The Continent
1810
T he stallion screamed in terror and pain as his legs buckled underneath him.
Major Lord Marcus Newfield, eldest son of the Earl of Drexel, and Maximus to everyone who knew him, felt his entire world upend in an instant.
Everything he thought he knew, everything he understood, evaporated. He had been so focused on the eyes of the French cavalryman charging towards him that he had not even heard the whistle of the cannon ball as it soared through the air, hit the earth, and exploded.
Shrapnel tore through the air all around him, and his stallion—his beloved, perfect stallion, Mercutio—collapsed to the ground in a hard thunder of sound. Maximus flew through the smokey air, his body slamming into the ground, his head hitting hard.
Pain erupted in the side of his face, somehow hot and cold at once. The world went white as an excruciating spike of agony pulsed at his eye. He could not breathe. He tasted dirt, and the cries of men and animals suffering around him filled Maximus’s ringing ears. Everything was happening so fast. He could not make sense of it all.
The French cavalryman charged past him.
After all, Maximus was no longer of interest to the soldier who was seeking a new target. The soldier disappeared into the fray of charging Frenchmen clashing with the English.
Maximus was down on the ground, eyes to the sky, his ribs feeling as if they had been crushed. Warm liquid slipped down his face.
Mercutio!
It took a moment to suck in a rattle-like breath. He was so winded. But then he forced himself to roll over and scrabble across the ground, trying to spot his stallion. But the space around him was odd, masked with an unreliable darkness—half visible, half impossible to see. The cacophony around him was so intense that, for a moment, he wanted to lay down in the dirt and simply give in. But people like him did not give in. Members of the Briarwood family did not surrender, and his father, the Earl of Drexel, certainly never would’ve surrendered either.
So, Maximus drew from the great well of fortitude that his family had fostered inside him, and he searched once more for any sign of the stallion who had led him into battle over and over again with complete and total loyalty.
And then he spotted the black horse writhing on the ground, surrounded by the charging fray. Maximus crawled over to him, placed a hand along the horse’s sweat-stained neck, and began to speak soothingly to him. “There boy,” he insisted. “There now. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
He did not know what was wrong with the animal. He knew that a dozen other soldiers might take out their pistol, place it to the horse’s head, and fire, but he could not do that. Not to the friend who had been with him through so much, who had led him with able hoof through the wild, precarious battles that Wellington had waged against the French army to beat back a madman.
Pain stabbed at his temple, so intense that Maximus nearly vomited. He lifted his hand to his face. There was something wet and sticky there. He slowly lowered his fingers and spotted the red blood.
He was bleeding. There was something wrong. Half the world was dark.
He was shaking.
His nose and mouth were full of the taste of gunpowder. What was wrong? He blinked and looked around. His vision was completely unreliable. He could only see half the battlefield. The other half of his vision was gone, and a wave of terror passed over him.
What if he was no longer able to see? What if…?
It didn’t matter.
Mercutio let out another cry of pain, bucking his head, his mane tossing frantically. And Maximus decided to shove his own fears away and look for what was amiss with his stallion.
He let his hands rove over the animal until he found it on the stallion’s flank. There was a lead ball lodged in the animal’s flesh.
“Thank God! Thank God!” he exclaimed over and over again. His stallion had not broken a leg. If he had, there would be no coming back from that.
Even so, many others would have sent him to the butchers. He went back to the horse’s head and stroked his face, trying to keep the animal calm, even as his great eyes shone with fear. Maximus never stopped whispering to him as the battle went on. He could have, he supposed, gotten up, staggered forward, and tried to fight again.
But he knew that with his eyesight the way it was, and blood gushing down his face, he would be of no use to anyone. And so, there on that battlefield, with his sight slipping away and the stallion who had served him so loyally under his hands, he made a vow.
He would not let his Mercutio die. He would not let anything else happen to him. He would be there for his friend, just as his friend had been there for him. It did not matter if he could not see. It did not matter what became of him. He would prevail.
The East End
Twelve Years Earlier
Peggy sat in a dark window in the East End of London, overlooking the streets filled with drunken people who were desperately trying to escape the wild world of pain and suffering that surrounded them.
This shadowy, twisty warren of fear and life on the edge, where most never made it past the age of five, was the part of London where she had spent all her short life. Once, she knew from the stories her grandmother told her, her family had been on the verge of something very different indeed.
The Cutmore girls had been on the cusp of wealth, privilege, and having it all. Yes, they’d nearly stepped out of the gutter and into the life of glittering ballrooms.
But that world had escaped her grandmother.
It had escaped her mother too.
They had been so close—at least, that’s what Peggy had been told. And as she sat there on the windowsill, her patched skirts clutched about her legs and her ratty shawl twisted about her arms, she waited for her mother to come home.
Her mother was an actress, not in one of the great playhouses, but in one of the smaller ones where rowdy crowds drank pints of ale and shouted at the stage.
Peggy’s mother always stayed out with a patron after work—someone who would give her a bit of extra coin. The theater paid little and they had to eat.
Every night, Peggy watched the streets, waiting, her heart aching with a longing she could never quite name.
Her grandmother had already taken to her bed. She had worked the stage for years and years, until there were no parts for her, and she’d been cast out.
She’d done other things to make coin. Working ale houses, keeping the barmaids going, and keeping tough men in line. But that had taken a toll. Carrying heavy tankards and trays at an older age had broken her body down.
