Chapter 1
Kensington Gardens seemed particularly vibrant on this early summer day as Lady Lavinia Hartwell and her little sister, Rosamund, traversed the well-curated paths around Long Water Lake for their morning walk.
The air was alive with birdsong and warm sunshine, and if Lavinia closed her eyes and blocked out the hundreds of other walkers promenading in the area, she could almost imagine being at the family country estate, free of London’s oppressive airs and the pressure of high society.
“Do you see?” Rosamund asked lightly, gesturing to a couple strolling a few paces in front of them, “I believe that is the Duke of Wilmington’s son, with that heiress from the Americas. Can you tell from this angle?”
Lavinia looked at her younger sister with a small smile. “I cannot, nor would I recognize either were I to meet them in person. How do you know such things?”
Rosamund was two years younger than Lavinia’s two and twenty, but she had an ear to the London gossip that Lavinia neither possessed nor desired.
The sisters were close, even though they looked and acted quite differently at times.
While both girls were petite, Rosamund had her mother’s dark hair and wide eyes, while Lavinia’s locks were golden and her eyes an expressive blue.
When they first entered the London scene, they had been equally sought after—but that equality had quickly faded.
Lavinia was not as quick to impress as Rosamund.
She had not discovered the knack for meaningless platitudes that seemed to keep London women happy, and it seemed that every time she opened her mouth, she was alienating another section of high society.
“I know these things,” Rosamund said with a light laugh, “because I listen to people.”
“I listen to people, too,” Lavinia protested, “when they have something worthwhile to say.”
“You need not always be the judge of what is worthwhile and what is not.” Rosamund looped her arm through Lavinia’s. “I overheard about the Duke of Wilmington from Papa, actually. He thought the young man would be a good match for you, before that American beauty came on the scene.”
Lavinia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was not considered a ladylike action, though it came so naturally when discussing marriage. “Well, then, that tells a tale of its own. I did not know the information because it did not truly pertain to me.”
“It did pertain to you—”
“But I would never have entertained the possibility of marrying a man I had never met,” Lavinia interrupted.
Rosamund was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, she was careful—choosing every word as though preparing a speech for the House of Lords.
“I wonder about you sometimes, Lavinia. You seem to care for our family name, and to love Papa and me, yet you resist our father’s expectations at every turn.
You know Papa has only us two, and the Bamford title will pass elsewhere when he dies.
He wishes to secure the fortune and our future, yet you resent him for it. ”
“I cannot bear the thought of living entirely according to convention,” Lavinia answered softly.
“Does it never irk you that we are moved about the marriage sphere like pawns on a chessboard? I feel I have no agency as it is—why would I sacrifice even more freedom to put myself into another man’s thrall? ”
“Women have been making sacrifices since the world began,” Rosamund retorted. “And the more aristocratic the woman, the more political the alliance. You are the daughter of an earl. You will have to marry well.”
Suddenly, Lavinia’s gaze, scanning the still waters of the lake to her right, caught a glimpse of something small and white clinging to a column at the water’s edge. “Look!” she exclaimed, pointing. “It is a kitten, I think.”
“Poor thing.” Rosamund followed her finger. “It looks stranded—I wonder if it curled up there to sleep last night and the rains flooded its chance of escape.”
Lavinia released her sister’s arm and hurried over to the bank of the lake. It sloped sharply down toward the water, but she was fairly certain that if she moved slowly, she could rescue the kitten without injury.
“Lavinia!” Rosamund called, running to catch up with her. “What do you think you are doing?”
“I am going to help the kitten.” Lavinia stopped at the bank, ignoring the stares of the other passersby, and slipped off her shoes in two brief movements.
“You cannot be serious,” Rosamund breathed in horror. “You do not know how to swim!”
“I am not planning on swimming,” Lavinia said briefly. “Only wading in a short distance until I come to the column. Do not fear, Rosamund. There is no real danger.”
But even as Lavinia said this, she felt a prick of doubt. There was, in fact, a very real and present danger if the water was deeper than it looked, but she had set a course for compassion and, as so often happened with Lavinia, once she set her mind on something, she was not easily swayed.
