Prologue
After Cecily Shoard buried her beloved father, a distant cousin came to claim their estate.
It wasn’t much—only a small cottage with a small yard and a small forge in their small village. Having never had a mother to mind her, Cecily had grown up tenderly cared for by her swordsmith father, and now that he was dead, her whole world belonged in the hands of a stranger.
Two weeks had passed since she’d met Mr. Redgrave, a plain man in his thirties with vacant eyes and an empty purse.
He spoke little and seemed flustered when he did, like conversation and kindness were foreign, but he was determined to try them anyway.
She only saw him at meals, when he deigned to leave the room that had once been her father’s.
Tonight, he sat at the head of the small dining table, and he did not look at her when she set a plate before him. He didn’t thank her as he lifted his fork, nor did he wait for her to sit before he dug into the meal she’d made.
Cecily settled at the opposite end of the table, as far as she could get from him, and eyed the short candles.
They weren’t bright enough to light the tiny room, the decorative swords on the wall, or the little portrait of her mother on the mantle above the unlit fireplace.
She could hardly see her dinner either, as their sputtering flames threatened to give out at any moment.
She’d bought those candles with her father.
The thought of him stabbed an icy shard of misery through her chest, and she might have cried had she not already spent two hours weeping at Mrs. Baker’s house that afternoon.
No matter how much Cecily poured out her heart, there was always more grief. Most days, she only missed her father, but sometimes she wrestled with guilt.
She hadn’t known he was dying when his chronic cough—which had always been ugly, but mild—suddenly progressed to fierce and frightful hacking. He had only been in his early forties, healthy, with so much life to live.
Ever a dutiful and loving daughter, she’d fussed over him, making soups and steaming teas to soothe him, and she’d bothered their kind country physician every other day for anything he might prescribe.
Her father’s breathing only worsened, so labored that he hardly slept.
For a month, she did all she could to help him until he passed one night, just before dawn.
Mrs. Baker told her that it wasn’t her fault, and there was nothing more she could have done. Cecily didn’t know if that was true, and though she tried not to dwell on unknowns, the pain of her father’s absence demanded she wonder.
Sometimes that was the most painful of all.
Though hours had passed since leaving Mrs. Baker’s, Cecily’s eyes were still swollen and red, but her cousin wouldn’t have noticed even if there was enough light to see.
“We’ll need more candles soon,” she muttered, more to herself because she doubted he cared as he focused on his dinner. She hoped the meal was as good as he made it seem. Even on days when she felt like eating, sorrow turned everything to ash in her mouth.
Redgrave lifted his eyes, brown as tilled earth, looking surprised as though he’d forgotten Cecily was there. He always looked at her like that, like he’d half expected her to disappear when he moved in.
“Ah,” was all he said, and then he turned back to his dinner.
She picked at the food on her plate. Tears rose, beginning as pressure at the back of her throat. One slipped free, ran down her cheek, and dripped to her simple black dress.
The Shoards had never been wealthy, but every year, her father would purchase her a new frock.
This year, she’d hoped to buy one for her wedding, since she’d planned to marry once she turned eighteen—but she didn’t have anything black and hated the idea of mourning her father in anything remotely cheerful.
Her fiancé, Oliver Stinton, had seen it today, had recognized it as new and even told her she was lovely in it, though he knew exactly what it meant—what it should have been.
Oliver had been her friend since childhood, so he knew these kinds of things.
His kind, jade-colored eyes had been cast with sadness as he spoke to her on the road by Mrs. Baker’s house, which he’d been traveling in the interest of coming to visit her.
It was the third time he’d seen her since her father’s death, the first having been the day he died.
Oliver had come with his father—a baron who had a long-standing friendship with Mr. Shoard after patronizing his business for several years—to impart their sympathies and bring her a basket of bread, fruit, and meat from their estate.
The second time was at the short funeral service and burial, where they’d only greeted each other.
Cecily and Oliver weren’t in love, but they’d spent much of their childhood being teased about marriage until they were old enough to admit that a match between them was suitable, if not agreeable.
Their fathers had been amenable to it—excited, even—and so they agreed the two would be married after her eighteenth birthday.
Her birthday had passed while her father was ill, and the Stintons were too kind to broach the matter.
It was marriage he’d come to discuss with her today, though they’d stood on the road to talk because she wanted any excuse to be away from Redgrave.
She’d told Oliver so, and he’d taken her hand in his and said, “Come to our estate. You and I can be married by the end of the week, by the end of tomorrow, if you like. You won’t have to see Redgrave again.
” He’d stepped close to her then, though not close enough to be improper if any of the villagers saw.
“We don’t have to tell anyone until your mourning period is finished, but I’d rather you be with my family than with that man.
Come, live in our home, mourn with us, and be where you belong. ”
She might have done it. Her only hesitation was her father’s house and the memories still held within.
For eighteen years, these walls had been her world.
To leave them in the hands of a stranger felt like a betrayal.
She hadn’t been ready to lose her father and wasn’t ready to let go of any piece of him, including the home where he’d raised her.
But she really didn’t like Redgrave and decided that could be enough to make her let go.
She watched her cousin from across the table, her heart pounding in warning about what she was about to do.
Your memories, it told her. Your father. If you wait only a little longer, until it won’t hurt so much to leave—
“I’m leaving,” she said before her heart could convince her not to. Her voice was quiet and smooth and far calmer than her pulse suggested.
Redgrave looked up again, seeming surprised for a second time. “What?” he asked, the word only half-formed around the food in his mouth.
“I’m going to the Stintons’ estate,” she said. “I’m engaged to the baron’s son, and we are to be married this week.” She didn’t look at the walls, the swords above the fireplace, or the picture of her mother, as though any of them might stare back and demand why?
