She took a deep breath and refocused her attention on the swirl of activity around her. She fisted her hands, praying her damp palms wouldn’t sweat through her white gloves, and lifted her chin. She felt as out of place as a fish among birds, pretending for the sake of her family that she belonged here, even though her nails were chipped, and her palms sported callouses from the labor of keeping their house presentable without enough staff.

  She did not resemble the elegant women here in the slightest, but for the sake of her mothers and sisters, she must be here. For here were eligible gentlemen, who might—if Anne believed in miracles—want a wife, poor or not.

  Poor is what Anne and her sisters were. And desperate.

  They’re small plot of land did not yield enough income to feed nine daughters, clothe them, present them, and pay a full staff. Village assemblies and the rare occasions in which the duchess entertained at the castle were the only opportunities Anne and her sisters had to meet potential suitors. Their only other source of money came from their witless father, who upon seeing the growing number of his offspring, sought not to abstain from his wife but to be away constantly searching for willing husbands, only to return periodically and foist another pregnancy on his wife. Thankfully, after Willa’s birth, their mother had become barren. A mercy if Anne had ever seen one. But there were still nine growing young women to care for. If none of them found a husband before their father died, they would be at the mercy of their cousin Irving, a solemn sort who, thankfully, none of them would be forced to marry because he already had a wife.

  But that was little comfort when it was very possible they would be ejected from the only home she and her sisters had ever known.

  Anne wandered toward the dance floor, not having a partner for the first set. That suited her. She was still reeling from her introduction to Miss Violet Everly, Roderick’s supposed candidate for a wife. But after what he’d told her of a hidden romance between Violet and his brother, Weirick, Anne was inclined to review her opinion of the vivacious woman with striking beauty and honey gold hair that shone like a newly minted gold coin. She could admit she had not been very welcoming to Violet.

  Anne hated to acknowledge there might have been a bit of envy involved in her poor treatment of Violet. Her sister, Bernie, who’d quickly befriended Violet during this house party, said Violet had already turned down four proposals. She was the sister-in-law to a duke and could marry whomever she wished whenever she wished. She had fine gowns and simple but tasteful—and most likely real—jewelry, whereas Anne had none.

  Anne searched for her sisters, knowing she would only continue to stand here and compare herself to the other women present if she didn’t find some distraction.

  Her breath caught as she spied Roderick there on the dance floor, clapping in time with the other dancers, partnered with Violet. Her sister Bernie and their other neighbor Lord Chester completed the foursome as they matched hands and circled around each other. Anne turned away, retreating to the drawing room. There she found the duchess again, but she didn’t want to cower near the woman’s skirts, so she pivoted toward the refreshment table.

  A flute of champagne in hand, she watched as the guests who were not dancing ambled the room and admired the famed and awe-inspiring King’s Hall. A relic of the dark ages, lovingly cared for to still appear new, with gleaming suits of armor lining the walls below the massive windows.

  “So nice to see you again, Anne.”

  Anne turned with surprise toward the voice. “Weirick—I mean, Your Grace.” She belatedly remembered to curtsy.

  She hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years, not since his tragic accident five years ago. He was…startling, and yet more himself than the beautiful boy he used to be, with roguish long hair. He was scarred and carried an air of danger, but as he studied her now, she saw what she’d always seen in him. A slumbering beast woken by his tortured past. The scars that he now carried stretched from his back to the bottom of his head, forcing him to shave off his hair. His new appearance suited him, in Anne’s opinion, though he hid the scars whenever possible with a high collar and top hat pulled low.

  “Don’t bother with that nonsense. We’re old friends.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. “Are you enjoying the evening?”

  His gaze swiftly moved over the dancers before it returned to hers. “No.”

  She raised a brow, remembering what Roderick had told her of his brother’s supposed love for Violet. Did it bother him that Violet and Roderick were dancing together as much as it did her?

  I’m not jealous. I’m annoyed.

  Yes, annoyance. Roderick was skilled in annoying her and had been since she was ten and he fourteen. And now at eight and twenty, he had it down to an art form, keeping her on edge whenever she was in his presence. On impulse, she decided that he could have very well lied about Weirick being in love with Violet simply because he could.

  For the same reason he’d delighted in finding ways to slip spiders in their pockets or frogs in their bonnets.

  Her teeth clenched.

  “He’s changed,” Weirick said at her side.

  “Has he? I haven’t noticed.”

  “Why haven’t you come to any of the other festivities during the house party? I know my mother invited all of you.”

  “All of us tend to be a bit much to withstand,” Anne murmured.

  He chuckled. “I suppose. Willa is how old now?”

  “Ten and seven.”

  “My god, nine women all in need of husbands.”

  “Which is why I didn’t attend the party. I’m on the shelf now, so it is up to my younger sisters to wear the mantle of desperation.”

  “Never say that Anne, you don’t look a day over eighteen.”

  She wanted to snort. She felt much older than her twenty-four years. Steady daily labor will do that to a body.

  “Then why come tonight?”

  “Your mother insisted. She promised my mother a ham if at least half of us came.”

  He chuckled again.

