Chapter One

 

“Your Grace, you simply must tell us about the renovations at Thornfield Park.”

Benedict Wycliffe, the sixth Duke of Thornfield, had been called many things in his thirty-two years. Cold. Aloof. Forbidding. The Ice Duke, whispered behind fans and muttered in gentlemen’s clubs from London to Edinburgh. He had never, however, been described as a man who must do anything—and yet Lady Violet now stood before him, her mother—Lady Crambourne—stationed at her flank like a general surveying a battlefield, addressing him as though obligation were a universal condition rather than one dukes were largely spared.

It was not.

“The renovations,” he repeated, his voice carrying the particular flatness he had perfected over years of unwanted conversation. “You wish to discuss… plasterwork.”

Lady Violet’s laugh was bright and practised—the sort one rehearsed before a mirror until it achieved the precise pitch of charming without ever tipping into genuine. “Oh, Your Grace, you are so droll! Everyone knows Thornfield Park is the finest estate in three counties. Mama and I were just saying, were we not, Mama, that we should so love to see the improvements you have made to the east wing.”

We should so love to see ourselves installed in the east wing, Benedict translated silently. Preferably, before the Season ends and you are forced to look elsewhere for a duchess.

“The east wing,” he said, “is largely unchanged.”

It was a lie. He had spent eighteen months and a considerable fortune transforming the east wing into a private library that rivalled anything in London. Three thousand volumes. A reading alcove with windows facing the morning sun. A fireplace large enough to roast an ox—not that he had any intention of roasting oxen, but the proportions pleased him. It was his sanctuary, and he would sooner see it set ablaze than allow Lady Violet to place one slippered foot inside it.

“Unchanged!” Lady Crambourne pressed a gloved hand to her bosom, as though he had announced a death in the family. “But we heard—that is to say, it was remarked in the newspapers—”

“The newspapers,” Benedict cut in smoothly, “are rarely accurate.”

The ballroom pressed in around him, thick with the heat of five hundred candles and three hundred bodies, each of those bodies seemingly determined to edge closer to where he stood. The Earl of Danbury’s annual summer ball was legendary for two reasons: the excellence of its champagne and the suffocating inadequacy of its ventilation. Benedict had attended precisely twice before, and on both occasions he had sworn—privately, vehemently—never to return.

And yet here he stood.

The things one did for one’s mother.

“Your mother seems well,” Lady Crambourne observed, her gaze sliding toward the Dowager Duchess, who held court on the opposite side of the room with the serene authority of a woman who had spent forty years navigating society’s treacherous waters. “We were so pleased to hear she had recovered from her spring cough.”

She sneezed once, Benedict reflected. In March. It was hardly a subject for public concern.

“She is the picture of health,” he agreed, because agreeing was faster than correcting, and faster meant escape.

The heat was becoming unbearable. He could feel perspiration gathering at his collar, an indignity he refused to acknowledge. Across the room, Lord Whitmore was making determined progress through the crowd with the unmistakable air of a man who wanted something—a favour, a loan, an introduction to Benedict’s shipping contacts. To his left, Miss Amelia Thornton and her mother were engaged in an elaborate pantomime of just happening to drift in his direction, their trajectory as transparent as it was relentless.

He was surrounded.

He was always surrounded.

“Lady Violet was just remarking,” Lady Crambourne continued, apparently immune to Benedict’s pointed lack of response, “that she shares Your Grace’s passion for horses. Were you not, my dear? Just this morning you said—”

“I adore horses,” Lady Violet confirmed, her blue eyes wide with manufactured enthusiasm. “Simply adore them. I find there is nothing so invigorating as a morning ride.”

She had rehearsed that line, Benedict thought, with a weariness that had settled into his bones years ago. Very likely she had rehearsed it with her mother, perfecting the precise degree of breathlessness, the exact tilt of her chin.

He did not blame her. He truly did not. Lady Violet had been raised from infancy to secure an advantageous marriage, and securing a duke—this duke, with his fortune, his estates, and his infuriatingly robust health—would be the triumph of her young life. Every accomplishment she possessed, every skill she had cultivated, every carefully chosen gown and practised smile, had been calibrated toward this single goal.

It was not her fault that the goal required her to perform rather than simply be.

But goodness, he was tired of performances.

Benedict looked at her—truly looked, for perhaps the first time that evening. She was beautiful in the manner society demanded women be beautiful: pale skin, fair hair, features arranged in pleasing symmetry. Her gown was the precise shade of pink that suggested both innocence and availability. Her diamonds were impressive without being vulgar. Everything about her was correct.

And he felt absolutely nothing.

“Do you ride often, Lady Violet?”

Her smile faltered—only slightly, but enough. “Well—that is to say—I have ridden. Of course I have ridden. In Hyde Park. Several times.”

“Several times,” he echoed.

“The park is quite pleasant in the mornings.”

“I imagine it is.”

He should stop. He knew he should stop. Lady Violet was not a villain; she was simply a young woman doing what young women of her class had been trained from birth to do—securing the most advantageous match available. He was that match. The richest, the most titled, the most elusive prize on the marriage mart. He could no more fault her for trying than he could blame a hunter for pursuing game.

But he was so very tired of being the quarry.

“Your Grace seems warm,” Lady Crambourne observed, her tone suggesting that his warmth was a personal failing. “Perhaps some refreshment—”

“You are too kind.” Benedict inclined his head with the precise degree of courtesy that could not be faulted yet conveyed no warmth whatsoever. “If you will excuse me, I believe I see Lord Hartington across the room.”

He did not see Lord Hartington. Indeed, he was not even certain Lord Hartington was in attendance. But the lie served its purpose: Lady Crambourne could hardly argue that he did not see Lord Hartington, and so she was forced to release him with a tight smile and a murmured, “Of course, Your Grace.”

Benedict cut through the crowd like a ship through choppy waters, his height and breadth creating a natural passage where lesser men would have been obliged to bob and weave. Six foot three. Shoulders built for riding and fencing. A face described as severe by the kind, frightening by the honest, and utterly devastating by the young lady who had fainted when he asked her to dance three Seasons ago.

He had not asked anyone to dance since.

A hand brushed his elbow—someone attempting to catch his attention—and he pivoted smoothly away, pretending not to have felt it. Another voice called, “Your Grace!” from somewhere to his right, and he inclined his head vaguely in that direction without slowing, the gesture acknowledging without inviting.

These were skills he had honed over a decade of unwilling prominence: the art of appearing to engage while remaining utterly inaccessible; the careful calibration of courtesy that gave no one cause to call him rude while offering no warmth in return.

They call you the Ice Duke, he reminded himself, because you give them nothing else to call you. You chose this.

Had he chosen it? He could not quite remember anymore. The walls had risen gradually, brick by brick, each cool response adding another layer to the fortress. At some point, the fortress had become so solid—so complete—that he could no longer recall what the man inside it had been like before the construction began.

Perhaps there had never been another man.

Perhaps the ice went all the way down.

Where was the bloody door?

 

***

 

The ballroom seemed designed to trap rather than entertain. Every apparent exit led only to another room—and another cluster of people who wanted something from him. The terrace was occupied by couples seeking privacy; he had no desire to interrupt some poor fool’s earnest declaration. The main hall was worse still: a gauntlet of mothers and matchmakers positioned with military precision to intercept any man foolish enough to attempt escape.

He needed air.

He needed silence.

He needed…there. 

A servant’s door, half concealed behind a massive arrangement of hothouse flowers. The staff would use it to ferry champagne and refreshments; no guest would think to look there. It was beneath the dignity of a duke to slip through a servant’s entrance like a thief in his own world, but Benedict had long since abandoned dignity in favour of survival.

He waited until Lady Crambourne’s attention was claimed by a new prospect—a viscount’s heir, poor fellow—and then moved.

The door was unlocked. The corridor beyond was blissfully dim, lit by only a few wall sconces that cast more shadow than light. The air was cooler here, tinged with the practical scents of a working household: beeswax, coal smoke, the distant suggestion of roasting meat. Benedict pressed his back to the wall and closed his eyes.

Breathe.

