Chapter 1

 

“Absolutely not.”

Tessa Acreman pressed a cold compress more firmly against her swollen eye, glaring at her mother with the good one. The effect was rather like a lopsided owl expressing profound displeasure.

“You will attend,” Mrs. Acreman declared, sweeping into Tessa’s chamber with the determination of a general storming enemy fortifications. “Lady Ravenswood’s masquerade is the event of the Season. Our absence would be noted, commented upon, and thoroughly dissected by tomorrow’s morning calls.”

“Mother, I look terrible. Look at my eye!”

“Nonsense. The mask will cover most of it.”

“Most of it?” Tessa lowered the compress to reveal an eye so magnificently inflamed it could have served as a warning beacon for ships at sea. “Unless Lady Ravenswood has procured masks the size of dinner plates, I rather think the ton will notice.”

Her mother’s mouth tightened into that particular expression that meant she was calculating social mathematics. “We shall powder it.”

“Powder? Mother, this requires architectural intervention, not powder”

“Tessa Elizabeth Acreman.” Her mother’s voice acquired that dangerous sweetness that preceded either tears or threats. “Your father’s business concerns are… delicate at present. We cannot afford to give the appearance of retreat. Society already whispers about the merchant class overreaching. Would you have them say we lack the fortitude to face a ballroom?”

Tessa bit back her immediate retort. The truth was, her father had been distracted lately, his usually cheerful demeanor shadowed by ledgers that never seemed to balance in their favor. Just last week, she’d overheard him muttering about lost contracts, about competitors who seemed to know his every move before he made it.

“Besides,” her mother continued, adjusting the pearl drops at her ears with studied nonchalance, “Lord Tomford specifically inquired whether you would attend.”

“Lord Tomford inquires whether every unmarried woman with a pulse will attend. The man collects dance partners like some men collect snuff boxes.”

“He is the heir to an earldom.”

“He is also under the impression that he knows everything.”

Her lady’s maid, Lucy, materialized at her elbow with a tray of cosmetic implements that looked better suited to medieval torture than beauty enhancement. “Perhaps if we angle the mask just so, miss? And add some extra feathers on the left side?”

Tessa studied her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror. The right side of her face maintained its usual composition; clear skin, dark eyes that her father claimed could cut glass when she was vexed, and a mouth that spent far too much time pressed into disapproving lines, according to her mother. The left side, however, had taken on the appearance of a Renaissance painting depicting the perils of vanity.

“I shall look like a demented peacock.”

“You shall look mysterious,” her mother countered. “Men adore mystery.”

“Men adore women who don’t appear to be harbouring infectious diseases.”

A gentle knock interrupted their debate. Mr. Acreman peered around the door, his kind face creased with concern. “How fares our patient?”

“Splendidly,” Tessa said dryly. “I’m to be transformed into a mysterious, partially-feathered peacock with matrimonial prospects.”

Her father chuckled, crossing to press a kiss to her forehead, on the safe side. “My dear girl, you could attend wearing sackcloth and still dazzle half the room with your wit alone.”

“Wit doesn’t secure proposals,” Mrs. Acreman muttered, attacking Tessa’s hair with a brush.

“Perhaps not,” Mr. Acreman agreed, settling into the window seat with the comfortable air of a man accustomed to female preparations. “But it does secure interesting conversations. And what else are these endless balls for, if not to stave off boredom with clever discourse?”

Tessa caught his eye in the mirror. “You’re unusually philosophical this evening, Papa.”

“Am I?” He smiled, but she noticed how his fingers worried at his watch chain; a nervous habit he’d developed recently. “I merely think that we place too much emphasis on appearances and too little on substance. Why, just this afternoon, I was reflecting on how much more productive our society might be if young ladies were encouraged to develop their minds as assiduously as they develop their dance steps.”

“Careful, Mr. Acreman,” his wife warned, though her tone held affection. “Such radical notions might give our daughter ideas.”

“I should hope so,” he replied. “Ideas are the only currency that never devalues.”

Tessa twisted in her chair, ignoring Lucy’s squeak of protest as pins scattered. “Speaking of ideas, Papa, I’ve been thinking about that proposal I mentioned last week.”

“The journal?” Her father’s eyes lit with genuine interest. “For merchant daughters?”

“Not just merchant daughters,” Tessa corrected, warming to her subject despite the throbbing in her eye. “For any woman engaged in or interested in commerce. Recipes for economical household management, discussions of trade policies that affect domestic goods, perhaps even educational pieces on bookkeeping and accounts.”

Her mother’s brush stilled. “You cannot be serious.”

“Why not? Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about education. Hannah More writes about morality. Why shouldn’t someone write about commerce from a feminine perspective?”

“Because,” her mother said, resuming her violent brushing, “young ladies do not concern themselves with trade.”

“Young ladies’ fathers are in trade,” Tessa pointed out. “Young ladies’ husbands will be in trade or affected by it. Young ladies run households that require economic understanding. We pretend ignorance while balancing household accounts that would confound half the clerks of the ton.”

“She is quite right,” Mr. Acreman said mildly.

“She has an eye infection and delusions of journalism,” Mrs. Acreman countered. “Lucy, fetch the powder. The heavy powder.”

Two hours later, Tessa stood at the entrance to Lady Ravenswood’s ballroom, feeling like a carefully decorated battlefield. The mask, an elaborate creation of midnight blue silk and ostrich feathers, sat at what Lucy had deemed “a rakish angle” to maximize coverage. The powder had been applied with enthusiasm bordering on aggression. Tessa suspected she looked less mysterious and more like someone who had encountered a sack of flour in a dark alley and lost.

The ballroom itself was a testament to Lady Ravenswood’s determination to be remembered. Swaths of silver silk draped from the ceiling, creating the illusion of moonlight. Real orange trees in silver pots lined the walls, their blossoms perfuming the air with almost overwhelming sweetness. The orchestra, hidden behind a screen painted with classical scenes, played with the desperate energy of musicians paid by the dance rather than the hour.

“Chin up,” her mother hissed, propelling Tessa forward with a hand at her back. “And for heaven’s sake, try not to squint.”

“I’m not squinting. I’m attempting to see through one functional eye and a forest of feathers.”

They were announced, “Mr. and Mrs. Acreman, Miss Acreman”, to a room that turned, assessed, and largely dismissed them in the span of three seconds. Tessa felt the familiar sting of being evaluated and found merely adequate. The merchant class, no matter how wealthy, occupied that peculiar social purgatory of being necessary but not quite nice.

Lady Ravenswood descended upon them in a cloud of violet silk and barely concealed disappointment. “Mrs. Acreman, how… devoted of you to attend despite your daughter’s… indisposition.”

The pause before “indisposition” was long enough to stage a short theatrical production.

“Lady Ravenswood,” Tessa’s mother replied with a smile that could have frosted windows. “How kind of you to notice Tessa’s new mask. From Paris, you know. The French have such dramatic sensibilities.”

“Indeed,” Lady Ravenswood murmured, her gaze lingering on the visible inflammation beneath Tessa’s mask. “How very… French.”

She drifted away to greet more illustrious arrivals, leaving Tessa and her mother standing like abandoned parcels at the edge of the dance floor. The first set was forming, and Tessa watched as young men in elaborate attire and silk masks led their chosen partners into position. Lord Tomford, recognizable despite his golden mask by his habit of standing as though posing for a portrait that would never be painted, was leading the Weatherby girl onto the floor. Tessa was relieved as she had no patience for his particular brand of pompous stupidity this evening.

“I believe I’ll seek refreshment,” Tessa announced.

“You’ll do no such thing. Stand here and look approachable.”

“Mother, I look like I’m afflicted with the plague. No one is approaching.”

As if to prove her point, young Mr. Pembroke, who had danced with her at the last three balls, took one look at her, executed a turn so sharp his coat tails flew horizontal, and fled toward the card room.

“Charming,” Tessa muttered. “I seem to be sending men running for the exits.”

A cluster of debutantes nearby, all masked in identical white silk adorned with seed pearls, turned toward her with the synchronized precision of predators scenting blood. Tessa recognized the distinctive titter of Lydia Cunningham, whose father’s shipping fortune was only slightly newer than Tessa’s own, flanked by her usual cohort: Cressida Worthington and Sophronia Blackwood, who seemed to share a single personality between them.

“Oh my heavens,” Lydia gasped with theatrical horror, her voice pitched to carry. “Is that… is that actually Tessa Acreman? But what has happened to her face?”

“Perhaps she caught something,” Cressida suggested, loud enough for half the ballroom to hear. “You know how merchant families are; always around the docks, near sailors and… foreign diseases.”

