PROLOGUE
TWO YEARS AGO
The letter had been sitting on his desk for six hours.
Cassian had read it three times in the carriage from Dover, twice on the road, and once again in the front hall before he had walked into his study and laid it on the blotter.
Your father, Albert Arnolds, the Duke of Langton, departed this life on the night of the fifteenth of Apoplexy.
The seal was unbroken when he found it. He did not know who had broken it.
His father was dead. He had been processing the news for two days now and had still not arrived at any feeling about it.
A pebble struck the window.
He looked up. The wind, a moth, a branch. Then a second pebble hit the glass with a small bright tap then a third, and he heard the faint laughter of a woman.
He went to the window.
His study faced the back garden. Beyond the yew hedge ran the lane to the stables and standing in the lane was a young woman in a dark cloak with a fistful of gravel. She was not alone. There was a smaller figure at her elbow, hooded, being tugged toward the gate. The smaller figure was his sister.
He opened the window. “Joanna.”
The young woman in the lane jumped a foot in the air and dropped the gravel. She looked up, saw him, and put her hand on his sister’s arm in a way that clearly meantdo not run, which was the worst thing she could possibly do because it meant she thought she could handle this.
His sister looked up and went absolutely white. “Cassian. You are home.”
“I am home.”
“We were just…”
“Just what, Joanna?”
“Going for a walk.”
“At eleven o’clock at night?”
“There is moonlight,” said the young woman in the lane helpfully.
He shut the window. He went down the back stairs without his coat, around the yew hedge, through the gate, and was standing in the lane in less than a minute.
The young woman was still there. She had pushed her hood back. Untidy dark hair. A round face. Green eyes that did not lower when he looked at her, which was the first thing he noticed because ladies usually lowered their eyes when he looked at them.
“Your Grace,” she greeted and dipped into a curtsy of such offensive perfection that he wanted to shake her, “welcome home.”
“Who are you?”
“Lady Alice Lockwood. A great friend of your sister’s.”
“My sister has no friends who throw pebbles at my window at midnight.”
“She has one. Surprise.”
“Where were you taking her?”
“Nowhere of consequence.”
“Lady Alice.”