The sounds of the ballroom faded to a muffled hum. Somewhere deeper in the house came the clatter of dishes, the murmur of servants’ voices, the ordinary chaos of an estate operating at full capacity. No one was watching him here. No one was calculating his income, cataloguing his eligibility, or wondering whether their daughter might be Duchess of Thornfield by Christmas.

For one blessed moment, he was invisible.

This is pathetic, he told himself. You are hiding in a corridor like a child avoiding his governess.

He did not move.

The Season would end in six weeks. Six weeks of balls and dinners and garden parties and musicales—each one a fresh opportunity for society to parade its daughters before him like offerings at some ancient altar. His mother had been patient—more patient than he deserved—but he had seen the way her gaze lingered on other families’ children, the way her smile grew just a touch too bright when his cousins announced their engagements.

She wanted grandchildren. More than that: she wanted to see him happy.

The Dowager Duchess would never say such a thing aloud. She was too well-bred, too conscious of propriety, to press her only son toward marriage. But Benedict saw it in the small things: the care with which she lingered over invitations from families with eligible daughters; the gentle emphasis when she mentioned that Lady So-and-So had been asking after him; the subtle warmth in her voice whenever she spoke of the nursery at Thornfield Park—empty now for over thirty years.

She had loved his father with a passion that had scandalised society at the time. Theirs had been a love match in an age of transactions, a marriage founded on genuine affection rather than convenience. And she wanted that for Benedict. She wanted him to find what she had found.

She did not understand—could not understand—that Benedict no longer believed such things existed. Not for him, anyway. Perhaps they were possible for other people, in other circumstances, but the Ice Duke had frozen too solid to melt.

Or so he had believed.

The irony was almost amusing. He was the Duke of Thornfield: master of three estates, possessor of a fortune that made other wealthy men feel inadequate. He had power, influence, and freedom beyond the imagining of most men. And yet happiness remained as elusive as a shadow at noon—something he sensed might exist, but could never quite grasp.

What would make him happy?

He genuinely did not know.

“—and tell Cook the ice is melting faster than expected. We shall require more from the cellar within the hour.”

Benedict’s eyes snapped open. Footsteps approached from deeper within the corridor. He pushed away from the wall, straightening his coat with the automatic precision of a man who had learned early that appearances were a form of armour.

A housekeeper rounded the corner—middle-aged, harried, already speaking over her shoulder to some unseen subordinate. She stopped short at the sight of him, her expression moving swiftly through surprise, recognition, and professional composure.

“Your Grace.” She dropped into a curtsy, perfectly executed despite her haste. “May I be of assistance?”

“No.” He caught the curtness in his own tone and softened it. The staff were not his enemy. “That is—forgive me. I was merely seeking a moment of quiet.”

Her eyes flickered with something that might have been sympathy. She had likely seen a hundred gentlemen flee these events over the years; Benedict was hardly unique in his desperation.

“The gallery,” she said quietly. “Through that door, up the stairs, then turn left. It overlooks the music room, but no one uses it during events. You will not be disturbed, Your Grace.”

He should return to the ballroom. His mother would notice his absence. Lady Crambourne would notice it as well. Lord Whitmore would notice it too—and take it as a personal slight requiring months of careful navigation to repair.

“Thank you,” Benedict said instead.

The door she indicated was small and unassuming, opening onto a narrow staircase clearly intended for staff rather than guests. Benedict climbed it nonetheless, his evening shoes silent on the worn wooden steps. With each ascent, the sounds of the ball faded further—the music, the laughter, the relentless hum of society consuming itself.

The gallery was exactly as the housekeeper had promised: a long, dim space lined with paintings no one had thought to illuminate. A row of windows overlooked the music room below—currently empty, the performers presumably taking a well-earned respite before the next set. The air here was cooler, carrying the faint mustiness of a room rarely disturbed.

Benedict walked to the windows and looked down.

The music room was elegant in the understated manner of old money: high ceilings, pale walls, a small arrangement of chairs for intimate performances. A pianoforte stood in one corner, draped with a cloth to protect it from dust. And at the centre of the room, positioned as though awaiting its moment, stood a harp.

It was a beautiful instrument, even from this distance. Benedict was no musician—his mother had subjected him to years of pianoforte lessons before conceding that her son possessed all the musical talent of a stone—but he could recognise quality. The harp’s gilded frame caught what little light filtered through the windows, its strings glimmering faintly.

An empty room. A silent instrument. And Benedict alone in the shadows above, watching nothing happen.

This is what your life has become, he thought. Hiding in dark galleries, staring at empty harps, avoiding the very people who would kill for five minutes of your attention.

He should feel guilty. Ashamed of his ingratitude, his coldness, his utter inability to perform the role society expected of him. Other men managed it. His father had managed it, moving through ballrooms like a warm wind, charming everyone he met, making people feel seen in a way Benedict had never mastered.

But his father had also been genuinely kind. Genuinely curious. Genuinely capable of finding joy in a clever remark or a new acquaintance.

Benedict was… not.

The Ice Duke. They thought he did not know. Or perhaps they assumed he did not care. The whispers followed him everywhere—so cold, barely human, they say he smiled once, but no one can confirm it. He had heard the variations from servants who believed him absent, from ladies who underestimated how far sound carried in empty halls.

They were not entirely wrong. He was cold. He was reserved. He had built his walls so high and so thick that he sometimes wondered whether there was anything left inside them—or whether the walls themselves were all that remained: a hollow structure enclosing nothing but empty rooms and silence.

Below, a door opened.

Benedict stiffened, instinctively stepping back from the window. Someone had entered the music room—a figure in a simple dress, carrying something tucked beneath one arm. The light was too dim to distinguish her features, but her posture suggested weariness: shoulders slightly bowed, movements careful rather than confident.

A servant, perhaps. Or a musician returned to collect forgotten belongings.

She crossed to the harp and sat, arranging her skirts with the unconscious grace of someone who had done so a thousand times before. For a moment, she remained still, her hands resting in her lap.

Then she raised her arms, placed her fingers—and began to play.

The first note struck Benedict like a physical blow.

This was no light accompaniment for dancing, no pleasant melody meant to be heard without listening. This was something else entirely. The music wound through the empty room like a living thing—at once melancholic and defiant—each note bleeding into the next with an intimacy that felt almost indecent to witness.

He should leave. He was intruding upon something private, something never meant for an audience. The musician clearly believed herself alone, and there was a vulnerability in her playing that made Benedict feel as though he were trespassing upon her most secret thoughts.

He did not leave.

He could not.

The music tugged at something deep within his chest—something he had long forgotten existed. When had he last felt moved by anything at all? When had he last stood in darkness and allowed himself simply to feel, without calculation or consequence?

He could not remember.

The harpist played on, oblivious to her audience. Her head was bowed, her focus absolute, her fingers moving across the strings with the assurance of long practice. She was not beautiful—or rather, Benedict could not tell whether she was beautiful, could barely make out her features in the dim light. Yet there was something in the way she held herself, in her complete surrender to the music, that rendered beauty entirely beside the point.

She was real.

In a world of performance and pretence, of practised laughter and calculated smiles, she was playing something true.

And she believed herself alone. That was what made it almost unbearable—the privacy of her surrender, the utter absence of awareness that anyone might be listening. She was not playing for an audience. She was not playing to impress or entice or demonstrate accomplishment. She was playing because the music lived inside her and demanded release, and Benedict could hear the difference in every note.

When had anyone ever been that honest with him?

When had he ever been that honest with anyone?

The melody shifted, deepening into something that sounded very like grief. Benedict gripped the windowsill, his knuckles whitening against the wood. He thought of his father’s funeral eight years earlier, of standing in the rain as the coffin was lowered into the ground. He thought of his mother’s face—composed and dry-eyed before the world, shattered and weeping when she believed herself unseen.

He thought of his own silence. His inability to cry, to mourn, to feel anything at all beyond a vast, yawning emptiness that had never quite receded.

Stop, he told himself. This is absurd. You are becoming maudlin over a stranger’s music.

But he did not move. He scarcely breathed.

Below, the harpist ended her piece with a final, lingering chord that seemed to hover in the air long after the strings had fallen still. She remained motionless for a moment, head bowed, hands suspended.

