The Marquess’s Unwanted Bride (Preview)

Chapter One

Lady Eleanor’s brush paused mid-stroke. Morning light slanted through the tall windows of her bedchamber, casting golden streaks across the carpet. In doing so, it gently entangled itself in the flow of chestnut hair she had half-tamed.

A linnet trilled somewhere beyond the open window, its notes bright against the soft rustle of leaves stirred by the breeze. 

She had been about to finish her toilette and call for tea when the door creaked open behind her.

Lucy, her maid, entered with a cautious step and a folded slip of paper clutched in her hand. 

“My Lady,” she said, in a low voice without meaning to intrude, “his lordship requests your presence in the study.”

The words struck with an unexpected chill. Eleanor set the brush down carefully, fingers suddenly cold against the polished wood of her vanity. Her gaze found Lucy’s in the mirror.

“The study?” she repeated. Not the morning room, not the breakfast table. The study. “Did Father say why?”

“No, My Lady. Only that he asks you to come at once.”

Eleanor stood slowly, smoothing her skirts as if the action might press the unease from her thoughts. Her pale blue morning gown whispered against her ankles as she moved, its muslin trailing soft shadows along the rug. 

Such formal summonses were rare. Her father was not a man given to unnecessary gravity. However, when he did employ it, the air about Ravensdale thickened like a storm on the verge of breaking.

Lucy reached for Eleanor’s shawl, for it was a chilly morning, draping it across her shoulders with quiet efficiency. Eleanor murmured thanks, her mind already far ahead, sifting through recent events for anything that might warrant a private conversation with her father. 

Had she been too abrupt with Lord Mortcombe at the Chiswick garden party? Had word reached him of the letter she had not yet answered from Lady Haversley’s son? It could be anything, really. 

Her slippers tapped softly against the polished oak floor as she stepped into the corridor. The air beyond her chamber was even cooler, scented faintly of beeswax and roses from the vases lining the hallway niches. 

Each step towards the east wing seemed to lengthen. She passed ancestral portraits that stared down with oil-darkened eyes, all solemn faces and powdered wigs. Her grandfather, the previous earl, glowered eternally from his gilt frame, and Eleanor resisted the impulse to glance away.

Ravensdale had always been a house of expectations, of quiet demands spoken in tones so calm one could mistake them for kindness.

Outside the study door, she paused. The heavy wood stood shut, a barrier that felt more symbolic than usual. She pressed a hand against the polished surface, steadied her breath, and knocked once.

“Enter,” came the earl’s voice from within. It was clipped and unmistakably formal.

Eleanor turned the brass handle and stepped inside.

The study was dimmer than the corridor, the curtains half-drawn against the morning glare. Shelves of leather-bound volumes lined the walls, and the air smelled of tobacco, vellum, and the faintest trace of lavender polish. Her father sat behind the great walnut desk, his posture impeccably upright, having his fingers laced before him. His grey eyes met hers with an unreadable expression.

“Eleanor,” he said. “Close the door, if you please.”

Her heart gave a quiet thud. She obeyed, while her father wasted no time. 

“You are to marry Lord Nathaniel Fairfax,” he said as if announcing the weather or the quarterly profits from the South Sea Company. “The contract was signed yesterday. The banns will not be read. There is no need. We have secured a special licence. The wedding shall take place within the fortnight.”

Eleanor stood frozen just inside the doorway. She felt the words strike her chest like cold water, so utterly sharp, shocking, and difficult to breathe through.

“I—” She faltered. “I beg your pardon, Father, I believe I misheard you. I’ve never even spoken to Lord Fairfax.”

“You have no need to speak with him before the wedding,” he replied, adjusting the signet ring on his little finger. “You may speak with him after.”

She stepped forward, the hem of her gown whispering across the Axminster carpet. Her voice trembled with restrained disbelief, “But surely … surely my consent is required.”

The Earl of Ravensdale gave a soft, humourless exhale. It was a sound that was not quite a sigh, and not quite a laugh. 

“You are of age, yes. But you are also my daughter. And a Henshaw. Which means your consent is merely a formality.”

Her composure, always so carefully arranged, began to splinter at the edges.

“Father, please—”

“Eleanor.” His tone sharpened. “Enough. This alliance has been under discussion for months. The Fairfaxes are expanding their trade routes, new holdings in Calcutta, and a stake in the port at Liverpool. Your marriage secures their capital for Ravensdale’s investments. It ensures the estate’s future. Your brothers are either married or abroad. That only leaves you.”

The final word rang through the room like a gavel. You. Not daughter, not Eleanor. You, the piece left on the board.

