Chapter One
Lindow Castle, Cheshire
County Seat of the Duke of Lindow
November 15, 1781
Miss Viola Astley, the stepdaughter of Hugo Wilde, Duke of Lindow, considered it the greatest misfortune of her life that she was the complete opposite of a Wilde.
She had realized as a child that she had no more in common with His Grace’s offspring than a donkey to a dragon. As her mother, Ophelia, had married the duke when Viola was only two years old, her earliest memories were defined by feeling not Wilde.
Her half sister Artemisia, for example, was beautiful, bold, and audacious.
At the age of six!
Whereas Viola was timid, tongue-tied, and fairly useless.
Her older stepsister Betsy was famous in the family for being able to shoot arrows from horseback; Viola was afraid of horses, and didn’t care for arrows either. Fear itself marked her as not a real Wilde.
Courage was a hallmark of the duke’s other children. The oldest Wilde, Alaric, was a writer who wandered about foreign countries with his wife and children, fearlessly doing fearless things. Joan, whom Viola loved most of all, relished being in public, to the point of pining for a career on the London stage. And after Betsy put aside her bow and arrows, she triumphed in London society, rejecting nineteen suitors before marrying a future marquess.
Whereas Viola went to her first ball at the age of fifteen and disgraced herself by throwing up just outside the ballroom. Even worse, after that she lost what little courage she had. These days she could scarcely sit beside a strange gentleman without her stomach twisting into a knot.
No matter how many times her family reassured her that there was nothing to worry about, she didn’t seem to be able to overcome the memory of her first ball, the Lindow ball of 1778.
Viola had been nervous, but Joan had floated down the stairs with a huge smile, thrilled to be old enough to join the festivities.
“Don’t worry,” she told Viola, with the supreme confidence of a Wilde. “We will be besieged by men begging us for dances.”
Sure enough, they no sooner entered the ballroom than a friend of Alaric’s—Lord Poplar, known at Eton as Poppy—bowed before them.
“Viola will dance with you, Poppy,” Joan declared.
Lord Poplar burst out laughing and said, “I haven’t heard that nickname in years. No one dares use it.”
Joan rolled her eyes, and a minute later Poppy was leading Viola onto the dance floor. Viola concentrated on getting the steps right. The pattern of the dance ensured that she didn’t exchange more than five words with Poppy, which was fine with her.
When the music drew to a close, Viola smiled at His Lordship, proud that she hadn’t missed a step. She danced with one of her brothers, and after that, an uncle on her mother’s side. If the experience wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t unbearable.
Then one of her partners erupted into an uncontrollable fit of hiccups and reeled toward the door, leaving her marooned against a wall, peering through the shifting bodies of dancers for her family.
Where had everyone gone?
Aunt Knowe appeared at her side. “Didn’t I see you dancing with Finrope?” Lord Finrope was a sixty-year-old neighbor, a kindly soul.
“He started hiccupping, and had to retire.”
“Drinks too much,” Aunt Knowe said, wrinkling her nose. “He’s doing his belly no favor with all that whiskey.”
Viola put a hand on her stomacher and whispered, “I feel ill.” She had once retched before a maths examination at school, and she had a terrible fear it might happen again.
“Just give your nerves time to settle. Oh, rats, there’s Lady Prunner arriving. Stay right here, Viola, and I’ll be back.”
Viola had no intention of going anywhere. Her hands were growing disgustingly clammy inside her gloves. She was breathing quickly too, and her gown wasn’t helping; the point of her stomacher dug into her waist.
The dance drew to a close. People drifted past, glancing at her and looking away. It was humiliating to be standing alone by the wall. Yet in the press of over one hundred bodies, many of whom were wearing wide panniers, she couldn’t see anyone she knew.
Stealthily, she began edging along the wall to the right.
There was a curtained alcove not far away, where the castle butler, Prism, stowed extra chairs when the ballroom wasn’t in use.
A matron paused before her, and she forced herself to smile. The woman frowned slightly, likely thinking she ought to recognize her, and moved on.
Another way that Viola was different from her half siblings? She was short and nondescript, and people often forgot who she was.
No one forgot a Wilde.
Viola’s heart had begun to pound so hard that she could hear it in her ears. Somehow she managed to get herself into the alcove, but that didn’t help.
It was swelteringly hot in the tiny enclosure. On the other side of the velvet curtain, the musicians began a rollicking country dance. The floor of the ballroom actually shuddered under Viola’s slippers from the pounding of feet.
The alcove had been a terrible idea. It was hot and smelled of varnish.
It would smell of vomit in a moment, Viola thought wildly. She had to leave, and quickly, before the worst happened.
She pulled back the curtain and hurried out, brushing shoulders with a gentleman and ignoring his startled exclamation. One violin was playing out of tune, and a woman’s high laughter echoed in her ears.
In her panic, she had turned away from the ballroom entrance, but thankfully a servants’ door not far away offered access to a corridor connecting the back of the castle with the public areas.
She hurtled through that door, never considering that someone might be on the other side.
Let alone two people.
Chapter Two
Viola rebounded off a gentleman who stood with his back to her. He rocked forward but withstood the blow.
She fell back a step, an apology withering on her lips.
He was huge, wide-shouldered, bewigged, with one arm braced against the wall and the other wound around someone she couldn’t see. Her eyes skittered over his back, registering yellow slippers that incongruously stuck out on either side of his waist. The slippers disappeared, followed by a whoosh of skirts falling to the ground before she realized what they implied.
The man glanced over his shoulder for a second, and then turned back to his . . . what was the word? Paramour?
“You arranged for a witness?” His voice was raw and hoarse—not with disbelief, but with a scalding anger that jolted Viola’s whole body. Her stomach twisted tighter.
“No, indeed,” the woman said, out of breath. “It’s merely a servant.”
“Contrary to all expectation, a lady has invaded the servants’ corridor. Your witness seems to have been afraid she might be late for the performance,” he retorted, his voice cutting like a blade. “She’s panting like a set of bellows. I gather you plan to use her testimony to force me to marry you?”
Viola was shaking all over. The servants’ corridor was narrow, and he was blocking the way.
She took a sobbing breath. “Excuse me.”
He didn’t turn. “What sort of marriage do you think we’ll have?”
The woman murmured something.
Viola edged to the side. Given that her panniers made her nearly the width of the corridor, she couldn’t push past him.