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Chapter One

“ W ell, well, well.” Boots clicked against the stone floor, and suddenly Eleanor Barnes’s cramped room—her cell , for that was truly all it was—seemed even smaller as William Coleman, Lord Belgrave, crossed the threshold.

“Three years and you have not changed, Lady Eleanor. Well, I try to greet you as the lady your birthright says, but you hardly look worthy of any title.”

The door had creaked open, the sound echoing off the low stone ceiling of her room in St. Euphemia’s House of Mercy.

A shudder went down her spine, a pit yawning open in her stomach, as it always did.

However, this time, Eleanor did not look up into the cruel, flat eyes of Sister Martha, with her sneer and pious words, or even Sister Susan, with her righteous hand raised before her lips ever opened.

No, she looked up at the last man she had thought she would ever see again.

Before Eleanor could break her stony silence, Sister Susan finally showed her weathered, wrinkled face.

“Lord Belgrave, whatever you may require after your visit is at your disposal. We will be more than happy to provide you with anything you need. Of course, you are always welcome to dine with Mother Caroline as well.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Lord Belgrave said, but his eyes remained on Eleanor.

She wished they would not. She wished she could look away, but she couldn’t.

“You may leave us now.”

“Of course, Lord Belgrave.”

Do not , Eleanor wanted to beg, forcing the weight of fear from her tongue, from her eyes, so he did not see or hear it.

Please do not leave me alone with him.

But of course, they would—they were perhaps crueler than him. They would not think twice about what kind of man she was left with.

Her heart beat a nervous staccato in her chest, pounding in a way that made her feel ill.

The heavy, wooden door slammed shut.

“Eleanor Barnes,” Lord Belgrave drawled, laughing lowly at her.

“My, how you have fallen. How small you look, kneeling there beside the bed. Were you indulging in your prayers? Did you turn to God, after all, thinking he would save you after your… ruination?” He crouched, tilting his head at her.

“Did you pray that I would forget you, Eleanor?”

He was taunting her, and she refused to give in, to be affected. She lifted her chin. The convent and its host of nuns who wielded their religion cruelly had broken her spirit long ago, but she could not let Lord Belgrave see that.

His cold blue eyes caught the meager light of her candle. They were nothing but icy chips. How had she ever thought he was charming and handsome?

He extended his hand, uncurling his fingers. “Here, let me help you up. Do they ask you to kneel like this for visitors? Perhaps you did not know I was coming. Did they tell you? They knew about my arrival. I sent word this morning.”

Eleanor’s stomach dropped. She should not have felt the betrayal clumping through her guts, sifting through the heavy contents of her breakfast she was already fighting to keep down.

Lord Belgrave’s eyes trailed over her, making her feel exposed.

“Silent,” he mused. “You never were before. Do you have nothing to say to me? I will admit, I expected anger from you. Three years is a long time to think.”

“I have done enough thinking,” Eleanor finally answered, her voice a rasp. She only used it to pray long enough to avoid the nuns’ wrath. “I do not need to think more.”

“You did enough thinking, and not smartly so, when you snuck into my study at our engagement ball.” His voice was hard even as he smirked at her.

His life had not been affected by that terrible night. That night that had ruined everything. That night, Eleanor had lost everything.

His eyes bored into hers, and she forced herself not to look away.

“Well, as you said, three years is a long time. That ball was very long ago.”

“And yet, by the look of you, it’s not long enough. I still see you fighting yourself. Has it finally exhausted you, Eleanor? You made yourself the perfect lady, and now look where it has gotten you—in a convent, playing the pious, little acolyte.”

More mockery, for he knew she would not do such a thing.

Eleanor only kept staring back at him, the man who had ruined her life. She had been ruined, but not in the ways he had declared to the ton. She recalled that day as clearly as if it had happened only the day before.

“How defiant you remain.” He laughed, looming over her. “Stand up, Eleanor.”

So used to following orders, she did.

Lord Belgrave looked smug at her obedience, but she kept her head high. She may have done his bidding, but she was not broken— he would not break her. This place could— had —but not Lord Belgrave, even if he was the very reason she was there.

“I want you on your feet for this news, my darling,” he told her, his voice so sickly charming. It was the same voice he had once used with her parents when he had asked to court her, to propose to her.