Then she dropped her arms and spoke—to herself, to the empty room, to no one at all.

“Well. That was thoroughly depressing. Even for you.”

Her voice was clear, dry, faintly amused. Benedict blinked, startled by the abrupt shift from raw emotion to self-directed mockery. She stretched, rolling her neck as though stiff from sitting too long, shaking out her hands with small grimaces that suggested soreness.

“Next time,” she continued, quite at ease with addressing herself, “perhaps try something that doesn’t make you want to hurl yourself from a window. You’re meant to be entertaining, not performing your own funeral dirge.”

Despite himself, Benedict felt his mouth twitch.

She stood, wincing slightly as she put weight on legs that had clearly gone stiff. Her dress was plain—darker than fashion dictated, practical rather than decorative. Hired, then. A professional musician, not a guest. That explained the fatigue in her posture, the calluses he imagined on her fingertips, the utter absence of self-consciousness in her movements.

She had no idea anyone was watching. She believed herself alone with her instrument, her aching hands, and her private commentary.

You should go, Benedict told himself. Now. Before she looks up. Before this becomes something you cannot explain.

He should go. He knew he should. This was inappropriate—not in the manner Lady Crambourne would define as improper, not in a way that involved scandal or impropriety. But inappropriate nonetheless. He was observing a woman who had not consented to be observed, bearing witness to a moment that was not his to witness.

He shifted his weight, preparing to step back into the shadows, to retreat and return to the ballroom and pretend none of this had occurred.

The floor creaked.

Below, the harpist’s head snapped up.

Benedict froze. The gallery was dark—too dark for her to see him clearly, he hoped—but she was staring straight at the windows, her posture suddenly taut, her gaze searching the shadows where he stood.

For a long, impossible moment, neither of them moved.

Say something, Benedict thought. Apologise. Explain. Anything.

But his voice had deserted him entirely. He could only stand there, caught between darkness and light, as her gaze swept the gallery like a woman searching for ghosts.

She could not see him. He was nearly certain of it.

And yet—

“I know you’re there,” she called, her voice carrying easily through the glass. “Whoever you are, skulking about in the shadows, you may as well show yourself. I don’t bite.” A pause. “Unless provoked.”

His heart was beating faster than it had in years. He could leave. The sensible thing—the safe thing—would be to go, to pretend he had not heard her, to let her believe she had imagined the sound.

But something in her voice—something in its dry challenge—made him step forward.

“My apologies,” he said, his own voice sounding strange to his ears, lower and rougher than his usual careful tones. “I did not mean to intrude.”

He remained in shadow, his face concealed, his identity intact. The gallery windows were high and dark enough that she could see only his outline—the suggestion of a man, nothing more.

“Did not mean to intrude,” she repeated, her tone implying she found the claim dubious at best. “And yet here you are, lurking like a spectre in the shadows. Do you make a habit of hiding in galleries, or am I simply fortunate enough to be your evening’s entertainment?”

“The former, I’m afraid.” The words escaped before he could stop them—dry, unguarded, entirely unlike the careful evasions he usually offered. “Galleries are excellent for hiding. One of their few virtues.”

“Ah.” He heard the subtle shift in her voice—not quite sympathy, but perhaps curiosity. “Hiding from whom? Or should I say what? The refreshments were rather aggressive this evening.”

“From the refreshments,” he agreed. “And from everything else.”

A pause. He could not read her expression from this distance, could not tell whether she was alarmed, amused, or merely puzzled by this strange exchange with a man in shadow.

“Everything else,” she repeated thoughtfully. “That’s rather comprehensive. Does ‘everything else’ include the dancing? The conversation? The particular expression people get when they’re calculating your fortune while pretending to discuss the weather?”

Something shifted in his chest—surprise, perhaps, at being so precisely understood. “You’ve noticed that expression.”

“Hard not to. It’s quite distinctive. A sort of glassy, acquisitive look, usually paired with phrases like ‘Such a fine evening’ and ‘How fortunate we are to be here.’” She tilted her head. “Though I only observe it from the outside. No one calculates my fortune—I fear the arithmetic would be rather discouraging.”

“And yet you’re here. At one of the Season’s most exclusive events.”

“I’m working at one of the Season’s most exclusive events. There’s a difference.” Her tone held no bitterness, only a dry acceptance of fact. “I provide atmosphere. They provide champagne I’m not permitted to drink.”

“That seems unjust.”

“That seems like life,” she corrected. “Or at least life as arranged for those who play instruments rather than own them.”

Then she laughed.

It bore no resemblance to Lady Violet’s practised trill. It was brief and surprised, as though it had escaped without permission, followed by a quick shake of her head.

“Well,” she said, “hiding in galleries is marginally less pathetic than playing melancholy music to an empty room, so I suppose I’m in no position to judge.” She studied him—or tried to. “You’re not staff, are you? The staff know better than to lurk.”

“I am not staff.”

“A guest, then. One of the important ones, I’d wager, if you’re hiding with this degree of determination. The more important they are, the harder they run.” She paused. “That’s been my observation, at least. The viscounts merely look pained. The earls develop sudden headaches. The dukes…”

She trailed off, and something tightened in Benedict’s chest.

“The dukes?” he prompted, against every instinct urging him to withdraw.

“The dukes,” she said thoughtfully, “vanish altogether. One moment they’re present, the next—poof. As though they were never there at all. I’ve developed a theory that they possess secret passages. Trapdoors, perhaps. It’s the only reasonable explanation.”

She was teasing him. Unknowingly, but unmistakably. The lightness in her voice suggested she was enjoying this peculiar conversation as much as he was.

When was the last time you enjoyed a conversation?

He could not remember. Certainly not at any event this Season. Perhaps not in years.

“I can assure you,” Benedict said, “there are no trapdoors. We simply learn to move quickly.”

Another pause. Longer this time. He could almost feel her attention sharpen, her curiosity narrowing to a point.

“We?” she repeated, her tone carefully neutral.

Fool. He had said too much—revealed more than he ought—and now she would ask questions he could not answer without shattering this strange, impossible moment.

“I should go,” he said, stepping back from the window. “I have intruded long enough.”

“Wait—”

But he was already moving, retreating into the deeper shadows of the gallery, his heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with haste. Behind him, her voice followed—”You can’t simply leave, that’s monstrously unfair—” but he did not stop.

He could not stop.

If he did, he would have to explain. Who he was. Why he was hiding. Why her music had made him feel more in three minutes than the entire Season had managed in three months.

He reached the narrow staircase and descended quickly, his thoughts a chaos of sensation and confusion. Her voice—dry and warm. Her laugh—surprised and genuine. The way she had played, as though the music were the only thing that mattered, the only thing that was real.

Who was she?

He did not even know her name.

The harpist. The woman who spoke to herself in empty rooms and challenged strangers lurking in galleries. The musician whose playing had reached through years of careful numbness and touched something raw beneath it.

She had not trembled when she addressed him. She had not flattered or deferred. She had spoken to him as though he were simply a person—a man hiding from the world, no different from anyone else—rather than a title attached to a fortune.

She does not know who you are, he reminded himself. The moment she learns, she will become like all the others.

And yet he was not entirely certain. Something in her voice—in the sharp intelligence of her replies—suggested she might not. Suggested she might be the rare sort who cared more for the substance of a conversation than the status of the one speaking.

The servants’ corridor was empty when he emerged, the housekeeper nowhere in sight. Benedict paused, forcing himself to breathe, to smooth his expression into the careful blankness society expected of him.

He ought to return to the ballroom. His mother would be looking for him. Lady Crambourne would be circling. Lord Whitmore—whatever his intentions—would be waiting.

Instead, Benedict lingered in the shadows, one hand pressed to the cool stone wall, thinking of a woman he had never seen clearly, speaking to herself in an empty room.

Next time, perhaps try something that doesn’t make you want to hurl yourself from a window.

His mouth twitched again. Almost—not quite, but almost—a smile.

He would discover who she was. Discreetly. Carefully. Without revealing his interest or alerting the vultures who tracked his every movement.

He would learn her name.

And then—

Benedict did not know what would follow. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he did not know what came next—and the uncertainty felt less like danger than possibility.