“I heard,” Sophronia added, lowering her voice just enough to ensure everyone leaned in to hear, “that it’s actually a curse. Her father refused to pay a gypsy woman at the warehouse, and she hexed poor Tessa’s face. It’s going to spread to her entire body by the full moon.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sophronia,” Lydia said with a tinkling laugh that made Tessa’s teeth ache. “Everyone knows it’s because she reads. Books. Actual books with words in them. My mother says excessive reading causes all sorts of feminine corruptions. First your eyes rebel, then you shrivel up entirely.”

“Is that why she’s always in her father’s study?” Cressida gasped. “Looking at ledgers? Numbers?”

“Mathematics!” Sophronia squeaked, as though Tessa had been caught performing some sort of rituals. “No wonder she’s diseased. Ladies weren’t meant to understand anything beyond household accounts.”

“Even household accounts are rather ambitious,” Lydia said, examining her perfect nails through her mask. “That’s what husbands and stewards are for. We’re meant to be ornamental, not… mathematical.”

“She probably thinks she’s clever,” Cressida added. “My brother says merchant daughters always do—eager to establish their consequence through ostentation. As if knowing the price of tea in China makes one suitable for good society.”

“The price of tea in China?” Sophronia looked genuinely confused. “Why would anyone need to know that?”

“Exactly,” Lydia said triumphantly. “And look at her now…divine punishment for pretending to be more than decoration. Though really, she wasn’t much decoration to begin with, was she? And now…” She shuddered delicately. “One can only imagine what she looks like under all that powder. Probably pustulent.”

“Pestilent,” Cressida corrected.

“Putrescent,” Sophronia added, though she looked uncertain what it meant.

“All three,” Lydia declared. “Poor Mr. Acreman. Imagine having that come down to breakfast every morning. No wonder he buries himself in trade. I’d prefer a warehouse full of fish to looking at that face too.”

They tittered in unison, a sound sharp enough to crack porcelain.

“Ladies.”

The voice cut through their giggling like a blade through silk. Not loud, not particularly dramatic, but possessed of an edge that made all three debutantes freeze mid-titter.

A man stood behind them—tall, dressed in severe black that made every other man’s elaborate costume look like a child’s dress-up clothes. His mask was equally plain, black silk that revealed only the sharp line of his jaw and a mouth set in an expression of profound distaste.

“Oh!” Lydia recovered first, shifting immediately into flirtation mode. “Good evening, sir. We were just…”

“You were just demonstrating why civilization is doomed,” he said flatly. “Three minds sharing perhaps half a thought between them, and that half thought is wrong.”

Cressida’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”

“You should beg everyone’s pardon. That conversation lowered the intelligence of the entire room. I actually felt my understanding of language diminishing just listening to it.”

“How dare…” Sophronia started.

“The price of tea in China,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, “is currently three shillings per pound for black, four for green, though that fluctuates based on shipping seasons and the East India Company’s monopolistic whims. Any merchant’s daughter would know this, just as she’d know that your father, Miss Cunningham, made his fortune smuggling that same tea past customs officials until he accumulated enough wealth to buy respectability.”

Lydia went white beneath her powder.

“Your father, Miss Worthington, came by his fortune in the West Indies through…enterprising means, I am told; though these days he deals respectably in sugar, ever eager to keep pace with fashionable sentiment. And yours, Miss Blackwood, runs illegal gaming dens in Southwark, though he calls them gentlemen’s clubs in polite company.”

All three girls stood frozen, looking like elaborate dolls someone had forgotten to wind.

“So perhaps,” he concluded, his voice desert-dry, “before you taunt someone for understanding commerce, you might remember that commerce…ugly, mathematical, foreign commerce…paid for your gowns, your jewels, and your ability to stand here demonstrating that expensive education is wasted on the willfully ignorant.”

He turned his attention to Tessa, who had been watching this demolition with a mixture of shock and unholy glee.

“Miss Acreman,” he said with a slight bow. “Your eye infection has clearly affected your judgment if you’re standing here listening to this drivel instead of finding more stimulating company. Perhaps a potted plant or an unused chair.”

“The chair was engaged,” Tessa heard herself say. “And the potted plant was discussing the weather.”

The corner of his mouth twitched; not quite a smile, but acknowledgment of the hint. “Then you’re truly desperate. Shall we abandon them to their mutual contemplation of nothing?”

He offered his arm with an air of someone proposing a business transaction rather than a social nicety. Behind them, Lydia made a strangled sound of outrage.

“You cannot simply…she’s diseased!” she sputtered.

He glanced back. “And you’re utterly lacking in sense, yet people still dance with you. Life is full of mysteries.”

Tessa took his arm before she could think better of it, and he led her away from the still-gaping debutantes. She could feel the eyes of the entire ballroom on them—this severe stranger who’d just eviscerated three of the ton’s darlings and the infected merchant’s daughter he’d inexplicably chosen to rescue.

“That was…” she began once they were out of earshot.

“Necessary. Their voices were causing me physical pain.”

“You know you’ve just made three enemies.”

“Four, counting Lady Ravenswood. She’s their leading figure in gossip.” He guided her toward a relatively empty corner of the ballroom. “Though I suspect you’d already made those enemies simply by existing with thoughts in your head.”

“How did you know all that? About their fathers?”

“I make it my business to know where money comes from. It’s usually filthy, despite the clean hands that spend it.”

Tessa studied him, this strange man who spoke like he was perpetually bored but had just committed social violence on her behalf. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“No,” he agreed. “But they were between me and the terrace doors, and walking through them seemed less tedious than walking around them.”

“So I’m on the way to the terrace?”

“You’re marginally more interesting than the terrace.” He looked down at her, and she caught a glimpse of dark eyes behind his mask. “You didn’t deny what they said. Most young ladies would have swooned or cried or done something equally theatrical.”

“What would be the point? I do have an eye infection. I do read books. I do understand commerce. Denying facts because they’re inconvenient seems like something Lydia Cunningham would do.”

“And the curse? The shriveling?”

“Well, the full moon isn’t for another week, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

This time his mouth definitely twitched toward a smile before he caught it. “You’re not what I expected.”

“You had expectations? We’ve never met.”

“Haven’t we?” He tilted his head. “You’re Samuel Acreman’s daughter. The one who corrected Lord Rafton’s understanding of import duties at the Carrington musicale last month.”

Tessa flushed. “He was being deliberately obtuse to avoid paying his fair share.”

“He was being insufferable. The distinction is minimal but present.”

“You were there?”

“I’m always somewhere. It’s a failing of existence.”

Despite herself, Tessa found her lips twitching toward a smile. “How philosophical. Are you always this cheerful, or is tonight special?”

“This is me being positively ebullient. Can’t you tell?”

“Oh, indeed, you’re practically glowing with your love of life.”

They stood there for a moment, studying each other. Around them, the ballroom continued its swirl of color and movement, but Tessa felt oddly removed from it all, as though she and this strange, sardonic man existed in a separate sphere.

“You should probably ask me to dance,” she said eventually.

“Should I?”

“Well, you’ve publicly allied yourself with the evening’s social pariah. You might as well complete your fall from grace.”

“My grace fell years ago. This is merely tourism in its ruins.” But he offered his hand with formal correctness. “Miss Acreman, would you honour me with this dance?”

“I should warn you, I can only see properly from one eye. I may tread on your feet.”

“I should warn you, I have no patience for small talk. I may offend your sensibilities.”

“I think you already have, and I’m still here.”

“Then we understand each other perfectly.”

The music began…a cotillion that required more attention than Tessa strictly had to spare given her impaired vision. But her partner seemed to anticipate this, guiding her through the figures with a firm hand and subtle pressure that told her which way to turn.

“You dance better than expected,” she said as they came together for a promenade.

“For someone who just insulted three debutantes and looks like he’d rather be anywhere else?”

“Precisely.”

“Dancing is just walking in patterns while music plays. Any fool can manage it.”

“Lord Tomford can’t.”

“Lord Tomford proves that wealth and titles can’t purchase a functioning brain, though Heaven knows his father’ has tried.”

They separated for the next figure, circling with other partners. Lord Bellingham, whom Tessa briefly faced, looked at her as though she might be contagious and practically threw her back to her original partner.

“Bellingham seems concerned,” her partner observed.

“Lord Bellingham once refused to eat strawberries because they were too provocatively colored.”

“A man of deep thought and careful consideration.”

“A gentleman of such limited understanding, one wonders how he recalls to breathe.”

