Chapter One
In ordinary circumstances, Miss Christiana Nightingale did not lose her temper. There was very little to be gained from shouting, especially at gentlemen, who were more likely to throw around accusations of hysteria than listen.
These were, however, not ordinary circumstances. Her fingers clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms.
“What do you mean I must be the one to pay them?” she demanded of her father. Ailing and weak, he lay back against his pillows as though he were innocent of every crime.
This, Christiana knew, was patently false.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and made one final, valiant, attempt at finding her equilibrium. “Why am I obligated to pay off your debts, Father? Surely, they are your responsibility.”
His gnarled fingers twitched on the bedsheets. His illness had come quick and fast, rendering him from a large, imposing man to a bedridden invalid in a matter of weeks. And she, Christiana, had been the one to devote her life and time to caring for him.
Not, of course, that it had been much deviation from the norm.
Ever since he had pulled her from finishing school at nineteen and insisted she take the place of what was essentially the housekeeper, she had cared for him.
Taking the bottle from his senseless fingers and hauling his bulk to bed.
Managing breakfast and other meals when the kitchen staff had quit, as they inevitably had—they had rarely been paid.
Still, she reflected, there was a limit to daughterly duty.
“I cannot sell the land,” her father said. “It’s been in the family for generations.”
She braced her hands on her hips. “You might as well sell it. What use is decaying land that doesn’t pay for itself when there are debts to be paid?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Quite right.” With another deep breath, she reined in her temper once again. “Why don’t you explain what harebrained, foolhardy plan you have in mind, and then we might discuss it.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” He twitched a hand to the bedside table. “You are to take that letter to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, and she will handle the rest.”
Christiana eyed the letter with suspicion. Her father’s arthritis had been bad enough over the past few years that she had written most of his letters while he’d dictated—and, taking advantage of what little power she had, she’d written several of her own in his name.
She could not recall writing this one. Which could only mean he had no intention of letting her see its contents.
Then her mind latched on to the other thing he had said.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon?” she demanded.
“Yes. The direction is on the letter, as you see.” He made another feeble gesture, but Christiana made no move to take the letter from him.
She already knew the address, though it had been many years since she had last attended the exclusive club.
When she and her friend Laura had been at school in London, they had sneaked out, making their way illicitly to the establishment, where Laura had flirted her way through the bachelors of London and Christiana had won herself small fortunes.
But for her father to have been there?
She knew firsthand what sort of riches were won and lost at the tables. And if he owed Mrs. Dove-Lyon, then she could only imagine in what form payment would take.
Considering she was delivering the letter, she had a sneaking suspicion: her.
“Father,” she tried. “Surely, you cannot expect to sell me off as part of your debts.”
His eyes glinted. “What use are you to me here, eh, girl? I don’t need some mopey daughter hanging off my coattails. No, the sooner you’re gone and dealt with, the better. Easiest way of getting you married I ever found.”
“And do you know,” she said, her voice icy, “to whom I am now betrothed?”
“Fancy it don’t matter, so long as you do it legal and by the book, and Mrs. Dove-Lyon wipes off everything I owe her.
Saves me piecing off the land, saves me trying to convince some gentleman to take you off my hands, and everything is sorted all right and tight.
” He nodded, evidently proud of himself for having engineered such an ingenious solution.
Christiana closed her eyes, gripping her skirts. Perhaps she could lose her temper, after all. “I am not chattel to be sold at will.”
“No, you’re my daughter, and you will marry.”
“I’m of an age to refuse.”
“What use is your majority when you don’t have a penny to live by? What did you think would happen to you, hm?” He pointed one gnarled finger at her. “Did you think you would live off my generosity for the remainder of my days?”
No. Simply put, she had expected him to die from his excesses in the not-too-distant future, and to inherit what little he owned.
For the past five years, she had taken the lead in managing the estate.
Once she held the purse strings, she had several ideas that would improve matters, both for her tenants and herself.
Vital repairs that must be made, changes to what they would do to the land.
Before her father’s time, there had been a brewery; she had thoughts of restoring the buildings and investing in it once again.
Of course, for that, she would need money, but she had imitated her father often enough to investors that she suspected she could pull it off. All she needed was the freedom with which to enact her plans.
And now her father, the same father who’d had the audacity not to die despite the severity of the stroke that had paralyzed him, was attempting to turn her into some simpering wife?
She had seen the caliber of gentlemen who had visited the Lyon’s Den, both to win and lose fortunes and to strike deals with the shrewd, calculating Mrs. Dove-Lyon. If she were to be married to one of them, her life would be just as miserable as it had been here.
“No,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Pardon me?”
“I said no.”
“You are my daughter!” He slammed a hand down on the blankets. “You will do as I say, as is your daughterly duty.”