The Ice Duke turned back toward the ballroom, the echo of her music still resonating in his chest, and allowed himself—just for a moment—to wonder what it might feel like to thaw.

Chapter Two

 

“You’re going to wear holes through your own skin if you keep at that.”

Elara Vance looked up from her hands—raw and reddened, the calluses on her fingertips cracked and sore—to find Margaret Byrne watching her from the narrow bed opposite. The violinist was propped on one elbow, her greying hair loose about her shoulders, her expression hovering somewhere between sympathy and exasperation.

“I’m not at anything,” Elara said, though she immediately stopped the unconscious motion of rubbing her thumb across her palm. “I was merely… examining.”

“You were worrying.” Margaret sat up, the ancient bedframe groaning in protest. “You’ve been worrying since we arrived, and now you’re worrying at three in the morning by candlelight, which is a particular sort of worrying that leads to shadows beneath the eyes and missed notes.”

“I do not miss notes.”

“No,” Margaret agreed. “You do not. Which is precisely why you should stop worrying and start sleeping, before you become the sort of musician who does.”

The candle on the small table between their beds flickered, casting restless shadows across the cramped attic room. It was plainly a servants’ space: low ceiling, bare walls, a single narrow window that admitted little light even at midday. Three beds had been wedged into a room meant for two, and the third was occupied by Miss Patience Wheeler, a flautist of middling talent and remarkable snoring ability, who had somehow slept through the entire exchange.

Elara envied her that oblivion.

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted quietly. “My mind won’t settle.”

Margaret’s expression softened. She was fifty if she was a day, a widow who had turned to professional musicianship when her husband’s death left her with little beyond debts and a gift for the violin. She had been kind to Elara from the first day they were hired together, two years earlier—kind in the practical, unsentimental manner of women who had learned that tenderness was a luxury. they could not afford.

“Is it your father?”

The question landed with surprising force. Elara felt something tighten in her chest.

“No. Yes.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything, perhaps.”

“That’s rather a great deal to keep you awake.”

“Yes. It is.”

Margaret was quiet for a moment. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed and crossed the cold floor to sit beside Elara on her narrow mattress. The bed dipped under their combined weight; Elara felt the other woman’s warmth through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

“Tell me,” Margaret said simply.

And because it was three in the morning, and she was exhausted, and Margaret was the closest thing she had to a friend in this glittering, unforgiving world of hired entertainment, Elara did.

She spoke of the letter that had arrived the previous day—the third that month—from Mrs Pembley, her father’s housekeeper:

His cough has worsened. The apothecary recommends a specialist. I did not wish to alarm you, but I thought you should know. 

She spoke of the calculations that had followed, the weary arithmetic of wages and expenses that never quite resolved. She spoke of the fear that lodged itself in her stomach like a cold knot—the fear that one day a letter would begin I regret to inform you, and everything she had worked for would become meaningless.

She did not speak of the man in the gallery.

That she kept to herself, folded away in her thoughts like a letter she was not yet prepared to open. The voice in the shadows—low, rough. The dry humour that had startled a laugh from her. The way he had said ‘we simply learn to move quickly’, as though he were confessing something secret.

We.

She had been turning that word over in her mind for hours, examining it like a jeweller examining a suspect gem. We. Dukes, he had meant. He had been speaking of dukes.

Which meant either he was mistaken, or he was lying—or—

Or he was a duke himself.

Elara had encountered precisely two dukes in her three-and-twenty years, both in passing, both in ways that made it abundantly clear she was part of the furnishings—no more worthy of notice than a chair or a candelabra. Dukes did not converse with hired musicians. They certainly did not hide in galleries and joke about trapdoors.

And yet—

The authority in his voice. The practised ease with which he spoke of evasion. The cut of his coat, discernible even in shadow—

“Elara.”

Margaret’s voice broke through her thoughts. “You’ve wandered off entirely.”

“I’m sorry.” Elara drew herself back into the small room—the narrow beds, the close walls, the window that admitted no dawn. “I’m tired. My thoughts are… unfocused.”

“To anywhere interesting?”

To a dark gallery and a stranger’s voice and a conversation that has no business lingering in my mind.

“No,” Elara lied. “Nowhere of interest.”

 

***

 

She did not sleep.

When the first grey light of morning crept through the narrow window, Elara abandoned the attempt altogether. She dressed quietly, careful not to disturb Margaret or Patience, and slipped out into the servants’ corridor beyond.

The great house was altered at this hour. The noise and glitter of the previous evening had fallen away, leaving a kind of weary stillness—the hush of a creature at rest after excess. Elara moved easily through the back passages, guided by long familiarity: the stairs used by footmen, the corridors where maids bore linens, the doors that connected the hidden spaces of the house to its public rooms.

She had learned, over years of such engagements, that every great house contained two houses within it. There was the one the guests saw—marble and gilt and imported wallpaper—and the one the servants knew, all narrow passages and practical corners. The guests drifted through their polished world without ever noticing the plain wooden hallways and narrow staircases that made their comfort possible.

Elara existed somewhere between the two. Not quite a servant—she was paid for her skill, free to depart when the engagement ended—but not a guest either. She belonged nowhere, and she had long since ceased expecting otherwise.

The music room was empty, just as she had hoped. The harp stood where she had left it, its strings catching the pale morning light like fine threads. She crossed to it and sat, brushing her fingers lightly along the frame before setting her hands in place.

She ought to practice something impressive. Something demanding. Something that would remind Lady Danbury why she had hired her—something that might earn a recommendation to other houses, other parties, other endless evenings of playing pretty music for people who barely listened.

Instead, she began to play the same piece she had played the night before—the one too sorrowful, too unorthodox for polite company. The melody slipped free before she could prevent it, curling through the empty room like smoke.

She had written it after her mother’s death, ten years earlier. She had been thirteen, all elbows and grief, sitting at the old pianoforte while her father wept in the next room. The notes had come without thought, grief translated into sound, and she had never played it without feeling that same hollow ache open in her chest.

You’re being maudlin, she told herself sternly. Self-indulgent. What good does it do, wallowing in old pain?

Yet her fingers did not stop. The music continued, and somewhere in the midst of it, she realised her thoughts had strayed.

Not to her mother.

To him.

The man in the gallery. The voice in the dark.

I was merely seeking a moment of quiet.

She had believed him. That, more than anything, unsettled her. In her experience, men who lingered in shadows were not to be trusted. But his voice had held no calculation—only fatigue, and a faint, dry self-awareness.

He had sounded like a man very tired of something. Tired enough to hide rather than endure it.

From the refreshments. And from everything else.

She had laughed at that. She, who made it a rule never to laugh at the jokes of strange men in darkened rooms, had laughed before she could stop herself. Because he had sounded so entirely sincere in his absurdity—so matter-of-fact about his own ridiculousness—that the sound escaped her before her better judgment could intervene.

And then he had fled.

That was the part she could not make sense of. She had been the one in the more vulnerable position—alone, unguarded, confronted by an unknown man in an isolated space. By all rights, she ought to have been the one to retreat. Instead, he had been the one to withdraw, melting back into the shadows the moment she pressed him, vanishing as though he were the one with something to fear.

Who are you? she had wanted to call after him. Who are you really, and why do you hide, and why does your voice sound like something I wish to keep hearing?

She had let him go. She had gathered her composure and returned to her room to lie awake until dawn, thinking about a conversation that had lasted perhaps five minutes and ought to have meant nothing at all.

It meant nothing, she reminded herself now, her fingers finding the final chord of her small, melancholy composition. He was a stranger. You will likely never see him again. And even if you do, what then? You are a musician. He is—whatever he is. There is no world in which those two realities meet.

The last note faded into silence.

Elara sat very still, her hands resting on the strings, feeling the faint vibration diminish beneath her fingertips.

Then, because she was sensible and had little patience for indulgence, she straightened her spine and began to play something appropriate. A Bach prelude—clean, orderly, emotionally contained. The sort of music that demanded enough attention to quiet the treacherous drift of her thoughts.

She had been carried on by the music for quite some time before the door opened.