“Harsh.”

“Accurate.”

They moved through another set of figures. Tessa noticed other couples watching them; some with curiosity, others with barely disguised horror. She couldn’t blame them. They probably made an odd pair: she with her obvious affliction and excessive feathers, he in his severe black like an undertaker at a fairy tale.

“Why did you really intervene?” she asked when they came together again.

“I told you. They were in my way.”

“You could have gone around.”

“That would have required more effort.”

“Eviscerating three debutantes required no effort?”

“Surprisingly little. They’re rather fragile constructions—all surface, no structure. One verbal push and they collapse.”

“That’s rather cruel.”

“That’s rather accurate.”

She studied him as they turned. “You don’t like people very much, do you?”

“I don’t like stupidity. Unfortunately, the two often coincide.”

“Present company excepted, I hope?”

“You’re not a fool. Whether I like you remains to be determined.”

“How refreshingly honest.”

“Would you prefer pretty lies? I could compose a sonnet to your infected eye if that would be more conventional.”

“Please don’t.”

“Too late. ‘Shall I compare you to a summer’s day? You are more swollen and more temperate…'”

Tessa laughed despite herself. “That’s terrible.”

“That’s Shakespeare, improved for accuracy.”

The dance ended, and they bowed and curtsied as required. Tessa expected him to escort her back to her mother, as propriety demanded. Instead, he stood there, seeming to debate something internally.

“The hothouse,” he said finally. “Lady Ravenswood supposedly has some rare specimens from the Orient. It’s likely empty of simpletons.”

“Are you suggesting we look at plants? How scandalous.”

“I’m suggesting we avoid the collective foolishness of this room before it becomes contagious. Your eye infection is the least of the diseases one might catch here.”

“Fair point.”

They made their way toward the hothouse doors, ignoring the whispers that followed in their wake. The hothouse was indeed blessedly empty, filled with exotic plants and orange trees whose blossoms perfumed the air. Moonlight filtered through the glass ceiling, creating patterns of silver and shadow on the gravel paths.

“Better?” he asked.

“Infinitely.” Tessa lifted her mask slightly, letting the cool air reach her inflamed eye. “Though I notice you’ve effectively compromised me. Five minutes alone with a man in a hothouse is enough to assume all manner of wickedness.”

“Are you concerned?”

“Are you planning wickedness?”

“I lack the energy for wickedness. It requires enthusiasm I don’t possess.”

“How reassuring.”

They wandered deeper into the hothouse, past specimens with Latin names on brass plates that Tessa couldn’t read in the dim light. Her companion moved with purpose, as though he knew exactly where he was going.

“You’ve been here before,” she observed.

“Lady Ravenswood’s gatherings follow a pattern. The hothouse is always the only bearable location.”

“You attend many of her gatherings?”

“I attend as few as possible while maintaining the fiction of social participation.”

“Why maintain it at all? You clearly despise everything about this world.”

He paused by a particularly impressive orange tree, its branches heavy with fruit. “Because complete withdrawal draws more attention than occasional attendance. Besides, sometimes one finds unexpected diversions.”

“Like verbally destroying debutantes?”

“Like finding someone who doesn’t bore me into contemplating self-defenestration.”

“I’m flattered. I think.”

“You should be. My tolerance for human company is notoriously limited.”

Tessa studied him in the moonlight. Even with the mask, she could tell he was younger than his cynicism suggested, perhaps late twenties. His clothes, while severe, were expertly tailored. Everything about him suggested wealth, but old wealth, the kind that didn’t need to announce itself.

“You mentioned commerce earlier,” she said carefully. “You seem knowledgeable about it.”

“I make it my business to understand how money moves. It’s far more interesting than how people move.”

“Most gentlemen consider trade beneath them.”

“Most gentlemen are fools surviving on their grandfathers’ efforts while slowly ruining their estates through gambling and mistresses.”

“You speak from experience?”

“I speak from observation.” He plucked an orange blossom, twirling it between his fingers.

Tessa took the flower, studying its delicate white petals. “Have you observed what’s happening to certain merchant families lately? The shipping merchants particularly?”

His fingers stilled for just a moment. “Commerce has its cycles.”

“This isn’t about cycles.” She kept her voice carefully neutral, as though discussing the weather. “Three established firms have lost major contracts in the past six months. All to the same competitor, from what I understand. Rather remarkable timing, wouldn’t you say?”

“Remarkable things happen in business.” His tone had shifted, becoming even more detached. “Competition is the nature of commerce.”

“Competition, yes. But this seems more… orchestrated. Contracts that were all but signed suddenly withdrawn. Rumours about quality that prove unfounded but spread just long enough to damage reputations. Shipments delayed by mysterious dock conflicts that resolve themselves after the damage is done.”

She watched his profile in the moonlight. His jaw had tightened almost imperceptibly.

“You seem very well-informed about these matters,” he said.

“I pay attention. My father believes women should understand the world they live in, even if society prefers we pretend ignorance.”

“And what does your father think of these… setbacks?”

Tessa laughed, but there was no humor in it. “He calls it the cost of doing business. Says someone new must be making their mark, trying to establish dominance. He’s remarkably philosophical about watching twenty years of work slowly strangled.”

Her companion turned away slightly, suddenly fascinated by a brass nameplate on a potted specimen. “If he’s philosophical, perhaps he understands that emotion has no place in commerce.”

“No place?” Tessa’s voice sharpened. “Tell that to the dock workers who won’t have wages next month. Tell that to the clerk with five children who’ll be dismissed by Christmas.”

“That’s precisely the kind of sentiment that makes one vulnerable in business.”

“Or human.”

“The two are often incompatible.” He still wasn’t looking at her. “Business requires decisions based on logic, not feeling. Profit and loss, not… personal considerations.”

“How convenient for those making the decisions. They can destroy lives and call it logic.”

“Would you prefer they call it cruelty? The result is the same.”

“At least cruelty acknowledges that people are being hurt. This cold calculation, this pretense that commerce exists separate from humanity… well, it’s worse than cruelty. It’s cowardice.”

He turned back to her then, and even through his mask, she could sense something had shifted in him. “You think whoever is doing this is a coward?”

“I think they’re someone who’s never had to watch their father count pennies. Never seen their mother mend the same gown for the third time while smiling and saying she prefers it worn. Never had to tell loyal servants that there’s no money for their wages.” Tessa’s voice grew passionate despite her attempt at control. “They probably sleep perfectly well at night, telling themselves it’s just business.”

He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral. “And if they don’t? Sleep well?”

“Then they’re worse than a coward. They’re a hypocrite who knows the harm they cause and does it anyway.”

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “they believe the harm is… necessary. Part of a larger strategy that will ultimately…”

“Ultimately what? Make them richer? More powerful?” Tessa turned away in disgust. “There’s always a justification, isn’t there? Always a larger strategy that somehow requires stepping on those beneath you.”

“Not stepping on. Simply… outmaneuvering.”

“With purchased rumours? With dock conflicts that mysteriously appear and disappear? That’s not outmaneuvering—that’s sabotage.”

Another silence followed. She could hear his breathing, slightly uneven now.

“You care a great deal about these merchants,” he said finally.

“I care about fairness. About honest competition versus whatever this shadow war is.”

“There’s no such thing as honest competition. There are winners and losers. Those who adapt and those who fall.”

“How cynical of you.”

“How realistic of me.”

Tessa studied him. His shoulders had tensed, his earlier languid posture replaced by something more rigid. “You sound as though you’re trying to convince yourself as much as me.”

“I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m simply stating facts.”

“Facts without context are just excuses.”

“And context without facts is just sentiment.”

They stood there, the orange blossom wilting between Tessa’s fingers. The hothouse felt smaller suddenly, the air heavier with more than just the scent of flowers.

“These merchants,” he said carefully, “the ones facing difficulties. Do they include anyone you… particularly care about?”

Tessa almost smiled at the transparency of the question. “If you’re asking whether my family is affected, wouldn’t someone who knows the price of tea in China already know the answer?”

“Perhaps I’m asking whether you take it personally.”

“Everything is personal when it’s your family’s future at risk. But I suppose that’s the kind of emotional thinking that has no place in business.”

“It clouds judgment.”

“It maintains humanity.”

“The two are rarely compatible.”

“Only for those who choose to make them incompatible.” Tessa replied. “Tell me, do you think whoever is orchestrating these attacks ever thinks about the families they’re destroying?”

His response was so quiet she almost missed it. “Every day.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he continued more loudly, “But thinking and acting on those thoughts are different things. Business requires the latter to ignore the former.”

