Prologue
Lightening flashed moments before thunder struck and rattled the windows of Evangeline Payne’s bedroom. She shook beneath her blanket. Eva hated storms, but loud ones always made her nervous. This storm was no different.
Her mother, Daphne Atwood Payne, Viscountess Norwich had died during a storm like this one. That was four years earlier when Eva was three and ten. It was then when she’d become timid and lost the ability to speak well in polite company. Storms had become her greatest weakness.
Her father had changed after her mother’s death too.
He’d become distant and angry. His temper flared at the slightest provocation.
Her stammer hadn’t helped when he wanted her attention.
She tried to avoid him at all costs. She relished the moments when she was allowed to visit her grandmother, Theodora, the Dowager Countess of Birchwood.
At her grandmother’s estate she felt free, but still even there with her three cousins for company she couldn’t shake the stutter that plagued her.
She was going to stay with her grandmother in a week and she couldn’t wait. The storm only made her more anxious. What if it was an omen of sorts? If her father forbade her from going Eva didn’t know what she would do. She had to go. She just had to.
Eva slipped out of bed and made her way to the window. She should face her fear and maybe then she could lose the stutter too. Something had to change or she would never be able to escape her father’s house. She needed to marry, and she prayed for something to help her do that.
Her hand shook as she opened the window.
With it wide open wind blew inside and the rain pelted against her skin.
She lifted her head and let it pour over her face.
The pain that prickled her skin from the drops of water was enough to shock her to reality.
This was silly. Another flash of lighting and the pound of thunder rattled around her.
Eva took a deep breath and then stepped away from the window. She was tired of being afraid.
She stared at the stormy sky and made a promise to herself.
This summer when she was at her grandmother’s estate, she would make a change.
She would become a woman a man noticed, and she would find a husband.
If she couldn’t do that, then she had no real chance of a future.
Her father drank too much brandy and he got meaner the more foxed he became.
Eva was tired of being afraid of her own shadow. It was time to live in the light. She stepped forward and closed the windows. Storms were not going to be her weakness anymore. Instead the tempest would be her strength as she walked into the storm and faced everything it threw her way.
She slipped into bed again and settled beneath her blanket. For the first time in a long time she slept peacefully. As if fate had given her a gift. One she had been waiting for and hadn’t realized it. All she had to do was accept it and her greatest desire would be hers. Finally.
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