Her hands faltered—a miss, a genuine one, the first in weeks—and she looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway. Middle-aged, severe, dressed in the unmistakable uniform of an upper servant: dark gown, white cap, a ring of keys at her waist.

“Miss Vance?” The woman’s voice was crisp and efficient. “I am Mrs Blackwell, in Lady Danbury’s service.”

Elara rose, smoothing her skirts with hands that wished to tremble and were not permitted to do so. “Good morning, Mrs Blackwell. I beg your pardon if I was not meant to be practising for so long—”

“You were not,” Mrs Blackwell said, not unkindly. “However, that is not why I sought you out. There has been a request.”

“A request?”

“For your services. A private breakfast gathering tomorrow morning. Quite small—no more than a dozen guests. You are desired to provide music for the duration.”

Elara’s heart stumbled. Private gatherings were highly advantageous. They offered visibility, recommendation, the possibility of future engagements. A successful performance at such an event could lead to further invitations in a way a crowded ball never could.

“I would be honoured,” she said carefully. “May I ask who made the request?”

Mrs Blackwell consulted the small notebook in her hand. “The arrangements were made through the Dowager Duchess of Thornfield, who will be among the guests. She expressed particular interest in hearing the harpist.”

The Dowager Duchess of Thornfield.

Elara knew the name, of course. Anyone who worked these circles did. Thornfield was one of the oldest and wealthiest dukedoms in England, possessed of a fortune that made other rich families appear modest by comparison. The current duke was—what was he called? The Ice Duke. She had heard the whispers, seen him indicated across crowded rooms, though never close enough to distinguish his features. Tall. Dark. Cold. The most eligible bachelor in England and, by all accounts, the least inclined to care.

But it was the Dowager Duchess who had requested her. A widow. An older woman. Someone who valued music enough to desire a private performance.

This is an opportunity, Elara told herself firmly. This is precisely what you need. Stop wool-gathering about strangers in galleries and focus on what matters.

“Please convey my gratitude to Her Grace,” she said. “I will prepare something suitable.”

Mrs Blackwell nodded, made a note, and departed with the same brisk efficiency.

Elara remained alone in the music room, morning light now filling the space, and allowed herself one brief moment of hope.

If she impressed the Dowager Duchess—truly impressed her—there might be further engagements. Regular work. Enough income to pay for her father’s specialist, to ease the debts that accrued as she travelled from house to house, perhaps even to set aside enough one day to stop travelling altogether.

The music school.

The thought surfaced unbidden, as it always did. Her secret ambition, rarely acknowledged. A school for girls like herself—talented, unconnected, told that music was a pleasing accomplishment but never a livelihood. A place where they could learn properly, could refine their skill, could become musicians rather than ornaments for someone else’s parlour.

It was an impossible dream. Schools required capital, premises, patronage—the sort of resources a hired harpist would never possess, no matter how many private breakfasts she played.

Still, she permitted herself the thought in quiet moments. It was the only indulgence she allowed herself: the fantasy of a future that might belong to her.

She returned to the harp and began to practise in earnest.

 

***

 

The letter arrived just before noon.

Elara had returned to the attic room to change—appearances were expected, even in servants’ quarters—when one of the maids appeared at the door with an envelope.

“For you, miss. Came with the morning post.”

The handwriting was instantly familiar: Mrs Pembley’s careful, slightly uneven script. Elara’s chest tightened as she accepted the letter, her fingers suddenly cold despite the warmth of the day.

“Thank you,” she said, and waited until the maid had gone before breaking the seal.

 

Dear Miss Vance,

 

I write with news that I fear cannot be delayed until your return. Since my last letter, your father’s condition has grown materially worse. The cough has settled deep upon his chest, and he now suffers from a fever which the local apothecary has been unable to relieve.

The physician who attends him has urged, in the strongest terms, that we seek the opinion of a specialist from London. In consequence, I have made what inquiries I could. There is a Mr Hartley who has met with some success in cases of this nature; however, his fees are considerable and far exceed what remains in the household accounts.

I have taken the liberty of setting down an estimate of the expected expense below.

I do not wish to alarm you unduly. Your father bears his illness with fortitude, and his spirits remain good, though his strength is much reduced. Nevertheless, I felt it my duty to inform you fully, that you may judge what steps ought now to be taken.

 

I remain, dear Miss Vance,

your faithful and devoted servant,

Mrs Pembley

 

Below the signature was a column of figures. Elara read them once, twice, three times, as though repetition might somehow change their meaning.

The specialist’s consultation fee alone was more than she earned in a month. The estimated cost of treatment—assuming treatment was even possible—was more than she earned in a year.

She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, the letter crumpling slightly in her grip.

How?

The question echoed, unanswered. How was she to manage such a sum? She could accept every engagement available for years and still fall short. She could seek a permanent post—but such positions were scarce, and seldom offered to women.

She could marry.

The thought arrived coldly, without sentiment. She was not without appeal. There were men who might overlook her lack of fortune in exchange for a wife who could entertain. Merchants. Minor gentry.

She could sell herself, in effect. Trade freedom for security.

No.

The refusal was immediate. Absolute. The thought of a life spent as someone’s decorative wife, her ambitions quietly extinguished—

She would rather starve.

But it is not about you, whispered a treacherous voice. It is about your father. Would you see him suffer for the sake of your pride?

Elara pressed her hands to her face, the letter still clutched between her fingers. The paper was damp—when had she begun to cry?—and she forced herself to breathe, to think, to be practical, as she had always been.

There had to be another way. There was always another way. She simply had to find it.

The private breakfast. That was a beginning. If she impressed the Dowager Duchess, if she earned recommendations, if she built her reputation enough to command higher fees—

It would take too long. Years, most likely. And her father did not have years.

Stop, she told herself firmly. Stop this. You have a performance to prepare for, and you will help no one by dissolving into tears.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, folded the letter with care, and tucked it into her travelling case alongside the others. A small, damning collection—the chronicle of her father’s decline, written in Mrs Pembley’s increasingly anxious hand.

She would think about it later. She would find a solution later. For now, she had work to do.

 

***

 

The afternoon passed in a blur of practice and preparation. Elara selected pieces for the breakfast gathering with painstaking care: nothing too melancholy, nothing too lively, a careful balance of the familiar and the impressive. She wished to demonstrate skill without ostentation, to provide atmosphere without demanding notice. It was a delicate balance, one that separated competent musicians from truly accomplished ones.

She practised until her fingers ached, until the cracked calluses bled faintly against the strings. She ignored the pain. She had played through worse.

You are a professional, she reminded herself. Your troubles are irrelevant. The music is what matters. Focus on the music.

But her mind kept drifting.

Not to the letter—she had set that firmly aside—but to the stranger in the gallery. His voice, low and rough, threading through her concentration like a tune she could not quite dislodge. The way he had said ‘everything else’ as though he meant it. The sound of his retreating steps, quick and almost unguarded, as though she were the dangerous one.

Who are you?

She would likely never know. Whoever he was—duke, eccentric, or idle gentleman amusing himself—he had vanished into the shadowed world of the quality, where hired musicians did not follow. She would complete this engagement, move on to the next, and eventually forget the brief conversation that had lodged itself so inconveniently in her mind.

Eventually.

 

***

 

The dinner hour came and went. The musicians were fed in the servants’ hall—good food, better than Elara ate at home, though served in portions carefully measured to remind them of their place. She sat with Margaret and Patience and the others, exchanging mild observations about the evening’s entertainment, and took care not to mention the private breakfast, or the Dowager Duchess, or the fragile hopes she was allowing herself to entertain.

If she gave them voice, they might break.

The evening’s performance passed without incident. A string quartet, then a soprano, then Elara on the harp for the final hour while the guests mingled and conversed and occasionally—if she was fortunate—paused long enough to listen. She played her usual repertoire: pleasant, undemanding, the sort of music that settled into the room like wallpaper.

She did not play her own composition. That was private. That was hers.

Afterwards, she packed away her music and returned to the attic room, where Margaret was already asleep and Patience snored with alarming enthusiasm. Elara changed into her nightgown, braided her hair, and sat on the edge of the bed while the candle burned low.

