Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“Hush now,” Joan murmured. “All will be well, dearest. I promise you.”
Joan Sinclair tightened her arms around her younger sister’s form and wiped a stray tear from the side of her face.
A promise I have no right to make, Joan thought bitterly, even as she pressed a gentle kiss to Victoria’s dark curls. But what else could I offer her now?
Joan’s head throbbed with a persistent ache that had begun somewhere around the third hour of their journey and had only intensified as the day wore on.
Fairfax Manor awaited them at the end of this interminable road. The estate had been in their family for generations, though it had stood largely neglected for the past decade.
“I am so dreadfully sorry, Joan,” Victoria whispered, her voice breaking. “This is all my fault. If I had only—”
“Hush,” Joan interrupted firmly, tilting Victoria’s chin up so she could meet her sister’s red-rimmed eyes. “We shall speak no more of fault or blame. What’s done is done. Now we must simply endure.”
She had been twelve years old when their parents died—twelve years old and suddenly responsible for a grieving fourteen-year-old brother and an eight-year-old sister who cried herself to sleep every night.
Joan had learned quickly that survival required setting aside one’s own fears and sorrows.
Someone had to be strong. That someone had always been her.
The carriage jolted suddenly, throwing both sisters forward. Victoria let out a small cry of alarm, and Joan braced herself against the side panel, her heart racing.
“What in heaven’s name—” she began, but her words died as the carriage shuddered to a complete stop.
Victoria’s breathing came in short, panicked gasps. “Joan? What’s happening? Are we—are we being set upon by highwaymen?”
“Do not be absurd,” Joan said, though her own pulse had quickened considerably. She leaned toward the window, pushing aside the leather curtain. “We are on a private road. No highwayman would dare—”
Another carriage blocked their path entirely.
The road here was narrow, hemmed in on both sides by dense hedgerows that would make passage impossible for two vehicles traveling in opposite directions.
The other carriage was magnificent, a gleaming black lacquer and brass fittings, drawn by four perfectly matched bay horses that stamped and snorted in the cold air.
Joan’s gaze traveled to the door panel, where an elaborate coat of arms had been painted in silver and blue. Her knowledge of heraldry was limited, but she recognized quality when she saw it. Whoever owned this vehicle was a person of considerable rank.
“Miss Sinclair?” Their coachman’s voice drifted down from his perch, thin and uncertain. “I… that is… there’s another…”
Joan waited for him to continue, but only silence followed. She pressed closer to the window and craned her neck to see the driver’s box.
“Peters?” she called out, keeping her voice level. “What seems to be the difficulty?”
Victoria’s eyes, still swollen from hours of weeping, darted between Joan and the window. “Should we not go back?”
“We have been on this road for eight hours,” Joan said, fighting to keep the edge from her voice.
“We are less than two miles from Fairfax Manor. To turn back now would require us to reverse nearly half a mile before finding a place wide enough to turn the carriage around. Then we would have to find an alternate route, which could add hours to our journey.”
Hours I do not have the strength to endure, she thought desperately.
She looked out the window again at the imposing carriage blocking their way. The other vehicle could reverse far more easily they had only just turned onto this particular stretch of road. It would take them mere minutes to back up to the intersection they had passed.
“It is far more practical for them to reverse,” Joan said decisively. “Any reasonable person would see that.”
As if summoned by her words, a rider emerged from behind the other carriage. He was dressed in the livery of a great house deep blue coat with silver frogging, pristine white breeches, and tall black boots polished to a mirror shine.
The rider urged his horse forward until he drew level with Peters. Joan couldn’t hear what was said, but she saw Peters nod vigorously, already beginning to gather the reins to back their carriage up.
“No,” Joan said aloud.
Victoria’s head snapped up. “Joan?”
This is preposterous, Joan thought, her exhaustion and frustration suddenly coalescing into cold anger.
“No,” Joan said again, more firmly this time. She reached for the door handle.
“Joan, what are you doing?” Victoria sat up straight.
Joan did not wait for the step to be let down. She gathered her skirts in one hand and jumped down to the road, landing with a decidedly unladylike thump that sent a fresh spike of pain through her aching head.
