Chapter One

 

“Cecilia, the chocolate is bitter again.”

The words floated down the breakfast table with the weary inevitability of sunrise, and Cecilia Ashwood—who had prepared the chocolate exactly as she had prepared it every morning for the past five years, which was to say exactly as her Aunt Lavinia demanded it—set down her own cup of rapidly cooling tea and summoned a patient smile.

“I shall speak to Cook directly, Aunt.”

“I cannot fathom why it must prove so difficult.” Lady Ashwood pressed a hand to her temple, as though the offending chocolate had conspired to ruin her morning single-handedly. “One would think, after all this time, that the matter could be managed without constant supervision.”

One would think, Cecilia agreed silently, that after five years of preparing chocolate to your exacting specifications, I might be trusted to know the recipe. And yet.

“Perhaps a trifle more sugar?” she suggested instead. “The weather has turned cold; sweet things are ever more welcome in such weather.”

“Do not patronise me, Cecilia. I know perfectly well what I taste.” Lady Ashwood took another sip, grimaced with theatrical suffering, and pushed the cup away. “But I suppose it must do. I have not the strength to quarrel this morning. My nerves are quite shattered.”

Cecilia made a sympathetic sound. Her aunt’s nerves existed in a state of perpetual near-collapse, threatened by everything from unexpected callers to the wrong shade of ribbon upon a bonnet. It was remarkable, really, how much devastation a nervous system might endure while still permitting its owner to deliver a steady stream of complaints.

“Georgiana, sit up straight,” Lady Ashwood continued, her attention shifting to her elder daughter, who lounged over her toast with the elegant indifference of a young woman perfectly aware of her own prettiness and wholly unwilling to exert herself before noon. “No gentleman desires a wife who cannot maintain proper posture.”

“There are no gentlemen present, Mama,” Georgiana replied, not unreasonably.

“There might be. One never knows when a gentleman might call.”

“At half past eight in the morning? In Hertfordshire?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Cecilia rather doubted that—Hertfordshire lanes were notably devoid of eligible gentlemen making dawn social calls—but she kept the observation to herself. Five years in this household had taught her the value of strategic silence. Speech invited attention; attention invited criticism; criticism invariably concluded with the assignment of some additional task to prove her usefulness.

Usefulness was Cecilia’s sole currency. It was the coin by which she purchased her place at this table, her small room on the upper floor, her continued existence within the walls of what had once been her home.

Thornfield. The very name still caught in her chest, a small sharp hook of grief. She had been born in this house, had taken her first steps along its corridors, had pressed flowers from its gardens into books that now belonged to someone else. The entail had seen to that—the legal contrivance by which her father’s modest estate had passed, upon his death, to his nearest male relation, leaving Cecilia with nothing but her education, her mother’s pearls, and the dubious charity of cousins she had scarcely known existed.

“Cecilia.” Her uncle’s voice emerged from behind his newspaper. Horace Ashwood was a man of middling height, middling intelligence, and middling ambition—qualities that might have rendered him perfectly pleasant, had they not been coupled with a profound reluctance ever to contradict his wife. “There is a letter here from Lady Marchmont. It requires a response. My handwriting is not what it was.”

Your handwriting was never what it was, Cecilia thought, but she rose obediently. “Of course, Uncle. I shall attend to it directly after breakfast.”

“See that you do. The woman is a fearsome correspondent. She will notice if her letter goes unanswered.”

Cecilia did not ask about its contents. She would discover them soon enough, when she sat down to compose a reply that would bear her uncle’s signature but none of his words. This, too, formed part of her usefulness: the ability to write a coherent letter, to keep accounts from descending into chaos, to smooth the rough edges of a household which had somehow acquired a baronet’s daughter without acquiring any corresponding notion of how she ought to be treated.

She was not a servant. Servants were paid.

She was not a guest. Guests were welcomed.

She was something between—present yet unacknowledged, necessary yet unvalued, existing in the margins of a family portrait from which she had been neatly cropped.

Breakfast proceeded in its customary fashion. Dorothea, the younger daughter, ate her eggs in anxious silence, casting the occasional furtive glance at Cecilia that might have signified guilt—or merely indigestion. Georgiana studied her reflection in the back of a spoon and appeared satisfied. Lady Ashwood catalogued her ailments—a headache threatening, her joints aching with the change in weather, a general malaise that would certainly require rest—while simultaneously issuing instructions regarding dinner, the linen-cupboard, and the draft in the morning room which must be addressed immediately.

All of these instructions, Cecilia noted, were directed at her.

“The Hendersons are calling this afternoon,” Lady Ashwood announced, apropos of nothing. “Georgiana, you shall wear the blue muslin. Dorothea, the yellow. Cecilia—” A pause, during which her gaze swept over Cecilia’s plain grey morning dress with eloquent disdain. “Cecilia, I believe you had better see to the arrangement of the drawing room. Fresh flowers, if any remain at this season. And pray ensure the good tea service has been properly polished.”

“Of course, Aunt.”

“And speak to Cook about luncheon. Nothing too heavy—Mrs Henderson is forever remarking upon her digestion.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“And the fire in the morning room—”

“The draft. Yes. I shall see to it.”

Lady Ashwood’s eyes narrowed. There was something in Cecilia’s tone—not quite impertinent, nothing that might be openly reproved, but a certain flatness that suggested she had heard these instructions before. Which, indeed, she had. Daily. For five years.

“You seem tired, Cecilia,” Lady Ashwood observed, in a manner that contrived to make concern sound like accusation. “Perhaps you are not sleeping well. An excess of sleep may be quite as debilitating as a deficiency, you know. The physician says—”

“I am quite well, Aunt. Merely eager to begin my tasks.”

It was the proper reply—industrious, grateful, entirely devoid of personality. Lady Ashwood accepted it with a gracious nod, as though Cecilia’s eagerness to serve were a gift rather than a strategy for survival.

“Very good. You may be excused.”

Cecilia rose, dropped a small curtsey—neither too formal nor too familiar—and made her escape.

 

***

 

The morning room was cold.

