Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
"Straighten your spine." Her father's voice cut through the silence. "You'll fetch nothing if you slouch like a kitchen maid."
Fetch. As though I am a hound he is bringing to market.
She straightened anyway, because she would not give these men the satisfaction of seeing her cowed.
Through the carriage window, she counted the arriving conveyances.
Six coaches, fine enough to bear noble crests she did not recognize.
Eight men on horseback, their clothing marking them as wealthy.
Scots, some of them, if the plaids half-visible beneath their cloaks were any indication.
Her father had been pleased about that. "Highland coin spends as well as English," he'd said three days before, when he'd finally told her why they were making that journey.
Not that he'd used the word auction. He'd called it a "gathering of interested parties." As though wrapping ugliness in silk made it any less vile.
She had learned the true nature of it by listening at doors, as she'd learned most things worth knowing in her father's house. The servants whispered when they thought she couldn't hear.
"Daughters sold to the highest bidder while their fathers drank wine and called it business."
"I hear he is taking poor Lady Elinor there to be sold."
Shocked at the servant's words, she'd hurried to confront her father.
She had found him in his study, a glass of claret already in his hand though it was barely past noon. When she had knocked, he had not responded, neither had he looked up when she had entered.
"Father, I need to speak with you."
"Then speak." He turned a page, his finger tracing a column of figures marked in red. Debts, Elinor realized.
Her hands twisted in her skirts, but she kept her voice strong. "There are rumors that you mean to take me to an auction. That you intend to—" The words stuck in her throat like shards of glass.
"To sell you?" He looked up then, his expression utterly calm. "Yes."
The simple confirmation struck harder than a blow. She had expected denials, anger at her eavesdropping, perhaps even shame. Not this casual acknowledgment.
"You cannot be serious."
"I am entirely serious." He took a long drink, his eyes never leaving her face. "We need coin, Elinor. Despite you blissfully indulging in your everyday luxuries, the estate is drowning in debt. The creditors are circling like vultures. And you are the only thing of value I have left."
"Me?! I am your daughter!"
"You are an asset." He set down his glass with deliberate care. "One I have fed and clothed for three and twenty years. It is time you provided a return on that investment."
When she'd protested, his hand had cracked across her face so fast she hadn't seen it coming.
"You will do as you're told," he'd said softly, "or I will drag you there in chains if I must."
Her mother had stood in the hallway, pale and silent as a ghost. Their eyes had met. Her mother had looked away first. No help would come from that quarter. It never did.
Now, the manor loomed ahead, its stone facade grey and unwelcoming against the winter sky. Elinor's hands were numb inside her gloves, partly from the cold and mostly from dread, she was sure.
After three days, the bruise on her cheek had faded to a dull yellow. She'd covered it with powder that morning, her hands steady despite the tremor in her chest.
Let them see a lady, not a victim. Let them see someone worth more than the coin they'd pay.
Though what difference it would make, she did not know.
"You'll do as you're told," Her father's voice cut into her thoughts, startling her back to the present.
His breath carried across the small carriage distance, reeking of stale wine.
"You'll smile. You'll curtsy. And you'll go with whichever man pays the most. We need the coin, girl, so do your own part and save the family estate. "
He'd said it as though she should be grateful. As though being sold like a mare at Smithfield was an honor she didn't deserve.
The carriage lurched to a stop, jolting her forward.
Her father merely gave her a cutting glance before descending first, not bothering to offer his hand.
He never did. Elinor gathered her skirts and stepped down onto the frozen ground, her eyes sweeping the manor's entrance.
Light spilled from the windows. Men's voices drifted out: laughter, the clink of glasses. The sounds of commerce.
Do any of you have daughters? Will you think of them tonight while you stand in rooms like this, deciding which girl is worth the most coin?
"Lord Royse!"
The voice made her stomach clench before she even turned to see who spoke it.
Sir Edmund Langley strode toward them, his crimson cloak billowing behind him like a banner of war. His face was flushed, his jaw tight, and his blue eyes were fixed on her father with an intensity that made her take an instinctive step back.
Not fear. Calculation. Edmund Langley angry was Edmund Langley unpredictable.
"Langley." Her father's tone was flat, dismissive. "I did not expect to see you here."
"Did you not?" Edmund's smile was sharp as a blade. "When I heard whispers of this gathering, I thought surely I had misheard. Surely Lord Thomas Royse would not be so foolish as to parade his lovely daughter before every fortune-hunter and titled scoundrel north of London."
"My affairs are no concern of yours."
"They became my concern when you refused my suit." Edmund's gaze shifted to Elinor, and she met it without flinching.
Let him see that she was not some trembling thing to be fought over.
"I offered marriage to your daughter, my lord. An honorable arrangement. Alliance with my family's name and resources. And you spat on it."
"Your offer was inadequate."
"Inadequate?" Edmund's voice rose, his control slipping. "I offered you a generous settlement, Royse. Lands in Sussex. Connections at court. A bride price that would have cleared half your debts, with the remainder held in trust for your daughter's security. What more could you possibly want?"
Elinor's chest tightened. So that was why her father had refused. The trust. The protections Edmund's marriage contract would have provided, protections that would have kept the money from her father's hands.
Her mother had wept with relief when Edmund came calling, had spoken of it as deliverance. But Elinor had seen the way Edmund looked at her. Like a possession he intended to own completely. Marriage to him would have been trading one prison for another.
"Your offer," her father said coldly, "came with too many conditions. Too many restrictions on how the funds could be used."
"Restrictions meant to protect your daughter!"
"I don't need you to protect her. I need coin." Her father's fingers tightened on her elbow. "And this gathering will provide it without your meddling contracts and trust provisions."
The truth settled over Elinor like a wet blanket. Her father saw only limits. The portions of the bride price he could not immediately touch. The funds set aside for her use rather than his.
This gathering offered no such protections. Just a sale, clean and simple. Here, he could sell her outright and walk away with a purse heavy enough to pay his debts and keep him in wine for years, while she became the property of whoever paid could afford his price.
Edmund's voice dropped to something dangerous. "You would sell her like livestock rather than see her properly wed?"
"I would see her placed where she brings the greatest advantage to her family." Her father's hand closed around her elbow, fingers digging through the fabric of her sleeve hard enough to bruise. "Now step aside. We have business within."