Anger squeezed her chest. “And what of your fatherly duty? When was the last time you provided for me?”
“I let you live here. I fill your plate with my food. But that ends here, my girl, mark my words.” His face reddened, eyes bulging as he glowered at her. “This is not a negotiation.”
She exhaled slowly. “No,” she repeated before leaving the room, ignoring the letter he waved at her.
At once, she summoned Mr. Stephens, the steward, a man who had remained part of the household in gratitude to her late grandfather. A grizzled, plain-speaking man, he had quickly become one of her favorite people on the estate, and it was to him that she now wished to turn for advice.
“Debts?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.
“Yes. Gambling debts.”
“How much?”
“Enough it would involve piecing the land, and perhaps selling the house itself, to pay them back.”
He looked at her from under bushy, gray brows. “You don’t have a figure?”
“My father did not see fit to give me that information.” Her voice dripped with disdain.
“I suspect he thought me incapable of processing such a number. All he told me was that I must deliver the letter to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, and later that I would be married as a means of paying off these debts. Not,” she added, “that he went so far as to volunteer that information directly, naturally. Such a thing would have come as a surprise if he’d had his way. ”
Mr. Stephens frowned. “Are the debts to a specific gentleman or the establishment itself?”
“I imagine the establishment, as my father couldn’t tell me to whom he was offering my hand.” Christiana strode about her father’s study—now functionally her own—her skirts catching on her legs. Her glasses slipped down her nose, and she pushed them up with one finger as she thought.
“You can refuse,” Mr. Stephens said. “There’s nothing he can do to force you, short of dragging you to London himself, and we both know he doesn’t have the strength for that.”
“But?”
“If the debt’s as big as you say, it’ll come for the house.” He offered her a sympathetic glance. “And your father can turn you out if he chooses.”
That was the eventuality she’d been afraid of. She chewed her lip. “Is there a way of paying off the debt without resorting to marriage?”
“It’s possible. I don’t know this Mrs. Dove-Lyon in question, but it depends on the terms of the contract.”
She closed her eyes. Her father would have signed anything, probably drunk out of his wits. A gambler—of course she’d had the ill fortune to be born the daughter of an inveterate gambler. Her mother had died too early to offer any hope of saving Christiana.
Then again, her mother had been Society’s darling, and Christiana with her glasses and lanky, overlong limbs and distaste for social events, was not. Her mother had despised her as a child; no doubt she would have despised her more still as an adult.
Perhaps it was better Christiana only had herself to consider.
“I could return to my mother’s parents,” she said, swinging her gaze back to Mr. Stephens. “They live in Kent.”
“You could, miss.” His tone was gentle as he added, “But I remember when they visited after your parents’ wedding. They left things on a sour note. The servants were all talking about it. Your mother married down, they said, and they wanted nothing more to do with her.”
“Or me,” Christiana said, filling in the gaps. That was a shame. “My father’s brother?”
“I believe he died two years ago.”
“Heavens, why have so many members of my family perished? It’s highly inconvenient.
” She reached the window and looked out over the lush hills that characterized the Yorkshire Dales.
Her home. She had grown up on these hills, learning to ride in the paddocks here, exploring every nook and cranny with single-minded focus after reading that book on natural history.
She shook herself. There was no point in getting sentimental.
“I need a new approach,” she said. “If I cannot cast myself on the generosity of my family, what’s left?”
Mr. Stephens said nothing, but Christiana could read the silence as the quiet answer neither of them wished to utter. A lady in her position, penniless and without friends, had very little recourse in this world. She knew it as well as he.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” she murmured. She’d met the lady once or twice during her illicit forays into the world of gambling dens, but she remembered very little about her.
The widow of a captain, perhaps? Certainly, she dressed as though she were perpetually in mourning.
And, although Christiana had never entered this part of the world, she arranged matches between London’s elite, facilitating marriages between reluctant sons, disgraced daughters, scandalous gentlemen, and more.
Evidently, her father intended her to become one of their ranks.
The question was, which breed of disgraced, scandalous gentleman would Mrs. Dove-Lyon select for her?
Not that she had any intention of going along with her father’s diabolical plan.
There had to be another way of resolving the issue that didn’t involve selling herself into the hands of a gentleman desperate enough to buy a bride.
One who, therefore, she assumed incapable of finding a bride the usual way.
That was not a fate she was willing to endure.
“Very well,” she said, more to herself than Mr. Stephens. “I shall pack my bags and go to London. Do not think you have seen the last of me. My father will not get the last word.”
Mr. Stephens ducked his head, hiding what she suspected was a broad grin. “I have no doubt of it, miss. If ever there were a lady capable of making her own fortune, I believe it’s you.”