This was not the fault of the draft—which was largely imaginary—but of the simple fact that coal cost money, and Thornfield’s finances were no longer what they had been. Cecilia knew this better than anyone: she was the one who balanced the household accounts, who bargained with tradesmen, who performed the quiet economies that kept the family afloat without obliging them to acknowledge they were economising at all.

She stood now at the window, gazing out upon the October garden with its fading blooms and yellowing leaves. This view had been her mother’s favourite. Eleanor Ashwood had spent countless hours in this very room—reading, embroidering, teaching a small Cecilia the names of the plants visible from this precise angle.

That is a late-blooming rose, my darling. See how it persists, even as the others fade? Some things are stronger for having to fight for their place in the world.

Cecilia touched the chill glass. Her mother had been gone ten years now, though it seemed at once longer and shorter. Longer, because the grief had settled into a constant undertone beneath all she did; shorter, because some mornings she still woke expecting to hear her mother’s voice calling her to breakfast.

Her father had never recovered from Mama’s death. Sir Edmund Ashwood had been a gentle man—scholarly, impractical, more devoted to his books than to the mundane business of estates and entails. He had loved his wife with a devotion that left no room for prudence, and when she died, some essential part of him had died with her.

Cecilia had been twelve. She had become, overnight, the manager of a household whose master was present in body but absent in spirit. She had learned to consult with the steward, to review the accounts, to make decisions that should have been far beyond her years. She had done it all without complaint, because her father needed her, because someone had to, because useful people were not abandoned.

And then her father had died too, five years ago, and she had discovered exactly how much her usefulness was worth.

Nothing. Usefulness required context—and hers had been swept away by the inexorable tide of an entail that cared nothing for grief or competence or the simple fact that she had been raised as the daughter of this house.

Horace Ashwood inherited everything. Horace—who had visited Thornfield perhaps three times in Cecilia’s entire childhood. Horace—who had never troubled to learn the tenants’ names, the rhythm of the harvest, or any of the thousand small details that kept an estate alive. Horace—whose wife had taken one look at Cecilia, at her education, her capability, her quiet sorrow, and seen an opportunity rather than a person.

“Family takes care of family,” Lady Ashwood had declared, in those early weeks when Cecilia’s future hung in the air like smoke. “We cannot possibly turn her out. What would people say?”

What people would say, Cecilia soon understood, mattered enormously to Lady Ashwood. Appearance was everything—the appearance of generosity, of family feeling, of benevolence. The reality beneath it was of considerably less importance.

And thus, Cecilia had stayed. She moved from her childhood chamber to a small room on the upper floor, once occupied by a particularly senior housemaid. She packed away her pretty dresses—they were too fine for her new station, too conspicuous, too sharp a reminder of what she had been—and adopted the plain greys and browns of a woman meant to be useful rather than noticed.

She had learned, in those five years, to want nothing.

Wanting was dangerous. Wanting led to hope; hope to disappointment; and disappointment was a luxury she could not afford. She had a roof above her head, food enough, a place to exist that was not the street or the uncertain charity of distant relations who had never met her. This was enough. It must be enough.

Some things are stronger for having to fight for their place in the world.

Cecilia turned from the window and set about arranging the morning room for the Hendersons’ visit.

 

***

 

The letter from Lady Marchmont, when Cecilia finally read it, proved rather more interesting than the usual social correspondence.

She sat in her uncle’s study—a room she used more than he did, though she was always careful never to sit in his chair or leave any trace of her presence—and smoothed the heavy paper with its elaborate crest. Lady Marchmont was a distant connection of Lady Ashwood’s, a wealthy widow whose estate in Kent was rumoured to be magnificent, and whose social influence was rumoured to be greater still.

My dear Lady Ashwood, the letter began, in a hand that suggested dictation rather than any personal acquaintance with a pen, I write to extend an invitation that I hope you will find agreeable…

The invitation was to a house-party: a fortnight at Fairholme Park, beginning in two weeks’ time. Hunting, dinners, evening amusements—and, mentioned with elaborate casualness, a Harvest Ball to conclude the festivities.

You may be interested to know, the letter continued, that among my guests will be several families of particular distinction. The Duke of Ashworth has consented to attend, as has his mother, the Dowager Duchess. I mention this only in passing, of course, as I know the younger Miss Ashwood is not yet out, but the elder Miss Ashwood has been presented, if I recall correctly, and might find the company… stimulating.

Cecilia read this passage twice. The Duke of Ashworth. She knew the name—everyone knew the name—but she could not immediately place the particulars. A young duke, she thought. Unmarried. Wealthy beyond imagination. Exactly the sort of prize that families like the Ashwoods spent their daughters’ entire lives preparing them to secure.

She could picture Lady Ashwood’s response with perfect clarity: the flutter of excitement concealed beneath a façade of dignified composure; the swift calculation of which gowns Georgiana would require, which jewels might be borrowed or purchased, which accomplishments must be displayed and which discreetly obscured. And, of course, the complete absence of any mention of Cecilia at all.

Cecilia set down the letter and allowed herself—just for a heartbeat—to imagine what it might be like to attend such a party. To wear a beautiful gown, to dance beneath chandeliers, to speak with people who might see her as something other than useful. To be, for a few fleeting hours, the girl she had been before everything changed.

The fantasy lasted precisely three seconds. Then she folded the letter, placed it upon her uncle’s desk where he would find it, and returned to her actual life.

There were flowers to arrange, tea services to polish, and drafts to investigate.

Wanting was dangerous.

 

***

 

Lady Ashwood’s reaction to the letter exceeded even Cecilia’s expectations.

“The Duke of Ashworth!” she exclaimed at dinner that evening, her earlier fatigue apparently forgotten. “My dear, do you comprehend what this signifies? The Duke of Ashworth will be present—at the very same gathering as our Georgiana!”

“I understood you the first three times, my dear,” Horace replied mildly.

“But you do not seem to grasp the importance. He is unmarried, you know. Thirty years old, and not a whisper of an engagement. They say he is particular—that he has refused dozens of perfectly suitable matches—but surely, when he sees Georgiana—”

“Mama,” Georgiana interposed, in a tone that suggested she was not entirely averse to such speculation, though she wished to appear so for modesty’s sake, “we do not know that the Duke will notice me at all.”