“Miss Sinclair!” Peters finally found his voice, though it emerged as a strangled squeak. “Miss, please, you must get back inside the—”
Joan ignored him. She strode forward along the narrow verge of the road, her half-boots squelching in the mud left by yesterday’s rain. Behind her, she heard Victoria call out her name.
The rider from the other carriage called out, “Madam! Madam, you must stop at once!”
Joan paid him no heed whatsoever. She marched straight up to the gleaming black carriage and raised her fist to pound on the door.
“I must insist that you reverse your carriage!” she called out, her voice ringing with an authority she had perfected over years of managing a household.
“It is far more practical for you to do so. We have been traveling for eight hours and are nearly at our destination, while you have only just arrived at this impasse.”
Two men who were guards, she realized, built like bulls and dressed in the same blue-and-silver livery, appeared as if from nowhere. “Step away from the carriage, Miss,” one of them said, his voice flat and hard. “Now.”
Joan looked from one guard to the other. Some distant, rational part of her mind whispered that she had made a terrible mistake.
“Miss, do you hear? You need to—”
The carriage door swung open.
Joan’s words died in her throat as a man emerged from the shadowed interior.
Dear God, she thought, momentarily forgetting every coherent thought in her head.
He was tall, taller even than her brother, who stood above six feet.
Broad shoulders strained against the superfine fabric of his coat, which was cut in a style so elegant and expertly tailored that it could only have come from the finest establishments on Savile Row.
His hair was a rich brown, just long enough to curl slightly at his collar, and when he raised his head to look at her fully, Joan felt her breath catch in her chest.
His eyes were the color of a stormy sea, dark blue, almost gray, and so intense that she felt pinned beneath his gaze like a butterfly mounted on velvet.
His expression revealed nothing.
Training reasserted itself and Joan sank into a curtsy, keeping her spine straight and her eyes downcast in the manner she had been taught since childhood. “My lord,” she said, her voice suddenly, mortifyingly breathless. “Forgive my… unconventional approach.”
Unconventional, she thought wildly. I am quite possibly the most foolish woman in all of England.
She rose from her curtsy and forced herself to meet his eyes, though it cost her more effort than she cared to admit.
“I would not have troubled you,” she continued, fighting to keep her voice steady and reasonable, “but the circumstances rather demand it. We have been traveling all day and are within two miles of our destination. You have only just arrived at this narrow portion of the road. It would take you but a few minutes to reverse to the intersection you passed, while it would require us to backtrack nearly half a mile before we could even begin to turn our carriage around.”
She paused, then added, “I am certain a gentleman of your obvious rank and quality would see the logic in this and would not wish to cause unnecessary hardship to fellow travelers.”
There, she thought with grim satisfaction. Appeal to his pride and sense of superiority. Make him think that reversing his carriage is the noble, generous thing to do rather than the practical necessity it actually is.
He raised one hand in a languid gesture, and instantly, stepped back. The liveried rider who had first approached their carriage bowed and immediately began calling orders to the other servants.
The man’s eyes never left Joan’s face.
“My coachman will reverse the carriage,” he said, his voice a deep, drawl that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. “I would not wish to be thought discourteous by a lady of such… determination.”
Heat flooded Joan’s cheeks. She could not tell if he was mocking her or genuinely impressed by her audacity.
“You are most generous, my lord,” she managed, dropping into another curtsy, though this one was briefer and more perfunctory than the first.
“Safe travels, madam. I trust you will reach your destination without further… impediment.”
There was definitely mockery in those words. Joan felt her chin lift automatically, a stubborn defiance rising to match the challenge in his tone.
“I am certain we shall,” she said crisply. “Good day to you, my lord.”
She turned on her heel and walked back toward her own carriage.
Peters sat frozen on the driver’s box, his mouth hung slightly open, and his eyes were so wide that Joan could see the whites all around.
She ignored him and climbed back into the carriage properly this time, accepting the step and trying to at least salvage some semblance of decorum to find Victoria pressed into the corner of the seat, her face pale as milk.
“Joan,” Victoria breathed as soon as the door closed behind her.
Joan stroked her sister’s hair with trembling fingers. “All is well. See? No harm done.”