Now, after all of the suffering and pain that Peggy’s grandmother had endured, her legs were crippled with pain. Arthritis. And she spent most of her time in bed, waiting for the few pennies her daughter could bring home to sustain them.
It was not supposed to have been like this. That was the general cry of the Cutmores.
Peggy spotted a figure winding her way through the shadows of the street down below, carefully evading the scum-covered puddles. Her heart leapt. It was her mother at last, come home again, safe!
So many women did not come home safe to their children. The streets were a dangerous place, especially at night. Especially for women. Oh, London was full of people who went out, daring the winding, poverty-ridden East End, and never came back, but instead were found dead. Or they were forever lost to the world, the river or God knew what having taken them.
But tonight, her mother had come back. Every night, Peggy waged this vigil. In winter, her fingers turned blue with waiting. And in summer, she itched at the bugs that found their way into the crooked house where so many rented rooms.
Yes. Every night, she sat staring out the window, willing her mother to come home. But her mother, she noticed, was walking with a strange gait, and her shoulders were hunched. Her once beautiful, shining mother had become a jewel that was worn down, her edges faded.
Peggy spotted her slide in through the door below, and then Peggy listened to her mother’s weary footsteps creaking on the stairs outside the room’s door.
She swallowed, turning slowly.
Her heart beat wildly. She was so happy that her mother was safe again, but she knew her mother was beaten down by life. The door slowly swung open, and her mother, in her faded silk gown, staggered in. The gown had been fashionable a few years ago and had now seen much wear and tear.
Her mother shut the door firmly behind her, then stumbled across the room.
Peggy noticed a gruesome bruise upon her cheek.
“Mama!” she cried out. “What is amiss?”
“Nothing, my dear,” she said, her plummy tones an affectation of the Cutmore girls, who tried to convince the world that they were of better standing. It was a gift of all those years in the theater. They were all masters of trickery, though not cruelty.
If they had just been a bit crueler, more business-minded, perhaps they would not suffer like this.
But in the end, they acted in life much as they did upon the stage, as if they came from once-grand times.
Soon, Peggy would try her own hand on the boards. That’s what her mother had said. That’s what her grandmother said too, for it was the only life they knew. But none of them had been successful. Not truly.
In her heart, Peggy knew that she would be the one. She would save them. She would be successful, where her mother and grandmother had failed. And then she would bathe them in the lap of luxury, and they would have every good thing.
They would have good food to eat and warm clothes to wear and fuel for their fireplace. Clean water would pour in endless buckets for them to wash and drink. They would bathe every day.
And servants! They would never have a single worry.
And there would be no more bruises.
Peggy swallowed. She wanted to ask her mother how she had gotten that bruise upon her cheek, but she knew to speak of such a thing would only cause pain. And so she raced to the small fire and poured her mother out a cup of precious tea. Some mothers, upon their return home, went to the gin bottle. Many of her friends had mothers who were in stupors when they came home from work.
But not her mother.
Somehow, her mother still braved the pain and horror of London life without assistance from that soul destroyer. She took the chipped teacup to her mother, who lowered herself into the ratty chair beside the fire.
Peggy’s eyes searched over her mother’s face. She was almost like a living ghost, the spark gone now.
Her mother caught her eyes, then let her attention wander over to the single bed where Peggy’s grandmother slept. Her figure was so thin that it was almost unnoticeable under the threadbare blanket.
Her mother’s eyes shone, not with tears but with anger. With powerlessness. “Never be a fool like your grandmother or me, Peggy.”
“What do you mean, Mama?” she said softly. “You are both wonderful. You are splendid. You are—”
“We are fools, my dear,” she gritted, clutching the teacup in her once-delicate hands. “We have put our trust in men. Your grandmother had a protector who betrayed her, and I—” Her mother’s voice faded off.
Yes, Peggy knew her own father had abandoned her mother. Once her mother had had a beautiful townhouse and gowns and coaches and horses, but the man had grown bored and moved on to a younger, newer actress.
And her mother had never been able to find a protector again, just as her grandmother had not been able to.
They had lost their bloom. It seemed a girl only had a short season of life to secure her future.
The chance of being swept away as the famous Dowager Duchess of Westleigh had been was a rarity, a chance, impossible.
Sometimes, Peggy wondered if it was a lie. Surely, no East End actress had truly escaped and become a duchess!
“Are you listening, Peggy?” her mother demanded as her hand shot out and took Peggy’s.
“I promise, Mama,” she said. “I will not allow my fate to be controlled by a gentleman. I shall not ever need a protector. I will find my own way. I shall be the one in charge. Not the other way around.”
“That’s it, my girl. That’s it. You’ve the right of it. You must never be a mistress as your grandmother and I were. You must take what you can from this life and never worry about a man’s heart, for they haven’t one. Do you understand?”
This was their nightly lecture, their nightly conversation, and Peggy’s nightly promise. She squeezed her mother’s hand, longing to soothe her pain.
“I promise, Mama, I shall never be used. I shall be the one who leads the dance. I shall be the one who takes control. I shall leave. I will not be left.”
As she always did, her mother closed her eyes for a moment, relieved. “Good. Good, my love. Then you might survive.”
And Peggy knew in her heart that she would not do as her grandmother had done, or her mother. She would not take to the stage to become an actress, to be noticed by a gentleman. No. She would find a way to take a man’s wealth from him without having to sell herself.
She would pick their pockets before they could pick her heart. And her heart would never, ever be stolen. She’d lock it away forever. She’d never be robbed of it. Oh no, she was the one who would play the thief.