“Nonsense. You are beautiful, accomplished, and from an excellent family. Why should he not notice?”

“Because there will be dozens of other young ladies present, I imagine—each of them beautiful and accomplished as well.”

“Not equally. I am certain not equally.” Lady Ashwood turned to Cecilia, who had been quietly attending to her soup, hoping to remain invisible. “Cecilia, what do you know of the Duke of Ashworth?”

The question caught her off guard. She was seldom consulted on matters of social consequence; her opinions were rarely deemed relevant to decisions in which she played no part.

“Very little, I am afraid,” she said. “He inherited young, I believe—his father died some years past. Beyond that, I know only what everyone knows: that he is wealthy, titled, and has not yet chosen a bride.”

“Well, that much is in Lady Marchmont’s letter.” Lady Ashwood frowned, as though Cecilia had failed some private examination. “I had hoped you might recall something more specific. You used to read the society papers quite diligently, before—” She stopped, the sentence dissolving into awkward silence.

Before I became invisible, Cecilia finished silently. Before I ceased to matter enough to justify the price of a subscription.

“I am sorry to disappoint, Aunt.”

“No matter. The important thing is the opportunity. Georgiana, we must consider your wardrobe. The blue silk, of course, and the new sprigged muslin—though I wonder whether it will be warm enough for Kent in October. Perhaps we ought to have something made. A new ball gown, certainly. Something memorable.”

“What about me?” Dorothea asked, in the small, careful voice of a younger sister well acquainted with her place in the hierarchy of attention.

“You are too young for balls, dear. But you may come to observe—and perhaps join us in some of the daytime entertainments. It will be excellent practice for your own debut next year.”

“And Cecilia?”

The question came from Dorothea, and it fell into the conversation like a stone into still water. Cecilia looked up to find her younger cousin watching her with an expression that might have been concern—or merely curiosity.

Lady Ashwood’s expression flickered—surprise, perhaps, that Cecilia’s existence should be acknowledged at all—before settling into carefully composed indifference.

“Cecilia will remain here, of course. Someone must manage the household in our absence. The servants cannot be trusted to govern themselves for a full fortnight.”

“But surely—” Dorothea began.

“That is quite enough, Dorothea. Cecilia understands her responsibilities. Do you not, Cecilia?”

Cecilia set down her spoon with deliberate precision. “Of course, Aunt. I am happy to be of service.”

It was the expected reply. The proper reply. The reply that preserved the peace, ensured her place, and demanded nothing so perilous as desire.

Yet somewhere—deep within the part of herself she had believed long since buried—something stirred. A flicker of…what? Not hope. She was far too sensible for hope. But something. A small, treacherous whisper that sounded very like: Why not me?

She silenced it at once.

There was no point in asking why not. The answer was self-evident. She possessed nothing—no fortune, no position, no family of consequence. She was a poor relation, dependent upon a charity that was not charity at all, but an arrangement of mutual convenience. The Ashwoods kept her because she was useful; she remained because she had nowhere else to go.

This was her life. This would always be her life.

She finished her soup in silence and requested leave to withdraw.

 

***

 

That night, alone in her small room on the upper floor, Cecilia permitted herself a luxury she usually avoided: memory.

She opened the wooden box that held her mother’s pearls—the only jewellery she had been allowed to keep, too modest to tempt anyone’s greed—and let them spill across her palm. They were beautiful in their simplicity, warm against her skin, each pearl perfectly matched to the next.

Her mother had worn those pearls on her wedding day. Cecilia had seen the portrait—still hanging in the drawing room—of Eleanor Ashwood in white silk, pearls at her throat and joy in her eyes. The portrait had not been removed when the house changed hands; Cecilia supposed it had never occurred to anyone to object. And so her mother remained, preserved in oil and happiness, gazing serenely down upon a household that had forgotten her daughter existed.

“I wish you had seen me at my first dance, Mama,” Cecilia whispered into the quiet. “You would have worn these pearls. You would have stood beside Father and smiled, and afterwards you would have told me you were proud and that someday, I would make some fortunate man an excellent wife.”

Someday had become a word Cecilia no longer permitted herself.

She clasped the pearls about her own neck—only for a moment, only to feel their weight—and studied her reflection in the small mirror by candlelight. The face that looked back was pleasant enough, she supposed. Not beautiful like Georgiana—whose golden curls and blue eyes might have been designed by an artist commissioned to depict English girlhood at its most charming—but not plain either. Simply…ordinary. Unremarkable. The sort of face that slipped from memory the instant one looked away.

You are two-and-twenty, she told her reflection. In a few years, you will be firmly on the shelf—if you are not there already. What then? Will you still be arranging flowers and polishing tea services at forty? At fifty? Will you die in this little room, useful to the very end?

The questions had no answers. Or rather, they had answers that Cecilia preferred not to contemplate.

She removed the pearls, returned them to their box, and prepared for bed.

Tomorrow, there would be more tasks. More errands. More opportunities to prove her usefulness and bury her hopes. The machinery of survival would grind on—and she would grind with it, for the alternative was unthinkable.

But that night—for the first time in years—Cecilia Ashwood dreamed of dancing.

 

Chapter Two

 

“You are brooding again.”

Sebastian Harcourt, seventh Duke of Ashworth, did not look up from the letter he was pretending to read. “I am reviewing estate correspondence. That is an entirely different activity.”

“Is it?” His brother, Evan, settled into the chair opposite with the effortless grace of a man who had never in his life troubled himself over anything more serious than the cut of his waistcoat. “You have that expression—the one that suggests the weight of the dukedom is crushing your very soul.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I am never dramatic. I am merely observant.” Evan helped himself to the tea laid out on Sebastian’s desk, undeterred by the fact that it had not been offered. “Mother is here, by the way. She has brought Miss Crane—and a list of eligible young ladies that, I suspect, rivals the Domesday Book in both length and scope.”

Sebastian set down the letter—an earnest discussion of drainage in the eastern fields, and therefore far more appealing than matrimony—and regarded his brother with the flat stare of a man contemplating fratricide.

“She promised she would not do this again.”