She half-walked, half-slipped down the muddy bank, damp grass and dirt squishing between the toes of her stockings, her beautiful green skirts gathered up in her fist.
She could hear the protestations from behind her—first Rosamund, still demanding she come back, then the mumbled exclamations of strangers gathering to watch—but she ignored them. All she saw were the kitten's wee claws clinging desperately to the pillar as water lapped at its paws.
The water was colder than expected, and the ground descended sharply. Lavinia managed to reach the column, her fingers closing around the kitten's soft, tiny body as she lifted it off its perch and made her way carefully back to shore.
Her skirts were heavy with the water, and the steep upgrade was more difficult to ascend than it had been to descend, but she managed to drop the kitten carefully back onto the muddy shore. It scrambled up toward the crowd and safety, mewling as it went.
Smiling up into Rosamund’s horrified face, Lavinia stood to walk the rest of the way out of the lake, but as she did, the ground suddenly dropped from beneath her.
Pulled back by the imbalance of her heavy skirts and the sharply descending bank, she lurched backward into the water, falling to the right of the column, into inky blackness.
With a sickening realization, she felt nothing under her feet, only flailing emptiness as the lake water closed over her head. She held her breath, sinking, spiraling her arms in a desperate and useless attempt to rise above the surface of the water again, but it was no use.
She was weighed down by her clothing, but even if she had been more sensibly dressed for water, her skills would have been inadequate. Her father had always told her it was improper for women to learn to swim, and she did not know what to do to pull herself safely above the surface.
Sputtering, choking, drowning—she felt panic closing over her like the water itself. Only then did she sense a splash near her and feel a strong arm like a band of iron around her waist.
The arm pulled her up, up, up to the light and air again. She heard the rush of water as her rescuer carried her to shore—no mean feat considering her waterlogged skirts—then a brief struggle as they navigated the steep bank.
She blinked away the water as her rescuer set her unceremoniously down on the path beside the lake, shivering and humiliated. The man who had pulled her from the deluge was a stranger of middle age, tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and undeniably handsome.
She had never seen him before, but as he stared down at her now in a puddle before him, she could see that his striking good looks were harbored, in fact, by the severity in his eyes.
“Reckless girl,” he snapped.
“I …I am sorry …” she stammered, hugging her arms around her soaking dress as Rosamund draped a shawl over her shoulders. “Thank you so much. I thought—”
“You clearly did not think at all,” he said bluntly, his eyes sharp and hard as flint. “That situation, entirely of your own making, could have easily ended in tragedy. Take greater caution in future, My Lady.”
He bowed and walked away without introducing himself, leaving Lavinia surrounded by gossiping strangers. They whispered behind their hands and slowly leaked away from the scene of the drama. Lavinia turned and looked at Rosamund, sick to her stomach. “Papa will hear about this, will he not?”
Rosamund said nothing, but her pale face was answer enough.
***
“Sit down, Lavinia.” The Earl of Bamford, Lavinia’s father, gestured to the chair in front of his desk.
He had called her to his study the morning after the incident at the lake.
The atmosphere at Hartwell House had been tense since the girls returned—Lavinia soaking wet and lacking legitimate excuses for her actions, as all involved seemed to think the kitten unworthy of her attention.
Now, as she sat slowly before her father, Lavinia felt like a small child across from him, as though she had been caught putting a frog in her governess’ desk drawer or oiling the dance floor at a neighbor’s evening party.
“Papa, if this is about yesterday—”
“Yesterday? As though I have been given an unconventional daughter who only yesterday stepped outside the bounds of propriety,” Lord Bamford said coldly.
“No, I have been entreating you for years to draw alongside the expectations of society. What of the time you refused a dance with the German prince because you felt he was too coarse—”
“A sailor would have used better language concerning my person,” Lavinia sighed.
“He was a prince,” her father went on, ticking the memories off on his fingers in a list. And Lavinia knew he was not even mentioning the most recent—just the most vivid in his own memory.