CHAPTER ONE

 

“He doesn’t like visitors.”

The housekeeper delivered this information with the cheerful finality of a woman announcing a death in the family. She stood in the entrance hall of Blackthorn Hall like a sentry guarding the gates of purgatory, her ring of keys jangling at her waist as though they might, at any moment, be used as weapons.

Evangeline Harcourt smiled politely. “How fortunate, then, that we are not visitors. We are guests.”

The distinction was, admittedly, a thin one. But Evangeline had learned long ago that the difference between surviving and perishing in polite society often came down to the precise deployment of nouns.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Graves, which was either her actual name or a remarkably apt pseudonym, did not appear convinced. Her gaze swept over Evangeline with the assessing quality of a woman calculating exactly how much trouble a person might cause, then moved to Evangeline’s father, who was currently attempting to peer around a marble column at what appeared to be a rather impressive collection of medieval weaponry mounted on the far wall.

“Professor Harcourt,” Mrs. Graves said, in the tone of someone addressing a wayward child. “His Grace is aware of your arrival. He will receive you in the drawing room…eventually.”

Eventually. Evangeline tucked that word away for later examination. It suggested many things, none of them welcoming.

“We are most grateful for His Grace’s hospitality,” her father said, finally tearing his attention away from what Evangeline suspected was a fifteenth-century halberd. Professor Edmund Harcourt had the unfortunate habit of finding historical artifacts more interesting than social niceties. It was a trait that had won him considerable academic acclaim and precisely zero friends among the aristocracy. “The Duke and I corresponded extensively during my research on the Anglo-Saxon land charters. A brilliant mind. Absolutely brilliant. His observations on the Kentish boundary disputes were…”

“Papa,” Evangeline murmured.

“…revolutionary, truly revolutionary, and I said as much in my monograph, which I believe His Grace received, though he never responded, but then dukes are terribly busy, aren’t they, with all the duking…”

“Papa.“

Professor Harcourt blinked, as though remembering suddenly that he was not, in fact, alone with his thoughts. “Yes, my dear?”

“Perhaps we might save the discussion of boundary disputes for when we are not dripping on His Grace’s marble floors.”

This was not an exaggeration. The November rain had been merciless during the final miles of their journey, and despite the relative protection of the carriage, Evangeline’s travelling cloak had achieved a state of dampness that could only be described as aggressive. Water pooled beneath her boots. Her bonnet, once a rather fetching shade of dove grey, now resembled something that had been fished from a pond.

She looked, in short, like a drowned sparrow.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

“Mrs. Graves,” she said, with as much dignity as a drowned sparrow could muster, “might we trouble you for a fire? My father catches cold dreadfully easily.”

This was a lie. Professor Harcourt had the constitution of a draft horse and had once delivered a three-hour lecture on monastic land grants while suffering from what his physician later described as “an alarmingly advanced case of influenza.” But Evangeline had discovered that appeals made on behalf of elderly fathers were received far more graciously than appeals made on behalf of oneself.

Mrs. Graves’s expression softened by approximately one degree. “The fire in the drawing room is already lit. If you’ll follow me.”

The drawing room, it transpired, was not so much a room as a cavern. Evangeline’s entire childhood home could have fit inside it with space remaining for a modest garden. The ceilings soared upward into shadow. The windows, enormous, mullioned things that would not have looked out of place in a cathedral, rattled against the wind. And the fire, despite being large enough to roast an ox, seemed to make almost no impression on the chill that permeated every corner.

Blackthorn Hall, Evangeline decided, was not a house. It was a monument to the principle that comfort was for lesser mortals.

“His Grace will attend you shortly,” Mrs. Graves said, and withdrew before Evangeline could ask what “shortly” meant in a household where “eventually” apparently constituted a warm welcome.

The door closed with a sound like a tomb sealing.

Evangeline exhaled slowly.

“Magnificent,” her father breathed. He was already examining a tapestry that hung above the fireplace, depicting what appeared to be a rather violent hunting scene. “Fifteenth century, I should think. Flemish. Look at the needlework on that boar, Evangeline. Extraordinary.”

“Yes, Papa. The boar is lovely.”

“And the detail on the disembowelment…”

“Lovely, Papa.”

She moved closer to the fire, extending her frozen fingers toward the flames. The heat was almost painful after the bitter cold of the journey, but she welcomed the sting. It reminded her that she was still alive, still standing, still here in this great grey fortress where they were very clearly not wanted.

He doesn’t like visitors.

Well. The Duke of Ashborn could join the lengthy queue of people who did not particularly want Evangeline Harcourt in their drawing rooms. She had extensive experience with being unwanted. Her mother’s family had made their feelings on that subject abundantly clear after Mama’s death, when they had declined to acknowledge Evangeline’s existence with a thoroughness that bordered on the artistic.

The daughter of a gentleman scholar and a minor baronet’s disowned daughter was not, it seemed, worthy of the Whitmore family’s attention.

Evangeline had weathered many storms and she would not be overcome by this one.

But oh, how she wished she were not quite so damp.

“Do you know,” her father mused, still examining the tapestry with the intensity of a man who had forgotten that anything else existed, “I believe this may be from the workshop of Pasquier Grenier. The composition is remarkably similar to the Tournai pieces, though the colour palette suggests…”

The door opened.

It did not creak, or groan, or announce itself in any way. One moment the room contained two people; the next, it contained three.

Evangeline turned slowly and her very breath caught in her throat.

The Duke of Ashborn stood in the doorway like something out of a gothic novel, the kind that Evangeline read in secret, hidden between the pages of more respectable texts. He was tall. Unreasonably, almost aggressively tall, with shoulders that seemed designed to block doorways and a presence that swallowed all the air in the room.

But it was not his height that stopped her lungs.

It was his face.

The scar began just above his left eyebrow and carved a devastating path downward, across his eye, which had somehow survived intact, over the sharp blade of his cheekbone, ending just above the corner of his mouth. It was not a neat scar, not a romantic silvered line that might add mystery to an otherwise handsome face. It was a savage mark as the flesh puckered and raised in thick, irregular cords pulling at the corner of his eye.

The fire caught it as he stepped forward, turning the damaged skin to something that looked almost molten.

Gracious me… Evangeline thought, as the truth settled upon her with a cold and piercing lucidity.

He was terrifying.

He was beautiful.

The thought arrived without permission, slicing through her shock with the precision of a blade. She should not be thinking that. She should not be looking at this man, this scarred, looming, glowering man and feeling anything other than appropriate intimidation. But there it was, settling into her chest like a coal: the undeniable, inexplicable awareness that the Duke of Ashborn was the most striking man she had ever seen.

The beauty was brutal. His features, beneath and around the scar, were hewn from granite, a strong jaw, dark brows, a mouth that looked as though it had never learned to smile. His eyes were pale grey, the colour of winter storms, and they swept over the room with the cold assessment of a predator surveying prey.

When they landed on Evangeline, she felt the impact like a physical blow.

Don’t look away, she told herself. Don’t you dare look away.

She didn’t.

 

Lucian Ashborn, the sixth Duke of Ashborn, known in whispered drawing room conversations as the Ravaged Duke, the Beast of Blackthorn, the Monster in the Moors, had prepared himself for this meeting.

He had prepared himself for Professor Harcourt’s academic bumbling, for the inevitable staring, for the poorly concealed flinches and the hastily averted eyes. He had prepared himself to feel, once again, like a creature on display in a menagerie.

He had not prepared himself for the professor’s daughter.

