Chapter One

Fairbourne House, Summer, 1818

“Margaret is to marry the Duke of Kingswell,” their father said, folding his newspaper with the calm finality of a man who’d already made the arrangements and didn’t expect objections.

The words dropped like a guillotine. Margaret choked on her tea.

They were seated in the breakfast parlour, a once-grand room that still clung to elegance like a fading actress too proud to leave the stage. Morning light filtered through the tall, grimy windows, casting fractured patterns across the cracked porcelain teapot and the pale, yellowed damask tablecloth at its corners. A breeze carried in the scent of roses from the garden beyond, but even the summer bloom of 1818 couldn’t warm the chill inside Fairbourne House.

The room was quiet for a moment, save for the delicate clink of silverware and the distant scuff of servants’ footsteps in the hall, servants who knew better than to linger.

Eliza had been worried for months that something like this was going to happen. The Fairbourne estate had fallen on hard times, and in recent months, it had only gotten worse. She knew her father well enough to know he would be willing to sell off one of his daughters to save the estate. What she hadn’t expected was that he would choose young, sweet Margaret.

“I beg your pardon?” Eliza asked, rising from her seat. Her pulse thundered.

Their father didn’t even look up. “He will be arriving shortly. I expect you all to be presentable.”

“You cannot be serious,” Eliza said, moving toward the long dining table. “Margaret is barely twenty-one, and you would sell her off to—”

“He is a duke,” Catherine interjected smoothly, never missing a beat as she buttered her toast. “An advantageous match.”

Eliza stared at her eldest sister. Catherine sat ramrod straight, dark chestnut hair pulled into a severe chignon, dressed already in her morning gown of dove grey silk. She looked every inch the composed lady of the house, except she wasn’t. She had made herself into one after their mother’s death. And ever since, she’d wielded duty like a blade.

“Eliza, this is not the time for dramatics,” Catherine continued without glancing up. “Margaret will be fine.”

“Fine?” Eliza’s voice cracked. “This man has a reputation for duels and debts, and rumours say he’s dangerous. You would give our baby sister to him?”

Margaret flinched slightly, her teacup rattling in its saucer.

Even Catherine paused, just for a breath.

Everyone in the room had heard the whispers, how Rhys Everard Ashbourne, Duke of Kingswell, had once been the wild second son of a powerful family, more often found at the card tables or in a fencing ring than in a drawing room. They said he’d been sent off to the war in Spain, not out of patriotism but because he’d embarrassed his family beyond repair.

A commission in Wellington’s army during the Peninsular campaigns was a noble way to disappear.

He had returned just before his older brother’s death. Too close, some said.

And afterward? A string of scandals. He’d taken up with widows, run up debts in Mayfair, and vanished again for months at a time. No wife. No anchor. Just a title no one expected him to inherit and a name that still drew sharp glances and tightened lips at every ball.

Catherine set her spoon down very deliberately. “It is not as if love has ever paid a bill or repaired a roof, Eliza. We need sense, not sentiment.”

“So you would hand Margaret off to a man with a reputation like the devil’s and call it duty?”

“He is a duke, Eliza. Titles silence more sins than confession ever could.”

Eliza crossed her arms and looked at her younger sister. Margaret had gone pale, the colour draining from her usually rosy cheeks.

With her golden curls pinned in loose, romantic waves and a gown the shade of spring lilacs, she looked more like a heroine from one of her beloved novels than a woman being bartered for a title.

There was always something soft about Margaret. She was gentle in her opinions, generous with her smiles, the kind of girl who cried at poetry and rescued stray kittens from the garden walls. But now, her wide blue eyes were filled with something Eliza had rarely seen in her younger sister. Fear.

“I don’t want to marry him,” she whispered, almost too softly to hear.

Their father finally set the paper down. His steel-grey eyes met Eliza’s with the kind of coldness that drained the room of air.

“You do not speak for this family,” he said, voice flat and final. “The match is settled. The Duke of Kingswell needs a bride, and Margaret will do.”