“That sounds like a miserable way to live.”

“It’s an effective way to succeed.”

“If success means becoming someone who can destroy others without conscience, I’d rather fail.”

“Easy to say when you’ve never had to choose.”

“And you have?”

He didn’t answer, but something in his silence felt like confession.

Before Tessa could respond, voices drifted in from the ballroom. She recognized the piercing tones of Mrs. Cunningham, Lydia’s mother.

“…absolutely savage to poor Lydia. And that Acreman girl, encouraging him! As if having a diseased face gives one license to be cruel.”

“We should return,” Tessa said stiffly. “My reputation can’t survive much more scandal tonight.”

“Your reputation was doomed the moment you showed intelligence. The eye infection is merely a convenient excuse for them to express existing disdain.”

“How comforting.”

They made their way back through the hothouse. As they reached the doors, her companion paused.

“Your father should be careful,” he said quietly. “The next attack will come through the textile imports. Someone’s been spreading rumours about inferior quality, preparing the ground for a larger strike.”

Tessa stared at him. “How could you possibly…”

“Because I pay attention, Miss Acreman. Consider it free advice, worth exactly what you’re paying for it.”

They re-entered the ballroom to find it in full swing. Tessa’s mother materialized immediately, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Tessa! There you are! And sir, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced…”

But he was already bowing, formal and distant. “Your servant, madam. Miss Acreman, thank you for the conversation.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd before Tessa’s mother could interrogate him further.

“Who was that?” she demanded.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Tessa said honestly.

“You spent half the evening with a complete stranger?”

“Would you prefer I spent it being ridiculed by Lydia Cunningham?”

Her mother opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. “Lord Tomford has been looking for you.”

“How delightful for Lord Tomford.”

“Tessa!”

“Mother, I’m tired, my eye is throbbing, and I’ve had quite enough society for one evening. Please.”

Something in her voice must have convinced her mother, because she sighed and nodded. “Very well. Let me inform your father.”

As they waited for the carriage, Tessa found herself scanning the ballroom one last time, looking for a figure in severe black. But he had vanished as completely as if he’d never existed at all. Only the orange blossom in her hand proved the evening hadn’t been some fever dream brought on by her infection.

The carriage ride home was silent except for her mother’s occasional sighs. Her father seemed lost in thought, and Tessa wondered if she should tell him about the warning. But how could she explain that a stranger at a ball knew more about their business troubles than they did?

At home, Lucy helped her out of the elaborate gown and removed the mask. Tessa’s eye had swollen further during the evening, and Lucy made sympathetic noises as she applied a fresh compress.

“Did you enjoy the ball, miss?” Lucy asked.

“I survived it. That’s rather different from enjoyment.”

“The other staff are saying you danced with a mysterious gentleman. Dark and handsome, they said.”

“Dark, yes. Handsome?” Tessa considered. “I couldn’t really tell with the mask. And his personality rather overshadowed his appearance.”

“What was his personality like?”

“Imagine if a thundercloud learned to dance and had opinions about everything.”

Lucy giggled. “He sounds frightening.”

“He was… informative.”

After Lucy left, Tessa sat at her writing desk, still holding the orange blossom. By candlelight, she wrote:

October 15th, 1810

Tonight I met a man who sees everything and feels nothing. Or perhaps sees too much and has stopped feeling as a defense. He knew about Father’s troubles, knew details we’ve only suspected. His warning about the textile imports…I must tell Father, though I can’t explain the source.

He defended me, not from kindness but because foolishness offended him more than my infection did. He speaks of business as war, of ruthlessness as necessity, of sentiment as weakness. Everything I despise about this new breed of men who treat commerce as a game of chess played with human pieces.

Yet he danced with me when no one else would. He treated me as an equal intelligence, not a decorative object or a diseased curiosity. His honesty was brutal but refreshing—no pretty lies, no false comfort, just truth as sharp as broken glass.

I don’t know his name, will likely never see him again. But his words stay with me: “Understanding your enemy. Fighting with the same weapons they use.” Is that what Father needs to do? Become as ruthless as whoever is destroying us?

The journal project becomes more urgent now. If men like him; brilliant, cold, seeing everything as data points and strategies, are the future of commerce, then we need voices to counter them. Not with sentiment, as he’d say, but with humanity. To remind the world that behind every ledger entry is a life, a family, a story that matters.

Tomorrow I’ll warn Father about the textile imports. Tonight, I’ll try to forget dark eyes that see too much and a voice that makes cynicism sound like wisdom.

The orange blossom is already wilting. Nothing beautiful survives long in this world. Perhaps that’s why he’s chosen to be neither.

She set down her quill pen and touched her swollen eye gingerly. Tomorrow she would be practical, focused, armed with purpose. She would take his advice but reject his philosophy. She would fight for her father’s business without losing her soul in the process.

But tonight, just for a moment, she allowed herself to wonder who he really was, this man who knew everyone’s secrets and shared none of his own. Whether somewhere in London, he sat in a dark study, thinking about infected eyes and unexpected intelligence, about merchant daughters who refused to simper or swoon.

She pressed the orange blossom between the pages of her journal, preserving it like evidence of something that might or might not have mattered. Then she blew out her candle and went to bed, dreaming not of romance but of war, of weapons made of information and armor made of cynicism.

Somewhere in the darkness of London, fortunes rose and fell, contracts were signed and broken, and the great game of commerce continued its ruthless dance.

And Tessa Acreman, caught in a web whose threads she had only just begun to see, slept fitfully and dreamed of strategies; never guessing that by dawn, she would already be in far deeper than she ever intended.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

“Miss Tessa is not at home to visitors.”

Lucy’s voice carried up the stairs with the particular tone she employed when faced with unwanted callers, which was polite enough to avoid censure but also, firm enough to suggest that persistence would be futile.

“Not at home?” The responding voice belonged to Mrs. Pembroke, whose ability to inject disbelief into two words was truly a gift. “At half past eleven? When her mother’s carriage is clearly in the mews?”

Tessa pressed herself against her bedroom door, listening with the focused attention of a spy in enemy territory. Her swollen eye ached in protest at being vertical, but the alternative, facing Mrs. Pembroke, was unthinkable.

“Miss Tessa is indisposed,” Lucy amended, and Tessa could practically imagine her maid’s spine straightening. Good Lucy. Loyal Lucy. Lucy who deserved a raise they couldn’t afford.

“Indisposed.” Mrs. Pembroke’s tone suggested she’d discovered something unsavory. “Yes, I imagine she would be, after last evening’s… exhibition.”

Exhibition? Tessa’s good eye narrowed. What fresh disaster had the gossip mill manufactured from her unfortunate evening?

“I really couldn’t say, ma’am.” Lucy’s voice had acquired that carefully blank quality that meant she was considering violence but restraining herself for the sake of continued employment.

“Oh, but surely you must know about your mistress consorting with that… person. In full view of everyone! Dancing when she clearly should have been in isolation. And then disappearing entirely! For quite twenty minutes!”

Twenty minutes. Tessa almost laughed. The gossips couldn’t even get their timeline correct. She’d been gone at least thirty, though explaining that would hardly improve matters.

“If that will be all, ma’am…”

“Tell Mrs. Acreman that I called out of concern. The poor dear must be quite beside herself. Her only daughter, ruined before the Season’s barely begun. Though really, what can one expect when merchants try to rise above their natural station?”

The door closed with what Tessa recognized as Lucy’s version of a slam—firm enough to express opinion, gentle enough to claim innocence if challenged.

Tessa waited until she heard the Pembroke carriage rattle away before venturing from her room. She found her mother in the morning room, surrounded by what appeared to be every gossip rag London had to offer, looking like a general surveying a particularly devastating battlefield.

“‘The Mysterious T.A. and Her Masked Malady,'” her mother read aloud, her voice hovering between hysteria and devastation. “‘What precisely was Miss F— hiding beneath those excessive feathers? And who was the dark stranger who claimed her for not one but two dances before absconding with her person to parts unknown?'”

“Two dances?” Tessa sank into the nearest chair. “We danced once.”

“Oh, well, that makes everything perfectly acceptable then. You only danced once with a complete stranger before disappearing to examine vegetation.”

“We really did look at plants.”

“Tessa, you could have been examining the Crown Jewels themselves and it wouldn’t matter. You were unchaperoned with an unknown man. While visibly diseased.”

“Infected, not diseased. There’s a distinction.”

Her mother brandished another paper like a weapon. “….’The merchant princess…’ whose unfortunate facial affliction did nothing to discourage the attentions of a certain mysterious gentleman who seemed quite taken with her… conversation.'”