She stood by the fire like a half-drowned kitten who had somehow wandered into a wolf’s den, small, soaked, and entirely out of place. Her travelling dress, dark blue and practical, clung damply to a figure that was pleasant enough, if unremarkable. Her hair, what he could see of it beneath a truly tragic bonnet, was the colour of honey. Her face was pale from cold, her cheeks pink from the fire’s heat, her lips…

He stopped that thought before it could fully form.

She was staring at him.

Every eye tended to fix upon him, as was only to be expected. Such was the inevitable consequence of a countenance like Lucian’s, one became accustomed to stares, whispers and the small involuntary sounds of horror that people made before they remembered their manners. He had catalogued them all over the years, these reactions to his ruined face. The pity. The revulsion. The morbid curiosity.

But Miss Harcourt’s stare was… different.

She was not flinching. She was not averting her eyes. She was not doing that thing that well-bred ladies did, where they fixed their gaze on a point approximately three inches to the left of his face and pretended very hard that they could not see the scar.

She was looking directly at him, her brown eyes wide and steady, her chin lifted at an angle that suggested either remarkable courage or profound foolishness.

He could not decide which irritated him more.

“Your Grace,” Professor Harcourt was saying, finally having torn himself away from the tapestry. The man moved forward with his hand extended, apparently oblivious to the temperature in the room. “What an honour, what a tremendous honour. Your correspondence on the Canterbury land disputes was absolutely illuminating…”

“Professor.” Lucian did not take the offered hand. He did not move at all. “Your journey was tolerable, I trust.”

It was not a question. It was a dismissal, wrapped in the barest pretense of civility. Lucian had perfected this tone over years of practice. It typically sent lesser men scurrying for the nearest exit.

Professor Harcourt, unfortunately, appeared immune.

“Perfectly tolerable, perfectly tolerable, though the roads near Hartfield were quite muddy, and my daughter was concerned we might become stuck, but I assured her that the Ashborn estate would have excellent drainage…you do have excellent drainage, don’t you? I should very much like to examine the irrigation systems while we’re here, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble…”

“Papa.”

The single word cut through the professor’s rambling like a knife through silk. Lucian’s attention snapped back to the daughter.

She had stepped forward. Toward him. Her hands were clasped before her, and he noticed…because he noticed everything, because noticing was how one survived in a world determined to wound, that her fingers were trembling slightly. From cold, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

“Your Grace,” she said. Her voice was steady, even if her hands were not. “I am Miss Evangeline Harcourt. Thank you for receiving us.”

She dropped into a curtsey that was technically perfect and somehow, inexplicably, managed to convey the impression that she was humoring him.

Lucian felt his jaw tighten.

“Miss Harcourt.” He let her name fall from his lips like a stone. “I was not aware Professor Harcourt intended to bring… company.”

The pause before “company” was deliberate. He wanted her to hear the word he had not said. Burden. Complication. Unwanted addition.

She heard it. He saw the flicker in her eyes, the tiny tightening at the corners of her mouth. But she did not look away. She did not apologise or stammer or fill the silence with nervous explanations.

She simply looked at him and said, “Were you not? I am surprised. My father is not known for his attention to practical correspondence. I had assumed you would deduce that someone must manage his travel arrangements.”

Behind her, Professor Harcourt made a sound that might have been protest or might have been agreement.

Lucian stared at her.

She had just implied that she was necessary to her father’s functioning. She had just suggested, with absolute politeness, that Lucian ought to have been clever enough to predict her presence. She had just…

Could it be possible that she was bantering with him so boldly?

“I see,” he said slowly. “And do you often manage your father’s affairs, Miss Harcourt?”

“Only the ones that require being managed, Your Grace.”

There it was again. That hint of something beneath the propriety. Not quite impertinence. Not quite challenge. But not quite not those things either.

Lucian became aware, suddenly, of how close she was standing. Close enough that he could see the individual droplets of rain still clinging to a loose strand of hair at her temple. Close enough that he could smell beneath the damp wool and travel dust something faintly floral. Lavender, perhaps.

Close enough that if he reached out, he could…

He stepped back. The movement was abrupt, graceless, and he saw her eye linger upon it… and the tiny crease that followed, marring her brow.

“You will be shown to your rooms,” he said, his voice harder than he had intended. “Dinner is at eight. I trust you can manage to find the dining room without assistance.”

It was rude. It was deliberately, calculatedly rude, and he watched her face for the reaction he wanted…the hurt, the offense, the moment when she would finally look at him the way everyone else did.

Miss Evangeline Harcourt looked at him for a long moment, her brown eyes unreadable.

Then she smiled.

It was not a large smile. It did not reach her eyes, did not transform her face into something radiant. It was small, controlled, and somehow more devastating for its restraint.

“I’m certain we shall manage, Your Grace,” she said. “I am quite good at finding my way.”

She turned, collected her father with a gentle touch on his elbow, and allowed Mrs. Graves, who had materialised in the doorway with suspicious timing, to escort them from the room.

Lucian stood very still for a long moment after they had gone.

His hands, he realised, were clenched at his sides.

 

“Well,” Professor Harcourt said, as they followed Mrs. Graves up a staircase that seemed determined to go on forever. “That went splendidly, I thought.”

Evangeline made a noncommittal sound.

“He seemed pleased to see us. Did you think he seemed pleased? I thought he seemed pleased.”

“Papa, he looked at us as though we were something unpleasant he had discovered on the bottom of his boot.”

“Nonsense, nonsense. That’s simply how dukes look. Very serious business, being a duke. All those responsibilities. All those tenants. I’m sure he’s perfectly delighted to have company.” Professor Harcourt paused to examine a painting on the landing. “Oh, I say. Is that a Holbein?”

“It is a door, Papa. We need to keep moving.”

They kept moving.

The corridor they entered was long, dim, and decorated with the kind of stern ancestral portraits that seemed specifically designed to make visitors feel inadequate. Evangeline felt the painted eyes following her as she walked, judging her damp dress, her bedraggled bonnet, her presumption in existing beneath this hallowed roof.

I don’t belong here, she thought… and he is fully aware of it.

The Duke of Ashborn. The Ravaged Duke. The man with the storm-grey eyes and the terrible scar and the voice that could freeze water.

She should be frightened of him. Everyone else clearly was, she had seen the way Mrs. Graves held herself, the careful blankness in the housekeeper’s face, the tension in the footmen who had taken their luggage. The entire household moved through Blackthorn Hall like prey animals navigating a predator’s territory.

But Evangeline was not frightened.

Unsettled, yes. Aware of him in a way that made her skin feel too tight and her breath come too shallow…yes, that too. But not frightened.

There had been a moment, when he had stepped back from her so abruptly, when something had flickered across that harsh and rugged handsome countenance… Something that looked almost like…

No. She was not going to think about that. She was not going to analyse the expressions of a man who had made it abundantly clear that he wished her elsewhere. She was here for her father, to ensure that this visit resulted in the funding he needed for his research. Nothing more.

The fact that the Duke’s voice had settled into her chest like a physical weight, low, rough, with an edge that scraped pleasantly against her nerves, was irrelevant.

Entirely irrelevant.

“Here we are, Miss Harcourt.” Mrs. Graves stopped before a door that looked identical to every other door in the corridor. “Your room. Professor, you are just next door. Dinner is at eight. Do not be late. His Grace does not appreciate tardiness.”

“His Grace,” Evangeline said, before she could stop herself, “does not appear to appreciate very much at all.”

The words hung in the air.

