Prologue
London, 1818
“Are you sure about this, mistress?”
Lady Edith Leveson exhaled a painfully slow breath and turned from the dirty window of her drawing room, lowering the hand she had been waving. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, thinking hard before speaking her thoughts aloud.
“No. No, Owen, I am not sure. Not at all, in fact.”
The burly man folded his arms, his common clothing doing nothing to establish his role as butler. Or footman. Or whatever position he had in her household.
What little could be considered hers in the household.
“Then why, mistress, would ye agree to receive them?” Owen demanded, his brogue somehow more pronounced than usual when he was irritated. “Ye’ve made yer wishes aboot living quietly known enough to us, an’ if I’m understanding things aright…”
“You were listening to the conversation?” Edith queried with interest as she interrupted him.
Owen wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed by the accusation. “I listen to every conversation that goes on here. Habit, and one I’m no’ likely to abandon just yet.”
Edith’s smile faded as she nodded with reluctant understanding, memories of the last few years flashing and darting through her mind with breathtaking agony. She would have been lost if not for Owen, and his determination to come with her from Scotland for the wedding. When her family had insisted that he return with them to Inverness, he’d resigned his position with them to join Edith’s new household.
However brief her marriage had been, Owen had never given her any indication that he wished to return to Scotland.
“Yer family gave you no reason to return to them,” he’d once said. “Ye might as well remain while ye can.”
And remain she had. They both had.
Owen had been more father and brother to her than her own father and brother had, and she wouldn’t have considered him staff if he hadn’t insisted on it. Something about having his pride and knowing his place.
If it would keep him listening to her conversations and protecting her from all possible harm, she’d let him have whatever position he wanted.
“So, you also ken what was said between myself and Lieutenant Henshaw,” Edith said with a stern look.
Owen only nodded. “Aye. Seems a fair thing; I’d be obliged if ye’d agree to it.”
Edith exhaled roughly, shaking her head. “I feel pitied, Owen. I didna come to London for its condescension, ye ken.”
“I dinna think Miss Georgiana Allen or Miss Isabella Lambert are the pitying kind, mistress.” Owen moved further into the room and glanced out the window, where the carriage could still be seen in the distance. “Nor the lieutenant, mind.”
That might have been true, but offers of friendship and an almost adoptive sibling role seemed too fortuitous for a poor widow without connections in London. Whatever Lieutenant Henshaw had told her, the idea that her brother, Lachlan, had asked him to take care of her here was laughable.
Lachlan had no care for Edith. He’d proven that all too well.
“If ye feel so, mistress, I ask again: why receive them?”
Edith sank onto the divan near her, an embarrassing cloud of dust rising from it as she did. “I couldn’t help it, Owen. It’s been an age since I’ve had friends. I thought perhaps it might make my situation more bearable, and…”
She couldn’t bear to finish the thought, not even to the person she trusted most on the earth.
And if things got worse, she did not want to endure it alone.
Chapter One
One must take every advantage offered at a ball. There is nothing to compare with such an occasion of stunning presentation, of intriguing conversation, and of various ways and means to avoid being engaged in any social intercourse, let alone an interminable dance, with a particular person one might prefer to keep at a certain distance. A ball is a lovely thing, indeed.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 15 August 1816
Lady Edith Leveson sat on the faded brocade of her couch, seething as she stared stonily out of the filthy windows of her London townhome. She couldn’t tell if her face was devoid of color or shining with an excess of it, but she knew her complexion was currently altered, and not favorably. But when the alternative was to release her currently clenched fingers and let them give in to the impulse to scratch the eyes out of the man sitting in the straight-back chair next to her, an altered complexion would have to do. After all, the devil in the chair was holding her purse strings and insulting her in the same breath with which he propositioned her. It was not an unusual tactic for him, only the most blatant.
She flicked her eyes back to him, her stomach curling uncomfortably within her.
“Naturally, as you bear such an unfortunate label, I will not lower myself to the disastrous depths of marrying you,” Sir Reginald was saying, his tight features pulling tighter still with an attempt at a placating smile. “However, I see no reason why this untoward tendency of mine to find such filthy Highland leftovers to be a delicacy of marvelously attractive prospects truly should not avail itself in less legally binding ways.” He wet his lips once, then again, his narrowing eyes travelling the length of her.
Shapeless garment that her dress was, it apparently was not unappealing enough. All that work for nothing. Simms would be so disappointed.
Edith kept her expression, color changing as it might have been, free from further reaction.
“I do not think that would be wise, Sir Reginald.”
A crease formed in his brow, then faded quickly as he folded his hands across his lap.
“I would be more than generous, Lady Edith, when we come to an arrangement in this regard. And you, as I am sure you are aware, are in no position to be particular, should you wish to have any place or position in Society. I control your future and reputation.”
“I know,” Edith murmured as a wave of nausea washed over her.
“You live on my stipend,” he reminded her. “I own this house. I could cast you out in a moment, strip you of all your funds, and see to it that every door in Society would be barred to you. Would you really like to chance what you think would be wise against what I could offer? And what I can take away?”
“I know verra well the limitations of my finances, thank you, Sir Reginald,” Edith snapped, her brogue rolling out, as it tended to with her temper. “And the power given you by the law and your cousin’s inheritance. You do not, however, have authority over my free will.”
“Yet.” Sir Reginald smirked, not at all put off by her reaction. “But the time will come, my dear, when you will choose to do what I request, and that will be a day of great victory for me.”
Edith sank her teeth into the flesh of her tongue, the sharp pain bringing tears to her eyes as she glared at her life’s jailer, villain, and threat. If only the Almighty had endowed her with the power to take life at will, she could be free of her shackles at this moment.
Alas, she was not so blessed, and the druids in her family line had not transferred their abilities through the generations. No power from on high, no gifts from her heritage. Nothing but the wit in her mind and a law that crippled her freedom.