Prologue
Yorkshire, England, 1775
Madeline Oxley gathered her cloak about her and picked her way over the damp, foggy moor toward home. She peered through the mist shrouding her little stone house, nestled in the valley alongside the stone piggery and the other buildings, then came to a halt.
Oh, she wished she did not see what she thought she saw. She blinked slowly and looked again. Yes, it was still there. Her father’s carriage. He had returned.
A nervous little breath puffed out of her lungs. She did not like surprises. The past few days, with her father gone, she’d tasted freedom. Not freedom to come and go, mind you—she was always free to do that as she pleased—but freedom in a more mindful sense. She didn’t have to look upon that expression of disappointment and disapproval, the look that never failed to sit like a wet stone in her belly at every meal.
With a resigned sigh, she walked down the hill and across the cobbled yard, past the chicken coop and stable and around the empty carriage to the front door. She unhooked the clasp on her cloak and stepped inside. Warmth from a strong fire crackling in the parlor touched her chilly, red cheeks.
The door clicked shut behind her. She removed her cloak and carried it into the room where her father sat in a chair in front of the flames. “Hello, Papa. How was Thirsk?”
He folded a letter, slipped it into the breast pocket of his waistcoat and gazed up at her over the rims of his gold spectacles. “Thirsk was most pleasant, indeed. More gainful than I expected.”
Madeline tried to keep her tone light and cheerful. “Oh? How?”
“It seems a burden has lifted. I received a most generous offer from a man I haven’t seen in a number of years.”
Madeline swallowed uneasily. “What kind of offer?”
Her father raised his chin as if contemplating how best to phrase whatever he was going to tell her. “Sit down, Madeline. We must have a word.”
A word?She had a constricting feeling around her ribs—the feeling she always got whenever her father wanted to have “a word” with her.
Still holding her cloak over her arms, Madeline sat down in the chair opposite him.
“It’s good news for both of us.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “It seems you’ll be married after all.”
Madeline’s body went stiff. She wet her lips and tried to speak in a steady voice. “May I ask—to whom?”
Her father cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “Well, he’s a bit older and you probably won’t remember him. It’s been a number of years since he’s been here.”
“I’ve met him?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not Mr. Siddall, is it?” she asked, unable to conceal a fiery panic she hated to hear in her own voice. But how could she help it? Mr. Siddall was three times her age, and the last time she’d seen him, his teeth were black and rotting and it was all she could do now to hope that, for the love of God, they’d fallen out…..
“No, it’s not Mr. Siddall,” her father replied. “Mr. Siddall is a local gentleman. He would never offer for you—not after what happened at Stanley Hall, and how you behaved so impertinently afterward.”
The words struck Madeline like a slap, for her father had not defended her in the scandal that had ruined any chance she’d had at marriage with a decent man. Her father had even made it worse, by turning against her and blaming her publicly.
Determined not to let her father see that her wounds still burned, she raised her chin to speak with as much dignity as she could muster. “Who, then? If I’m not good enough for Mr. Siddall, what manner of man have you agreed to ship me off to?”
He sighed deeply, as if he could not understand why he’d been cursed with such an impertinent disgrace of a daughter. “As I said, you probably won’t remember him. It’s been almost fifteen years since he’s been here. You couldn’t have been more than an infant.”
“Fifteen years ago, I was seven, Father.”
He waved a hand at her. “Yes, yes, whatever.”
Madeline felt the familiar sting of her father’s antipathy toward her, and squeezed her hands together on her lap to harden herself against it.
Her father tugged at his linen cuffs. “It seems he’s not aware of your scandal, which is a miracle in itself, wouldn’t you say?”
Madeline simply gazed indifferently upon her father, who continued his account.
“The gentleman I’m speaking of left Yorkshire four years ago for Nova Scotia. According to his description of things, there are very few women there. He would like to be married again, and it appears that he remembers you fondly. Though why, I cannot imagine. You never sat still long enough for any man to get a look at you.” He turned his gaze toward the fireplace. “Regardless of that, he’s asked for your hand.”