“The ellipsis is doing rather a lot of work in that sentence.”

“This is not amusing, Tessa! Your reputation…”

“Was already in tatters the moment I walked in looking like a medical curiosity. At least now I’m a mysterious medical curiosity.”

“Mrs. Pembroke called. She used the word ‘exhibition’…”

“Mrs. Pembroke uses many words. Most of them incorrectly.”

Her mother’s fingers drummed against the morning room table and that was a danger sign Tessa knew well. “That horrible Cunningham woman has already sent round a note suggesting we might be ‘more comfortable’ withdrawing from the Musical Society until your… condition… resolves itself. As though scandal were contagious.”

“Given how quickly it spreads, perhaps it is.”

“Your father has locked himself in his study. He’s been in there since dawn, muttering about shipping manifests and textile imports.”

Tessa straightened. The warning. “Actually, Mother, I need to speak with Papa about something.”

“You need to remain invisible until this disaster passes. I’ve already sent our regrets for the Weatherington soirée, the Tomford tea, and Lady Montague’s morning call with refreshments.”

“A morning call with refreshments? What exactly is that?”

“Something French, I expect. Or at least it sounds French. I can never remember.” Her mother pressed her fingers to her temples. “The point is, we’re in social exile.”

“That seems rather dramatic for one evening’s scandal.”

“One evening?” Her mother laughed, but it had a hysterical edge. “Oh, my dear girl. You didn’t just have an evening. You had an Event. Capital E. The kind that gets referenced for years. ‘Remember the Acreman girl? The one with the contagious illness who disappeared with that man?'”

“He defended me, actually. When Lydia Cunningham and her coven were being particularly vicious.”

Her mother’s expression softened marginally. “Did he?”

“Quite spectacularly. He told them their conversation had lowered the intelligence of the entire room.”

“Good heavens.” A ghost of a smile flickered across her mother’s face before duty reasserted itself. “Still, defending you doesn’t give him license to compromise you.”

“I don’t feel particularly compromised. Slightly plant-educated, perhaps, but otherwise intact.”

“The ton doesn’t care what you feel. They care what they can whisper about over tea.” Her mother gathered the gossip rags into a pile, as though stacking them might somehow limit the damage. “We need to discover who he was. If he’s someone of consequence, we might salvage this. If he’s nobody…”

“Then I’ve been ruined by a nobody, which is apparently worse than being ruined by a somebody?”

“Don’t be flippant. This is your future we’re discussing.”

Tessa rose, her eye protesting the movement. “My future was already being discussed. Now it’s simply being discussed more colorfully.”

She escaped before her mother could respond, making her way to her father’s study. The door was closed, but she could hear movement within; the rustle of papers, the scrape of a chair, her father’s low murmur as he talked to himself while working.

Tessa knocked softly. “Papa?”

“Not now, dear one.”

“It’s important.”

A pause. Then the lock turned, and her father appeared, looking more harried than she’d ever seen him. His usually neat appearance was disheveled, his cravat askew, ink stains on his fingers.

“Tessa.” He blinked, seeming to really see her for the first time. “Your eye looks better.”

“It looks awful, but thank you for the kind lie.” She slipped past him into the study, noting the chaos of papers covering every surface. “Papa, what’s all this?”

“Nothing and everything. Three more contracts withdrawn this morning.” He ran a hand through his hair, further destroying any semblance of order. “The textile shipment from India, our biggest of the quarter, suddenly there were concerns voiced about quality. Concerns that materialized overnight, despite the goods being inspected and approved just last week.”

Tessa’s stomach clenched. The warning had been accurate. “Papa, about the textiles…”

“How did you know it was textiles?” His gaze sharpened. “I haven’t told your mother yet.”

“I… heard something. Last night.”

“At the ball?” His expression shifted to concern. “Tessa, what kind of people are you talking to at these events?”

“The kind who know things.” She chose her words carefully. “Someone mentioned that textile imports were vulnerable. That rumours were being spread deliberately.”

Her father sank into his chair. “Deliberately. Yes, I’m beginning to see that. But by whom? And why us? We’ve played fair, paid our dues, never undercut competitors unfairly.”

“Perhaps that’s exactly why. Because you play fair.”

He looked up at her, and she saw something she’d never seen in her father’s eyes before; fear. “Twenty years I have been building this business. Twenty years of sixteen-hour days, of risking everything on a single voyage, of slowly earning respect in a world that sees us as necessary evils.”

“Papa!”

“Do you know what your grandfather did? He was a cloth merchant in Yorkshire. Honest work, honest profit. He saved every penny so I could have better. And I saved so you could have better still. But now…”

He gestured at the papers. “Now someone has decided we’ve risen high enough. That the merchant class should remember their place.”

“Or,” Tessa said slowly, “someone wants what you have and doesn’t care about fairness or honour in taking it.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ve already had to let two clerks go. By month’s end, if things don’t improve…”

“They will improve. We shall fight this.”

“How does one fight shadows, Tessa? Rumours that can’t be traced? Contracts that simply evaporate? Dock workers who suddenly refuse to load our goods without explanation?”

Tessa thought of the stranger from last night, his cold assessment of commerce as war. “By understanding that it is a fight. Not bad luck or market forces, but someone actively working against us.”

Her father studied her with surprise. “When did you become so cynical?”

“Last night, I think.” She touched her swollen eye absently. “Someone told me sentiment has no place in business.”

“Someone sounds charming.”

“Someone was… educational.”

Before her father could respond, Lucy appeared in the doorway, bobbing a curtsey. “Begging your pardon, but there’s been a delivery.”

“Not now, Lucy,” Tessa’s mother called from somewhere in the house. “We’re not receiving anything from anyone.”

“It’s not flowers or calling cards, ma’am. It’s… well, perhaps you should see for yourself.”

They found Lucy in the entrance hall, staring at a single card on the silver salver as though it might explode. The card itself was unusual; not the typical calling card size, but larger, made of stock so fine it seemed to glow in the morning light. The edges were gilt, but subtly so, speaking of wealth that didn’t need to announce itself.

Tessa’s mother picked it up with the careful reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. Her face went through a series of remarkable transformations—confusion, recognition, shock, and finally something approaching awe.

“It’s from the Duke of Ravenshollow,” she breathed.

Tessa’s father frowned. “Ravenshollow? I thought he was a recluse. Hasn’t been seen in society for years.”

“Three years,” her mother corrected, still staring at the card. “Not since his broken betrothal to a merchant’s daughter. There was some scandal, nobody knows exactly what, but he withdrew from society entirely. He manages his estates from London but never appears anywhere.”

“Then why is he sending us cards?”

Her mother turned the card over, revealing a brief message in stark, angular handwriting:

My compliments to Miss Acreman on her courage in attending while indisposed. Such fortitude deserves acknowledgment. Should you require assistance navigating the current social turbulence, you may direct inquiries to my assistant, Mr. Bridges, at the enclosed address.

R.

“R,” Tessa repeated, something nagging at her memory. “Just R.”

“Dukes don’t need full signatures,” her mother said faintly. “Everyone knows who they are.”

“But why would a duke, a reclusive duke, send this?” her father asked.

Tessa’s mind raced. The dark stranger had known so much, had spoken with such authority, had disappeared so completely. Could he have been…? But no, surely not. A duke wouldn’t waste time defending merchant daughters from petty debutantes. A duke wouldn’t know or care about shipping contracts and textile rumors.

Would he?

“This changes everything,” her mother was saying, clutching the card like a talisman. “If the Duke of Ravenshollow has acknowledged you and that is… publicly acknowledged you, then the gossips will have to reconsider. One doesn’t cross a duke, even a reclusive one.”

“Or especially a reclusive one,” her father added thoughtfully. “They say he controls half the shipping routes to India through a tangle of silent partnerships and borrowed names. Never directly, of course, but his influence is everywhere.”

Tessa’s blood chilled. Shipping routes. Silent partnerships and borrowed names. Someone who understood commerce intimately, who moved through the shadows of trade like a ghost.

“I need air,” she said abruptly.

“Tessa? You’ve gone quite pale.”

“It’s just…the eye. I need to lie down.”

She fled to her bedchamber before anyone could object, her mind spinning. She pulled out her journal, where the orange blossom lay pressed between pages, already brown at the edges but still faintly fragrant. Next to it, she’d written her recollection of the evening, including every word she could remember of their conversation.

“Business requires decisions based on logic, not feeling.”

“Understanding your enemy. Fighting with the same weapons they use.”