“She promised she would not do this until after Michaelmas. Michaelmas was last week. She has, technically, kept her word.”

“‘Technical’ is a charitable way to describe an ambush.”

“Is it ambush if you saw it coming?” Evan grinned, entirely unrepentant. “Come now, Sebastian. You are thirty years old. You must marry eventually. Why not approach the matter with an open mind? Some of the candidates may prove surprisingly tolerable.”

“I have examined the candidates—repeatedly. At every ball, dinner, and house party I have attended these past seven years. They are not tolerable; they are tedious. Interchangeable young women saying interchangeable things—laughing at remarks that are not remotely amusing—pretending fascination with subjects they do not in the least care about.”

“Possibly because you insist on discussing drainage improvements.”

“Drainage improvements are important.”

“They are not romantic.”

“I am not attempting to be romantic. I am attempting to manage an estate that employs three hundred people and encompasses fifteen thousand acres. The romance of drainage—”

“—is precisely the sort of sentiment that explains why you remain unmarried.” Evan rose—still grinning—and moved toward the door. “Mother is in the blue drawing room. I suggest you prepare yourself. She has that gleam in her eye—the one that historically precedes announcements of social engagements you did not know you had agreed to attend.”

Sebastian watched his brother depart with the resigned air of a condemned man observing the construction of the gallows. Evan was right, of course. Their mother was nothing if not persistent—and her persistence regarding Sebastian’s matrimonial future had only sharpened with each passing year.

He understood her concern. He was the duke—the title, the estates, the long weight of Harcourt history rested upon his shoulders. His duty was clear: marry, produce an heir, secure the succession. It was what dukes did. What dukes had always done.

And yet—

Sebastian rose from his desk and crossed to the window, looking out over the immaculate grounds of Ashworth Hall. His father had stood at this very window, he thought—had gazed upon these same rolling hills, these same carefully tended lawns—this same view that was beautiful, valuable, and entirely, irrevocably his.

The old duke had been a hard man. Cold. Exacting. Incapable of expressing approval even when it was deserved. Sebastian had spent his childhood striving to earn his father’s regard, and his adolescence learning that he never would. The old duke had wanted an heir, not a son—a vessel for the title, not a person with thoughts and feelings and the audacity to be anything other than what his birth required.

Sebastian had been three-and-twenty when his father died. He had assumed the responsibilities of the dukedom at once because that was what was expected. He had managed the estates, attended Parliament, fulfilled the endless obligations that accompanied his position. He had done everything correctly.

And in doing so, he had discovered that everyone wanted something from him. Everyone. The mothers who thrust their daughters toward him at balls. The gentlemen who sought his political influence. The servants who depended on his generosity. The tenants who looked to him for protection. The entire machinery of society that saw not Sebastian Harcourt, but the Duke of Ashworth—a title laden with expectations he could never quite satisfy and obligations he could never entirely discharge.

He was tired.

Not physically—he was young, healthy, perfectly capable of dancing until dawn if circumstance required. But tired in some deeper sense. Tired of performance. Tired of falseness. Tired of conversations in which nothing true was said and nothing honest was allowed.

His mother wished him to marry. Very well. He would meet the candidates she selected. He would attend the engagements she arranged. He would do his duty—as he always had.

But he could not wholly suppress a hope—small, foolish, almost certainly futile—that somewhere among all the interchangeable young ladies with their interchangeable smiles, there might be one who saw him. Not the title. Not the wealth. Not the influence, nor the connections, nor the thousands of acres of prime English countryside.

Just him.

It was, he knew, an unreasonable hope. Dukes did not marry for love; they married for advantage. And even if love were possible—how would he recognise it? How could he trust it? Every woman who had ever shown interest in him had been interested in what he represented, not who he was.

Over the years, he had learned to sense the falseness—the too-eager laughter, the too-bright smiles, the conversations that revolved endlessly around his preferences while revealing nothing of the speaker’s own. He had grown adept at armouring himself against it, maintaining a polite distance that discouraged intimacy.

It was lonely, being a duke.

Not that he would ever admit as much. Not to Evan, who would make a jest of it. Certainly not to his mother, who would only redouble her matchmaking efforts. Loneliness was weakness; weakness was not permitted. He was the Duke of Ashworth. He had responsibilities.

He turned from the window and straightened his waistcoat.

Time to face his mother.

 

***

 

The Dowager Duchess of Ashworth was not a woman who believed in subtlety.

“Darling,” she said, as Sebastian entered the blue drawing room, “you look tired. Have you been sleeping poorly? You must take better care of yourself. A duke cannot afford to be anything less than vigorous.”

“Mother.” Sebastian bent to kiss her cheek, noting with resignation the stack of papers on the table beside her—the infamous list of eligible young ladies, and, if Evan’s assessment was accurate, of formidable length. “How delightful to see you. And Miss Crane.”

Helena Crane rose from her seat by the window and offered a curtsey that was perfectly correct without being in the least obsequious. A handsome woman in her mid-twenties, she had served as his mother’s companion these past two years, and Sebastian had always appreciated her quiet competence—and her complete lack of matrimonial interest in him.

“Your Grace.”

“Please, be seated. I understand my mother has come bearing news.”

“Not news, precisely.” The Dowager settled more comfortably in her chair, like a predator preparing to savour a particularly gratifying meal. “More in the nature of… opportunity.”

“Mother.”

“Do not take that tone with me, Sebastian. I am merely fulfilling my obligations as your parent and as a member of this family. The succession must be secured. You have had seven years in which to find a bride of your own choosing, and you have conspicuously failed to do so. I am simply offering assistance.”

“I have not failed. I have declined.”

“You have declined everyone. That is its own form of failure.”

Sebastian lowered himself into a chair and prepared for battle. “I have declined to marry women who regarded me as a means to an end rather than as a person. Surely that is not unreasonable.”

“It becomes unreasonable when the alternative is no marriage at all. You are a duke, Sebastian. Women will always see you, in some measure, as a means to an end. That is the nature of your position. The question is whether you can find one whose ends align sufficiently with your own to form a tolerable partnership.”

It was—infuriatingly—a rational argument. His mother was always rational, which made disputing her infinitely more difficult than if she had merely been unreasonable.

