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“Don’t cry to me over something that is your doing!

” she cried. “Tell Papa he cannot do this! Please, Mama, take pity on me! I am about to start my first Season–please, do not let Papa do this! I deserve to choose my own husband. I deserve happiness in my marriage. You and Papa cannot sell me to someone as if I were a horse!”

Lady Twickenham’s jaw hardened, and she stopped crying.

Her eyes, which had been full of guilt before, became cold and unfeeling.

She stepped back, her arms crossing in front of her chest. “Your father and I can do whatever we want regarding your marriage,” she hissed.

“You are not yet twenty-one, and this is our decision. It is not one we make lightly, but it will ensure that we do not end up penniless and on the streets. Don’t you care about that, Eleanor?

Don’t you care about making sure your parents don’t end up in a workhouse, starving and in rags?

Do you think that without this marriage, you would have a Season full of new dresses and jewels?

No, there is no money. It is all gone. If you do not marry Mr Barrett, then you will also end up on the streets, or darning some lady’s socks. Is that the life you would prefer?”

Eleanor set her jaw and drew herself up. “I would rather choose my life, no matter the consequences.”

“Then you are as much of a fool as I always suspected,” Lady Twickenham spat. “And a spoiled brat on top of it. You will marry Mr Barrett tomorrow, and that is the end of it.”

“Tomorrow?” Eleanor felt her knees grow weak. She really thought she might faint. “How can the wedding be tomorrow?”

“A special licence was obtained,” her mother said gruffly. But Eleanor knew what that meant: it meant that this plan had been hatched several days ago. Her father and mother had been deciding Eleanor’s fate for probably a week without her input. It was enough to make her want to scream.

But she didn’t scream. Well brought-up ladies did not scream, even in the privacy of their own homes. They stood there, mute and furious, while their parents told them how they would live their lives.

“I do not want to have this conversation again,” Lady Twickenham continued coldly. “And I assure you, you do not want to have it with your father. He will not be as understanding as I am. I will see you on the morrow for your wedding day.”

And with that, Lady Twickenham turned and swept from the room, leaving Eleanor staring after her, horror filling up every inch of her.

***

On the other side of Surrey, Marcus Pembroke, Duke of Thornfield, felt a different kind of horror. The horror of not knowing what he was doing with his life.

For most dukes, the answer would have been obvious: you get to a certain age, you decide to marry, you find a perfect Society lady and marry her, and then you produce heirs. But for Marcus, nothing seemed that simple.

He nudged the reins of his horse, hoping that she might move a little bit faster. He was anxious to get home.

It had been several weeks since he’d last been in Surrey–several weeks that he’d been in London, trying to hammer out a deal with the other members of his party to require inspections in factories.

Another fire in a factory in Ipswich last month resulted in many deaths.

Marcus and the other Whigs were fighting to improve things, but it had been hard to get anything done when he’d had to spend so much time fending off the marriage-minded mamas, who seemed intent on him marrying one of their daughters.

And then, of course, there was Lady Harriet.

His stomach curled slightly as he thought about Lady Harriet. They had been fighting when he’d left London, and he didn’t know when they would make up. If they ever did.

The last six months had been little but fighting. It was making him wonder if any of it was worth it. Perhaps he should relent and give in to the pressure of Society, take a wife, and produce a few heirs.

But when Marcus thought about marriage, he thought about his parents’–frosty and distant, or his sister’s–loveless and mercenary. He wasn’t particularly excited to be part of it.

But you can’t go on like this, either, he told himself, as the horse mounted the top of the bluff. You are acting like an unforgivable rake.

But Marcus wasn’t really a rake. He just had a mistress. And they’d been companions for quite some time now. It had never been the most passionate arrangement, more one of mutual satisfaction for both.

Lady Harriet was a widow and did not want someone deeply involved in her life. Becoming Marcus’s mistress had been a way for her to keep all the gentlemen at bay who hoped to remarry her and claim her fortune.

And Marcus … Well, Marcus supposed he had been searching for someone to keep him from looking for a wife.

But she disapproved of his career’s political turn, seeming to think that he should stick to balls and parties only, and not author bills to improve working conditions.

It made him feel lonely, that she didn’t support him, while she said he endangered her reputation.

As the horse crested the top of the bluff, and Thornfield Manor came into full view, Marcus’s heart was filled with such a dizzying excitement that he had to rein her in before he fell out of his seat.

The sight that greeted him below was mesmerizing. Thornfield Manor was the most beautiful country estate in England if you asked him.

Of course, he was biased, but it really was spectacular, with its honey-coloured brick and large, resplendent gardens stretching far around the estate. It was nestled below the hill along the edge of a forest, through which a brook ran.

Marcus had spent his childhood running through this forest and fishing in the brook. Being back here now, after weeks in town, filled him with peacefulness and ease he hadn’t felt in a long time.

I never want to leave again, he thought, gazing down through the afternoon sunshine at his estate.

Of course, he knew he would have to. He’d have to return to London to make things right with Lady Harriet–or end it entirely.

But as he looked down at his home with a warm feeling of contentment and love in his chest, it crossed his mind to wonder what it might feel like to look at a woman similarly.

What might it feel like, he wondered, to fall in love?

The thought felt taboo, and he immediately brushed it away. Dukes did not think such silly, romantic thoughts.

Still, he could feel it there, in the back of his mind, burning a hole in him, and as he urged the horse down the slope, he had a feeling that on his next visit to London, he was going to end things with Lady Harriet once and for all.