She ought to sleep. Tomorrow was important—perhaps the most important performance she had yet undertaken. She needed rest. She needed clarity.

But her mind would not settle.

It returned, again and again, to the same fragments: a shadowed gallery, a dry voice, a moment of unguarded laughter.

‘I was merely seeking a moment of quiet.’

Hiding.

‘From the refreshments. And from everything else.’

She had made him laugh—or she thought she had. There had been a warmth in his tone, a brief easing that had felt strangely like triumph. It was absurd, to feel victorious over the laughter of a stranger. Absurd to feel anything at all over five minutes of conversation in the dark.

You are being foolish, she told herself. He has likely forgotten you already. He is probably seated in some drawing room at this very moment, discussing horses or politics, and the harpist who challenged him in a gallery is of no consequence at all.

This was almost certainly true.

It did not stop her wondering.

Who requested me for the breakfast?

The question arrived suddenly, sharp and unsettling. The Dowager Duchess, Mrs Blackwell had said. The Dowager Duchess of Thornfield.

But how had the Dowager Duchess known to request her? Elara had not played alone the previous evening; she had been part of the ensemble, anonymous, indistinguishable from the others. There was no reason she should have been noticed.

Unless someone had pointed her out.

Unless someone had asked after the harpist.

Unless—

Stop. She pinched the bridge of her nose. You are inventing connections where none exist. The request was surely general. The staff simply selected you. There is no mystery, no unseen hand guiding events. You are not the heroine of a Gothic novel.

She extinguished the candle and lay down, pulling the thin blanket to her chin.

Tomorrow would be long. She needed rest.

Yet as sleep finally claimed her, her last coherent thought was not of the Dowager Duchess, nor of her father’s illness, nor of the impossible sums she must somehow find.

It was of a voice in the darkness, saying, We simply learn to move quickly.

And of her own voice, calling after him.

You can’t simply leave; that’s monstrously unfair—

But he had left. He had vanished into the shadows as though he had never been there at all.

And Elara, despite every sensible instinct she possessed, found herself hoping—just a little, just enough to be dangerous—that she might see him again.

 

***

 

She dreamed of music.

Not her own compositions, not the polite pieces she played for guests, but something stranger—a melody she had never heard before, played on an instrument she couldn’t identify. It wound through the darkness of her sleeping mind like a silver thread, pulling her forward, drawing her deeper into shadows that somehow felt safe rather than threatening.

In the dream, she followed the sound through an endless gallery, past windows that looked out on nothing but darkness. She was searching for something—someone. A figure always just ahead of her, visible only as a silhouette against some distant, sourceless light.

Wait, she tried to call. Please wait—

The figure paused. Turned.

And she woke.

Morning light—real light, not the thin grey of dawn but the honest gold of late morning—streamed through the small window. Elara sat upright with a gasp, her heart racing, her skin cool with the remnants of the dream.

What time is it?

She scrambled from the bed, nearly catching her foot in the coverlet, and found Margaret standing by the door, her expression one of fond exasperation.

“I was about to wake you. Mrs Blackwell sent a reminder—the breakfast gathering begins in an hour.”

An hour. She had overslept.

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Elara was already reaching for her dress, fumbling with the buttons. “I need to warm up, review my selections, I need—”

“You needed sleep.” Margaret caught her arm, halting her frantic movement. “You have been over-strained since we arrived. A few additional hours will not harm your playing—and they may do much to steady your nerves.”

“I don’t have nerves.”

“You have nothing but nerves, child. You’ve simply learned to keep them tidy.” Margaret gave her arm a gentle pat. “Now breathe. Dress. You have time.”

Elara followed the advice, drawing a steadying breath as she did so.

Forty-five minutes later, she sat at the harp in a small, sunlit parlour, watching the guests arrive for their private breakfast. The room was elegant but unpretentious—a handful of small tables, chairs drawn close for conversation, servants moving quietly to pour tea and arrange pastries. It was not a formal dining room, but a space meant for comfort.

Elara let her gaze pass over the company as they entered, noting faces and fashions out of habit. Several ladies of mature years in restrained morning dress. A few younger guests already forming flirtatious clusters.

And then—

Her fingers stilled on the strings.

Him.

He stood in the doorway, no longer the shadowed figure of the gallery but unmistakably a gentleman of consequence. His coat was dark and impeccably cut, the sort that cost more than she earned in half a year. His cravat was arranged with deliberate precision; a gold watch chain caught the light at his waist.

But it was him all the same. The height. The breadth of shoulder. The air of a man accustomed to attention—and weary of it.

He was speaking to an older woman beside him—the Dowager Duchess, Elara realised with a jolt.

His mother.

His mother requested me.

The thought struck with sudden force. He must have asked after her. There was no other explanation for how the Dowager Duchess had known to request the harpist, or why—

He turned his head.

Their eyes met.

For one suspended moment, the room seemed to fall away. His expression was unreadable—the carefully composed mask that had earned him his reputation. But his eyes were not cold. They were dark, alert, and fixed upon her with an intensity that made her breath catch.

Then Lord Danbury addressed him, some genial remark, and the moment shattered.

He looked away. He replied. He crossed the room and took a seat beside his mother, his face once more smooth and inscrutable.

Elara’s hands were trembling.

She pressed them flat against her skirts, hidden by the curve of the harp, and forced herself to breathe. She was a professional. She had been engaged to play. Whatever strange chance—or design—had brought them together again, she could not afford distraction.

Play, she told herself. 

She raised her hands to the strings.

And she played.

She played better than she had ever played in her life.

She would not later be able to explain it. The unease, the confusion, the sharp awareness thrumming through her—somehow it all flowed into the music. Not her private composition, nor the carefully neutral pieces she had prepared, but something between the two. Something poised between propriety and truth, between performance and admission.

She did not look at him. She could not. But she felt his attention as surely as if it were a physical thing—steady, intent, impossible to ignore.

The breakfast lasted an hour. It might have lasted a century.

When it ended—when chairs were pushed back and servants began their quiet work—Elara let the final note fade and allowed herself to look up.

He was standing by the window now, his back to the room, apparently absorbed in the garden beyond. The Dowager Duchess was speaking to Lady Danbury, her voice warm with compliments that Elara could barely hear over the rushing in her own ears.

Go, she told herself. Gather your music and go. Whatever game this is, you need not be part of it.

She collected her sheets, straightened them with hands that only slightly betrayed her nerves, and rose.

And then—because she seemed incapable of following her own good sense—she looked at him once more.

He had turned from the window.

He was watching her.

His expression was composed, distant. But his eyes held something else—recognition, perhaps, or understanding—that made her pause.

I know you, they seemed to say. I heard you that night in the gallery. I see you now.

She ought to look away. To curtsy and leave and put the Duke of Thornfield entirely out of her thoughts.

Instead, she held his gaze for one heartbeat longer.

Then, because she was sensible and cautious and quite unprepared for whatever lay between them, she turned and left the room.

Her heart was racing.

Her hands still trembled.

And somewhere beneath the sensible warnings and careful resolve, a small, reckless part of her wondered—just enough to be dangerous—when she might see him again.

Chapter Three

 

The Previous Day

 

“You seem preoccupied this morning, Your Grace.”

Benedict looked up from his untouched breakfast to find Graves observing him with the particular expression his valet reserved for moments of restrained disapproval. It was subtle—a slight tightening about the eyes, a mouth held in careful neutrality—but after fifteen years, Benedict read it as readily as print.

“I am not preoccupied,” he said. “I am thinking.”

“Indeed.” Graves moved to replenish Benedict’s coffee cup, though it was still three-quarters full. “And what occupies Your Grace’s thoughts so thoroughly that he has allowed his eggs to grow cold?”

Benedict glanced down at his plate. The eggs had congealed into an unappetising mass, and he could not recall neglecting them. The morning light had shifted since he had taken his seat.

“Nothing of consequence,” he said.

It was an obvious falsehood, and Graves did not trouble to respond. He merely raised an eyebrow and resumed his unnecessary straightening of the already immaculate chamber. The performance allowed him to remain without hovering—an art perfected by those who served masters who claimed to value solitude yet rarely prospered in it.

Nothing of consequence.