“And you believe this list”—he gestured toward the papers—“contains candidates whose ends may align with mine?”

“I believe it contains candidates worth examining. Lady Marchmont is hosting a house party in Kent in the coming weeks. I have accepted on your behalf—do not look at me like that; you were going to refuse, and I could not permit it—and several excellent young ladies will be in attendance.”

“Which young ladies?”

The Dowager smiled the satisfied smile of a woman who had anticipated the question. “Miss Georgiana Ashwood is said to be quite accomplished. Her family is respectable—connected to the Thornfield baronetcy, if I am not mistaken—and she is considered one of the beauties of her season.”

“Georgiana Ashwood.” The name meant nothing to Sebastian. “What do we know of her beyond rumour?”

“She plays the pianoforte admirably and speaks French with a creditable accent. Her mother is… ambitious, though that is hardly uncommon. Her father is inoffensive. There is a younger sister, not yet out, and some sort of poor relation residing with them—a cousin, I believe—but nothing scandalous.”

“A poor relation?”

“Yes—the daughter of the previous baronet. Sir Edmund Ashwood died without making proper provision for her, and the family took her in. A gesture of family benevolence, one assumes.” The Dowager’s tone suggested she assumed no such thing. “But that is scarcely relevant. Miss Georgiana is the candidate of interest.”

Sebastian filed away the detail about the poor relation without quite knowing why. Perhaps because his mother had dismissed the girl so swiftly—and his mother rarely dismissed anyone without cause.

“Who else will be present?”

The Dowager launched into a thorough catalogue of the guest list, her commentary displaying both her encyclopaedic knowledge of the ton and her unembarrassed willingness to share opinions on everyone’s lineage, accomplishments, and matrimonial prospects. Sebastian listened with half an ear, his gaze drifting periodically toward the window, to the gardens, to anywhere but the conversation before him.

Helena Crane, he noticed, was studying her hands with the fixed concentration of someone attempting invisibility. He sympathised. Few people succeeded in being invisible in his mother’s presence.

“—and Lord Thornbury will bring his sister, though I cannot imagine anyone will pay her much attention; she has the most unfortunate teeth—Sebastian, you are not listening.”

“I am listening. Unfortunate teeth.”

“You were not listening to what came before. I was explaining the particulars of Miss Ashwood’s circumstances.”

“Her father is inoffensive, her mother ambitious, and she plays the pianoforte,” Sebastian replied, summoning a tired smile. “I assure you, I was listening. I am merely uncertain the information signifies, as I have no intention of marrying Miss Ashwood—regardless of her musical accomplishments.”

“You have no intention of marrying anyone. That is precisely the difficulty.”

“The difficulty is that I have not yet met anyone I wish to marry. Surely that ought to be a consideration.”

“It is a consideration in a love match. You are not seeking a love match; you are seeking an alliance. The sooner you accept that distinction, the sooner we may all proceed.”

Sebastian rose, abruptly unable to remain seated. He paced to the fireplace and back again, aware that he looked like a caged animal and unable to prevent it.

“I know my duty, Mother. You need not instruct me in the necessities of my position. But I will not—cannot—bind myself for life to a woman who sees me as nothing more than a title to be acquired. I have spent seven years surrounded by such women. I know their calculation, their performance, their utter disinterest in anything I truly think or feel. I will not live the rest of my life shackled to such a person.”

The Dowager was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice had softened.

“Sebastian. I do not wish you to be unhappy. That has never been my aim.”

“I know.”

“But happiness and duty do not always coincide. Sometimes we must accept less than we desire in order to fulfil our obligations. Your father—”

“My father married for duty, and spent the rest of his life treating his wife and sons as extensions of the title rather than as people. Forgive me if I do not find his example inspiring.”

Another silence. Sebastian saw the words land—saw his mother absorb them, consider them, file them away.

“I was fond of your father,” she said at last. “He was not an easy man—but I was fond of him nonetheless.”

“I know. I did not mean to suggest otherwise.”

“And I did not marry him expecting romance. I married him expecting partnership—and that is what I received. It was enough. It can be enough.”

Sebastian turned away, unable to meet her eyes. Partnership. Such a reasonable word. Such a sensible prospect—and yet the thought of it left him feeling more alone than ever.

“I will attend the house party,” he said. “I will consider the candidates you have selected. But I promise nothing beyond that.”

“That is all I ask.”

It was not, of course, all she asked. But it was as much as Sebastian was willing to grant—and the Dowager Duchess was wise enough to accept the compromise.

 

***

 

Later, after his mother had retired to rest from her journey and Helena Crane had disappeared to manage some aspect of the Dowager’s correspondence, Sebastian found himself in the estate office with Daniel Reeve.

Daniel was the best steward Sebastian had ever known—not that he had known many, having inherited Daniel along with the title. But in seven years of working together, Sebastian had come to respect his competence—and to value something approaching genuine friendship.

Daniel was also, not incidentally, one of the few people who spoke to Sebastian as though he were a man rather than a title.

“The drainage improvements in the eastern fields are progressing on schedule,” Daniel was saying, reviewing a ledger with the quiet intensity of a man who genuinely cared about such matters. “The new channels should be completed before the heavy autumn rains, which will prevent a recurrence of the flooding that damaged the wheat harvest three years ago.”

“Excellent. And the tenant cottages?”

“The repairs to the Wilkins property are finished. The Hartley roof will be complete by week’s end.” Daniel looked up, his expression shifting slightly. “You seem distracted, Your Grace. Is something amiss?”

Sebastian considered deflecting. It was his customary response to personal enquiry—maintain distance, preserve the boundaries that prevented people from expecting too much of him. But Daniel was different. Daniel had earned something closer to honesty.

“My mother has arrived with her annual campaign to see me married. She has accepted an invitation to Lady Marchmont’s house party on my behalf and assembled a list of eligible young ladies she believes I ought to examine closely.”

“Ah.” Daniel’s tone was carefully neutral. “And you object to this arrangement?”

“I object to the entire premise. I am to spend a fortnight conversing with young women who have been trained from birth to tell me whatever they believe I wish to hear. At the end of it, I shall know no more of them than I do now, because none of them will have said anything genuine.”

