Chapter 1
Yorkshire, April 1902
Amuch-underappreciated milestone ina young woman’s life is the first moment she contemplates sending her knee into a man’s bollocks, but reconsiders.
“You’ll forgive me, I hope,” Lord Pennington sneered as his hand retreated from the side of Violet’s breast to its proper location between her shoulder blades. His eyebrows bobbed as though they strained to reach his receding hairline, expressing little remorse for his pitifully transparent stumble. “A harmless faux pas, you see.”
Violet ground her teeth and stifled her desire to send the man’s gonads somewhere into his lower intestines, remembering that she was, in fact, in the middle of a waltz at the lone social event she’d been invited to in the past year, and shewould behave. “Of course, my lord. It’s rather hard to focus on dancing steps when you’re ogling my—”
“Pardon me, Pennington. I need to speak to my friend for a moment.” Lord Trembly slung his arm around her shoulder and steered her away from Pennington. “Come along, Miss Waverly.”
They navigated through the guests packed into the ballroom at Claremont Abbey. A sprawling medieval structure tucked in the rolling hills a short ride north of the city of York, the Abbey dated back to the days of William the Conqueror, but the current inhabitant, the Earl of Valebrook, had updated the building with electric lights and indoor plumbing. Instead of a bleak and inaccessible monument to aristocratic excess, Violet knew the Abbey to be a home full of warmth and love. The earl, a longtime friend of her father, served as her godfather. Valebrook’s second wife, the eccentric but delightful Bridget, had gleefully stepped in as an unofficial godmother upon their marriage. The palatial estate had been a home to Violet, who’d spent summers as a girl exploring every nook and cranny with her four sisters.
But the last three years had beendifficultfor the Waverly family. Social invitations of any kind had dried to dust, and Violet’s name remained at the tip of everyone’s tongue. She needed a rest, a respite from the demands of staying out of the salacious spotlight.
But apparently tonight would not be the reprieve Violet desired.
Timothy snagged a glass of champagne from a passing footman as he directed her toward the hallway, where she shrugged off his hold with a grunt.
“And to think I considered allowing him to court me,” she ground out, taking a long drink of the champagne.
“That was years ago, and your standards have evolved. Besides, Pennington is a twat and has groped the bodices of nearly every woman present, lest you start to feel special.”
She forced her lungs to fill with cleansing air, then exhaled through pursed lips. “That is one solidly for themurdercategory.”
Trembly snickered and withdrew an imaginary pen from his pocket before miming writing a name in the air. “Duly added. Any for themarrylist?”
Timothy, the Marquess of Trembly, had been a friend since their shared childhoods, his sprawling property bordering her family’s modest estate of Boar’s Hill in Oxfordshire. Timothy would be a perfect husband, Violet thought with a pang, if only his preference for bed partners included the fairer sex.
While Timothy was seeking a wife—if only to stop his mother’s nagging—Violet would never volunteer herself for the role. True, marriage to a marquess would shield her from questions about her reputation, and his knack for investments would bolster her family’s rapidly dwindling coffers. But Violet was, at heart, a romantic. If she couldn’t have a grand romance with her husband, she’d have to discover it elsewhere. “I’d rather find some candidates for… you know.”
“You naughty minx.” His chiding lacked heat, but Violet blushed regardless.
“You are aware I’m joking,” she said as they returned to stand watch on the edge of the ballroom. “My mother has already settled on my marriage to Sir Phineas.” Timothy’s jaw tightened. Even he could barely find room for levity when the baron’s name was invoked. “If only you’d found a husband sooner.”
She lifted her now-empty glass of champagne in a mock toast. “How simple! If I had only thought of that, oh, nine years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t be in this predicament!”
Nearing spinsterhood, her mother, the Honorable Viscountess Redbourne, had said, as though Violet should begin writing her own eulogy. As though she’d forgotten she was aging swiftly, or that she’d come perilously close to the altar before, only to have her dreams of a white wedding dashed in the cruelest manner possible.
A girl could recover from a broken engagement, even if happened a week before the nuptials would have taken place.I’ve fallen in love, he’d said as she sobbed.She’s my perfect match.
Hugh was kind enough to leave the wordsunlike youunsaid.
The memory of her behavior still haunted Violet’s dreams, the sick humiliation climbing up her throat, the tears staining her cheeks. How she’d begged and pleaded for Hugh to marry her and save her from disgrace, and the pitying expression on his face when he left.
As dreadful as that night had been, the ensuing weeks were worse. The looks of curiosity and barely veiled whispers as she passed people she had once considered friends, the silence that would fall when she entered a room, how the gentlemen who had eagerly sought her hand prior to her engagement now avoided meeting her eye. All speculated over what was so wrong with the perfect Miss Violet Waverly that her own fiancé could cast her aside without a care.
And a yearlater, when Mr. Gregory Townsend took her in his arms and called her beautiful, Violet had been so eager to find a safe shore in the scandal that she fell headfirst into another tempest, one so much worse it made Hugh laughably unimportant.
But she survived, although battered as much physically as mentally, only to face the daunting opponent common to so many women of her station: marriage to a horrible man.
If—when—her parents forced her to marry the widower baronet who’d been haunting their parlor, she would at least have pleasurable memories to keep her warm at night.
However, as much as she enjoyed thinking of herself as a woman who would engage in a meaningless shag at a house party, she doubted she possessed the fortitude to follow through with it.
Timothy hummed with approval at her side. “Lord Amberly is here.”
Violet eyed the blond viscount, known for his reputation as an utter rake, with a discerning eye. “Your rating?”
