Chapter 1
London-November, eight months later
The rain lashed against the windows of White’s with a fury that matched the tempest building in Oliver Sommerset, Marquess of Astor’s, chest. He stood before the fire in the club’s reading room, one hand braced against the mantelpiece, the other crushing the letter he’d been expecting but hoping would never come.
It had arrived not ten minutes prior. Around him, the usual denizens of London’s most exclusive gentlemen’s club continued their evening rituals—cards, brandy, gossip—oblivious to the fact that his world had just shattered.
“Bad news, Astor?”
Oliver didn’t turn at the sound of Lord Weatherby’s voice.
He couldn’t trust himself to school his features into the mask of aristocratic indifference that was expected of a man of his station.
Instead, he focused on the flames, watching them devour a log with the same methodical efficiency he would soon apply to destroying the man who had murdered his closest friend.
“Family matter,” Oliver said, his voice flat, emotionless.
It was not entirely a lie. James Hartley had been closer than family.
Closer than the cold uncle who had raised him after his parents’ deaths, closer than the distant second-cousins who circled his eventual dukedom like vultures.
James had been the only person in England who knew Oliver Sommerset, not just the Marquess of Astor, and heir to the Saxton dukedom, one of the oldest titles in the realm.
And now James was dead.
“Ah.” Weatherby, sensing the dismissal, retreated with a murmured condolence.
Oliver waited until the man’s footsteps faded before he smoothed out the crumpled letter.
The paper was of good quality, the handwriting precise—the work of some country solicitor tasked with informing him that Captain James Hartley, late of His Majesty’s cavalry, had been found dead in Wales.
A riding accident, the letter claimed. The captain’s horse had thrown him on a rocky hillside, and he’d struck his head. Death was instantaneous.
A tragic mishap. The man sent his regrets.
Oliver’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
James Hartley had been one of the finest horsemen in the cavalry.
He’d ridden through the chaos of the Peninsular War, navigating terrain that would have killed lesser men, dodging French musket fire and Portuguese bandits with equal skill.
The notion that a Welsh hillside had bested him was an insult to both men’s intelligence.
The solicitor’s letter was a polite fiction. But the second letter—the one that had arrived three days ago, before news of James’s death had reached London—that letter told the truth.
Oliver reached into his coat pocket and withdrew it carefully, as though it were made of glass.
The paper was cheap, water-stained, the handwriting shaky but unmistakably James’s.
Oliver had received hundreds of letters in that hand over the years, from Eton to Cambridge to the blood-soaked battlefields of Spain. He knew every loop and flourish.
This was James’s last letter. Written in his final hours.
Oliver,
If you’re reading this, I’m dead. I’ve arranged for this to reach you through channels Penharrow won’t think to intercept. Forgive the dramatics, old friend, but I haven’t much time and there’s much you need to know.
The Earl of Penharrow murdered me. I have no proof that would stand in court, but I know it as surely as I know my own name.
I witnessed something I shouldn’t have—a gambling debt being collected through violence that left a man crippled.
When Penharrow realized I’d seen, he invited me to his hunting lodge to “discuss terms.” I was a fool to go alone, but I hoped my rank may have protected me. If you’re reading this, I was wrong.
He won’t make it look like murder. Too many questions. An accident, probably. The Welsh countryside is treacherous, after all.
Oliver, I need you to promise me that you will not seek legal justice.
Penharrow owns every magistrate within one-hundred miles of his Welsh estates.
He’s untouchable through proper channels.
But there’s a woman, Megan. Penharrow keeps her at his hunting lodge, guarded like a prisoner.
She may be the only witness to his crimes, but more than that, old friend, she is a prisoner. If you can do nothing else, free her.
I wish I had more time to explain, but they’re coming. I suspect I’ll not leave Wales alive. Know that your friendship has been one of the great honors of my life. If there’s an afterlife, I’ll see you there for brandy and cards.
Yours, James
Oliver had read the letter so many times in the past three days that he’d memorized every word, every desperate scratch of the pen.
He’d read it in his study, in his carriage, in the sleepless hours before dawn.