“With respect, Your Grace, you cannot know that until you meet them.”

“I have met dozens of them. Hundreds. They are all the same.”

Daniel set down the ledger and fixed Sebastian with a look that would have been insubordinate from anyone else. “Perhaps the difficulty does not lie entirely with them.”

Sebastian blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You approach these encounters anticipating falseness. You arm yourself against connection before any attempt at connection has been made. Is it any wonder, then, that you experience precisely what you expect?”

“Are you suggesting this is my fault?”

“I am suggesting that people respond to the signals they receive. If you enter a conversation with suspicion, your interlocutor will feel that suspicion and adjust accordingly. They become guarded because you are guarded. They perform because they sense you expect performance.”

It was, Sebastian realised with irritation, yet another rational argument. Today appeared to be a day for uncomfortable truths.

“And how would you have me approach these conversations instead?”

“I am hardly qualified to advise a duke on matrimonial strategy.”

“You are qualified to advise me on most things. Why should this be different?”

Daniel was silent for a moment, his gaze dropping to his hands—capable hands, roughened by work in a way no gentleman’s hands ever were. He had been born the son of a tenant farmer, educated through the late duke’s patronage, raised to his present position by nothing but his own ability. He occupied a curious middle ground—neither servant nor equal—and Sebastian had often wondered whether that position was as isolating as his own.

“I would suggest,” Daniel said at last, “that you approach these conversations with curiosity rather than suspicion. Assume, at least at the outset, that the person before you may surprise you. Ask questions to which you genuinely wish to know the answers, rather than questions designed to test for insincerity. Be willing to reveal something of yourself in exchange for what you hope to receive from them. Connection requires vulnerability, Your Grace. It cannot be achieved from behind armour.”

Sebastian absorbed this in silence. It was good counsel, he acknowledged privately. Whether he could act upon it was another matter entirely.

“You speak as though you have experience in these matters.”

A flicker crossed Daniel’s face—pain, perhaps, or embarrassment—before his expression smoothed into professional composure. “I observe, Your Grace. It is part of my position.”

“Observation and experience are not the same thing.”

“No,” Daniel agreed quietly. “They are not.”

He did not elaborate, and Sebastian did not press. Their relationship rested upon mutual respect and carefully maintained boundaries; prying into Daniel’s private affairs would violate both.

Still, Sebastian filed the exchange away—alongside the detail of the Ashwood poor relation, alongside countless other small observations that accumulated in his mind without conscious effort.

He was, it seemed, incapable of stopping himself from observing. Even when observation revealed things he would rather not see.

 

***

 

That evening, Sebastian dined alone.

His mother had pled fatigue—a diplomatic fiction that allowed them both to avoid resuming their earlier conversation—and Evan had vanished to some entertainment in the village. Sebastian sat at the long dining table, surrounded by empty chairs and attended by more servants than any one man could reasonably require, and contemplated the particular loneliness of wealth.

His father had dined in this room. His grandfather before him. Generations of Harcourts stretching back centuries—sitting at this same table, eating from these same dishes, served by the descendants of those who had served their forebears. There was continuity in it, he supposed. A sense of belonging to something larger than oneself.

But there was constraint as well. The weight of expectation. The knowledge that he existed not as himself, but as a link in a chain—a vessel for a legacy that would endure long after he was gone.

He thought about Daniel’s advice. Be willing to reveal something of yourself. It sounded simple enough. Surely, he could manage to reveal some small thing, some authentic piece of his inner life, without compromising his position or inviting exploitation.

And yet, when he tried to imagine it—tried to picture himself confessing to some young lady at Lady Marchmont’s house party that he was tired, that he was lonely, that he sometimes wondered whether anyone would notice if the Duke of Ashworth simply disappeared and a competent impostor took his place—he could not complete the image. In his mind, the young lady regarded him with polite incomprehension—or worse, with the calculating gleam of someone who had just discovered a weakness to exploit.

He had been alone too long. Had built his walls too high. He no longer knew how to take them down, even if he wished to.

The meal concluded. The servants cleared the table with silent efficiency. Sebastian withdrew to his study and its reassuring piles of correspondence on drainage and crop rotation and all the practical matters that required no feeling at all.

Tomorrow, he would begin preparations for the journey to Kent. He would review the list of eligible young ladies. He would steel himself for a fortnight of performance and artifice—and the relentless pursuit of a connection he was no longer certain he was capable of forming.

But tonight, alone with his thoughts, his responsibilities, and the crushing weight of his position, Sebastian Harcourt allowed himself to acknowledge something he rarely admitted.

He was afraid.

Not of marriage itself—marriage was a contract, and contracts could be managed—but of the possibility that Daniel was wrong. That there was no one who might see past the title to the man beneath. That he would spend the rest of his life surrounded by people—and utterly alone.

He poured himself a glass of brandy and drank it by the fire, watching the flames dance and trying not to think of the future that awaited him.

 

Chapter Three

 

“You cannot possibly be serious.”

Lady Ashwood’s voice had reached that particular pitch which indicated she was, in fact, entirely serious—and deeply offended that anyone might suggest otherwise. Cecilia, who had been summoned to the drawing room in the middle of the afternoon without explanation, stood very still and attempted to look appropriately attentive.

“I am perfectly serious, Horace. My sister may be dying. I cannot ignore such a summons merely for the sake of a house party.”

Horace Ashwood, who had been attempting to read his newspaper in peace, lowered it with the air of a man long resigned to domestic upheaval. “No one is suggesting you ignore your sister, my dear. I am merely observing that the timing is… inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient! My sister is ill—possibly fatally—and you speak of inconvenience!”

“You said she had a fever. A fever is not necessarily fatal.”

“Her letter said she fears she may not recover. Those were her exact words. ‘I fear I may not recover.’ What would you have me do—ignore such a plea? Abandon my only sister in her hour of need?”

Cecilia had read the letter herself, having collected it from the post. Mrs Thornton’s missive had indeed mentioned illness and had indeed expressed concern about recovery, but the general tone had suggested melodrama rather than mortality. Mrs Thornton was, by all accounts, very much her sister’s equal in the art of theatrical suffering.