  Anne spared him a side-glance. Was it amusing? Yes, but also embarrassing that a ham hock could be used as bait to lure them out of their home.

  “It’s good to have you home, Weirick.”

  “It’s only temporary. Once I see Roderick settled in a good marriage I will leave again.”

  Why? Anne was tempted to ask but despite him declaring them old friends, there was a wall around him that Anne had no right to breach. She remembered Roderick’s words again, and how Violet might be the one to keep Weirick here in England. Perhaps he wasn’t lying after all. Perhaps Roderick had finally begun to care about something, and that something was the brother he’d lost once already.

  “’Tis a shame. You will be missed,” she stated.

  He nodded, his focus on the dancers once more. “If you will excuse me.”

  There was an edge to his voice. For a heartbeat, Anne thought he might intercept Violet and Roderick as they finished the dance set and left the floor, but he turned away and left the hall instead.

  Anne forced herself away from the edges of the party and went to Bernie’s side. Lord Chester smiled at her in greeting and introduced her to the other guests in her circle. But Anne barely paid attention because Violet joined them, but Roderick did not. He sidled away out of her field of vision, and she couldn’t help wonder where he might be going.

  Searching for his brother?

  She didn’t like this awareness of him that she couldn’t ignore, but for as long as she could remember she’d always been attuned to him, when he entered, when he left. Perhaps it was instinct. But whatever the cause, he plagued her night and day. Especially now, when it was becoming so clear that something about Roderick had changed, and she was dying to know what it was.

  Chapter 3

  Roderick stumbled out of his brother’s study, having sufficiently avoided the remainder of the dancing as he’d steeled his nerves with whisky, in preparation for his waltz with Anne.

  He tugged his coat down, regretting that last glass since he was now a bit jug bitten. But inebriation was his preferred state, after all, and he was confident he could waltz just as well, if not better, than when he was sober. His gait steadied as he drew near the King’s Hall, but his breaths became shorter, anticipation coiling inside him like a spring. He entered the hall, the glare of the candles and sparkle of the jewels of the many women nearly as intoxicating and dizzying as the half bottle of whisky he’d drunk.

  He searched the throng of people, catching sight of one sable crowned head atop an elegant slender neck that sparked the hairs on the back of his neck and his arms to rise. He didn’t need to see her face to know it was she, even among her sisters who shared her fair skin and coloring. Marsden’s always bred true. But Anne had an air that set her apart from her sisters, a quiet stillness as if she were waiting for something to happen at any moment.

  She’s as quiet as a starless night, as still as waters deep…

  “What lurks there in?” he asked himself quietly.

  For he’d always wanted to know what lay under Anne’s calm exterior. He’d seen her bristle at him, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She’d glared at him more times than he could count. And she’d had a way of uttering his name so quietly, yet with such rank disdain his ears rang afterward.

  “Roderick.”

  He couldn’t help smiling as he weaved his way through the guests. He could hear her in his head, uttering his name in such a low growl, her eyes sparking with fire and wrath. It amused him. Yet he could not stop his mind from hearing it again in a different scenario. Not after he’d slipped a tadpole down the back of her dress, but one where she was held tightly against him, her knee hitched to his hip, head thrown back, eyes closed, face transformed by ecstasy. What would his name sound like then?

  Still low and throaty or light and breathy? Parts of him began to stiffen in agreement with his train of thought, so he switched his focus back to her disdain for him, and what the bloody hell he could do to erase it. She turned at his approach, her eyes widening, her lips parting as if she’d sucked in a small breath. It was without effort that Roderick catalogued all these things. He’d been doing it for years, testing her reaction to him, waiting for the time when she’d see him as more than a pestilence unleashed upon her and as the man he was now. Matured, though still quite the rake. It wasn’t a tadpole he wanted to slip under her dress. It was his hands and his lips.

  For the life of him, he could not get her out of his mind.

  Not until he proved he was better than he used to be.

  “Anne,” he said, his voice deeper and smokier than he intended. He cleared his throat. “I believe this is our dance.”

  She didn’t speak, but she did nod.

  Her hand trembled slightly when she placed it on his arm, and Roderick inwardly smiled. Led astray by a siren’s song, sweet death hath come upon me. What choice have I but to succumb? When her embrace is all that…damn. His mind blanked again. Binds me, finds me? No, it’s all rubbish. He bit back the urge to grimace. He carefully glanced down at her, but her focus was straight ahead as he led her to the dance floor. His body went rigid, and he had to force himself to breath as he placed his hand on her waist and faced her.

  She met his gaze, her pupils large, and he felt off balance staring into them, as if he might fall. The abyss would welcome him, warm and comforting, the deep black as soothing as plush velvet. The music began, and he stumbled into the first steps, catching her and forcing them into the proper step. Her gaze narrowed at him.

  “My apologies,” he muttered.

  “Perhaps it would be wise to restrain your consumption of spirits if you intend to dance, my lord.”

  He agreed he was properly foxed but not only on whiskey. She had drugged him with her beauty, her close proximity, the warmth under his hand that he acutely knew was her body heat, and the mesmerizing slide of her fabric against her skin. It all was too much to bear, and yet he couldn’t get enough. He wanted more.