He’d read it until the words blurred and his hands shook with a rage so profound it felt like a living thing coiled in his chest.
He’d been readying himself to head to Wales when the second letter arrived today.
James had known he was going to die. Had known and had used his final moments to write this letter, to ensure that Oliver would know the truth.
And Oliver would ensure that truth mattered.
He folded both letters carefully and tucked them into his coat.
Without a word to anyone, he strode from the reading room, collected his hat and gloves from the porter, and descended the steps of White’s into the rain-soaked street.
His carriage waited at the curb; the driver huddled miserably on his seat.
“Home,” Oliver ordered, climbing inside without assistance.
The rain had intensified by the time Oliver’s carriage rattled through the streets of Mayfair toward Berkeley Square.
He’d felt alone most of his life. His parents died when he was a boy and his uncle, the Duke of Saxton, had only daughters.
James had filled a huge void in his life and was the brother he’d never had.
He watched the oil lamps blur past through the water-streaked windows, his mind already moving through the logistics of what came next.
Wales was a three-day journey in good weather.
In November, with the roads beginning to be mired in winter mud, it could take twice that.
He would need to travel light, bring only the essentials, and move quickly.
Most importantly, he would need to move quietly.
The carriage pulled to a halt before his townhouse—an elegant four-story structure in Berkeley Square that had belonged to the Saxton family for generations. A present from his uncle once Oliver had come of age. He ascended without waiting for the footman, taking the steps two at a time.
He’d barely crossed the threshold when his butler materialized from the shadows of the entrance hall.
“My lord.” Hastings took Oliver’s wet coat with the careful deference of a man who’d served the Saxton family for three decades. “I trust your evening at the club was satisfactory?”
“Send word to my valet,” Oliver said, ignoring the question. “Tell Morrison to pack for travel. I’ll be leaving London tomorrow.”
Hastings’s expression didn’t change, but Oliver caught the slight widening of the man’s eyes. “May I ask the destination, my lord?”
“Wales.”
“Ah.” A pause. “Shall I inform His Grace?”
Oliver’s lip curled slightly. His uncle, the Duke of Saxton, was in residence at the family’s country estate near Shrewsbury, no doubt wondering why his heir apparent spent so much time in London instead of attending to his duties.
The old man would have opinions about a sudden trip to Wales.
He had opinions about everything Oliver did.
“No,” Oliver said. “I’ll write to him myself.”
It was a lie, of course. He had no intention of informing his uncle of anything. By the time the duke learned of this journey, it would be far too late to stop it.
“Very good, my lord. Will you be dining in this evening?”
“I’ll have a tray in my study, thank you.” Oliver moved toward the stairs, then paused. “Hastings, send for Webb as well. Tell him I need to see him in my study immediately.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Oliver climbed the stairs to the second floor, his wet boots leaving dark prints on the Turkish runner.
Inside, his household hummed with quiet activity, servants moving through their evening routines, the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchens below.
To anyone observing, it was an ordinary Thursday evening in the Saxton townhouse.
No one would suspect that their master was planning a risky escapade.
Oliver entered his study and closed the door behind him, finally allowing the mask to slip. He stood in the darkness for a long moment, his hands clenched at his sides, the rage and grief warring within him with such intensity he thought he might shatter from it.
James was dead.
The words kept echoing in his mind, a litany he couldn’t escape.
James, who had pulled him from beneath a dying horse at Salamanca.
James, who had gotten drunk with him the night before Talavera and sworn that if they survived, they’d retire to the country and raise horses.
James, who’d been the only person to write to him regularly during those dark months after his parents died, when Oliver was thirteen and suddenly alone, raised by an uncle who saw him only as the heir who must be properly molded now that his father was no longer alive to intervene in the old duke’s plans.
James, who had been more brother than friend.
Oliver moved to the sideboard and poured himself three fingers of whiskey, downing it in one swallow. The burn was welcome, grounding. He poured another, then carried it to his desk.
The desk was mahogany, massive, its surface covered with the correspondence and ledgers that came with being heir to a dukedom. Oliver swept it all aside with one arm, sending papers fluttering to the floor. Let Morrison sort it out. None of it mattered now.