Even so, affection was affection, and beneath the performance, Lady Ashwood’s anxiety appeared genuine. She did love her sister, Cecilia conceded—albeit chiefly through competitive comparisons of their respective ailments.

“What do you propose, then?” Horace asked, with the weary patience of a man who already knew he had lost whatever argument was to follow.

“I must go to Bath immediately. Tomorrow, if possible. But Georgiana cannot miss Lady Marchmont’s party—not with the Duke of Ashworth in attendance. The opportunity is too important.”

“Then take her with you to Bath.”

“To a sickroom? With my sister potentially contagious? Do not be absurd.”

“Then what—”

“You must take the girls to Kent yourself. You are perfectly capable of chaperoning, Horace, despite your apparent belief to the contrary. I shall join you as soon as my sister’s condition permits.” Lady Ashwood paused, her eyes narrowing in sudden calculation. “Although…”

Cecilia felt her spine stiffen. She knew that expression. It never heralded anything good.

“Although what, my dear?”

“You are not, strictly speaking, adept at managing the girls’ social presentation. Georgiana will require assistance with her hair, her gowns, and her general comportment. Someone must ensure she makes the proper impression. And Dorothea, though not yet out, must still be supervised. You cannot be expected to manage all that while maintaining suitable conversation with the other gentlemen.”

“Then we shall bring a lady’s maid.”

“A lady’s maid is not sufficient. Georgiana requires someone who can advise her on matters of etiquette—someone who understands society’s expectations.” Lady Ashwood’s gaze swung to Cecilia like a cannon settling upon its target. “Cecilia will accompany you.”

The words fell into the quiet room with the force of a thunderclap. Cecilia felt the colour drain from her face, only to return in a confusing rush of—what? Startlement? Apprehension? A flicker of impossible, treacherous anticipation?

“Me?” she managed.

“Yes, you. You were raised properly, whatever your present circumstances. You understand how to behave in polite company. You may ensure Georgiana’s gowns are pressed, her hair suitably arranged, and her conduct does not stray into anything unsuitable.”

“But—”

“You will remain in the background, of course. You are not there to participate in the social events; you are there to assist. Think of yourself as… an elevated lady’s maid, if that helps. Your presence should be invisible, but useful.”

Invisible but useful. The phrase was so perfectly descriptive of Cecilia’s entire existence that she very nearly laughed. Nearly.

“I have nothing appropriate to wear,” she said instead—because it was a practical objection, and practical objections were safer than emotional ones.

“You are not there to be seen, so what you wear is irrelevant. Your grey muslin will do very well for daytime duties. For the evenings, you will remain in your room. Georgiana will not require you once she is dressed for dinner.”

“And who will manage the household here? You said yourself—”

“Mrs Patterson is entirely capable of following the instructions I shall leave. The household will survive a fortnight without your constant oversight, Cecilia, however much you may prefer to believe otherwise.”

The words stung more than they should have. Cecilia had not claimed to be indispensable; she had merely pointed out that she was usually told she was necessary for exactly this kind of management. The contradiction was apparently invisible to Lady Ashwood.

“Well?” Lady Ashwood’s impatience sharpened. “Have you any further objections, or may we consider the matter settled?”

Cecilia could think of a dozen objections—but none that could be spoken aloud. That she would be humiliated, attending a grand house party as a servant in all but name. That watching Georgiana pursue a duke while she pressed ribbons and arranged hairpins would be a quiet, exquisite torture. That invisibility was bearable here only because she did not have to witness the life she had lost—but to be invisible amidst splendour she could not touch would be far worse.

None of that could be said. None of it would change anything.

“I have no objections, Aunt. I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service.”

It was the expected response. Lady Ashwood accepted it with a satisfied nod, already leaping ahead to her next arrangement.

“Excellent. You will begin packing immediately—your things and Georgiana’s as well. We must be prepared to depart in three days. Horace, you must write to Lady Marchmont to explain my delay. Cecilia can draft the letter; your handwriting is—”

“Yes, yes, I know. My handwriting.”

Cecilia slipped from the room while her aunt and uncle continued their planning, her thoughts circling in bewildering, impossible patterns.

She was going to Kent. To a house party. Where a duke would be in attendance, along with dozens of people belonging to the world she had once belonged to.

She would be invisible, of course. Working. Serving. Reminding herself at every moment that she was not a guest—that she had no right to pleasure—that her sole purpose was to secure Georgiana’s success, not to dream of any future of her own.

But still… she was going.

Beneath the practical concerns, beneath the armour of caution, beneath the years of training herself not to want, something small and perilous flickered to life.

Something that felt very much like hope.

 

***

 

The next three days passed in a blur of activity.

Cecilia packed Georgiana’s trunks with almost military precision, arranging gowns by occasion and colour, ensuring that every ribbon, glove, and hairpin was accounted for. She consulted with the housekeeper regarding the family’s absence, wrote detailed instructions for the cook, and drafted three separate letters on her uncle’s behalf.

Her own packing required considerably less time. She possessed two presentable day dresses—the grey muslin Lady Ashwood had mentioned, and a slightly newer brown cambric—together with the modest necessities of a woman who did not expect to be noticed. She did not pack an evening gown; she did not own one. The prettiest dress she possessed was a lavender silk that had belonged to her mother—carefully preserved, hopelessly outdated—and she had not attempted to wear it in years.

She packed her mother’s pearls, however. She could not have said why—there would be no occasion on which she might wear them—but leaving them behind felt wrong. They were the only beautiful thing she owned, the only tangible link to the life she had lost, and she found she could not bear to be parted from them, even for a fortnight.

Georgiana was by turns exhilarated and anxious.

“What if he does not notice me?” she fretted on the second evening, while Cecilia repaired a torn flounce on her favourite morning dress. “What if there are girls more beautiful, and he prefers them instead? Mama says I am the prettiest, but Mama is biased, and besides, there are so many girls in society—”

“You are very pretty,” Cecilia said—because it was true, and because contradiction would only prolong the discussion. “And you have been well prepared. You need only be yourself.”

