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V ictoria awoke to a loud scraping sound, one she was unable to comprehend.

She sat up in bed. A weight settled on her heart as she remembered the events of the previous night. The duke's heir had finally appeared. It was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. And now he hoped to force her to marry.

The truth was that he could do it, and Victoria knew it. He was right to tell her that he had a responsibility to her. Of course he did. If he intended to get her out of the house, many people would have said he was being generous by arranging for her future.

Victoria herself didn't feel that way about it. She would much rather have been returned to her father's home, or to Cressida's. But she also knew that she was not their responsibility. It was the new duke who ought to make the arrangements for her.

Perhaps he could be persuaded.

He hadn't seemed a terribly reasonable man when she had met him last night.

But then, she hadn't been at her best either.

She recalled the way she had thrown herself at him and tried to hit him.

A defensible act, she thought—she'd believed him to be an intruder, after all!

But even so, it wasn't the way she would have chosen to present herself.

They had clearly gotten off to a bad start. Maybe it was something they could amend today.

She got out of bed and dressed, taking care to make herself look as sweet as she could.

She tied her auburn hair back off her face and wore one of her best everyday gowns, a pale pink one that always seemed to brighten the green of her eyes.

She examined herself in the looking glass—surely no one would be able to believe that this was the face of a murderer.

Surely the duke would take one look at her in the daylight and realize how foolish those rumors had been.

She heard the scraping noise that had awoken her again and frowned. What was that?

Opening the door to her room, she went out into the hall. The sounds she'd heard were even louder out here, and it was easy to follow them—they led her to the study.

She paused outside the door. This was a room she'd rarely entered since the late duke's death.

She had no reason to go in, and she found that it reminded her of him in an unpleasant way.

It still stank of his favorite liquor, even after two years had gone by—she suspected he must have spilled his drink in here more than once and that it had seeped into various places.

But it was obvious that something was taking place inside that room, and she needed to know what it was. She opened the door.

The duke—the new duke—stood in the center of the room.

He had been joined by two servants Victoria didn't know.

He must have brought them along with him, she realized, and that added a whole new layer of discomfort to the situation, because now she found herself sharing a home with more strangers.

It made her skin crawl to think of all these unfamiliar men under the roof that had just yesterday been hers and hers alone.

Then she took in the room itself. Many of the furnishings had been pushed up against the wall. She stared. "What's going on in here?"

"Good morning," the duke said. "I didn't see you at breakfast."

"Breakfast hasn't been served yet," she said, mystified.

"Of course it has. Breakfast is at seven o'clock sharp."

" Seven ? I eat breakfast at nine."

"That's going to change now," he said. "Breakfast will be served on my schedule. I'm sorry you weren't informed—I'll have the kitchen prepare something for you. But beginning tomorrow, you can join me."

"I don't get up that early," she said. "I just woke up. And I like to take my time in the mornings, not rush around."

"It will be good for you to form new habits," he said. "After all, when you marry, you will have to adapt to the way your husband lives."

"What are you doing to the study?"

"I don't like these furnishings," he said. "I'm having them removed, and I'm going to bring in new ones."

"You can't just get rid of my furniture." Victoria didn't care at all about the furnishings in the study, if she was honest, but if he thought he could do this here, he might do it anywhere. He might get rid of the furniture in rooms that did matter to her.

"It isn't your furniture," the duke told her idly, as if he was reminding her of something that had been discussed many times already. "I know that you've been living here, but nothing in this house belongs to you. I am my cousin's heir, and everything here is mine."

"You can't mean to get rid of all the things I've been using for the past two years!"

He turned to face her directly for the first time since she had come in.

He paused for a moment at the sight of her, and Victoria felt a surge of satisfaction as she realized what was happening. He had gotten a look at her appearance, and it had distracted him.

And she recalled, suddenly, the way she had once done this all the time. She had once enjoyed dressing up, making herself look pretty, hoping to catch people's eyes.

That was something she'd lost after her first season.

And after her marriage and her husband's death, it had begun to seem altogether unnecessary.

She still took care to present herself well, but that was mostly because it bothered her to appear unkempt or messy in any way.