His fingers reached out to grasp her chin, but she jerked her head away, her jaw tight.

“I do hope three years has not taken away your memory of your dear friend, Lady Charlotte Vanserton.”

The name immediately dredged up memories. Her friend, three years younger than her, had not long debuted before Eleanor was sent away.

She nodded silently.

“Her suitor has announced his plans to propose to her,” Lord Belgrave continued.

“She is to marry the Earl of Follet. She will become his Countess, and she will remain none the wiser of mine and her husband’s little business venture.

And you, Eleanor, the only one who tried to take that business from us…

oh, you will rot here. You will die in this dank, dark cell, and even if you find mercy within these halls and break free, nobody will believe you.

Nobody believed you then, and nobody will believe you now.

Not ever. I would extend an invitation to you for the wedding, but… ”

He pointedly looked around her cell.

“I do not believe God forgives whores,” he sneered, and then he was gone, the door clicking shut in a way that left her shaking.

His booted steps grew fainter and fainter, and she collapsed, heaving for breath when she could no longer hear them.

Charlotte .

No—no, she could not marry Lord Follet. Not Lord Belgrave’s associate, whom Eleanor had tried to scream about—whose true nature she had tried to uncover.

And Charlotte… Would she remain safe even if she were oblivious? Would she also find out what her fiancé was truly like?

Would she end up right where Eleanor was, broken and desolate? So far from her former self that she did not even recognize her reflection in the copper goblets she cleaned for Mother Caroline?

A pained, scared noise tore from Eleanor’s throat as she tried to get her breathing under control, lest she be discovered by one of the sisters.

Charlotte had to be fine.

She has to. She has ? —

Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut as she gripped her threadbare bedsheets. Charlotte could not be subjected to the same fate.

“I do not believe God forgives whores . ”

By the time she finally composed herself, fury had overtaken her panic, pushing her to sit on the lumpy mattress just as more footsteps approached her door.

She recognized this set of footsteps.

Sister Susan.

The door slammed open, and she had to quash the fear rising inside her.

“ Girl ,” Sister Susan sneered, extending her clawed hand in a silent threat. “Sister Martha has summoned you to the prayer hall. Go. Immediately. ”

Eleanor jumped to her feet, hurrying as fast as she could without running, leaving Sister Susan far behind. But she only traded one cruel sister for another as she entered the lofty, cold prayer hall, where Sister Martha stood at the center of the aisle.

For a place that was supposedly blessed by God, it was the coldest place Eleanor had ever known. There was no warmth, no blessings to be found.

“Eleanor Barnes.”

Her name rang out through the hall, and she kept her head down.

“Sister Martha,” she greeted. “You have summoned?—”

“Do not speak, girl. Not without permission.”

Eleanor clamped her mouth shut. She stared down at her thin slippers and the black dress she was forced to wear in the convent, neither of which did anything to ward off the night’s chill.

Sister Martha laughed at her, a subdued huff of a sound.

“Look at you. How far you have fallen, daughter of the ton . Nobody would look at you and suspect you are an earl’s daughter.

Not with your looks, your words, or your manners.

And certainly not with the way you tempted our visitor.

Your dress is skewed. Should we check your sheets, Eleanor?

Your bed? Did you tempt him with your body and commit more sin? Was your first ruination not enough?”

“I am not ruined,” Eleanor snapped, her temper breaking through her fear. “Lord Belgrave came without invitation. I-I did not know he would arrive. His presence was a surprise to me.”

“Did your body flush with heat upon seeing your former fiancé? Did you miss the marital bed you were promised and never got to see? The convent sees all, Eleanor. If you lay with him, if you used your body?—”

“I did not!” Eleanor shouted, and then cringed when Sister Martha surged forward, snagging her hair and yanking her head back.

“You should calm yourself, Eleanor Barnes,” Sister Martha snarled, her accent curling around the name as if it were dirty. “God will hear your prayers for forgiveness. Kneel.”

“No,” Eleanor whimpered, her shoulders sagging, but she was thrown to the floor, her knees breaking her fall in a way that sent a wave of nausea through her.

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat, looking up at Sister Martha. The woman’s lined face had haunted her nightmares since her first night at the convent all those years ago.

Perhaps they had broken her that first night.

Perhaps it had been an accumulation of every long, hot day and every freezing night.