“But what if myself is not enough?”

It was, Cecilia thought, a surprisingly honest question from Georgiana, who was not usually inclined to doubt herself. She looked up from her mending and found her cousin watching her with something very like vulnerability.

“You cannot control whether someone notices you,” she said carefully. “You can only control how you present yourself. Be gracious. Take an interest in others, not merely in securing their interest in you. Listen more than you speak—and when you do speak, say something genuine, rather than what you imagine they wish to hear.”

Georgiana frowned. “That sounds like an unreasonable amount of effort.”

“Connection usually is.”

“But I do not want connection. I want to marry a duke.”

Cecilia bent again to her stitching, concealing the expression that rose, unbidden, to her face. “Then perhaps you do not require my advice after all.”

Georgiana hesitated. Then, unexpectedly: “Cecilia? Do you ever think—do you ever wish that you could—”

She faltered, unable to finish. Cecilia did not supply the words.

“Never mind,” Georgiana said quickly. “It is nothing. I should sleep—Mama says shadows beneath the eyes are fatal to one’s complexion.”

She swept from the room, leaving Cecilia alone with her mending and her thoughts.

Do you ever wish… Cecilia wondered what Georgiana had meant to ask. Do you ever wish you could attend the party properly? Do you ever wish you could pursue a duke? Do you ever wish you were not trapped in this half-life—visible enough to serve, invisible enough to be ignored?

Yes. The answer was yes to all of it, had always been yes—no matter how fiercely she taught herself not to want.

She finished the mending, folded the dress, and went to bed.

Tomorrow they would leave for Kent. Whatever awaited her there could not possibly be worse than remaining behind.

At least, she hoped it could not.

 

***

 

The journey to Fairholme Park took two days, hampered by autumn rains that churned the roads to mud and by Dorothea’s unfortunate tendency toward carriage sickness.

Cecilia spent most of the journey attending to practicalities—making certain the trunks were properly secured at each posting stop, arranging adequate rooms at the inn where they spent the night, soothing Dorothea with ginger tea and cool cloths when the motion became too much for her delicate constitution.

Uncle Horace proved, as expected, entirely unhelpful. He retreated behind newspapers and silence, emerging only to complain about the wine at the inn or the deplorable state of the roads. Georgiana alternated between effusive chatter about the delights awaiting them and sulky silence when no one responded with sufficient enthusiasm.

It was, in short, an exhausting journey, and by the time the carriage turned into the long drive at Fairholme Park, Cecilia was too tired for proper appreciation.

But the house was magnificent.

It rose from manicured grounds like something from a painting—golden stone, elegant proportions, scores of windows catching the late-afternoon light. Gardens stretched in every direction, bright even this late in the season, and beyond them she glimpsed dark hedgerows carved into elaborate patterns.

“Oh,” Georgiana breathed, pressing her face to the glass. “It is beautiful.”

It was. Even Cecilia—determined to maintain her practical detachment—felt something stir at the sight. This was the world she had been raised to inhabit: gracious houses, ordered gardens, lives lived upon a cushion of comfort. She had glimpsed it in childhood—at her godmother’s estate, at the rare house parties her parents had attended—but five years of grey dresses and household accounts had dulled the memories.

Now here it was again. Close enough to touch—and forever out of reach.

You are here to work, she reminded herself firmly. You are not a guest. You have no right to beauty.

The carriage halted. Footmen appeared as if conjured to manage the luggage and assist the ladies down. Cecilia waited, allowing Georgiana and Dorothea to descend first, and when she finally stepped onto the gravel, she kept her gaze lowered and her posture modest.

Invisible. She must be invisible.

Lady Marchmont greeted them at the door—a sharp-featured woman in her fifties whose smile did not quite reach her eyes. She assessed each member of the party in turn: Uncle Horace with polite condescension, Georgiana with calculating interest, Dorothea with dismissive acknowledgement.

Her gaze slid over Cecilia without stopping.

It should not have stung. Cecilia had expected precisely that—but the completeness of the dismissal, the effortless erasure, cut more sharply than she had anticipated.

You are furniture, she told herself. Furniture is not introduced.

“Sir Horace, how delightful that you could join us. And Miss Ashwood—may I say, you are every bit as lovely as your mother promised. We must ensure you are introduced to all the right people.” Lady Marchmont’s smile sharpened. “The Duke of Ashworth has already arrived, together with the Dowager Duchess. They are resting before dinner, but introductions may easily be arranged.”

Georgiana flushed with mingled delight and anxiety. “How wonderful. I look forward to meeting everyone.”

“As you should, my dear. As you should.” Lady Marchmont turned to the hovering housekeeper. “Mrs Fenton will show you to your rooms. Dinner is at eight; the bell will ring at half past seven.”

They were conducted inside, up sweeping staircases and along elegant corridors. Cecilia followed at the rear, noting the layout—the servant stairs, the turning of passages—cataloguing every detail that might make her duties easier.

Georgiana and Dorothea were given a large, pleasant chamber overlooking the gardens. Uncle Horace was installed in a comfortable room farther down the hall. And Cecilia—

“Your room is this way, miss,” Mrs Fenton said gently. “Upper floor. Smaller—but private.”

The room was indeed small. It had clearly been intended for a senior servant—a lady’s maid, perhaps, or a governess—with plain furnishings, a narrow bed beneath a sloped ceiling, and a window that looked out over the service courtyard rather than the gardens.

“I hope this will be adequate,” Mrs Fenton added, with a tone that suggested she understood, at least a little, the awkwardness of Cecilia’s position—not quite guest, not quite servant. Something in between.

“It is quite suitable,” Cecilia said. “Thank you.”

She was alone.

She sat on the narrow bed and looked around at the plain walls, the simple washstand, the single candle that must suffice for light. Through the floor drifted the distant hum of preparation—voices, footsteps, the bustle of a house dressing itself for dinner.

A dinner she would not attend. An evening of entertainments from which she was excluded. A fortnight of standing at the margins while others lived the life she had lost.

This was her place. This was what she had agreed to. This was all she was permitted.

She unpacked her few belongings, set her mother’s pearls carefully in their box, and prepared—to be useful.