“She’s not a loaf of bread,” Eliza snapped. “She’s a person. A kind, gentle, innocent girl who deserves—”

“What we deserve,” Catherine cut in, “is stability. We are not a family of means anymore, Eliza. The house needs repairs, the staff hasn’t been paid in months, and the creditors are circling like crows.”

“So the solution is to sell Margaret?” Eliza’s hands curled into fists. “You would feed her to a man who might ruin her just to save our name?”

Their father stood. He was tall, still broad-shouldered despite his years, with greying hair slicked back too tightly. His voice, though never raised, carried enough weight to silence a room.

“The duke is a celebrated war hero, not some beggar off the street. She will marry him, and that is final.”

Catherine stood too, always one step behind him, always the echo.

“There are worse fates than becoming a duchess,” she said, brushing a crumb from her skirt.

Eliza could hardly breathe as Margaret’s chair scraped. She stood and fled the room, and without thinking, Eliza followed.

She stormed after her sister, skirts swishing furiously against the floorboards as they passed through the corridor. Her boots thudded a little too hard for the elegance their father insisted on, but she didn’t care.

It had always been like this. Their father issued his commands, and they were expected to obey. Catherine backed him, calm and obedient as ever. Margaret wilted under the weight of it. And Eliza boiled.

She pushed open the door just in time to see Margaret collapse onto the bed, face buried in the coverlet, shoulders shaking.

“I can’t,” Margaret sobbed. “I don’t want to marry him. I don’t even know him.”

Eliza’s chest tightened.

Margaret looked so small like that, her lilac muslin gown crumpled, golden curls half-fallen from their pins, the delicate slope of her shoulders trembling. The youngest Fairbourne sister had always been delicate, dreamy, all heart and no armour. The world would eat her alive if someone didn’t stop it.

“I always thought I’d marry someone kind,” Margaret whispered, lifting her tear-streaked face. “Someone who loved me. I wanted letters, and flowers, and… and not this.”

Eliza’s throat burned.

She had always protected Margaret. Since they were children, when their governess raised her voice too sharply, or when their father’s silences turned cruel, Eliza had stepped in. She was the shield. The storm-breaker. The one who learned to speak sharply, to argue, to fight, because Margaret couldn’t.

Margaret was so soft, and the world had no mercy for softness.

Eliza remembered sneaking into her room when thunderstorms rolled in, holding her hand through the night and making up stories to help her sleep. She remembered patching Margaret’s first dance gown when Catherine was too distracted to notice. And she remembered their mother, sitting quietly by the fire, saying once, “That one was born to save the others.”

It hadn’t felt like a compliment then. It felt even less like one now.

She didn’t want to marry the duke. But if Eliza didn’t stop this, Margaret would be the one to face him. And if anything happened to her, if he broke her gentle heart or worse…

No. That couldn’t happen. Eliza would burn the entire ton down before she let that happen.

In one fluid moment, she crossed the room and sat beside her sister, fists still clenched in her lap. “You don’t have to marry him.”

Margaret looked up, eyes shining. “What?” she said. “But Father—”

“You don’t have to,” Eliza said again, her breath quickening. “I’ll do it.”

“What do you mean?” Margaret’s eyes widened. “You can’t!”

“I will.”

“No.” Margaret sat upright now, hands flying to grip Eliza’s. “That’s mad. You can’t. Father would never allow it.”

“He doesn’t care which daughter he sacrifices, so long as one of us wears the title,” Eliza snapped. “He doesn’t see us. He sees tools. Bargains.”

“But, Eliza, you don’t even want to be married.”

Eliza stilled. It was true; she had never wanted marriage. Unlike most young women her age, she did not yearn for the stiff, silken performances she saw at balls nor the endless compromises women were expected to make for the sake of respectability. Marriage had always seemed like a bargain struck in men’s favour. Your name, your freedom, your body, handed over in exchange for a title and a house with polished floors.

She’d watched their mother waste away in silence, her spirit dulled by a husband who valued appearances more than affection. Eliza had seen what happened when women tied themselves to men who believed obedience was virtue and silence was love.

No, she had never wanted to belong to anyone. She had wanted something else. Freedom, purpose, the space to breathe without being watched or weighed or married off like inventory, but her wants, her sisters’ wants, had never been a luxury in this family.

