Chapter 1
Lady Catherine Ludlow stood in the long gallery of her family’s estate, a glass of wine in her hand.
She was tempted to drink it to the dregs.
She stared at the portraits of her ancestors stretching back all the way to the time of Henry III. In multiple centuries, her family had never failed to do its duty, yet in one generation, her brother had managed to throw everything away.
Turnbridge had acted a scoundrel, a cad, and, worse, he was a villain. She hated to admit that he was a sniveling fellow who cared only for his vanity and cruel entertainment.
He was a man she could feel no pride in.
As a matter of fact, she had felt fear more often than pride, and it was something that she loathed. For she had never thought herself a fearful being. Oh no. She had raced across the moors of England, riding horses, climbing trees, and vaulting across streams, imagining herself to be as powerful as any of the great knights that had filled her family’s past.
For her family had become powerful by conquest. They had been on the right side of the great armies in the Wars of the Roses.
They had managed to succeed during the most brutal battles of the Tudor period. And during the Stuart reign, they had secured themselves as one of the great families of England.
And her brother?
Her brother had been raised to believe that he was great by birth. Heshouldhave been. The generations of the past foretold it. He came from powerful people, from men who had changed the world, and women too. Women who possessed fortunes and treated the world like it was a vast chessboard of politics, maneuvering children, brothers, and sisters—using marriage to strengthen their families.
But the chessboard was broken now.
Her brother had fled the country, and she could not bring herself to feel anything but gratitude in her bitterness. He had made her life an ever-living hell since he had turned twelve years old.
Something had happened to him when his father made it clear that he was to be the great heir and had begun training him to take up the position. Turnbridge had not been interested in the people on their land, the tenants that they were supposed to take care of, or even the rule of law.
He’d been obsessed with his blood and the power that it brought, and with the idea that he was superior to everyone simply because he was an aristocrat. She thought, too, that it was important to be a member of the great ruling class of England. After all, it was no small thing to ignore the way her family had prevailed and had been involved in almost every major historical moment in the history of England.
She was proud, but that was not enough.
Each generation had to prove its capability. Prove what it could do. But that was gone now. And the extent to which her brother had shown that the lords of the present were not as capable as the lords of the past left an acrid taste in her mouth.
It could not be washed down with the red wine she had brought up from the cellars.
Yes. Her brother was gone.
There was almost nothing left in the great house. She had no access to funds. Most of the servants were gone. Only her governess and a maid, who had looked after her since she was a small girl, remained.
Her sister was tucked away at present in the nursery. At least she hoped she was, despite the fact that her sister was now far too old to be there.
But since everything had rattled apart six months ago, well, they had returned to the old things that had given them comfort.
Even she had slipped back to those childhood rooms to keep her sister company in the place that, at one time, had given them so much joy.
But her brother, running away to the continent because of a duel? It had changed everything. He’d taken the money with him, and he had not provided for them.
Each month, she’d grown more and more terrified as the family’s wealth had been siphoned off to support his lifestyle in the most beautiful places in Europe.
Of course, Europe was barraged by war, but gentlemen like her brother still managed to find the pleasure seats and indulge themselves to the very limit. In England, he had largely done the same, but he had cared about the status of his sisters because their status reflected on him.
Now that he was gone, he did not care about his family. He did not care about the line continuing, and he certainly did not care about his sisters finding good marriages.
As Catherine stared up at the towering portrait of the fearsome knight who had begun it all, she wondered if she had any of his spirit in her, if there was anything that she could do to reclaim her power.
She did not think she could ever reclaim her fortune, certainly not her reputation. Her brother had managed to throw the family into the dung heap of humanity.
It was strange because so many families in the past had managed to avoid such hideous scandal. But he had offended the Duke of Blackwood, one of the greatest dukes of the land. And her brother, having no moral character or ability to realize when he had done something wrong, did not recognize he should apologize for it.