Benedict had been repeating those words to himself since the previous evening, and had not believed them once.

A woman’s voice. A handful of minutes. The sound of harp strings in an empty room.

Trifles. The sort of moments that occurred at every house party, only to be forgotten as soon as they passed.

So why did they linger?

He pushed his plate aside and rose, crossing to the window. His rooms at Danbury House were generous—befitting his rank—with a sitting area, dressing room, and a bedchamber of proportions more suited to entertaining than repose. Everything was orderly. Polished. Exact. And as always in such spaces, he felt restless, confined.

The harpist.

Her face rose unbidden in his mind—not as he had seen her last night in the dim music room, but as he imagined she might look in daylight. Dark hair, he thought. Sharp features. An expressiveness when she played that had transformed her from merely pretty to something far more dangerous.

He had slept poorly.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he heard her voice—dry, unguarded, wholly unimpressed.

Do you make a habit of hiding in galleries, or am I simply fortunate enough to be your evening’s entertainment?

No one spoke to him so. Few dared. He was the Duke of Thornfield, the Ice Duke, a man whose presence alone could still a room. Young women faltered beneath his notice; their mothers calculated and persisted. Even men of his own standing treated him with circumspection.

And this woman—this hired musician—had challenged him without hesitation.

He had retreated like a boy discovered in some petty mischief.

“Graves,” he said, keeping his tone level. “The musicians engaged for this week. What do you know of them?”

If Graves found the question unusual, he gave no sign. “There are several, Your Grace. A string quartet from London, quite reputable. A soprano of some renown. A flautist. And a harpist, I believe—Miss Vance, if memory serves.”

“Miss Vance.” Benedict considered the name. It was plain, unembellished, and suited her. “What else?”

“I could enquire further, if Your Grace wishes.”

“Discreetly.”

Graves inclined his head. “I should not know how to do otherwise.”

Benedict almost smiled. Graves had been with him since Benedict was seventeen—a young valet assigned to a young lord, both of them learning their roles together. Over the years, that relationship had evolved into something that defied easy categorisation. Graves was his servant, yes, but also his confidant, his advisor, and quite possibly the only person in the world who was not afraid of him.

“Learn what you can,” Benedict said. “Her circumstances. Her background. Why she is playing at house parties rather than instructing in some respectable household.”

“And may I ask,” Graves said carefully, “the reason for Your Grace’s interest?”

Benedict considered deflecting. He did not.

“I heard her play last night. When she believed herself alone.” He paused. “It was… uncommon.”

Graves was quiet for a moment. Then, very carefully, he said: “Your Grace has not expressed interest in a young lady since… well. In some time.”

“This is not interest.” The denial came too quickly, too sharp. Benedict heard it and winced. “It is curiosity. She spoke to me—without knowing who I was—with a frankness I found… refreshing.”

“Refreshing.” Graves’s tone was studiously neutral. “I see.”

“You see nothing. You imagine too much.”

“I would never presume to imagine, Your Grace.”

But there was a gleam in the valet’s eye that suggested he was, in fact, presuming quite extensively. Benedict chose to ignore it.

“Just find out what you can. And Graves—”

“Your Grace?”

“Do not mention this conversation to my mother.”

 

***

 

The Dowager Duchess of Thornfield was holding court in the morning room when Benedict found her, surrounded by a small circle of admirers who hung on her every word. At sixty-two, Charlotte Wycliffe remained a formidable presence: silver-haired, sharp-eyed, possessed of a wit that could cut glass and a warmth that could melt it just as quickly.

She saw Benedict enter and smiled—a real smile, the kind she reserved for him alone. “Ah, there you are, my dear. I was beginning to think you had been carried off by wolves.”

“You were not entirely mistaken,” he replied, bending to kiss her cheek. “Though the wolves here are far more interested in matrimony than in murder—and I am not persuaded the distinction is an improvement.”

“Benedict.” Her voice held a mild reproach. “Lady Crambourne is a perfectly respectable woman.”

“Lady Crambourne conducts courtship like a military campaign. I spent twenty minutes last night hearing about her daughter’s many passions.”

“Lady Violet is fond of riding.”

“Lady Violet has ridden precisely three times—all in Hyde Park, all at a walk. I enquired.”

His mother’s mouth twitched. “You are quite impossible.”

“I prefer to think of myself as discerning.”

The other guests in the morning room had politely pretended not to hear this exchange, though Benedict noticed several fans fluttering with increased vigour. He ignored them. He had long ago accepted that his every word and gesture would be analysed, discussed, and probably misreported in drawing rooms across London.

“Walk with me,” he said to his mother. “I should welcome the air.”

She accepted his arm without remark, and together they left the morning room, passing through a succession of quieter corridors before emerging into the bright disorder of the garden. It was a warm day, the sort of summer morning that briefly persuaded England it was not made for rain. The grounds at Danbury House were handsome—formal beds yielding to less disciplined growth, paths winding toward distant follies and secluded seats. Benedict guided his mother to a bench beneath an old oak, far enough from the house to discourage interruption.

“Now,” Charlotte said, settling herself with the practised ease of a woman long accustomed to being comfortably seated. “Tell me what weighs upon you.”

“Nothing weighs upon me.”

“Benedict. I have known you all your life. I tended you in childhood, comforted you through every fear, and watched you grow from a solemn boy into an equally solemn man. I know when you are disturbed.”

He had expected nothing less. His mother had always been able to read him, even when he took care not to be read.

“There was a musician,” he said at last. “At last night’s ball. A harpist.”

Charlotte’s expression remained composed, but her attention sharpened. “Yes. I noticed her. She played very beautifully.”

“You noticed her.”

“I make a habit of it.” She regarded him thoughtfully. “She was playing alone later in the evening, I believe. In the music room, after the others had finished. I heard her as I passed.”

Something tightened in Benedict’s chest. His mother had heard it too—that private, sorrowful piece that had felt less like performance than confession.

“What did you think?” he asked, uncertain he wished to hear the answer.

“I thought,” Charlotte said slowly, “that whoever was playing had known real grief—not the sort people adopt for effect, but the kind that alters one’s voice.” She paused. “And I thought you must have heard her as well, for you vanished at much the same time and returned looking… altered.”

“Altered how?”

“Less encased.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “You have worn your reserve like armour for a very long time, Benedict. I had nearly forgotten you might lay it aside.”

He ought to deny it. To deflect with wit or irritation. But her gaze was too perceptive, and he was weary of evasion.

“I spoke to her,” he said. “Briefly. She did not know who I was.”

“Ah.” The single sound conveyed understanding. “And that pleased you.”

“I… yes.” The admission felt perilous. “She was not intimidated. She did not perform. She was simply herself.”

Charlotte was silent, her eyes drifting to the roses climbing the garden wall.

“Your father was much the same,” she said at last. “Before our marriage. He never treated me as a conquest or an advantage. He spoke to me as though I were a person—frequently an exasperating one, but a person nonetheless.”

“Mother—”

“I am not proposing anything,” she said mildly. “I know better than to interfere. I merely observe that it has been some time since you have spoken of anyone with that particular tone in your voice.”

“What tone?”

“Interest,” she said, smiling. “Curiosity. The sound of a man who has encountered something that does not weary him.”

Benedict opened his mouth to object, then thought better of it.

“What of her?” Charlotte prompted.

He hesitated. He could not speak of the gallery, of the shadows and the strange intimacy of that brief exchange.

“I thought,” he said carefully, “that you might enjoy a smaller entertainment. Tomorrow morning, perhaps. A private breakfast. The harpist could provide music.”

“And this harpist would be Miss Vance?”

He should not have been surprised that she knew the name.

“Yes.”

“I see.” Charlotte considered for a moment, then smiled—quietly, decisively. “An excellent notion. I shall speak to Lady Danbury.”

“Mother—”

“Leave it with me. You have sufficient burdens without managing breakfasts.” She rose, patting his arm. “And now—Lady Crambourne was asking after you. Something about the picture gallery.”

“I would prefer the wolves.”

“The wolves are otherwise engaged. The gallery is not.” She turned toward the house. “Go. Be agreeable. Or at least be present.”