This feeling—the feeling that she had dressed to impress another person, and that it had actually worked—it had been a very long time since she had experienced this.

There was a surprising pleasure in the realization that she still knew how to do it.

The duke recovered himself quickly. "I don't think it will matter very much to you what I do with the things in this house," he said. "You won't be here for much longer, after all."

Victoria folded her arms. She had come here intent on having a civil conversation, but that no longer felt possible. "I'm not going to marry," she told him. "You can try to make an arrangement for me, but believe me, I will sabotage it at every turn. You won't find anyone who wants to marry me."

"Well, I knew that would be a challenge," the duke said. "After all, you're known to be a murderess—though I suppose some might find that exciting."

"I haven't murdered anyone. For heaven's sake—how many times must I tell you?"

"I think that's what you'd say if you had murdered someone," the duke said.

"You can't expect me to take your word for it.

But as it happens, I also don't care whether you're telling the truth or not.

I don't intend to have you around for very long, so it won't matter to me.

The point is that, whether you committed the crime or not, you've failed to control your reputation.

You've failed to convince society that you are innocent.

Now you require someone else to step in and manage your reputation on your behalf, because you proved unable to do it yourself.

This is just the natural consequence of that, I'm afraid. "

"I don't need your help."

"You've got it anyway," he said. "There are a few balls coming up, and other events that will be conducive to meeting people. You'll attend them with me."

"I won't go."

"I wasn't asking. I will allow you to choose what you'd like to wear, though. I don't know anything about ladies' clothing, so you can tend to that side of things yourself."

"Oh, thank you," she said bitterly. "That's so generous of you."

He didn't acknowledge her bitterness. "I'll expect you at dinner, and we can discuss the plans for the near future," he said. "You can go now. I'll have something sent up to your chambers, since you missed breakfast."

"You don't dismiss me in my own house!" Victoria said, seething.

But the duke had turned his back to her and was now consulting with one of his servants about something.

Victoria was so angry that she felt like picking up a nearby book and hurling it at the back of his head.

But she had just enough presence of mind to know that such an action wouldn't help her cause in claiming not to be a violent criminal.

She hurried from the room instead, before her impulses could get the better of her.

She had no intention of joining him for dinner, though. She wasn't going to sit opposite him at her own table, in her own dining room, and listen to him explain how he planned to ruin her life.

Maybe the table and the dining room were really his, technically speaking—but Victoria's life still belonged to her, and she wouldn't hand it over without a fight. Not even to the rightful Duke of Stormwell.

She wondered whether he would stop her if she tried to leave the house. Not that she had any intention of giving in to him if he tried—but perhaps it would be best to avoid conflict altogether.

She opened the door of her room and looked both ways down the hall.

There was no one in sight. It seemed that the duke was still hard at work on his project in the study, and that was for the best—maybe it meant that Victoria could move about the place without worrying about crossing paths with him.

Closing the door behind her, she hurried down the hall and to the stairs. With a little luck, he would interpret that closed door as a sign that she was still in her room and it would be a long time before he realized that she had left.

Victoria suspected that he would be angry when he discovered that she'd left without telling him.

But that, she decided, would be his problem.

Even if he did have a valid claim to this house, she was not his prisoner.

She still had every right to go where she wanted to go and do what she liked to do.

Breathing came more easily once she'd made it through the front door and out into the open air. The window in the study faced the back of the house, so as long as he was still there, he wouldn't see her as she hurried to the carriage house.

A short time later, Victoria was in a carriage, making her way quickly up the path that led away from Stormwell Manor.

She knew that she would have to return, and sooner than she would have liked. But right now, this felt like a flight to freedom. It felt like she was escaping from under the thumb of her oppressor, and she felt as if she would never go back.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, trying not to think too hard about everything that had happened in the last twelve hours and all the ways it seemed likely to destroy her life.

But the truth was that Victoria had gotten used to feeling safe and content. She had gotten used to the idea that her life had resolved itself, and that she would never again have to worry about being forced into anything that made her feel frightened or uncomfortable.

Now she had to face the fact that that was no longer true.