Mrs. Graves’s expression did something complicated, a twitch that might have been disapproval or might, possibly, have been the suppressed beginnings of a smile.

“No, Miss Harcourt,” the housekeeper said quietly. “He does not. But then, he has had very little in his life worth appreciating.”

She turned and walked away before Evangeline could respond.

The room was large, cold, and decorated in shades of blue that had probably been fashionable during the reign of some long-dead monarch. The bed was enormous, canopied in fabric that looked older than Evangeline’s grandmother. The fireplace held a small, struggling fire that seemed personally offended by its task of warming such a cavernous space.

Evangeline stood in the center of the room for a long moment, dripping onto a carpet which must have cost a princely sum. 

He has had very little in his life worth appreciating.

What did that mean? What could the Duke of Ashborn, master of this vast estate, holder of one of the oldest titles in England, possessor of wealth that Evangeline could not even fathom… what could such a man find himself lacking? 

She thought of his face. That brutal, beautiful face, with its terrible scar and its cold grey eyes and its mouth that looked as though it had forgotten how to curve upward.

She thought of the way he had stepped back from her, as though her proximity was dangerous.

She thought of the way he had looked at her, in that first moment, when she had refused to flinch.

There had been surprise in those storm-grey eyes. And beneath the surprise, something else. Something almost like…

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.

“Come in,” she called, grateful for the distraction.

A maid entered, young and nervous, carrying a pitcher of hot water. “For washing, miss. And Mrs. Graves said to tell you that your trunk has been brought up. It’s just there, by the wardrobe.”

“Thank you.” Evangeline summoned a smile. “What is your name?”

The girl looked startled, as though guests did not typically ask such questions. “Molly, miss.”

“Thank you, Molly. That’s very kind.”

Molly set down the pitcher and bobbed a curtsey, but hesitated at the door. Her eyes darted to Evangeline’s face, then away, then back again.

“Is something the matter?” Evangeline asked.

“No, miss. It’s only…” The girl bit her lip. “You’re not afraid of him, are you? The master.”

The question hung in the air between them, weighted with something Evangeline could not quite identify.

“Should I be?” she asked quietly.

Molly’s eyes were wide, earnest. “Everyone’s afraid of him, miss. Everyone. He shouts something terrible when he’s in a temper, and the way he looks at you, like he’s seeing straight through to your bones…” She shuddered. 

“He hasn’t always been this way, they say. Before the fire, before his brother but that was a lifetime ago. Many a year has passed since then…”

“The fire?”

But Molly shook her head, already backing toward the door. “I’ve said too much, miss. Please don’t tell Mrs. Graves I was prattling. She’d have my head.”

“I won’t say a word,” Evangeline promised.

The door closed.

Evangeline stood very still, her mind turning over this new piece of information like a scholar examining a fragment of ancient text.

A fire. A brother. Something that had happened years ago, something that had transformed the Duke into the cold, scarred, isolated creature he was today.

He has had very little in his life worth appreciating.

She moved to the window and looked out at the grounds of Blackthorn Hall. The rain had eased to a grey drizzle, and through it she could see formal gardens, overgrown and melancholy, and beyond them the dark mass of woods that gave the estate its name. Everything was grey and brown and lifeless, as though colour itself had fled this place.

Somewhere in this great, grey house, the Duke of Ashborn was probably glowering at something.

Evangeline thought of his voice, rough and cold.

She thought of his eyes, pale and piercing, fixed on her face with an intensity that had made her forget how to breathe.

She thought of the way her heart had lurched when he stepped toward her, and the strange disappointment she had felt when he stepped away.

This is foolishness, she told herself firmly. He is rude. He is cold. He does not want you here, and you should not want to be here.

All of this was true.

And yet.

When she finally turned away from the window, she found that her hands were trembling again.

And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the cold.

 

***

 

Dinner was a catastrophe in the making.

 It lacked the grace to fail quickly; instead, the discomfort gathered like a slow-moving storm.

The dining room was vast, because apparently every room in Blackthorn Hall was required to be vast on pain of architectural disgrace. A table that could comfortably seat thirty held exactly three place settings, clustered at one end like survivors of a shipwreck. Candelabras cast pools of golden light that somehow failed to warm the atmosphere.

Evangeline had changed into her best evening dress, a deep green silk that her father said made her look like a Christmas tree but which she privately believed was quite becoming. She had managed to tame her hair into something respectable and had pinched her cheeks until they held some colour.

None of which mattered, because the Duke did not look at her.

He sat at the head of the table like a king holding court, magnificent in black evening clothes that should have been severe but instead served only to emphasise the breadth of his shoulders and the sharp angles of his jaw. The candlelight caught his scar differently here, turning it to shadow and gold, and Evangeline found herself watching the way it moved when he spoke.

Which was not often.

“The pheasant is excellent,” Professor Harcourt offered, after a silence that had stretched long enough to become actively hostile. “Is it from the estate?”

“Yes.”

“Marvellous, marvellous. And the…ah…the wine? Also local?”

“French.”

“Of course, of course. French wine. Excellent choice. The French do know their wines, don’t they? Not like the Italians. Well, no, the Italians are quite good as well, particularly in the southern regions, where the climate…”

“Papa,” Evangeline murmured.

“…allows for a longer growing season, which produces a sweeter grape, though some argue that sweetness is not necessarily…”

“Professor Harcourt.” The Duke’s voice cut through the rambling like a blade. “I did not invite you to Blackthorn Hall to discuss viticulture.”

Professor Harcourt blinked. “No?”

“No. I invited you because your work on the Mercian boundary disputes may prove relevant to a legal matter concerning my northern estates. We will discuss this tomorrow, in my study, at nine o’clock precisely.” Those pale eyes swept briefly toward Evangeline, then away. “Your daughter will, I am certain, find ways to occupy herself.”

It was a dismissal. A clear, unmistakable dismissal, delivered with the casual cruelty of a man who was accustomed to being obeyed.

Evangeline felt something spark in her chest. Something hot and sharp that was definitely not attraction and was absolutely, certainly not the desire to challenge this impossible man.

“I am certain I shall, Your Grace,” she said sweetly. “Blackthorn Hall is so very large. I imagine one could wander for days without encountering another soul. How… peaceful that must be for you.”

The barb landed. She saw it in the slight tightening of his jaw, the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes.

“I prefer solitude, Miss Harcourt.”

“Clearly.”

“Evangeline,” her father said, with unusual alertness to social undercurrents.

But the Duke had turned to look at her now. Really look at her, for the first time since she had entered the dining room. His gaze moved over her face with an intensity that made her skin prickle, lingering on her eyes, her mouth, the pulse she could feel fluttering at the base of her throat.

“You disapprove of solitude, Miss Harcourt?”

“I disapprove of rudeness, Your Grace.”

The words escaped before she could stop them. Beside her, she heard her father make a small, strangled sound.

The Duke went very still.

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant crack of the fire and the faint whisper of wind against the windows. Evangeline held herself motionless, her heart hammering against her ribs, watching those storm-grey eyes for some indication of what was coming.

When he spoke, his voice was soft. Dangerously soft.

“You think me rude.”

“I think you make very little effort to be otherwise.”

“And why should I? This is my home. I did not ask for guests. I do not want them.” He leaned forward slightly, and Evangeline caught a trace of something, sandalwood, perhaps, and beneath it something darker, smokier. “If my manners offend you, Miss Harcourt, you are welcome to leave.”

“And if I don’t?”

The question surprised her as much as it seemed to surprise him. His brows drew together, and for a moment…just a moment, something flickered behind the ice in his eyes.