“Every day.” The way he’d said it when she asked if whoever was destroying the merchants ever thought about the families affected.

She grabbed fresh paper and began writing furiously:

Theory: The Duke of Ravenshollow attended the masquerade. He danced with me (reason unknown), warned me about the textile imports (reason unclear), and has now publicly acknowledged me (reason incomprehensible).

Question: Is he the shadow destroying merchant businesses, or is he warning us about someone else? He knows intimate details of trade, controls key shipping routes, speaks of commerce as though it were war, and admits to thinking daily about the families affected…perhaps out of guilt. 

 

 But then why does he warn us? Why did he acknowledge me publicly and why does he want to help someone that he is trying to destroy?

Unless…

She paused, pen hovering over paper. Unless the game was more complex than simple destruction. Unless there were rules she didn’t understand, stakes she couldn’t see.

A knock interrupted her thoughts. Lucy entered with a tea tray and a knowing look.

“Your mother says you’re to drink this and rest.”

“Lucy, what do you know about the Duke of Ravenshollow?”

Her maid’s eyes widened. “Only what everyone knows, miss. Wealthy beyond measure, cold as winter, and dangerous to cross. They say he destroyed Lord Rafton’s nephew for some business dealing that went sour. The boy fled to the Americas rather than face him.”

“What kind of business dealing?”

“The nephew tried to cheat on some shipping contract. Used inferior goods but charged for quality. The duke exposed him publicly, and had him excluded from every club in London.”

Tessa absorbed this. A man who destroyed cheaters but possibly also destroyed honest merchants? Or were they all the same to him…pieces in his game?

“Lucy, if someone helped you but you suspected they’d also hurt you, what would you do?”

Lucy considered, arranging the tea things with practiced efficiency. “I’d keep them close enough to watch but far enough to run, miss. And I’d never turn my back on them.”

Sound advice, Tessa thought, fingering the duke’s card. The paper was so fine she could see her fingerprint through it, as though even his stationary was designed to reveal secrets.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of callers turned away and messages delivered. The duke’s acknowledgment had indeed shifted the social winds slightly. The outright mockery softened to speculative whispers. Lady Pembroke sent a second card, this one suggesting she’d been “misunderstood” about her earlier concerns. Even Lydia Cunningham’s mother managed a note of inquiry about Tessa’s health that stopped just short of being sympathetic.

But Tessa barely noticed. Her mind was occupied with a different riddle entirely. She found herself at her father’s study door again as afternoon waned.

“Papa, tell me about the Duke of Ravenshollow’s business interests.”

He looked up from his ledgers, surprised. “Whatever for?”

“Curiosity. He acknowledged me publicly. I should know who he is.”

Her father set down his pen. “What everyone knows is that he inherited a decent estate and turned it into an empire. Shipping, textiles, even some banking interests, though nothing direct. Everything done through intermediaries, holding companies, anonymous partnerships.”

“Is he honest?”

“Define honest.” Her father’s smile was rueful. “He’s never been caught cheating, if that’s what you mean. But men that powerful don’t need to deceive because they make the rules others play by.”

“Has he ever targeted merchant families? The established ones?”

Her father’s expression grew thoughtful. “Now that you mention it… there were rumours, about two years ago. A series of merchant houses fell in quick succession. Everyone assumed it was bad luck, over-extension, the usual casualties of trade.”

“But?”

“But they all fell the same way. Lost contracts, whispered rumours, dock problems. Does that not sound familiar?”

Tessa’s heart sank. “Very familiar.”

“The curious thing was, their assets didn’t disappear. They were absorbed—bought up cheap by various companies that no one had heard of before. Secret partnerships through unknown companies, we realised later.”

“Belonging to?”

“No one could prove it, but…” He shrugged. “Power like that leaves fingerprints, even when it tries not to.”

Tessa felt sick. She’d danced with him. She’d actually enjoyed his horrible honesty, his sardonic wit. And all the while, he’d been the one destroying everything her father had built.

“Tessa, why all these questions?”

She met her father’s eyes, decision crystallizing. “Because I think I know who our enemy is. And I think he knows we know.”

Her father went very still. “The duke?”

“The card…it’s not kindness. It’s a strategy. He’s telling us he’s watching, that he can reach us even in our own home.”

“Or,” her father said slowly, “he’s offering protection. ‘Should you require assistance navigating the current social turbulence.’ That could mean many things.”

“From a duke who hasn’t shown his face in society for three years? Who suddenly appears at a masquerade and happens to dance with the merchant’s daughter whose family is under attack?”

“When you put it like that…” Her father rubbed his temples. “What do you propose we do?”

Tessa lifted her chin, decision made. “We accept his offer. Or rather, I do.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Papa, he’s either our enemy or our ally. Either way, we need to know which. And the only way to discover that is to engage with him.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Everything’s dangerous now. At least this danger has a face.” She thought of dark eyes behind a mask, of brutal honesty that was somehow more trustworthy than pretty lies. “Besides, he owes me an explanation. He let me think he was nobody.”

“Men like that are never nobody, Tessa. They’re just very good at pretending.”

That evening, Tessa sat at her escritoire, the duke’s card before her. The orange blossom, now thoroughly dried, lay beside it; beauty turned brittle, but still maintaining its shape.

She dipped her pen in ink and began to write:

Your Grace,

Your acknowledgment was as unexpected as it was appreciated. The social turbulence you mention has indeed been considerable, though I suspect you knew it would be when you chose to dance with a diseased merchant’s daughter.

I find myself curious about many things. The price of tea in China, the reliability of textile imports, and the remarkable coincidence of your timely warning. Perhaps your assistant, Mr. Bridges, might illuminate these mysteries.

Or perhaps you prefer mysteries to remain mysterious, much like yourself.

I shall call upon Mr. Bridges Tuesday next at two o’clock, unless this proves inconvenient to Your Grace’s presumably numerous shadow enterprises.

Your servant in all things botanical, Miss C. Acreman

P.S. The orange blossom has dried beautifully. I’m preserving it as a reminder that even beautiful things can survive transformation, though they’re never quite the same after.

She sealed it before she could reconsider, using her father’s best wax and her own insignia, a small bird in flight that her grandfather had designed. Let the duke make of that what he would.

As she handed the letter to Lucy for posting, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her eye was less swollen now, fading from purple to an unattractive yellow-green. But something in her expression had changed. The girl who’d attended the masquerade seeking nothing more than survival had been replaced by someone harder, more calculating.

Someone who could play games with dukes.

“Be careful, miss,” Lucy said softly, noting the address on the letter. “Men like that collect people, like some collect art. And they’re just as willing to discard them when they lose their appeal.”

“Then I’ll have to remain appealing,” Tessa said. “Or at least interesting.”

“The two aren’t always the same thing.”

“No,” Tessa agreed, thinking of a man who’d found her infection less offensive than foolishness. “But sometimes, with the right person, interesting is enough.”

That night, she dreamed of hothouses and orange blossoms, of dancing with shadows who spoke in riddles, of a war being fought in ledgers and rumors where the casualties bled money instead of blood.

And somewhere in London, in a study that few had seen, a duke read a letter by candlelight and almost…almost…smiled.

The game, it seemed, had found its second player.

Chapter 3

 

“Your Grace, she’s actually written back.”

Sebastian Jones, the Duke of Ravenshollow, didn’t look up from the shipping manifest he was reviewing. “Has she? How unexpected. Young ladies of good breeding typically flee at the mere suggestion of my attention.”

“Young ladies of good breeding don’t typically accuse you of having shadow enterprises, Your Grace.” Mr. Bridges, who had served as an assistant to two Dukes of Ravenshollow and survived to tell about it, held out the letter with barely suppressed amusement.

Sebastian set down his quill pen with deliberate care. He’d been expecting tears, perhaps. Or effusive gratitude. Possibly a politely worded decline of his assistance. He had not been expecting what he found when he saw Tessa Acreman’s letter.

“She’s calling on Tuesday,” he said after a moment.

“So I gathered from her rather… assertive tone.”

“She suspects.”

“That you’re destroying her father’s business? Yes, I rather think she does.”

Sebastian read the letter again, finding himself lingering on the postscript. Even beautiful things can survive transformation, though they’re never quite the same after.

“Bridges, what do you know about preserving flowers?”

His assistant blinked at the non sequitur. “I beg your pardon?”

“Orange blossoms, specifically. Apparently, they can be dried and kept.”

“I… suppose so, Your Grace. My wife presses flowers from our garden. She says it maintains the memory even when the beauty fades.”

