Chapter 2
ONE YEAR LATER
V aleria stood at the top of the staircase, looking down at the chaos.
The entrance hall was full of people. Footmen hauling trunks. Maids with armloads of linen. A man had his walking stick tangled in the curtain’s sash. Two gentlemen in the corner could not agree on how to remove a coat.
She would have laughed if she had not been gripping the banister so hard.
Caroline was lounging on a settee by the window, six months pregnant, directing people with one hand. John leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed. He caught Valeria’s eye. Breathe, he mouthed.
She had not had this many eyes on her since her first Season. Every man in this room wanted to marry her.
“Breathe,” she muttered to herself, gripping the banister.
She had spent a full year getting ready for this. Twelve months of mourning. She wore black every day without complaint. Whatever Gordon had done, she would not give the ton a reason to call her improper.
People watched a widow. They watched how long she mourned, how she mourned, whether she mourned enough or too much. Valeria gave them nothing to talk about. She wore black, and she stayed at Thornhill, and she did not attend a single social event for twelve months.
But she used the time. She ate. Three meals a day, sometimes four, real food, as much as she wanted. The first week, she made herself sick because her stomach had shrunk so much that a full plate made her nauseous. She kept eating anyway.
By the second month, the hollows under her cheekbones had started to fill out. By the fourth, her collarbones stopped poking through her clothes. By the sixth, she could look in the mirror without flinching.
She looked like a person again. She had done that herself. No one helped her. No one needed to.
She walked the grounds whenever she pleased. Hours, sometimes. No permission. The first time she reached the end of the garden and back without being stopped, she sat on a bench and cried for ten minutes. After that, it got easier.
She wrote to Bridget and Caroline without anyone standing over her shoulder. She stayed up late reading books Gordon would not have approved of. She slept without listening for footsteps. She found out she liked coffee in the morning, not tea. She had never been allowed to pick.
And she planned. Every detail. Every game, every rule. Her terms. Her choice .
Bridget helped from Evesbury. Her letters were long and practical and full of advice about guest lists and wines and which families not to invite.
She included a list of men she had personally vetted, annotated in her sharp handwriting.
Lord Barton: harmless, drinks too much, decent teeth.
Sir Marcus Hale: ambitious, watch the hands.
Mr. Ashworth: writes poetry, probably cries at sunsets, safe.
Valeria read the list three times and kept it in her desk drawer.
Caroline took charge of the decorations and the menu.
She was enormous and could barely manage the stairs.
Her husband Richard trailed her from room to room, looking worried, but she ignored him completely.
She had opinions on flowers and tablecloths and the arrangement of candles that she delivered with the authority of a general planning a campaign.
Valeria let her. Caroline needed to be in charge of something, and Valeria needed someone else to care about the napkins.
John offered to vet the gentlemen personally, by which he meant fight them. Valeria said no. He argued. She said no again. He sulked for two days and then showed up with a fencing foil and asked if he could at least test their reflexes. She said no to that, too.
“You are taking all the fun out of this,” he complained.
“This is not supposed to be fun for you.”
“Everything is fun for me. That is my gift.”
“Your gift is being annoying. Go help Caroline with the flowers.”
He went. She heard him complaining about it from the other end of the house.
She watched them from the top of the stairs.
These men had come from all over England.
Some had traveled for days. Some had brought valets and trunks full of clothes and cases of wine, as though this were a holiday rather than a competition.
One man had brought a dog, which was currently being chased out of the kitchens by Mrs. Grady, who had opinions about dogs near her roast chicken.
They were here for her. All of them. Because she had written a letter and sealed it and sent it out into the world, and the world had answered. A year ago, she had not been allowed to walk in her own garden. Now she had twenty-three men in her entrance hall fighting over who would carry her trunks.
Caroline caught her eye from below. Get on with it.
Valeria let go of the banister and went down.
The room quieted. Two dozen men turned to face her.
She recognized a few. Lord Barton. He had spilled wine on her glove once at a ball and spent all night apologizing.
Sir Marcus Hale, whose land bordered Thornhill.
He wanted the money, probably. There was a young viscount whose name she could not remember. His ears were pink.
Near the window, a tall man with red sideburns was writing something in a notebook.
She would learn his name later. Mr. Ashworth.
He wrote poetry. It was bad poetry, but the effort was sweet.
Beside him, a grey-haired gentleman sat in a chair he had clearly claimed within seconds of arriving.
Sir Humphrey Dalton. He had already found the wine.
“Is that all of them?” Valeria whispered to Caroline.
“Twenty-three confirmed. One more is expected this afternoon. A Mr. Edward something. His brother wrote the letter.”
“What do we know about him?” Valeria asked, keeping her voice low.
Caroline shifted on the settee. “Not much. Richard says the family has a new title. Very new. And there are rumors.”
“What sort of rumors?” Valeria pressed.
Caroline opened her mouth, then closed it. “The sort I did not want to tell you before today.”
John appeared at Valeria’s elbow. “Ready?”
“Do I look ready?” Valeria muttered.
“You look like you might puke on Sir Marcus’s shoes.”
“That would certainly make an impression.”
“Go,” John urged. “They’re growing restless. Lord Barton has already asked a footman about the wine situation twice.”
Valeria smoothed her dress. It was the green one, the one Caroline picked out. Silk, not muslin. It felt like armor. She had spent twenty minutes in front of the mirror that morning, not out of vanity but out of the same impulse that made a soldier check his rifle before a battle.