“Then I suggest,” He said slowly, “that you develop a thicker skin.”

He rose from the table without waiting for a response, without offering the customary pleasantries, without so much as a glance at Professor Harcourt.

At the doorway, he paused.

“Nine o’clock, Professor. Do not be late.”

The door closed behind him with a sound like a thunderclap.

Evangeline let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“Well,” her father said, after a moment. “I thought that went rather well, all things considered.”

Evangeline reached for her wine. 

 

***

 

Later, alone in her room, she stood once again at the window and stared out at the darkness.

The rain had stopped, and the clouds had parted enough to reveal a sliver of moon. Its pale light silvered the overgrown gardens, transforming them into something ethereal, almost beautiful.

She should be angry. She should be plotting ways to convince her father to leave this dreadful place and its dreadful master.

Instead, she found herself thinking about the way his voice had softened when he said her name. The way his eyes had traced the line of her throat. The way he had leaned toward her, just slightly, as though drawn by some force he could not control.

You are being ridiculous, she told herself. He despises you. He has made that abundantly clear.

But she remembered the way he had stepped back from her in the drawing room. The way his hands had clenched at his sides.

She remembered the look in his eyes when she had refused to flinch.

Not anger. Not disgust.

Fear.

The Duke of Ashborn was afraid of her.

Evangeline pressed her palm against the cold glass of the window, feeling her heart beat too fast, feeling something dangerous and impossible unfurl in her chest.

I should be afraid of him, she thought. Everyone says so. Even Molly. Even Mrs. Graves.

But she wasn’t.

And as she finally turned away from the window and began preparing for bed, she realised something that should have terrified her.

Why?

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

“You cannot avoid this forever, Lucian.”

The Dowager Duchess of Ashborn stood in the center of her son’s study like a general surveying a battlefield. She was a small woman, barely five feet tall, with silver hair swept into an immaculate coiffure and a spine that could have been forged from Sheffield steel. At the age of three and sixty, Helena Ashborn had buried a husband, a son, and any softness she might once have possessed.

What remained was formidable.

Lucian did not look up from the letter he was pretending to read. “I am not avoiding anything, Mother. I am working.”

“You are brooding. There is a difference.” She moved to the window, her black silk skirts rustling with disapproval. “I have received correspondence from the Marquess of Thornwood this morning. He expects an answer regarding Cassandra.”

The name landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.

Lady Cassandra Mowbray. Daughter of the Marquess of Thornwood. Politically connected, impeccably bred, and possessed of the kind of pale, fragile beauty that reminded Lucian of porcelain dolls, lovely to look at, impossible to touch without breaking.

He had met her twice and both times she flinched attempting to conceal her repugnance of his disfigured countenance.

“The Marquess can expect whatever he wishes,” Lucian said. “I have made no promises.”

“You have made implications.” The Dowager turned from the window, her grey eyes, so like his own, though infinitely colder, fixed on his face with surgical precision. “Your father began negotiations for this match before his demise. I have continued them in your stead, because you have shown no inclination to secure the succession yourself. The Mowbrays control three parliamentary seats and have the ear of half the cabinet. This alliance is not a preference, Lucian. It is a necessity.”

“For whom?”

“For the duchy. For your legacy. For the family name that you seem determined to drag into obscurity.” She crossed to his desk with measured steps, each one a punctuation mark. “You are at the age of two and thirty. You have no heir. You have no prospects of producing one, given your apparent determination to live as a hermit in this crumbling monument to your guilt.”

Lucian’s hand tightened on the letter. The paper crumpled slightly beneath his fingers.

Guilt. She wielded that word like a blade, knowing exactly where to cut.

“I am aware of my responsibilities,” he said quietly.

“Are you? You should conduct yourself with the composure befitting your station.” The Dowager reached into her reticule and withdrew an envelope, which she placed on his desk with deliberate care.

 “This arrived with Thornwood’s letter. It is a formal proposal of terms. You have one month to review them and sign the betrothal contract. The Marquess wishes to announce the betrothal at his winter ball.”

Lucian stared at the envelope. The Mowbray seal, a stag rampant, rendered in deep red wax which gleamed in the morning light like a drop of blood.

One month.

Four weeks to sign away the rest of his life to a woman who could not look at him without trembling. Four weeks to accept that this was his fate, a cold matrimony, a colder bed, a lifetime of flinches and averted eyes.

He had known this was coming. Had known it for years, really, ever since the fire had taken his brother and his face and any hope he might have harbored of a normal existence. The Ashborn line needed an heir. Lucian was the only one left to provide it. Therefore, Lucian would wed not for love, not for companionship, but for duty.

It was, after all, the only thing he was good for.

“Very well,” he heard himself say. His voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else. 

“I will review the terms.”

The Dowager’s expression did not change, but something in her posture relaxed almost imperceptibly. “Splendid! I knew you would see reason.” She turned toward the door, then paused. “Oh, and Lucian? Do try to be civil to our guests at dinner this evening. Professor Harcourt may be a tedious bore, but his daughter seemed… observant. We do not need rumors spreading about the Duke of Ashborn’s lack of hospitality.”

His daughter.

The image rose unbidden: honey-colored hair, brown eyes that refused to look away, a voice that carried challenge beneath its sweetness.

I disapprove of rudeness, Your Grace.

Lucian pushed the memory aside with more force than was strictly necessary. “The Harcourts are here for a fortnight at most. I doubt Miss Harcourt’s observations will trouble us long.”

“Indeed.” The Dowager’s gaze lingered on his face a moment longer than comfortable. “See that they don’t.”

She swept from the room, leaving behind the faint scent of rosewater and the heavy weight of expectation.

Lucian sat motionless for a long moment, staring at the envelope on his desk.

Then, very slowly, he reached for it.

The paper was thick, expensive, embossed with the Mowbray crest. Inside, he knew, would be lists of settlements and provisions, clauses about dowries and inheritances, carefully worded paragraphs about expectations and obligations. A contract. A transaction. A life reduced to legal terms.

He thought of Lady Cassandra’s pale face, her trembling hands, the way she had pressed herself against the far wall of the drawing room during their last meeting, as though afraid he might lunge at her.

He thought of brown eyes that did not flinch.

Stop it.

Lucian shoved the envelope into a drawer and stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. He needed air. He needed movement. He needed to stop thinking about a woman he had known for less than a day.

He strode to the window and stared out at the grounds of Blackthorn Hall. The rain had cleared overnight, leaving the gardens sodden and grey, and the skeletal trees dripping with moisture. In the distance, he could see the dark line of the woods and beyond them, invisible but ever-present in his memory, the ruins of the old stable.

The fire.

Thomas.

His fault, his fault, always his fault…

He turned away from the window before the memories could pull him under.

Work. He would work. Professor Harcourt would be in his study in…he checked his pocket watch, twenty minutes, ready to discuss Mercian boundary disputes and medieval land charters. It was exactly the kind of dry, intellectual exercise that Lucian needed to occupy his mind.

He would not think about the betrothal contract.

He would not think about Lady Cassandra’s frightened eyes.

And he would absolutely, categorically, not think about Evangeline Harcourt.

 

At half past ten, Evangeline decided that she had been a very good girl for quite long enough.

She had breakfasted alone in her room, as instructed by Mrs. Graves. She had written three letters, two to friends in London, one to her father’s solicitor regarding a minor matter of accounts. She had read forty pages of the novel she had brought with her, a rather scandalous Gothic tale involving a mysterious castle and a heroine with a pronounced tendency toward fainting.