Quietly, as though to spare the house from hearing it, she told Redgrave, “You may have the house and all that’s inside.”
Save for her sword, which her father had made for her and trained her with, and a few other belongings. She would take those with her, and she didn’t expect him to protest.
Redgrave stared at her for a long moment, his mouth still half open. Then he shut it and began chewing slowly.
“I’ll want my dowry,” she went on. He kept looking at her with a vacant expression that made her stomach tighten. “My father saved for it, so I’ll need it.”
This seemed to snap Redgrave from his thoughts. “You don’t have a dowry.”
He said it so simply, almost flippant, like one might remark on the temperature of the day. Though he’d never given any implication that he was funny in any way, she nearly laughed for the first time in over a month. But when he just kept chewing with his dead, dumb expression, her brow furrowed.
“My dowry…it can’t be gone.” She shook her head, grappling with the impossibility. “My father saved for years. What happened to it?”
His chewing slowed again as he seemed to realize he’d said something wrong. “The estate has little money,” he told her with little inflection, his eyes wide like he deeply hoped she might accept his excuse. “I had to use what little we had.”
Her stomach turned. Two weeks. It had been two weeks, and Redgrave had managed to spend the money her father had saved for years? Money meant for her marriage, one of the last things he’d left for her.
Tears flooded her eyes. Not for grief this time, but betrayal.
“For what?” she demanded, then shook her head again, faster this time, because she didn’t want an answer. She already knew it. Redgrave had no money to his name, and had probably gambled all of hers away.
“Apologies,” he said in that same flat tone. “But…would it not have been too little for a baron?”
Cecily turned her knife over next to her plate, unable to look at him.
The dowry was a courtesy, her family’s pride, but not the reason the baron’s son wanted her.
Though she was a commoner, she had the comportment of one above her station.
Beyond instructing her on how to wield a sword, her father had taught her decorum and manners for when he brought her along on business.
With the right dress and a few refinements, she could fit in flawlessly with a higher echelon.
He’d made sure of it, and her engagement to Oliver was the fruit of that.
There was no question they would still take her in without a dowry, but she’d be ashamed to arrive empty-handed, just as her father would have been to send her that way.
She had half a mind to leave right then. She stood from her chair, her heart keening but decidedly unwilling to stay there another moment. She smoothed her hands over her raven-black hair, braided and pinned in a coronet, as she summoned the resolve to tell him so.
Redgrave must have seen it in her face, and a beat of panic flashed through his eyes.
“Stay the night,” he said, as though he were cordially inviting her to sleep in her own bed, but his bright tone was forced.
“It’s too dark to go anywhere. And in the morning, I’ll give you what money I have, and you can take that as your dowry. ”
He had no money, and she wasn’t stupid enough to believe otherwise. Nevertheless, he was right about the darkness, and it was a mercy that she could barely see him through the gloom.
Aside from the meals she made and the housework she did, she had no doubt he wanted her gone, and this was surely some move of his guilty conscience trying to soothe itself as he took everything that had been hers.
Without a word, she left the room and returned to her own. She would go to Oliver first thing in the morning and never see Redgrave again.
But a few hours later, when the night still reigned and morning was far off, she was awoken by a muffled voice saying, “This door?” Then two men burst into her room, grabbed her arms, and hauled her from bed.
She screamed incomprehensibly, the way one might cry out in a dream—because surely it was a nightmare. But their hands were tight on her, digging into the muscle she’d honed through swordplay, though she had no opportunity to reach for a weapon now.
Her heels dug into the wooden floor as they dragged her to the front door, over the threshold, and into the night.
When the cool air rushed over her skin, she knew it wasn’t a dream. She screamed louder, thrashing against them, and her cries finally became words.
“No, no, help!” She twisted, hoping her cries might wake her cousin. “Help!”
Dirt and rocks cut at the bottoms of her feet as they approached a closed cart, and she kept screaming, forcing her voice as loud as it would go. Surely they wouldn’t make it to the cart before Redgrave came out—
The men threw her inside, shut the door, and locked it before she could scramble back out. She gripped the bars in the small window, screaming, “Mr. Redgrave!”
He had to hear and come rescue her. Awful as he was, even he wouldn’t leave her in distress. Even he would not be so cold as to ignore her screams.
Finally, her cousin appeared in the doorway, and she cried out at his appearance, reaching through the bars and calling his name. His eyes went to her as she sobbed and pleaded, “Help me, help me,” because he would help her. He had to.
Redgrave frowned.
He turned his gaze away.
And at that moment, Cecily knew what he’d done and why he’d asked her to stay the night. He’d had this planned for God knew how long, and her decision to leave had nearly ruined it.
“Why?” she gasped, trembling so hard that her teeth knocked into the bars. “Why not let me go? I’ve done nothing to you!”
One of the men approached Redgrave and pulled a small bag from his coat. “As agreed,” he said, and dropped it into her cousin’s hand.
“I’ve done nothing!” she wailed. “Where are you sending me? What have you done?”
Her cousin opened the bag to count the coins inside, then gave a small nod and mumbled, “As agreed.” Without even a glance in her direction, her cousin disappeared inside her father’s house.
“Mr. Redgrave,” she croaked, as though it would do anything. Inside the home, her cousin drew the curtains. “Redgrave!”
The men climbed into the seat at the front of the cart. “Quiet, lass,” one of them said. “You’ll be fine.”
“Redgrave!” she cried, wrenching at the bars as though to tear them out.
The men ignored her as the cart moved, her neighbors asleep in their beds and unaware of the tragedy unfolding in the dead of night.
Two hours later, still long before dawn, she stumbled out of a brothel and into the arms of several horrified constables.
Drenched in blood, she clutched a broken glass bottle, its green edges coated with red.
It slipped from her fingers and shattered on the ground.