So if marriage was a prison, let her be the one to walk in. Let her take the key and lock the door behind her so Margaret could stay free.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eliza said. “I’m not losing anything. I’ve never believed in love, but you, Margaret, you still dream of it. You still long for someone to see you, choose you. I gave up on all that a long time ago.”

Margaret shook her head, panic rising in her face. “No, you don’t mean it. You’re just angry. Please, think for a moment, what if he’s cruel? What if—”

“I hope he’s cruel,” Eliza cried. “Then maybe I’ll match him.”

Margaret let out a soft, broken laugh, but her fingers trembled in Eliza’s. “You don’t have to protect me. Not like this.”

Eliza gave her sister a long look. “You’re right. I don’t have to. I want to.”

The silence between them was full of the unsaid. Margaret looked like she might cry again. Eliza felt like she might shake apart.

Then came the knock, and they both jumped as the door creaked open and the butler stepped into the room.

Mr. Halston was the very image of discretion. He was tall, narrow-shouldered, and impossibly stiff, with greying hair slicked back so tightly it looked like polished silver. His livery was always immaculate, even if the threadbare cuffs hinted at the house’s dwindling fortunes. His expression, as ever, remained politely blank, though his dark eyes flicked between the sisters with the faintest trace of suspicion.

“What is it?” Eliza asked.

“The Duke of Kingswell has arrived,” he said, his voice smooth as polished oak. “He awaits Miss Margaret in the drawing room.”

Eliza’s stomach twisted as the blood drained from her face, her pulse thudding in her ears. Her hand slipped from Margaret’s.

“E-Eliza,” Margaret stammered.

“It’s all right,” Eliza soothed. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Mr. Halston cleared his throat, and Eliza shot him a look.

“We will be right down,” she said.

He hesitated a moment and then nodded before disappearing behind the door.

“Liza,” Margaret said. “You don’t have to do this, not for me.”

“I do,” Eliza insisted as she stood up, smoothing her skirts with mechanical precision, and inhaled once through her nose. “Now come on, we wouldn’t want to keep His Grace waiting.”

Chapter Two

Eliza descended the staircase with Margaret just behind her, fingers curled tightly around the banister, though her spine stayed straight as steel. Her heart thundered in her chest, but she kept her steps measured.

She had imagined someone different. A cruel-looking man, perhaps older and greying, stooped from war or vice. Unkempt. With a sneer that said he relished taking what wasn’t freely given.

But the man standing in the parlour wasn’t that.

The Duke of Kingswell stood tall, almost impossibly tall, at least six feet three, with an imposing, broad-shouldered frame clad in a charcoal coat that looked too austere for summer. His dark hair was slightly too long to be fashionable and swept back carelessly, as though he hadn’t bothered with a valet. A faint scar cut across his jaw, stark against the sharpness of his cheekbones and pale skin. And then there were his eyes, ice-grey, cold, unreadable, the kind of eyes that had seen war and hadn’t quite come back from it.

He wasn’t handsome in the way a suitor was meant to be. He was handsome in the way wolves were: dangerous, lean, and self-possessed.

The air in the room seemed to shift around him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t bow. He didn’t speak. Eliza’s throat tightened, and for one impossible second, she thought perhaps she’d misunderstood. Surely this couldn’t be the man their father wanted to barter her sister to?

Their father stepped forward, his shoes tapping a sharp rhythm across the polished floor, and gestured stiffly to the pair of girls standing just inside the threshold.

“Your Grace,” he said, his voice oiled with formality. “May I present my youngest daughter, Margaret, the woman you are to marry?”

That was it. This was her cue. Eliza inhaled once, shallow and fast, then stepped in front of Margaret.

Catherine, who was standing near the mantel, let out a soft gasp.

“Eliza—”

But she didn’t stop. Didn’t look back. She moved forward like she belonged in this moment, as if it had always been her fate.

The duke’s gaze narrowed.

Mr. Fairbourne turned, brow furrowing, eyes hard. “What in heaven’s name—”

“I am Eliza Fairbourne,” she said clearly, extending her gloved hand.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“What is the meaning of this?” her father snapped. “What are you doing, Eliza?”