And now she was bored.

The room, for all its grandeur, had begun to feel less like a sanctuary and more like a prison. The walls pressed in. The silence thickened. And outside her window, Blackthorn Hall waited, vast and mysterious and almost certainly filled with interesting things that she was probably not supposed to see.

Your daughter will, I am certain, find ways to occupy herself.

The Duke’s words echoed in her memory, dripping with dismissal.

Evangeline smiled.

“Well,” she murmured to herself, setting aside her novel. “If he insists.”

She dressed carefully, choosing a day dress of soft amber wool that was both practical and becoming. She pinned her hair into a simple arrangement that would survive exploration. She checked her reflection in the mirror to ensure she was presentable, if not precisely elegant and then, with the determined air of a woman embarking on an expedition, she opened her door and stepped into the corridor.

Blackthorn Hall was even larger than she had realised.

The corridor outside her room led to another corridor, which led to a staircase, which led to a gallery, which led to yet another corridor, this one lined with suits of armor that watched her pass with empty metal eyes. Evangeline navigated the maze with growing fascination, pausing occasionally to examine a painting or peer through a doorway.

The house was beautiful, in its way. Beautiful and sad, like a grand lady who had been abandoned by her admirers. The furniture was fine but dusty. The carpets were rich but worn. The chandeliers, magnificent crystal confections that must have blazed with light during the Hall’s glory days, hung dark and neglected, their candles unlit.

He lives here alone, Evangeline thought, trailing her fingers along a marble balustrade. In all this space, all this silence.

It should have seemed pathetic. Instead, it seemed unbearably lonely.

She found the library quite by accident, a door left slightly ajar, a glimpse of floor-to-ceiling shelves through the gap. Evangeline pushed the door open and caught her breath.

The room was enormous. Two stories of books, reached by a rolling ladder and a wrought-iron gallery. Windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, flooding the space with pale November light. A fireplace large enough to stand in, and chairs arranged before it in an invitation to comfort that the rest of the house seemed to lack.

“Oh,” Evangeline breathed. “Oh, you beautiful thing.”

She stepped inside, her fingers already itching to touch the spines. This was her weakness, had always been her weakness, the promise of words waiting to be discovered, stories she had not yet read. Her father’s library at home was respectable but modest. This was something else entirely.

She moved along the shelves, reading titles at random. Philosophy. History. Poetry. A surprising number of novels, tucked into a corner as though someone were slightly embarrassed by their presence. She pulled one out The Mysteries of Udolpho and smiled at the well-worn spine.

Someone in this household had read this book many times.

She was still holding it, still smiling, when she heard the footsteps.

They were heavy, decisive, and unmistakable. Evangeline’s heart gave a traitorous leap as she turned toward the door.

The Duke of Ashborn stood in the entrance, frozen mid-stride.

He looked… different in the daylight. No less imposing, nothing could make him less imposing, but somehow more human. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, as though he had been running his hands through it. His cravat was less than perfectly tied. And there were shadows under his eyes, purple-grey smudges that spoke of a sleepless night.

He didn’t sleep, Evangeline thought. After dinner. He didn’t sleep either.

The realisation should not have felt so significant.

“Miss Harcourt.” His voice was flat, unwelcoming. “I see you have found ways to occupy yourself.”

“I have a talent for it.” She held up the novel in her hand. “I hope you do not mind. I discovered I had finished my own book, and I thought…”

“You thought you would help yourself to my library without permission.”

“I thought I would explore your library,” she corrected gently. “And borrow a book, if permitted. I did not realise I required a formal invitation.”

His jaw tightened. “You do not require anything from me, Miss Harcourt. That is the point.”

It was rude. Deliberately, calculatedly rude, just as he had been the previous night. But Evangeline found that the sting had lessened somewhat. Perhaps because she had expected it. Or perhaps because she had seen those shadows under his eyes and understood, suddenly, that his coldness was a wall and not a weapon.

He was not trying to hurt her.

He was trying to keep her away.

The question was: why?

“Your Grace,” she said, and took a step toward him, just one, small and unthreatening. “Have I done something to offend you? Beyond existing in your general vicinity, I mean.”

Something flickered across his face. Surprise, perhaps, or even confusion.

“You have done nothing,” he said. The words seemed pulled from him against his will.

“Then why do you look at me as though I am an invading army?”

The question hung between them. Evangeline watched him struggle with it, watched the muscles in his jaw work as he searched for a response.

“I do not…” He stopped. Started again. “I am not accustomed to company, Miss Harcourt. My manner is not… I am not skilled at pleasantries.”

“I had noticed.”

His eyes narrowed. “You are remarkably impertinent.”

“So I have been told.” She smiled gently, without mockery. “But I find that impertinence often saves time. We both know you do not want me here, Your Grace. You have made that abundantly clear. What I do not understand is why my presence disturbs you so greatly.”

Disturbs.

Lucian heard the word and felt it land like a blow to the chest.

Disturbed. Yes. That was precisely what she did to him. She disturbed his peace, his solitude, and his carefully constructed walls. She disturbed him with her smile and her steady gaze and her absolute refusal to behave as though he were something monstrous.

She was disturbing him right now, standing there in that soft amber dress, with that book clutched in her hands, looking at him as though she genuinely wanted to understand.

No one wanted to understand him. No one had wanted that in years.

“You do not disturb me,” he lied.

Her smile widened, just slightly. “Ah. So it is only my imagination that you have been avoiding my eyes since you entered the room.”

He hadn’t realised he was doing it. But she was right, he had been staring at a point just past her shoulder, at the books on the shelf behind her, at anything other than her face.

He forced himself to meet her gaze.

It was a mistake.

Her eyes were warm, so impossibly warm, the colour of strong tea or autumn leaves or something else he could not name. They held no fear. No pity. Only a gentle, curious interest that made him feel exposed in a way he had not felt in years.

“Miss Harcourt,” he said. His voice came out rougher than he intended. “I suggest you take your book and return to your room.”

“Is that a suggestion or a command?”

“It is a warning.”

“A warning.” She tilted her head, considering him. “Against what, precisely?”

Against me, he wanted to say. Against what I might do if you keep looking at me like that.

Instead, he said nothing. He simply stared at her, every muscle in his body taut, every instinct screaming at him to leave before he did something unforgivable.

She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.

“Very well, Your Grace. I shall take my book and go.” She moved toward him…toward the door, which he was still blocking and paused just a few feet away. “If it be of any account to you…” I do not think you are as fearsome as you want me to believe.”

She stepped past him.

He should have let her go. Should have remained still, should have let her walk away, and should have done any number of sensible things that would have preserved the distance between them.

Instead, he turned.

“Miss Harcourt.”

She stopped, glancing back over her shoulder. “Your Grace?”

He did not know what he meant to say. The words tangled in his throat, caught somewhere between warning and wanting. She stood there in the doorway, backlit by the pale corridor light, and something in his chest cracked a little further.

“The library,” he heard himself say. “You may use it. Whenever you wish.”

Surprise flickered across her features revealing genuine surprise, unguarded and sweet. “I… thank you, Your Grace.”

He nodded stiffly and turned away before she could see whatever his face was doing.

Her footsteps retreated down the corridor.

Lucian stood alone in his library, surrounded by an abundance of books, and thought that he had never felt so utterly lost.

 

The corridor was long and dim, lined with portraits of Ashborn ancestors who all seemed to share the same disapproving expression.

