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“Love is three quarters curiosity.”

Giacomo Casanova

AUGUST 28, 1821

With the weight of a thousand cannonballs pressing his lids shut, Julius opened his eyes. The chamber was cast in soft light from the open windows, and a brisk draught stirred the air, fluttering the edge of a muslin curtain. The door had been left ajar, no doubt in the hope of coaxing fresh air into the sickroom. He shivered. Peering down, he realized the bedclothes had slipped, leaving him exposed to the morning chill. His skin puckered with gooseflesh, a reminder of how near he had come to slipping from this life.

Across from him, on the dressing table, stood a tea tray stacked with cups and cloths soaked through with evidence of fevered care. And beside his bed, slumped in an armchair, was a sleeping figure—the maiden who had remained through the night. Her head lolled against the wing of the chair, and her mouth hung open in the helpless surrender of deep sleep. She exhaled a soft, snorting bleat, which might have startled him if it had not been so utterly endearing.

With her tousled golden hair and the way his richly hued banyan draped about her frame, Audrey was lovely in the morning light. There was something altogether disarming in her lack of vanity, an open-heartedness that warmed even his cynical soul.

His future bride.

His wound pulsed dully, an ache more chastisement than pain. Julius sighed. He was relieved beyond expression to have survived the night. The fever had passed its peak, and the mists of delirium were clearing. But clarity brought its own discomfort. He would now be obliged to deal with the consequences of his actions. Chief among them, the inconvenient necessity of marrying the young woman who had saved his life not once, but twice.

Like his friends before him, he had stumbled into a scandal of his own making. The only path forward was the honorable one.

I am forced to do the right thing. I hate doing the right thing.

With a growl low in his throat, Julius turned his head away from the sleeping figure and toward the window, where dawn stretched its golden fingers across the rooftops. He mourned the passing of his liberty with all the theatrical gloom of a condemned man. Still, if he must place his neck in the parson’s noose, he supposed Audrey was a tolerable sort. Better her than some feather-brained debutante with nothing in her head but bonnets and scandal sheets.

“You are awake!”

Audrey’s voice rang out, exuberant and bright, slicing through the hush of the morning.

Julius smiled despite himself.

“I am too obstinate to die.”

“I see that,” she returned, an impudent note in her tone. “Which means it is time to drink.”

She thrust a cup into his hand. The brew sloshed menacingly against the sides. Julius eyed the mixture with foreboding, his stomach recoiling in protest. Yet his limbs were heavy, and his body weak. She was right. He needed strength.

“Drink up!”

He tilted the cup and swallowed, wincing at the bitter taste that coated his tongue. It reminded him of earth, charred bark, and something faintly medicinal. “Faugh!”

Audrey laughed—a sweet, unguarded sound. “Now that your fever has broken, you must take that for several days to keep the infection at bay.”

“I suppose foul drinks rarely kill,” he grumbled.

“Just so.”

She moved about the room, gathering her things and returning items to her ever-present valise. In the corner, the little starling chirruped from its cage, greeting the new day with irrepressible cheer. Audrey hummed softly in response as she settled back into the chair.

“I am ever so relieved,” she said quietly. Her silver eyes gleamed with joy.

“Never say you did not want my death on your hands.”

“Of course not! You are my first patient since Papa died.”

Julius gestured toward the starling, which was flapping its free wing. “What of the bird?”

Audrey laughed. The throaty, lyrical sound carried across the room like a songbird’s trill, bright and warm in the morning stillness. Something about it tugged unexpectedly at his chest. He supposed it was a fortunate thing that he found her pleasing, given the looming obligation of marriage.

He wondered, fleetingly, whether there was any way to avoid that outcome, but no reasonable path presented itself.