“The memory.” Sebastian stood and moved to the window overlooking Grosvenor Square, where the autumn rain was turning the world into a beautiful watercolor. “Tell me, Bridges, do you think I’ve become predictable?”

“Your Grace?”

“My methods. The systematic destruction of competitors through rumours, contract manipulation, dock interference. It’s all rather formulaic, isn’t it?”

Bridges cleared his throat carefully. “It has proven effective, Your Grace.”

“Effective, indeed.” Sebastian touched the window glass, watching his breath fog the surface. “Like a clerk copying the same figure over and over. Efficient, profitable, and entirely lacking in imagination.”

“If I may, Your Grace, this unusual introspection wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain merchant’s daughter with an infected eye?”

Sebastian’s mouth quirked. “You disapprove?”

“I wouldn’t presume to approve or disapprove of Your Grace’s interests.”

“Come now, Bridges. You’ve been disapproving of me quite effectively for fifteen years. Don’t stop now.”

The older man adjusted his spectacles; his sign when he was about to say something impertinent. “I merely wonder at the wisdom of toying with a family you’re simultaneously destroying.”

“Am I toying?”

“Aren’t you?”

Sebastian turned from the window. The question hung between them like a challenge. The truth was, he didn’t know what he was doing. For three years, every action had been calculated, every move plotted five steps ahead. Then a girl with a swollen eye and a tongue sharp enough to draw blood had disrupted his carefully ordered world with nothing more than refusing to simper.

“She quoted Shakespeare at me,” he said instead of answering. “Incorrectly, but with purpose.”

“How… alarming?”

“She didn’t know who I was, and when she suspected something, she didn’t retreat. She advanced.” He returned to his desk, picking up the letter again. “Do you know what she said when those vapid debutantes were mocking her?”

“I couldn’t possibly guess.”

“Nothing. She stood there absorbing their venom like it was beneath her notice. Then when I intervened, which was a mistake, by the way, she matched me verbal blow for verbal blow. No tears, no swooning, no gratitude.”

“The horror.”

Sebastian shot him a look. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Immensely, Your Grace. It’s been three years since anything has disrupted your reclusive dedication to commercial warfare.”

“It hasn’t been reclusive.”

“Three mistresses who lasted a combined total of six weeks is not exactly libertine behaviour, Your Grace.”

“They were boring.”

“Everything bores you.”

“She didn’t.”

The admission hung in the air like an accusation. Sebastian could still see her in that ridiculous mask, powder caking her swollen eye, discussing the moral implications of business practices as though they were debating philosophy at Oxford.

A knock interrupted his brooding. “Enter.”

His mother swept in, because the Dowager Duchess had never simply entered a room in her life. At sixty-two, she remained a force of nature wrapped in silk and disappointment.

“Sebastian.”

“Mother. To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”

“Don’t be sardonic, darling. It ages you.” She settled into the chair across from his desk with regal authority. “I’ve come about the Acreman situation.”

Sebastian’s expression didn’t change, but Bridges suddenly found urgent business elsewhere, traitor that he was.

“I wasn’t aware there was an Acreman situation.”

“Please. You attend your first social event in three years and dance with a diseased merchant’s daughter. You then publicly acknowledge her with a personal card. London hasn’t had this much excitement since your spectacular implosion with the Merriweather girl.”

“Her name was Margaret.”

“I’ve chosen to forget her name, as should you.”

“Rather difficult, considering she married my former business partner and currently resides in my former favourite property in Bath.”

His mother waved this off. “Water under a very expensive bridge. The point is, you’re playing with fire again.”

“I’m conducting business.”

“With Samuel Acreman? The man whose company you’re methodically dismantling?”

Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “How remarkably well-informed you are.”

“I pay attention. It’s a family trait, though you seem to have forgotten that it should apply to more than ledgers and shipping routes.” She studied him with those sharp gray eyes that had terrified him as a child and still occasionally managed to unsettle him as an adult. “She’s not Margaret.”

“I’m aware.”

“Are you? Because from where I sit, it looks remarkably similar. A woman below your station who catches your attention at precisely the moment you’re positioned to destroy her world.”

“Margaret’s world was never in danger. Her father’s gambling debts were.”

“Which you could have solved with pocket change.”

“Which she could have mentioned before accepting my proposal.” The old bitterness crept into his voice despite his best efforts. “Instead, she chose to solve them by selling information about my business dealings to Cornelius Warwick.”

“Who became her husband.”

“Who became her co-conspirator. The marriage was just a bonus.”

His mother sighed. “And so you’ve spent three years turning yourself into Midas, if Midas’s touch turned everything to ash instead of gold.”

“I’ve spent three years building an empire.”

“You’ve spent three years in self-imposed exile, destroying anyone who reminds you of your humiliation.” She leaned forward. “This Acreman girl? What’s your intention?”

“I don’t have an intention.”

“Sebastian Edward Jones, you’ve had intentions about everything since you were four years old and strategically organizing your toy soldiers. You don’t dance with random merchants’ daughters without purpose.”

He was saved from answering by Bridges’s return, looking harried.

“Your Grace, forgive the interruption, but Mr. Thompson from the warehouse is here. He says it’s urgent.”

Sebastian frowned. Thompson never came to the house. “Send him in.”

Thompson entered, hat literally in hand, rain dripping from his coat. He was a tough, weathered man who’d worked the docks for thirty years and wasn’t easily rattled. The fact that he was pale suggested something significant.

“Your Grace.” He bobbed awkwardly toward the Dowager. “There’s been an incident at the Acreman warehouse.”

Sebastian went very still. “What kind of incident?”

“Fire, Your Grace. Started about an hour ago. They’ve got it mostly contained, but…” He swallowed. “Mr. Acreman was inside when it started. Trying to save his books, they say.”

The world seemed to tilt slightly. “Is he…?”

“Alive, Your Grace. But badly burned. They’ve taken him home. The warehouse is a total loss.”

Sebastian was moving before he’d consciously decided to. “Bridges, send for Mr. Holt, the physician. Tell him to attend the Acreman home immediately.”

“Sebastian,” his mother said sharply. “You cannot…”

“I can and I will.” He turned to Thompson. “Was it accidental?”

The man’s expression said everything. “There’s been talk of oil barrels that shouldn’t have been there. And the fire started in three places at once.”

Sebastian’s blood turned to ice. This wasn’t his plan. He’d been applying pressure, indeed, but controlled pressure. Financial pressure. This was something else entirely.

“Your Grace,” Bridges ventured carefully. “If you go there now…”

“Then everyone will know I have an interest. Yes, Bridges, I’m aware.” He pulled on his gloves with sharp, angry movements. “I’m also aware that someone just tried to murder a man I’ve been openly maneuvering against, which makes me the obvious suspect.”

“You think someone’s trying to frame you?” his mother asked.

“I think someone’s escalated a game of commerce into attempted murder, and I need to know who.” He paused at the door. “Also, his daughter is probably there, watching her father die from wounds that everyone will blame on me.”

“Since when do you care about blame?” his mother asked softly.

Sebastian met her gaze. “Since I danced with someone who thinks conscience and commerce can coexist.”

 

***

 

The carriage ride to the Acreman home was brief but felt eternal. Sebastian’s mind raced through possibilities, calculations, suspect motivations. Who would benefit from Samuel Acreman’s death? Who would risk murder charges when financial destruction was cleaner?

The answer came with uncomfortable clarity: someone who wanted Sebastian to take the blame. Someone who knew his methods well enough to imitate them but not his boundaries well enough to respect them.

Cornelius Warwick.

The man who’d stolen Margaret, who’d used her information to anticipate Sebastian’s moves for months before the betrayal was discovered. Who’d been quietly building his own shipping empire while Sebastian focused on smaller targets.

The Acreman home was in chaos when he arrived. Servants running, neighbors gathering, the acrid smell of smoke clinging to everything despite the distance from the warehouse. Sebastian ignored the shocked faces that recognized him, pushing through to the entrance.

“You can’t…” a footman started.

“I’m the Duke of Ravenshollow,” Sebastian said flatly. “Mr. Holt is coming on my orders. You will let me in, or you shall explain to your dying master why you turned away help.”

The footman blanched and stepped aside.

Sebastian found them in the morning room, of all places. Samuel Acreman lay on a makeshift bed, his hands and arms wrapped in wet cloths that were already seeping red. His wife sat beside him, white-faced and trembling. And Tessa…

Tessa stood by the window, still in her morning dress, her infected eye now matched by eyes swollen from crying. She turned when he entered, and the look on her face was like a physical blow.

“You,” she said, voice raw. “How dare you come here?”