Evangeline walked slowly, her borrowed book pressed against her chest, her mind replaying the conversation in the library. The Duke’s voice, rough and reluctant: You may use it. Whenever you wish. There was a momentary faltering of his composure, which did not escape her notice.

He was not what she had expected. Not entirely.

Oh, he was rude and cold and determined to be unpleasant. But beneath that… beneath that, there was something else. Something wounded. Something that had looked at her, just for a moment, with an expression that was almost like…

She rounded a corner and nearly collided with him.

“Oh!” She stepped back quickly, her heart lurching into her throat. “Your Grace. I thought you were…I did not expect…”

He stood before her, having apparently taken a different route from the library. The corridor here was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to pass without touching. Pale light filtered through a window at the far end, illuminating the sharp planes of his face, the twist of his scar.

“Miss Harcourt.” His voice was clipped, controlled. Whatever softness she had glimpsed in the library had been locked away again.

 “You seem to have a talent for appearing where I least expect you.”

“It is a gift,” she managed. Her pulse was doing something strange…fluttering in her throat, her wrists, and the hollow of her chest.

 “I apologise for the near collision.”

“There is no need to apologise.”

“And yet you look as though you wish I would.”

His jaw tightened. “Whatever you may suppose, Miss Harcourt, I am merely as I have always appeared to be.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Indeed.”

Something shifted in his expression. The ice cracked, just barely, revealing a flash of something raw beneath.

They stood there, frozen, separated by less than two feet of ancient carpet. Evangeline was suddenly, acutely aware of everything, the sound of her own breathing, the faint scent of sandalwood and smoke that clung to him, the way the light caught the silver threading through his dark hair.

Move, she told herself. Say something. Do something.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” she said softly.

His eyes dropped to her face. Lingered there for a moment that stretched into eternity.

“Good afternoon, Miss Harcourt.”

His voice was low. Rough. It scraped against her nerve endings like velvet drawn over bare skin.

She needed to move. They both needed to move. The corridor was too narrow for them to pass without…

She stepped to the side at the same moment he did. The same side. They stopped, almost touching.

“Forgive me,” she breathed. “I’ll just…”

She stepped the other way. So did he….

A sound escaped her, something that was almost a laugh, nervous and breathless.

 “It seems we are destined to be in each other’s way.”

He did not laugh nor smile. But something in his expression flickered, something that might have been amusement, quickly suppressed.

“Allow me,” he said, and pressed himself against the wall to allow her to pass.

Evangeline moved forward. The corridor was so narrow. He was so large. She turned sideways, sliding past him, holding her breath without meaning to…

Their hands touched.

It was nothing. The barest graze of skin against skin, her fingers brushing against his as she slipped past. An accident. A moment so brief it should have been insignificant.

She felt it everywhere.

A shock of warmth, traveling up her arm, spreading through her chest, settling low in her stomach. Her breath caught. Her feet stopped moving of their own accord.

She looked up.

He had gone completely still.

His eyes were fixed on her face with an intensity that stole what remained of her breath. His hand, the hand she had touched, hung frozen at his side, the fingers slightly curled, as though he were holding onto the ghost of the contact.

Move, Evangeline told herself again. Move, move, move…

But she couldn’t. She was pinned by his gaze, trapped in the narrow space between his body and the opposite wall, close enough to see the individual threads of silver in his irises, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him despite the chill of the corridor.

Neither of them spoke.

Neither of them moved.

A profound silence hung suspended between them, as though the very air stood still in anticipation. It was heavy with an emotion Evangeline found herself quite unable to define…an inexplicable mixture of fervent longing, apprehension, and a strange sense of understanding.

Then, very slowly, the Duke’s hand rose.

For one wild, impossible moment, she thought he was going to touch her. Thought he was going to reach out and cup her face, thread his fingers through her hair, pull her toward him and…

He pressed his palm flat against the wall instead. Steadying himself. Holding himself back.

“You should go.” His voice was barely a whisper. 

Evangeline swallowed. “Yes.”

She didn’t move.

“Now, Miss Harcourt.”

The command broke the spell. She stumbled backward, nearly dropping her book, her cheeks flaming with a heat that had nothing to do with embarrassment.

“I…yes. Of course. Good afternoon.”

She fled.

 

Lucian remained pressed against the wall for a long time after she had gone.

His hand was burning. The hand she had touched…barely touched, the merest whisper of contact felt as though she had branded him.

What is wrong with me?

He had stood there, trapped in that narrow corridor, and he had almost…

He pushed himself away from the wall with more force than necessary. His legs felt unsteady. His breathing was ragged. His entire body was strung tight as a bowstring, thrumming with a tension he had not felt in years.

It meant nothing, he told himself. She brushed against you by accident. It meant nothing.

But he could still feel it. The ghost of her fingers against his. The softness of her skin. The way her breath had caught, the way her eyes had gone wide and dark, the way she had looked at him as though…

Stop it. Stop it now.

He strode down the corridor, putting distance between himself and the place where it had happened. He needed to think. Needed to remember who he was and who she was and all the reasons why this was impossible.

She was a guest. A scholar’s daughter. A woman so far beneath his station that even entertaining thoughts of her was an insult to his name.

And he was betrothed.

Not officially, not yet, but the contract sat in his desk drawer, waiting for his signature. Lady Cassandra Mowbray. The political alliance. The duty he owed to his family, his title, his dead brother’s memory.

He thought of the envelope with its blood-red seal.

He thought of Evangeline Harcourt’s hand brushing against his, and the way his entire world had narrowed to that single point of contact.

This cannot happen.

He would not allow it to happen.

He would be cold. Distant. Unapproachable. He would make her understand that there was nothing for her here, no warmth, no connection and no hope of whatever she thought she had seen in his eyes.

He would sign the contract.

He would wed Lady Cassandra.

He would do his duty, as he had always done his duty, and he would not think about brown eyes and gentle smiles and the devastating softness of a woman’s touch.

He would not.

 

From the shadowed alcove near the staircase, the Dowager Duchess of Ashborn watched her son stride past.

She had witnessed the whole affair.

The narrow corridor. The accidental touch. The way Lucian had frozen, had pressed himself against the wall, had looked at the Harcourt girl as though she were water and he a man dying of thirst.

Helena Ashborn’s hands tightened on the head of her cane.

This was… unexpected. In all the years since the fire, since the scars, since Thomas’s death had turned her surviving son into a ghost haunting his own home, she had never seen him look at anyone in that manner. He had seemed immune to attraction, indifferent to companionship, resigned to a life of cold solitude.

And now this girl…this nobody, this scholar’s daughter with her impractical dresses and her impertinent smiles had cracked through his walls in less than two days.

It was unacceptable.

The Mowbray alliance was essential. The family’s political future depended on it. Helena had spent three years cultivating this match, navigating the Marquess’s demands, soothing Lady Cassandra’s fears about Lucian’s appearance. She would not allow some penniless determined adventuress to destroy everything.

Miss Harcourt will find a suitable match elsewhere, she decided. I will see to it personally.

She watched her son disappear around the corner, his shoulders rigid, and his stride too fast.

Then she turned and began to plan.

 

That night, Evangeline lay awake in her enormous bed, staring at the canopy above her.

She could not stop thinking about what had transpired between her and the Duke.

The corridor. The touch. The way he had looked at her, as though she were something precious and terrifying all at once.

You must take your leave, were his words. But they were delivered in a voice so ravaged, so utterly stripped of its customary polish that it betrayed a soul in great torment

She pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering the heat of him, the scent of him, the impossible tension that had stretched between them like a physical thing.