Everything had to be right. Hair pinned, but not severe. Jewels, but not too many. She wore her grandmother’s necklace around her throat. Eloise would have loved this. The audacity of it. A woman choosing.
“Valeria,” Caroline’s voice came from below. Sharp. “If you do not come down in the next thirty seconds, I am sending Richard up to fetch you, and he will talk about the baby the whole way down.”
“I am coming,” Valeria called back.
None of them made her feel anything.
Good. She did not need to feel. She needed to think .
“Gentlemen,” she began. Her voice carried. That surprised her. “Welcome to Thornhill. Thank you for coming. I know this is unusual.”
There was a polite murmur. Someone coughed. Sir Marcus smiled with too many teeth.
“I need a husband. I will not pretend otherwise.” She paused.
Let it land. She was the one talking. She was setting the terms. A room full of men, waiting for her to tell them what came next.
She stood taller. “I am told that the qualities a man seeks in a wife are obedience, fertility, and a nurturing disposition.”
Some of them shifted. Lord Barton looked at the ceiling. Sir Marcus examined his fingernails. The young Viscount’s face had turned so red that a footman was looking at him with concern.
Valeria looked at them, really looked, and felt something sink in her chest. These were the men who had come for her. Polite men. Nervous men. Men who stood when a woman entered the room and said the right things and meant none of them.
She had married a man like this once. Charming and correct and hollow underneath.
Not one of them made her feel anything. Not one of them looked like he could protect her from a stiff wind, let alone from the kind of men Mr. Pemberton had warned her about.
The older gentleman near the back, Sir Humphrey Dalton, barked a laugh and then quickly muffled it with a cough. The man beside him gave him a look. Sir Humphrey gave him a look back. The second man looked away first.
“I have decided that what I seek in a husband is rather different.” She clasped her hands together. “Protective. Caring. And funny. Those are the three things I will be testing for. Win, and you might get a bride. Lose, and at least you had a pleasant week in the country.”
Caroline was beaming. Valeria had to look away. John gave her a nod.
Some of the men straightened. Others exchanged looks. The young Viscount’s ears had gone from pink to red.
She opened her mouth to continue when the front doors swung wide. No knock. A tall, broad man walked through, framed by daylight. He did not look like any of them.
The hall fell quiet. Not politely quiet, but something else.
Valeria turned to Caroline. “Who is that?” she whispered. “And why does everyone look as though they have seen a ghost?”
She did not realize how far her voice carried until his eyes found hers across the hall. He had heard her; she was certain of it. Most men would have looked away, pretended not to notice. This one held her gaze, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
He had caught her asking about him. And he was amused.
He was tall, taller than all the men in the hall. Broad in the shoulders, with messy dark brown hair. Dark clothes, no waistcoat. He was wearing a plain coat and a linen shirt.
He had ridden hard to get here, it was obvious. His green eyes swept across the hall. Slowly. Checking exits. Counting heads.
He had scars. One on his neck, disappearing under his collar. Another on the back of his left hand, small and precise. Not from accidents.
He did not move. Did not need to. The hall had already noticed.
The man nearest the door took a full step back.
Caroline had frozen mid-sentence, a hand on her belly. John was not smiling anymore.
The man walked toward Valeria. The crowd parted for him.
Three paces away, he stopped and tipped his head. Not a bow. Not quite.
“Forgive the interruption,” he said, voice deep. A Scottish edge lingered on some of the vowels, coming and going. “I am the Duke of Welford.”
“I haven’t heard that title before,” Valeria admitted.
He was close enough now that she had to tilt her head up to look at him. Close enough that she could see the faint scar on his jaw and smell rain and horse and warmth underneath.
Her pulse kicked hard in her throat. She frowned to mask it.
Something moved across his face. Not a smile, but it was close.
“It’s still… recent, but ye might know me as the Hound.”
She knew the name. Everyone did. The Crown’s ghost. Spy. Killer. Nursemaids used his name to scare children into bed. Men in clubs spoke about him quietly.
There were stories. He had killed a man with his bare hands in Prague. He had walked into a ballroom in Vienna with blood on his shirt, and nobody said a word. The Queen gave him his title because nobody dared refuse him.
And he was in her entrance hall. Asking to compete for her hand.
Her hand was still held out, fingers curled around nothing. She lowered it. Behind her, Caroline sucked in a sharp breath. Beside her, she felt John go rigid.
The Hound watched her. Patient. Still. Waiting.
Valeria had not survived three years with Gordon Hansley by giving in to fear. She had survived by using it.
She held his gaze. Her hands shook. Her eyes did not.
The hall held its breath. Twenty-three men, a pregnant woman, a brother who looked like he wanted to commit murder, and a footman who had frozen mid-step with a dustpan full of broken china, all of them waiting to see what she would do.
“You are welcome to stay, Duke,” she offered, voice steady. Clear. “Under the same terms as every other man in this hall.”
“I would not expect any different, Duchess.”
Behind her, John exhaled through his teeth. Caroline had gone very still on the settee, one hand on her belly, the other gripping the armrest.
“Then someone find this man a room,” Valeria ordered.
Valeria turned and walked toward the dining hall. She did not look back, because looking back would mean he would see her face, and her face was doing something she could not afford to show anyone.
John caught her arm in the corridor. “Val.”
“Not now,” she said, pulling free.
“That is Edward Langton. The Hound. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means I have twenty-four suitors instead of twenty-three.”
“It means you have a killer in your house.”
She shook her head. “I had a killer in my house for three years, John. At least this one asked permission.”