Chapter 1

Three days before I was to wed Michael Kingston, I found him entangled with my sister, Isabelle Grant, in his study.

Their bodies were pressed against his desk, and the air was thick with the scent of sweat and betrayal.

It was the first time in the ten years since we'd met that I saw Michael so utterly undone.

His hands trembled, and the rims of his eyes were flushed red.

He pleaded that it was the wine, a moment of weak passion, and swore it would not alter my place as his future wife.

I watched Isabelle peer from behind him, her dazed gaze sharp with silent triumph.

That was all the proof I needed: this wasn't a drunken slip-up. This was a long-term rot they'd been hiding from me.

My mother smoothed a curl from my temple, her voice soft. "Do you still wish to marry him?"

I smiled, though tears traced my cheeks. "I will."

The union of our families, a duke's heir to a chancellor's daughter, was a matter of lineage, legacy, and political fortune.

But my heart had turned to ash.

Love was an irrelevant currency.

It no longer mattered who I married.

*****

On my wedding day, silk and roses draped the grand hall as far as the eye could see.

I sat motionless before the gilded mirror, a silent canvas as the maid applied rouge to my lips and kohl to my eyes.

The reflection showed a stranger crowned with a tiara of diamonds and pearls, draped in an elaborate gown of ivory and lace. Her face was a serene, emotionless mask.

When the clock struck the appointed hour, my father led me to the great oak doors of our estate.

His eyes were rimmed with red, his thumb anxiously stroking the back of my gloved hand. "Forgive me, Charlotte," he finally breathed.

A familiar ache tightened my chest, but I swallowed it down.

I offered him the most convincing smile I could muster. "Do not fret, Father. All is well."

His shoulders seemed to bow under an invisible weight as the doors swung open.

There stood Michael, resplendent in his ceremonial tailcoat, waiting beside the lacquered carriage.

When he saw me, his eyes lit up.

I fixed my smile in place and descended the stone steps, one deliberate measure at a time.

I remembered being ten, tumbling from the old oak in the garden, and Michael catching me in his arms.

"I'll always be there to catch you, Charlotte," he had laughed.

At fifteen, during the Winter Ball, he'd pressed a clumsily wrapped velvet box into my hands.

Inside lay a delicate silver locket. "When you come of age," he'd vowed, "I will speak to your father."

At eighteen, after his name topped the honors list at university, he came straight to our door, formally requesting my hand before my family.

"There will be no other for me, ever," he had sworn.

I had believed him.

Now, at twenty, I was finally to be his bride.

My father placed my hand in Michael's. "Care for her, Michael."

Michael's gaze was solemn, fervent. "You have my word, sir."

I stepped into the carriage. The door clicked shut, sealing me in plush silence, muffling the cheers of the gathered crowd.

Just before it closed, I heard Isabelle's delicate, telltale cough.

Then Michael's voice, tender with concern, carried through the gap. "The air is chill, Belle. You should not be out here."

I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes as the carriage lurched forward, my spirits sinking with it.

*****

In the bridal chamber, I sat alone on the edge of the four-poster bed, the sheer lace veil a haze over my vision.

I waited until the tall taper candles had burned past their halfway mark.

The door finally creaked open. But it was not Michael who entered, only his valet, John.

John kept his eyes firmly on the rug. "Madam," he said. "My apologies. Lady Isabelle... she took ill during the journey to the townhouse.

"Her heart, you see. Mr. Kingston has gone to attend to her. He begs you retire for the evening."

I didn't move.

John added, "He said you understand her constitution is delicate, Madam."

Oh, I understood.

Isabelle had been frail since childhood, the kind of beauty a draft might wilt, for whom a conversation could induce a breathless spell.

The finest physicians, the rarest tonics, all were for her. The entire household had always moved on tiptoe around her fragility.

"I understand," I said, my voice flat. "You may go."

John retreated as if pardoned from the gallows.

Silence reclaimed the room.

I reached up and lifted the veil myself. Rising, I walked to the sideboard and poured a generous measure of amber whiskey into a crystal tumbler.

I raised it in a silent toast to the empty room and drank it down in one searing swallow.

The fire in my throat was a welcome distraction from the colder, denser bitterness within.

I then extinguished the candles.

Darkness swallowed the chamber whole.

Still in my wedding finery, I lay back upon the covers. No dreams came to me that night.

At dawn, I dressed and arranged my hair myself. Michael had not returned.

I made my way alone to the breakfast room to pay my respects to my new in-laws.

Mary Kingston's smile vanished the moment she saw me enter unaccompanied.

"Where is Michael?" she demanded, her voice like chilled steel.

I bowed my head. "He was detained by an urgent matter, my lady."

Her voice was cold and sharp. "To neglect his family so immediately... Don't you know how to talk to your husband?"

I held my tongue, my gaze lowered.

At that moment, the main door burst open. Michael hurried in, the morning mist still clinging to his coat.

"Mother, my deepest apologies." He shot a glance my way, fraught with unreadable emotion.

He added, "Isabelle suffered a terrible spell the whole night through. I stayed with her. I lost all track of time."

Mary's stern expression melted into one of solicitous concern. "Oh, you were with poor Isabelle. Well... that is a different matter.

"One must show compassion. She has always been so terribly fragile."