This was dangerous. She knew it was dangerous. He was a duke, and she was nothing. He was cold and rude and determined to push her away.

But he had also given her permission to use his library. He had also frozen when she touched him. He had also looked at her with those storm-grey eyes, and something in his expression had said, clearer than words: I am not as indifferent as I pretend to be.

I should stay away from him, Evangeline thought. I should read my book and mind my business and let this visit pass without incident.

It was the sensible thing to do. The safe thing.

But when she finally drifted off to sleep, her dreams were full of narrow corridors and accidental touches and a voice like smoke and velvet, whispering her name.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

“I do hope you’ll find Lord Whitmore agreeable company, Miss Harcourt.”

The Dowager delivered this statement with the serene confidence of a woman who had never, in her entire life, hoped for anything of the sort. She sat at the head of the drawing room like a queen surveying her domain, her silver hair immaculate, her black silk gown rustling with quiet menace.

Evangeline, who had been summoned from the library for what she had naively assumed would be tea, felt the first prickle of unease.

“Lord Whitmore?” she repeated carefully.

“The Baron of Ashwick. A neighbor. He has graciously accepted my invitation to dine with us this evening.” The Dowager’s smile did not reach her eyes. “I believe you may find him… suitable.”

Suitable. The word landed with a deliberate weight that Evangeline did not miss.

She glanced at her father, who was examining a porcelain shepherdess on the mantelpiece with the oblivious contentment of a man who had never, in his three and sixty years, learned to read a room.

“How… kind,” Evangeline managed.

“Indeed.” The Dowager lifted her teacup with practiced elegance. “Lord Whitmore is a widower. His estate borders Blackthorn to the north. He has expressed interest in taking a new wife, and I thought, given your situation, that an introduction might prove beneficial.”

Given your situation.

Evangeline’s fingers tightened on her own teacup. She understood, suddenly, exactly what was happening. The Dowager had seen the corridor. Had seen the way her son looked at Evangeline, the way Evangeline looked back. And she was moving swiftly, ruthlessly, to remove the problem.

By arranging matrimony for Evangeline off to the nearest available gentleman.

“Your Grace is too kind to concern herself with my prospects,” Evangeline said, her voice steady despite the anger blooming in her chest. 

“But I assure you, I have no intention of…”

“Nonsense.” The Dowager waved a dismissive hand. 

“Every young woman must think of her future. Your father’s work here will conclude soon enough, and then what? You cannot remain a spinster forever, Miss Harcourt. Lord Whitmore is respectable, comfortable, and”…her lips curved, “not particular about lineage.”

The insult was delivered so smoothly that it took Evangeline a moment to feel the sting.

Not particular about lineage. As if Evangeline were damaged goods, to be sold at discount to whoever would take her.

“How fortunate for me,” she said quietly.

If the Dowager heard the edge in her voice, she gave no indication. “Dinner is at seven. Do try to look presentable.”

 

Lord Whitmore was not, Evangeline decided within five minutes of meeting him, agreeable company.

He was perhaps fifty, with a florid complexion that spoke of too much port and a stomach that spoke of too much everything else. His eyes, small and sharp, had swept over Evangeline’s figure with an appraisal that made her skin crawl. His handshake had lingered too long. His smile had contained too many teeth.

But it was his voice that truly set her nerves on edge loud, braying and designed to fill every corner of a room and leave no space for anyone else.

“Miss Harcourt!” he boomed, as they gathered in the drawing room before dinner.

 “The Dowager tells me you’re a scholar’s daughter. How delightful. I do enjoy a woman with a bit of learning. Not too much, of course, don’t want them getting ideas above their station but a bit of polish never hurts, eh?”

Evangeline smiled thinly. “How generous of you to say so, my lord.”

“And your mother was a Whitmore, I understand? Distant branch of my own family, as it happens. Terribly sad, that business.” He shook his head with theatrical sympathy. 

“She made an unfortunate choice in matrimony, of course, but we can hardly hold the sins of the mother against the daughter.”

The sins of the mother.

Evangeline felt her smile freeze on her face.

Her mother had committed no sin beyond surrendering her heart to the wrong man, a gentleman scholar with no fortune and no title, who had remained devoted to her desperately until the day she passed. The Whitmore family had disowned her for it. Had refused to acknowledge Evangeline’s existence for twenty-three years.

And now this man…this pompous, preening man was speaking of sins.

“How very magnanimous,” Evangeline commented with chilled formality.

Lord Whitmore did not appear to notice. “I’ve always believed in giving people a chance, you see. Fresh start and all that. A young woman in your position needs friends, Miss Harcourt. Needs… protectors.” His eyes dropped to her bodice with a directness that made her stomach turn. “I should be happy to offer my guidance.”

I would rather be fed to wolves.

But she couldn’t say that. She was a guest in this house, dependent on the Duke’s hospitality, and the Dowager was watching from across the room with sharp, satisfied eyes.

“You are too kind, my lord,” Evangeline murmured, and excused herself to check on her father.

 

Dinner was a trial.

The dining room, vast and intimidating as ever, had been arranged with Lord Whitmore seated directly across from Evangeline, close enough that she could smell his cologne, a cloying mixture of bergamot and self-importance. The Dowager presided over one end of the table, Professor Harcourt occupied the other, and Lucian…

Lucian sat to Evangeline’s left, silent as a storm cloud.

He had not spoken to her since the corridor. Had barely looked at her. When she had entered the drawing room, his gaze had swept over her once brief, burning and then fixed itself firmly on a point somewhere above her head.

But she could feel him. His presence beside her was a physical weight, a warmth that made her skin prickle with awareness. Every time she reached for her wine glass, her elbow came within inches of his arm. Every time she shifted in her chair, she caught a trace of his scent, sandalwood and smoke and something darker, more dangerous.

It was vexing beyond endurance.

It was also, she suspected, the only thing keeping her from inflicting a grievous wound upon his person with her fish fork.

“…and of course, the hunting in Ashwick is unparalleled,” the baron was saying, addressing the table at large but looking at Evangeline. “I’ve bagged more pheasants this season than any other landowner in the county. Twelve brace last week alone. My gamekeeper says he’s never seen anything like it.”

“Remarkable,” the Dowager said, with convincing interest.

“Indeed, indeed. I’ve always had an eye for sport. The ladies tell me I cut quite a figure on horseback.” He laughed at his own observation. “Perhaps Miss Harcourt would care to join me for a ride sometime? I’ve a lovely mare that would suit a woman of her… proportions.”

Evangeline’s hand tightened on her fork.

Beside her, she felt Lucian go still.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a horsewoman, my lord,” she said carefully.

“Nonsense! Every young lady should ride. I’d be happy to teach you. Very happy indeed.” His eyes lingered on her in a way that made his meaning unmistakable. “To manage a lady, one must never slacken the reins; a constant and steady guidance is required.” 

The silence that followed was deafening.

Evangeline opened her mouth to respond though she wasn’t sure what she would say, only that it would probably end with her being thrown out of Blackthorn Hall…when her father spoke.

“Speaking of sport, Lord Whitmore, have you read the recent treatise on medieval hawking practices? Fascinating work by a scholar at Oxford, absolutely revolutionary interpretation of the Boke of St. Albans…”

“Can’t say that I have.” The baron’s voice cooled noticeably. “Not much of a reader, I’m afraid. Leave that sort of thing to the academics.” He pronounced the word with faint contempt. “A man of action, that’s what I am. No point sitting about with dusty books when there’s real work to be done.”