  He drank in her expression even as she rolled her eyes with exasperation and looked away from him. Her skin was luminescent in the soft light of hundreds of candles, her cheeks flagged with a hint of a blush that spread from her face to the rounded valley of her breasts.

  “What is the matter with you?” she hissed.

  He swallowed and met her accusing stare. She’d caught him ogling her breasts, damn it. He could practically hear her teeth grinding.

  Bloody hell, he was doing a miserable job of impressing her.

  “My apologies again, Anne. I’m not myself tonight.” You are undoing me.

  “You’re drunk, how is that any different from any other night?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Damn if she isn’t right, though.

  “You deny it?”

  “I readily admit I have imbibed my share of whisky tonight, but it wouldn’t be any more than usual.”

  She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You are terrible.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re a drunkard, Roderick. Don’t you see?”

  “I’m a rake. Drinking is a preferred pastime of a rake. As is—”

  “Spare me the lecture, please. I know what you are. I’ve known you all my life.”

  Her tone was scathing but something about her words brought comfort, like a familiar blanket softened by time and repeated washing.

  “Yes, you do know me, don’t you?”

  “I do, and I find you quite contemptible.”

  Suddenly that metaphorical blanket was made of itchy hair. “And I find you rather dull, Anne.”

  She squeezed his fingers. He clenched his teeth, but he was determined not to show her that she’d caused him pain. How had she come by such a firm grip?

  “Is this why you wanted to waltz with me? So you could insult me?” she asked.

  “You started it.”

  Her mouth popped open as if to refute him but then she snapped it shut. “Childish.”

  He tightened his hold on her hand and her waist, certain she might try to abandon him on the dance floor.

  “My apologies, again. The truth is… You make me nervous.”

  She leaned back in his hold, turning her head slightly and staring at him as if he were speaking in tongues.

  “I make you nervous?”

  “I want to make amends with you.” And sweep you off your feet. “I thought a good place to begin would be a waltz where you would be—”

  “Unable to run away without humiliating myself?”

  He snorted. “I’d like to think I was that intelligent, but the truth is, I’ve never known a woman who could refuse a waltz.”

  “We’re conditioned not to. It’s the height of rudeness to a refuse a dance without just reason.”

  “Patent dislike isn’t a just reason?” he quipped.

  Her lips twitched. It was a ghost of a smile, but Roderick relished it all the same.

  “No, I cannot openly dislike you, that would be an insult to your mother, who I admire and respect very much.”

  The truth stung, but he continued with his plan anyway. “What can I do to change your impression of me?”

  Her expression was almost pitying.

  “Please, Anne. Take pity on me. I’m trying to reform my ways.”

  Now her features displayed skepticism.

  “Very well, I’m not trying to reform but I am trying to make amends with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “That isn’t a reason to change my impression of you. It’s been ingrained in me since the first time you slipped a tadpole in my tea—which was very cruel to both myself and the poor tadpole you murdered.”

  “It was already dead,” he clarified. He’d never intentionally injure an animal no matter how small.

  “What?”

  “The tadpole. I found it in a dried pond.”

  She shook her head, a marvel considering they were spinning about. He wondered if she felt dizzy at all.

  The music was coming to an end. He would need more time and undivided attention from her if he were to convince her to think differently of him. He slowed their pace, scanning their surroundings for opportunity.

  “Roderick.”

  She said his name low and quiet, secretive as if to confess something. The tone slithered along his nerves the way silk slides over skin, and immediately his blood warmed to an uncomfortable degree.

  The music came to a crescendo and finished. They swirled to a halt, and in the chaos of the mix of dancers parting, Roderick swiveled them to the side and steered her through a side door. The very one they’d used earlier.

  “What the devil!” She turned and hissed at him as he closed the door behind them.

  “I need to speak with you.”

  “You need to find your good sense. You can’t just abscond with me because you feel like it. I have a reputation to protect and eight—I repeat eight sisters who also have valuable reputations to uphold. You’ve already proven that you have not changed. You think of no one but yourself.”

  Stunned, he stepped away from her. Her words stung like a slap or a chill glass of water tossed in his face. She was right of course. He cursed himself and said nothing. She glared at him and then slipped back into the ballroom without another word.

  Roderick remained in the dark hall, the shadows pressing down on him like a physical manifestation of his loathing.

  If he couldn’t change. How would he ever be worthy of her?

  Chapter 4

  Anne paused just in front of the door, catching her breath, her heart racing as if she’d just run head first into freezing rain.

  She scanned the faces around her, but no one seemed to have noticed Roderick ferrying her away.

  The little consideration given to her whereabouts by the other guests was both a blessing and a curse, but what of Roderick? He was the whole reason for this ball, for this whole dreadful house party orchestrated by his mother and the duke, Roderick’s elder brother, to marry him off. Three women had been chosen as potential brides, and Anne and her sisters simply invited as filler guests. Anne had refused to go, despite the addition of the other gentlemen in attendance. She knew she should have attended for that reason alone.