a secret lover using hidden funds she had managed to squirrel away before the creditors arrived. Others claimed her mind had simply snapped from the grief and she had wandered out into the snow to meet the same fate as her husband. Not a single person in high society believed she simply met with foul play or a quiet end. To the polite drawing rooms of Mayfair, she was branded a coward who deserted her children in their darkest hour.”

Anthony stared at him, frozen.

“Leonora is still looking for her.”

“There’s no trace of her?” Anthony asked.

“Not a single scrap of evidence,” William confirmed. “No carriage records, no railway tickets, no letters sent to distant relatives. She simply ceased to exist. If Lady Byron had not stepped in from the shadows to take Leonora under her wing, God only knows what would have become of her.”

Anthony fell silent, the conversation settling. Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place in his mind, revealing why that silver necklace held such immense power over her. It was not just a sentimental keepsake or a pretty ornament. It was a clue, perhaps the only physical link she possessed to retrace her mother’s steps. That was why she had been so desperate to retrieve it from the shadows of an auction house.

“Wouldn’t it be dangerously foolish for her to be hunting for answers on her own?” Anthony asked, his brow furrowing. “Given that nobody even knows what happened to her mother, she should not be exposing herself to these risks alone.”

William offered a knowing smile as he finished his drink and set the glass down firmly on the table. “She has help. Seraphina, Euphemia, and Lady Byron have all tried to guide her and lend whatever aid they can manage. But Leonora can be insistent on her own ways. She is fiercely headstrong. She insists on carrying the heaviest burdens herself, so her family can only support her stubborn efforts from the periphery.”

Anthony listened, his thoughts turning inward. It was entirely typical of her. From everything he had observed, she possessed a rare kind of stubbornness and a fierce spirit wrapped in layer upon layer of emotional armor. He already knew the broad outlines of the Byron sister saga, of course. All of high society had buzzed with scandal when the three young women suddenly returned to London two years ago after years away. But he had never understood the full depth of it. He had never realized how deeply the loss of her mother had fractured Leonora’s past, leaving her with an ache to find whatever pieces remained.

He wondered silently if the ton still whispered cruel things about them, or how ordinary women could possibly survive such a brutal history of ruin and abandonment.

Instead of dampening his interest, the realization only deepened his fascination. Anthony found himself more curious than ever about what truly went on behind those eyes of hers. He wanted to know how her brilliant, calculating mind worked, and he intended to find out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Oh, that’s where I know him from!”

Leonora froze with her teacup halfway to her lips, the porcelain clinking sharply against the saucer. The drawing room of their London residence was bathed in warm afternoon sunlight, filled with the cheerful, chaotic sounds of family life.

Euphemia had traveled in from her country estate for a visit, bringing along her youngest child, a bright-eyed baby boy who was seated on her lap. Seraphina sat nearby on a settee, watching affectionately as the baby smeared harmless blue water-paint across a sheet of parchment, entirely unbothered by the mess staining his tiny fingers.