Professor Harcourt blinked, momentarily derailed. “But surely… that is to say… scholarship is itself a form of work, is it not? The pursuit of knowledge…”

“The pursuit of knowledge.” Lord Whitmore laughed, the sound harsh and dismissive. “Is that what we’re calling it these days? Begging for patronage from your betters, more like. No offense intended, Professor, but let’s call a spade a spade. You’re here because the Duke is generous enough to fund your little hobby. Without his charity, where would you be? Scrabbling for pennies at some provincial college, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The words landed like blows.

Evangeline watched her father’s face crumple just for a moment, just a flicker of hurt before academic bewilderment took over and felt something hot and furious rise in her chest.

“My father’s work,” she said, her voice shaking with controlled anger, “has been recognised by every major scholarly institution in England. His research on medieval land tenure has been cited in parliamentary debates. He is not begging, he is advancing human knowledge, which is more than can be said for…”

“Miss Harcourt.” The baron’s smile turned patronising. 

“How charming. Defending your father’s honor. But surely you must see the reality of your situation. A beggar-scholar and his spinster daughter, dependent on the goodwill of their betters.” He spread his hands magnanimously.

 “There’s no shame in it, my dear. Not everyone can be born to fortune. Some of us must make our way by… other means.”

His gaze dropped to her bodice again.

Evangeline felt the blood drain from her face.

Other means. He was suggesting…he was actually suggesting…

“That is quite enough.”

The voice came from her side, a low murmur which carried a lethal chill that froze the blood in her veins as surely as a Great Frost might ice the Thames.

Lucian had not moved. Had not raised his voice. But something in the room shifted and the air itself seemed to contract, pressing down on all of them with sudden, suffocating weight.

Lord Whitmore turned, his expression sliding toward uncertainty. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

Lucian looked at him.

Just looked. Those pale grey eyes, flat and merciless, fixed on the baron’s face with an intensity that made Evangeline’s breath catch.

“I said,” Lucian repeated, each word deliberate as a blade, “that is quite enough.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you…”

“Professor Harcourt is my guest. He is here at my invitation, to assist with matters of considerable importance to this estate. His scholarship is not a hobby. His presence is not charity. And his daughter…” Lucian’s voice dropped even lower, into registers that made something shiver at the base of Evangeline’s spine.

 “His daughter is a lady of intelligence, dignity, and worth. She is not a commodity to be assessed. She is not an opportunity to be exploited. And she is most certainly not available to receive your guidance.”

The silence was absolute.

Lord Whitmore had gone pale. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. No sound emerged.

“Furthermore,” Lucian continued, his tone conversational now, almost pleasant, which somehow made it worse, “if I hear you speak of either of them with anything less than complete respect…if I so much as suspect that you have looked at Miss Harcourt in a manner that causes her discomfort, I will ensure that every door in England closes to you. Every club. Every salon. Every hunt you so enjoy. You will find yourself as unwelcome in polite society as the vermin you claim to be so skilled at shooting.”

He paused.

“Do I make myself clear?”

Lord Whitmore’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Your Grace, I assure you, I meant no…”

“Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-yes. Perfectly clear.”

“Good.” Lucian turned back to his plate as though nothing had happened. “The pheasant is getting cold.”

 

Evangeline could not breathe.

Her heart was pounding so hard she was certain everyone at the table could hear it. Her skin felt hot, flushed and alive with something she could not name. She stared at her plate without seeing it, replaying Lucian’s words in her mind.

His daughter is a lady of intelligence, dignity, and worth.

She is not a commodity to be assessed.

She is not available.

He had defended her. This cold, distant, impossible man had risen to her defense with a ferocity that had left a baron…stammering like a schoolboy.

She risked a glance at him.

He was eating. Calmly, methodically, as though he had not just eviscerated a man with nothing but words. But she could see the tension in his jaw, the rigid line of his shoulders. His hand, holding his fork, was not entirely steady.

As if sensing her gaze, he turned.

Their eyes met.

Everything else, the Dowager’s frozen expression, Lord Whitmore’s mortified silence, her father’s confused blinking faded to nothing. There was only Lucian, looking at her with those storm-grey eyes, and Evangeline, looking back, her heart in her throat.

Thank you, she mouthed.

Something flickered in his expression. Something raw and unguarded that made her chest ache.

Then his jaw tightened, and he looked away.

 

From the head of the table, the Dowager Duchess watched her son avoid Miss Harcourt’s eyes, and felt the cold grip of certainty settle in her stomach.

This was not interest.

This was not a passing fancy, a momentary attraction to be managed and redirected.

This was devastation.

She had seen Lucian cold. She had seen him angry. She had seen him withdrawn and bitter and consumed by guilt for fifteen long years.

She had never…not once seen him protective.

Not like this. Not with that volcanic fury barely leashed beneath the surface. Not with that raw, desperate need to defend, to shield, to claim.

He had quite imprudently, surrendered his heart to the Harcourt girl.

And he didn’t even know it yet.

Helena’s fingers tightened on her wine glass. This was worse than she had feared. A physical attraction could be managed. A political inconvenience could be solved. But affection was a disease. Devotion of the heart served only to rob a man of his reason, and once she had spent years repairing the ruin. 

She would not allow it to happen again.

Miss Harcourt would have to go. Sooner rather than later. Before Lucian did something catastrophically unwise before he destroyed the Mowbray alliance and everything Helena had worked to build.

Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would speak to Professor Harcourt about concluding his research early.

Tonight, she smiled serenely and signaled for the next course.

 

Dinner limped to a merciful conclusion.

Lord Whitmore excused himself immediately after dessert, mumbling something about an early start and urgent business. He did not look at Evangeline as he left. He did not look at anyone, really, except the floor.

The Dowager retired shortly afterward, pleading fatigue, her sharp eyes lingering on Lucian for a moment longer than necessary.

Professor Harcourt, oblivious as ever, wandered off to examine a collection of antique maps he had spotted in an adjoining room.

Which left Evangeline and Lucian alone.

The silence stretched between them, thick with everything that had been said and everything that hadn’t. Evangeline stood by the fireplace, her hands clasped before her, acutely aware of him standing near the door, too far away and not nearly far enough.

“Your Grace,” she said finally. “I… I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Don’t.” The word was clipped, almost harsh.

She flinched. “I only meant…”

“I know what you meant.” He turned to face her, and she saw it again, that rawness in his expression, that unguarded intensity that made her breath catch. 

“You do not need to thank me for treating you with basic human decency, Miss Harcourt. The baron was offensive. I corrected him. That is all.”

That is all.

But it wasn’t. They both knew it wasn’t. 

Something in his tone had made Evangeline’s pulse race and her skin flush and her thoughts scatter like startled birds.

“Nevertheless,” she said softly.

 “Thank you.”

He stared at her for a long moment. The firelight played across his ruined face, turning the scar to gold and shadow, and Evangeline thought again, helplessly: Beautiful. He is so terribly beautiful.

“You should retire, Miss Harcourt.” His voice was rough. “It is late.”

“Yes.” She didn’t move. “I suppose it is.”

Another silence. Another moment of looking at each other across a distance that felt both vast and impossibly small.

Then Lucian turned on his heel and strode from the room without another word.

Evangeline stood alone by the dying fire, her heart pounding, her mind spinning, her entire body trembling with something that felt dangerously like hope.

He defended me, she thought. He called me intelligent. Dignified. Worthy.

He looked at me as though I mattered.

She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks and tried, without success, to convince herself that this changed nothing.

But when she finally climbed the stairs to her room, she was smiling.