“Miss Acreman…”

“Was burning him not enough? Did you need to see your handiwork personally?”

“I didn’t…”

“Get out.” She moved toward him, and he saw her hands were shaking with rage, not fear. “Get out of my house before I…”

“Tessa.” Her father’s voice, weak but clear. “Let him speak.”

“Papa, he’s the one who…”

“I know who he is.” Samuel Acreman’s eyes, glazed with pain, fixed on Sebastian. “I also know the Duke of Ravenshollow doesn’t burn warehouses. It is too messy and there are too many variables. It is not his style.”

Sebastian felt something shift in his chest. “You’ve studied me.”

“I know thy enemy.” A ghost of a smile appeared. “Though I’ll admit, I didn’t expect my enemy to send his personal physician.”

“Professional curiosity,” Sebastian said carefully. “I prefer my victories clean. This… this is amateur work.”

“Amateur.” Tessa laughed bitterly. “My father is dying from amateur work?”

“Your father is dying because someone wants me blamed for it,” Sebastian said bluntly. “The question is who benefits from that scenario.”

Before anyone could respond, Mr. Holt arrived, immediately taking charge with the efficiency that made him London’s most sought-after physician. Sebastian found himself ushered into the hallway with Tessa, who looked like she wanted to commit violence but was too exhausted to manage it.

“This is your fault,” she said quietly. “Whether you lit the match or not, this is because of your games.”

“Yes.”

His simple agreement seemed to deflate her. “You’re not going to deny it?”

“Would you believe me if I did?”

“No.”

“Then why waste words?” He studied her face, noting the calculating intelligence still present despite the emotional devastation. “Your father’s right. This isn’t my method. But you’re also right because it’s connected to what I’ve been doing.”

“Destroying innocent merchants for sport?”

“Destroying specific merchants for specific reasons.”

“What possible reason…”

“Three years ago, I was betrothed.” The words came out flat, emotionless. “Margaret Merriweather. Merchant class, like you, but her father had connections I needed. The marriage was advantageous for everyone.”

Tessa said nothing, waiting.

“What I didn’t know was that her father owed significant debts to Cornelius Warwick. Gambling debts that Warwick was using as leverage. Margaret was feeding him information about my business dealings; which shipments to intercept, which contracts to undercut, which partners to pressure.”

“She betrayed you.”

“Spectacularly. The wedding was called off three days before the ceremony when I discovered she’d already married Warwick in secret. The scandal was… considerable.”

Tessa absorbed this. “So you declared war on the entire merchant class?”

“I declared war on those who’d conspired with them. Every merchant I’ve targeted had dealings with Warwick or so I believed.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “Your father was supposedly partnering with Warwick on the Bengal shipments. I had documents, witnesses, proof of meetings.”

“That’s absurd. Papa despises Warwick.”

“Yes. He refused to work with him last year. Quite publicly, in fact.” Sebastian’s voice turned grim. “Which is why Warwick needed him destroyed.”

Tessa stared at him. “You’re saying…”

“I’m saying Warwick has been feeding me false information, forged documents and paid witnesses. Making his enemies appear to be my enemies, knowing I’d destroy them without question.” The admission seemed to physically pain him. “Your father never conspired with anyone. Warwick simply wanted him eliminated and used my blind rage to do it.”

“You’re saying Cornelius Warwick has been using you? Manipulating your vendetta to eliminate his rivals?”

“I’m saying I’ve been so focused on revenge that I didn’t verify the intelligence properly. I saw what I wanted to see and that was corruption everywhere, betrayal in every partnership.” He met her gaze. “Until tonight, when someone escalated beyond my rules.”

“Your rules.” She laughed bitterly. “You have rules for destroying lives?”

“Financial destruction, yes. Physical destruction, no. The former is business. The latter is criminal.”

“Both are cruel.”

“Indeed,” he agreed simply. “But one leaves room for redemption.”

Mr. Holt emerged before she could respond. “He’ll live,” he announced. “The burns are severe but not fatal if infection is prevented. I’ve applied the necessary treatments and will return twice daily.”

The relief on Tessa’s face was transformative. Sebastian found himself memorizing it, memorizing the moment when she went from despair to hope.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“Thank His Grace,” Holt said. “My fees are considerable, and he’s already guaranteed payment.”

Tessa turned to Sebastian, confusion replacing relief. “Why?”

“Because someone tried to frame me for attempted murder, and I take that personally.” He pulled on his gloves. “Also because your letter amused me, and I’d prefer to continue our correspondence with you alive to write it.”

“That’s… the worst attempt at compassion I’ve ever witnessed.”

“I don’t do compassion. I do curiosity and occasionally enlightened self-interest.”

“Which is this?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” He moved toward the door, then paused. “Tuesday at two o’clock. Do not be late.”

“You still expect me to…after this?”

“I expect you to want answers. Tuesday, you shall get them.” He glanced back. “Also, bring the journal you’re planning. The one for merchant daughters.”

Tessa’s shock was gratifying. “How did you…”

“I make it my business to know everything about my enemies, Miss Acreman. The question you should be asking is whether you’re still my enemy or something else entirely.”

He left before she could answer, but her expression followed him into the rainy night. Not fear or hatred, but something far more dangerous; curiosity that matched his own.

 

***

 

Back in his study, Bridges was waiting with brandy and judgment.

“Well?” his assistant asked.

“Warwick,” Sebastian said simply. “He’s been playing me like a violin, and I’ve been too arrogant to notice.”

“And the Acremans?”

Sebastian sank into his chair, exhaustion hitting suddenly. “Samuel Acreman did nothing wrong except refuse to play Warwick’s game. His daughter did nothing wrong except be interesting at an inconvenient time.”

“What do you intend to do?”

Sebastian studied the brandy, thinking of orange blossoms and infected eyes, of sharp tongues and sharper minds, of a girl who’d stood up to mockery without flinching but cried for her father’s pain.

“I intend,” he said slowly, “to change the game entirely.”

“Your Grace?”

“Warwick expects me to be blamed for the fire. He expects the Acremans to be destroyed and me to be implicated. He expects to sweep in and collect the pieces while I’m dealing with scandal.”

“And instead?”

Sebastian smiled and it was a real smile, the first in three years. “Instead, I’m going to save them. Publicly, dramatically, and in a way that makes it clear to everyone that Cornelius Warwick is the real villain.”

“That’s… unexpectedly heroic of you.”

“It’s not heroic. It’s strategic. Warwick used my predictability against me. Time to be unpredictable.”

Bridges studied him. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Miss Acreman’s letter suggesting you have ‘shadow enterprises’?”

“She also suggested I prefer mysteries to remain mysterious.”

“And do you?”

Sebastian thought of Tessa’s face in the moonlight, fierce and intelligent and unafraid. “I’m beginning to think mysteries are overrated. Truth might be more interesting.”

“Your Grace, forgive my impertinence, but are you actually considering courting this girl?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bridges. I’m considering a business alliance with mutual benefits.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“The fact that she has remarkable eyes, even the infected one, is entirely incidental.”

“Naturally.”

“And her ability to quote Shakespeare, albeit incorrectly, is merely amusing.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” Sebastian paused. “Bridges, do you know anything about the care of orange blossoms?”

His assistant’s mouth twitched. “I’ll research it immediately, Your Grace.”

 

***

 

Alone in his study, Sebastian pulled out Tessa’s letter and read it one more time. The postscript particularly: Even beautiful things can survive transformation, though they’re never quite the same after.

She was right, of course. Nothing survived transformation unchanged. Not flowers, not businesses, not hearts that had been frozen for three years and were suddenly, inexplicably, beginning to thaw.

He picked up his pen and began to write:

Miss Acreman,

By the time you receive this, your father will be under the care of London’s finest physician, your warehouse losses will be covered by an anonymous benefactor, and Mr. Cornelius Warwick will be discovering that his own warehouses have developed an unfortunate rat problem.

You accused me of shadow enterprises. You’re entirely correct. But shadows can protect as easily as they can threaten, depending on where one stands in relation to the light.

Tuesday at two o’clock. We have a war to plan, and despite your moral objections to my methods, I suspect you’ll find victory appealing when it means your father’s recovery and Warwick’s destruction.

Your servant in all things strategic, R.

P.S. Orange blossoms, when properly preserved, can last for years. I’ve ordered a preservation solution from Kew Gardens. It would be a shame for your transformation metaphor to wilt prematurely.

He sealed it with his ducal seal, the weight of it familiar in his hand. But for the first time in three years, it didn’t feel like a burden.

It felt like a beginning.