Prologue
Marina
Late Spring 1811
Hertfordshire, England
Marina had hitthe target dead center six times in a row, and all she could think about was how proud Evan would be when he arrived.
The pistol she used was her father’s, stolen from his study two months ago in a fit of rebellion. It had become as familiar in her hands as her embroidery needle once was—though she suspected her mother would faint upon knowing which skill her daughter now preferred. Shooting might not be the only thing she’d learned that would cause her mother to clutch her pearls.
Heat bloomed through her at the wicked thought. She shook it off and adjusted her stance the way Evan had taught her, feet shoulder-width apart, remembering the first time he’d positioned her body when he’d discovered her in this clearing.
She’d been mortified. Caught by Evan Villiers, Viscount Ockham’s son, in boys’ breeches she’d pilfered from the servants’ laundry, attempting to teach herself to shoot after she’d seen her father with some woman leaving one of their hunting cabins. The very father who was ready to sell her to the Earl of Minto, who was an aged, vile beast of a man.
She’d needed to do something, anything, that he wouldn’t approve of. Perhaps her inclination had been to learn to shoot and then turnthe weapon on him until he admitted what an arse he was.
But that moment was where it had all begun. Where she’d met the man she was going to marry.
Two months. Two months of meeting in secret at dawn, of his chest warm against her back as he adjusted her aim, of his breath against her neck as he murmured instructions that had become less about shooting and more about the inches between their bodies. Two months of lessons that had transformed into something that made her wake before dawn with her heart already racing.
Marina touched the pocket where she’d tucked the handkerchief she’d embroidered with his initials. E.V. worked in chocolate thread that matched his eyes—the intense color she saw when she closed her own at night.
The sound of horse hooves made her heart flutter. She smoothed her pale, yellow muslin—her best day dress that she could claim she’d worn for morning calls should anyone question her—and tried to calm her racing pulse.
Three days ago was the last time she’d been with him on the blanket beneath the old oak. He’d touched her in ways that made her forget her own name. His fingers had been so gentle, and then his mouth—
Heat flooded her cheeks, and she was already damp for him.
After their last encounter, he’d told her he would make his intentions known. That she would always be his and they would discuss the matter with her father.
She ran toward Evan as he dismounted, but stopped when she saw his expression.
He looked destroyed. His dark hair was disheveled as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly. His cravat was hastily tied and his coat wrinkled. But it was his eyes that stopped her cold—those warm brown eyes that usually lit when he saw her were hollow, rimmed with red, empty of everything that made him Evan.
“What’s happened?” She dropped the pistol in the grass.
When she reached for him, he didn’t step into her embrace as he always did. Instead, he stood rigid as she touched his face, her fingers finding the roughness where he hadn’t shaved. Her chest tightened. Whatever had happened, they would face it together.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“My father is dead.”
The words landed like stones between them. She wrapped her arms around him immediately, pulling him against her with all her strength. For a moment, she felt his body shake before he went absolutely still.
“Oh, Evan. When? How?”
“Yesterday.” The words were flat, mechanical. “The cause is of no consequence.”
Her eyes burned with tears for him. Marina knew his relationship with his father had been complicated, but there had been love there. She’d seen it in the way Evan spoke of him, pride mixed with frustration. She wouldn’t press him to explain until he was ready.
“Why didn’t you send word? I would have—”
“What? Come to comfort me?” He pulled back from her embrace, and the absence of his warmth sent a chill through her. “I hoped to find you here. Might as well get this matter over with.”
The words didn’t make sense. Nothing about his tone, his posture, the coldness in his voice made sense. And somehow it felt more about her than about his father.
“I don’t understand.”