“Margaret will not be marrying the duke,” Eliza said, doing her best to keep her voice from shaking. “I will.”

The air in the room thinned.

Mr. Fairbourne’s voice rose like a storm breaking. “You dare to make a mockery of this arrangement? Have you lost your mind?”

“My sister is too young,” Eliza said, cutting her father off and turning to the duke now. “Barely more than a girl. You’ll have your bride, Your Grace, but it will be me.”

He stared at her, and those pale, unreadable eyes dragged over her slowly, from the crown of her unruly auburn hair to the straight line of her bearing and the stubborn tilt of her chin.

For a long moment, he said nothing as Eliza’s heart hammered in her ears. She could not help but notice the way he looked at her, not like a man choosing a partner but a buyer at auction, examining the quality of the goods before him.

The long pause stretched, thick with silence, and the only sound was the ticking of the clock above the hearth and Margaret’s faint, shaky breath behind her.

Finally, he spoke.

“She will do,” he said.

Eliza stared at him, dumbfounded. That was all? No questions? No protest, not even a flicker of surprise? Just quiet, callous agreement, as though she were nothing more than passable. Adequate. Sufficient.

Her father was about to speak, but before he could, the duke turned and was halfway to the door, his coat catching slightly on the polished edge of the writing desk as he moved.

He didn’t look back as Eliza stood frozen, her hand still awkwardly half-lowered at her side, her breath shallow.

The silence he left behind was deafening.

Margaret clutched Eliza’s arm, and Catherine was already moving toward their father, her voice clipped and urgent.

“Father,” she said. “It’s not too late. I can send Mr. Halston after him, explain…”

But Mr. Fairbourne wasn’t listening. His face, already ruddy, darkened into a shade Eliza hadn’t seen since childhood. He advanced on her like a storm.

“What did you just do?” he thundered. “Do you think this is a parlour game?”

“No,” Eliza said, lifting her chin. “I think it was a decision. One Margaret shouldn’t have had to make.”

“You presumptuous little fool.” His voice rose, then cut off with a vicious hiss of breath through his teeth. “You will not embarrass this family further. Do you hear me? If you ruin this, if you cost us this match—”

“I’ll be the one paying for it,” Eliza shot back. “Not you.”

“You’re nothing without this name,” he snarled. “And you will do well to remember that.”

Margaret stepped between them, her eyes wide with fear, but their father had already turned, his coat flaring behind him like a black flag of war.

He stalked out without another word.

Eliza was still catching her breath when she heard Catherine’s voice behind her. Her voice was cold, cutting, and calm.

“You’ve no idea what you’ve just done.”

Eliza turned. “Don’t start.”

Catherine crossed the room, slow and measured, like a governess approaching a wayward child. Her hands were clasped in front of her, but her jaw was tight.

“This isn’t just about you,” Catherine said. “This marriage affects all of us. Our standing. Our survival. If you think you’ve scored some victory by playing the martyr, you haven’t. You’ve simply tied yourself to a man who will expect obedience and respect. I suggest you learn both before you humiliate yourself and us any further.”

“Respect?” Eliza echoed, laughing bitterly. “For a man who looked at me like I was nothing more than some chore that he could hardly be bothered with?”

“You are a Fairbourne. Not some romantic heroine. You will be a duchess, and so it’s time you started acting like one.”

“If it were my choice, I would rather be a stablehand,” Eliza snapped. “At least horses don’t talk back.”

Catherine’s nostrils flared. “You’re being foolish.”

“And you’ve been quiet so long you’ve mistaken it for wisdom.”

Catherine flinched, just slightly, but it was enough.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and swept from the room, spine straight, dignity intact, as though the very air bent around her indignation.

Only Margaret remained, small and trembling by the window, still clutching Eliza’s sleeve.

Eliza stood in the wreckage of her family’s expectations, still reeling and trying not to wonder if she had just made the worst mistake of her life.

But she had spoken the words, made the choice, and now, now there was no taking it back. She had just offered herself to a stranger. A man with a scar on his jaw and ice in his eyes.

And he had said that she would do. As if nothing else needed to be said at all.