She departed before he could reply, leaving Benedict with the distinct impression that he had been thoroughly directed.

 

***

 

By noon, Graves had returned with information.

“Miss Elara Vance,” the valet said, standing discreetly at attention while Benedict pretended to consider a selection of cravats. “Twenty-three years of age. Daughter of Mr Henry Vance, a gentleman apothecary of Harbury Cross—respectable, though of limited means. Her mother died when she was young. She has earned her living as a professional musician for approximately five years.”

“A gentleman apothecary.” Benedict frowned at a cravat he had no intention of wearing. “That’s an unusual phrase.”

“Mr Vance was university-trained, Your Grace. Cambridge, I believe. He entered the profession after financial reverses—there are rumours, but no clear account.”

“And Miss Vance herself?”

“Well-regarded in musical circles. Her harp playing, in particular, is considered exceptional. I’m told she studied under a Signor Marchetti—an Italian master—though how such instruction was afforded is unclear.” Graves consulted his notes. “She is punctual, diligent, and causes no difficulty. The staff speak well of her. The other musicians note that she keeps somewhat apart.”

“Keeps apart?”

“She does not seek society. She practices, performs, and withdraws. She does not ingratiate herself.” Graves paused. “She is self-contained.”

Self-contained. It was an apt description. Benedict thought of the way she had challenged him in the gallery—direct, unafraid, but not aggressive. As though she had measured herself against the world and decided she needed nothing from it that she could not earn herself.

“There is one further matter, Your Grace.”

“Yes?”

“Her father is gravely ill. It appears she sends most of her earnings home to support his care.”

Benedict’s hands stilled on the cravat. “How gravely?”

“I could not learn particulars. But she received a letter the other day that distressed her greatly. She was observed practising alone at dawn.”

Her father is ill. She is exhausting herself to support him. And I thought her driven merely by devotion to her art.

She was passionate, certainly. But there was more to her story than passion—there was necessity, anxiety, the quiet, grinding fear of watching someone you loved decline and knowing your efforts might still not be enough.

Benedict thought of his own father’s death. The long illness. The waiting. The helplessness. The vast grief that had swallowed him and never entirely released its hold.

“Thank you, Graves,” he said. His voice was rougher than he intended. “That will be all.”

“Your Grace.” A pause. “If I may be so bold, the young lady’s circumstances appear difficult. Should Your Grace be inclined to offer assistance—”

“She would refuse it.” Benedict did not hesitate. He could not have explained how he knew—only that something in her bearing, in the quiet pride of her voice, made him certain of it. “She is not one to accept charity.”

“Then perhaps not charity,” Graves said quietly. “Perhaps… something else.”

Graves withdrew before Benedict could ask what he meant by that. But the words lingered, tantalising and frustrating in equal measure.

Something else.

What, precisely, could he offer her? Employment? Patronage? Protection?

None of it could be given without revealing who he was. And if she knew he was the Duke of Thornfield, everything would change. She would become careful. Guarded. Another woman measuring her words for advantage.

He did not want that. He wanted…

He wanted to hear her play again. He wanted to finish the conversation the gallery had denied them. He wanted to know whether her wit was always that keen, whether her laughter always carried that note of surprise, whether the frankness in her voice was something she gave freely—or something he had, improbably, earned.

You are being ridiculous, he told himself. She is a musician. You are a duke. There is no world in which those two things meet without disaster.

And yet he knew he would seek her out again—at breakfast, if his mother’s arrangements held. And beyond that, he would find a way. An excuse.

He was the Duke of Thornfield. He could do anything he pleased.

Except, it seemed, stop thinking about a harpist with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue who had challenged him from the shadows.

 

***

 

The breakfast gathering took place the following morning, precisely as his mother had promised. Benedict dressed with more care than usual—then, at the last moment, removed the elaborate cravat and diamond stickpin and replaced them with simpler ones.

“Your Grace?” Graves allowed a hint of surprise.

“It is a breakfast,” Benedict said. “Not a grand dinner.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

He ignored the knowing look and proceeded to the small parlour prepared for the occasion.

She was already there.

She sat at her harp, dressed in a simple morning gown that was probably her best but would have been considered plain by any of the ladies present. Her hair was pinned up in a practical style, a few dark strands escaping to frame her face. Her hands rested on her lap, still for now, but he could see the calluses on her fingertips from across the room.

She looked tired. Beautiful, but tired—the kind of tired that came from carrying too much for too long.

Her father is ill.

The knowledge sat heavy in his chest as he entered the room beside his mother, nodding to the other guests, 

And then she began to play.

It was different from the other night—more controlled, more polished, the kind of performance designed to please rather than to move. But even constrained, her talent was undeniable. The music flowed from her fingers like water, filling the room with something warm and golden.

Benedict watched her hands—those capable, battered hands that earned her bread—and felt something shift within him. This was her livelihood. The means by which she sustained her father and preserved her independence. And she performed beautifully, even in fatigue, even in anxiety, even for an audience that scarcely noticed her presence.

She deserves better than this, he thought. She deserves an audience that appreciates her. She deserves—

He stopped himself. He had no right to opinions about what she deserved. He was a stranger. A voice in the dark. Nothing more.

She did not look at him. Her gaze remained fixed on her hands, on her instrument, on a distant point that excluded everyone present. Her expression was carefully neutral—the practised reserve of someone who had learned to make herself unobtrusive.

Look at me, he thought, irrationally. Only once.

The music swelled into a demanding passage, and Benedict found himself moving away from his seat toward the window. He stood with his back to the company, one hand resting lightly against the glass, gazing at the gardens before him.

In truth, he was listening.

The music drew to its close. The final notes lingered, then faded.

Polite applause followed. Chairs shifted. Servants began to move with practised quiet. His mother’s voice rose near the door, warm with approval as she addressed Lady Danbury.

Benedict did not turn.

Behind him, Miss Vance rose. He heard the faint rustle of her gown, the careful order of papers being gathered—sounds small enough to be missed by most, but not by him.

He should have remained where he was.

Instead, when he sensed her movement falter—when he felt, rather than saw, that she had looked back—he turned from the window.

Their eyes met.

Her expression stilled. Colour rose in her cheeks, faint but unmistakable. For a single suspended moment, neither of them moved.

She had recognised him.

Not as the Duke—her confusion was too evident for that—but as something remembered. A shape. A presence. A voice recalled from shadow.

The gallery.

Understanding flickered across her face, quickly masked by composure. She broke the connection first, inclining her head with swift formality before turning toward the door.

Benedict remained where he was, his heart uncomfortably aware of its own pace.

He watched her cross the room, her steps brisk, her posture rigid with resolve. She had nearly reached the threshold when Lady Crambourne’s voice carried across the parlour.

“—the help,” Lady Crambourne was saying, with a dismissive gesture toward the door through which Miss Vance had just passed. “One would think they might find more… distinguished entertainers for a gathering of this calibre. But I suppose one cannot expect too much from a house party in the country.”

Her companion laughed. “Pretty enough, I suppose—though that gown was decidedly provincial.”

Benedict’s hands clenched at his sides.

He thought of Miss Vance practising at dawn, her fingers bleeding against the strings. He thought of her father, ill and dependent on his daughter’s earnings. He thought of the pride in her voice—a pride that women like Lady Crambourne would never recognise, because they could not conceive that someone of lower station might possess dignity worth respecting.

He thought of her music. The honesty in it. The grief. The beauty. The honesty that these shallow, gilded creatures could never understand because they had never been honest about anything in their lives.

I am going to do something unwise, he thought.

He could feel his mother’s eyes on him from across the room—curious, perhaps a little concerned. He ignored her. He ignored the footman who stepped forward to refill his tea. He ignored every instinct that told him to stay where he was, to maintain his position, to be the Ice Duke that everyone expected.

Instead, he set down his cup with careful precision, excused himself with a curt nod, and went to find the harpist.

He did not know what he would say. He did not know what he could say—not without revealing himself, not without shattering whatever fragile possibility lay between them.

But he knew he could not remain where he was, listening to her be dismissed by people unworthy to hear her play.

And so, for the first time in longer than he could remember, the Duke of Thornfield did precisely as he wished—and left the consequences to follow.