“But, I do not love him,” she whispered, shame and fury tightening her throat.

Her father leaned back in his chair, studying her as if she were some troublesome line in a ledger. “Love,” he said, almost gently, “is not the matter here. This is a sound match. He is titled, wealthy, and childless. You will want for nothing.”

“Except choice,” she said. “Except voice.”

The earl’s expression did not change. “You were raised for this, Eleanor. I have given you books, tutors, languages, music—every refinement. But those were privileges, not indulgences. We do not waste daughters in this family. We marry them well.”

A long silence followed. The tick of the longcase clock filled the space between them, marking time she no longer had.

When she finally turned, her knees were trembling beneath her skirts. She did not curtsy. She did not speak.

She opened the door, stepped into the hall, and walked away with as much grace as she could muster.

But once beyond the threshold, once the heavy door had shut behind her with a final, irrevocable click, Eleanor’s composure slipped. Her breath came shallow, suffocating even. The corridor blurred. The portraits along the walls, all those ancestors, those patriarchs seemed to watch her with quiet indictment.

Eleanor did not go to her chamber. Her feet carried her, without conscious thought, down the west staircase and into the morning room, trailing the ghost of her composure behind her like a torn hem.

The scent of lemon oil and spring blooms hung in the air, the windows thrown open to the garden, where bees droned lazily in the sunlit lavender.

Lucy followed close behind, silent as a shadow, but with worry etched deep between her brows.

“Shall I fetch tea, My Lady?” she asked, already reaching for the bell.

“No … not yet,” Eleanor murmured, brushing trembling fingers down the front of her gown. “Just … stay a moment.”

Charlotte Godwin, Eleanor’s companion and secretary, was sitting by the window, curled into the light like a cat, with a book forgotten in her lap. She looked up at Eleanor’s entrance, and her eyes momentarily brightened with interest.

“Well,” she said, drawing out the word as if it were a ribbon, “either the prince regent has eloped with your Aunt Philomena or something has rattled you, my dear Eleanor. Which is it?”

Eleanor gave a choked laugh, and that fragile sound broke the last of the pressure building in her chest. She crossed the room in three quick strides and dropped beside Charlotte on the window seat, heedless of decorum, as her hands twisted together in her lap.

“I am to marry the Marquess of Loxley,” she said flatly but felt as if the words burned her tongue more than hot tea ever could.

There was a pause.

Then Charlotte blinked. “What?”

Lucy turned aside, busying herself with the tea things, though her ears plainly strained to catch every word.

“My father informed me just now. The contract is signed. The licence acquired. The announcement will be made today, and the ceremony is to follow within the fortnight. Apparently, my opinions on the matter are irrelevant.”

Charlotte stared, mouth slightly open. Then her brow furrowed. “But … Lord Loxley? Nathaniel Fairfax, the Marquess of Loxley?”

Eleanor gave her a pointed look. “Is there another?”

“Well,” Charlotte said slowly, “you could hardly expect a clergyman or a farmer to be named Loxley, could you? It sounds like a man carved from granite and dropped into a cravat.” She paused, eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen him. Once or twice. At Almack’s, and again at that dull musicale Lady Eastwick insisted upon. Very tall. Striking. Storm-coloured eyes.”

“Storm-coloured,” Eleanor echoed, grimacing.

Charlotte gave a dramatic sigh, leaning back against the window frame. “Oh, don’t look like that. He was striking. Though not precisely warm. Rather … austere. Very reserved. Possibly humourless.”

“Charming,” Eleanor muttered, sinking further into herself.

Charlotte turned her head to study her friend. “You’ve never met him?”

“I’ve never spoken to him. I’ve seen him at a distance, though. He’s always in black, never dances, and looks as if he’s already judged the whole room guilty of some minor social crime.” She exhaled hard. “I’m to belong to that man. Like a parcel.”

Charlotte reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’re not a parcel, Ellie.”

“No,” she whispered, “but I’ve been packaged all the same.”

The two sat in silence for a moment, the room humming with sunlight and unsaid things. In the distance, a dove called lazily from the hedge. Eleanor’s heart beat too quickly in her chest, her skin prickling despite the warmth.

She couldn’t escape the indignation she was feeling, the just, proper fury at being bartered like fine china. And yet …

Storm-coloured eyes.

What if the rumours were wrong? What if Lord Loxley, for all his severity, wasn’t cruel, but kind? Worse … what if she found herself drawn to him, longing for his approval the way she had never longed for any suitor’s before?

The thought sent a tremor through her.

Desire was dangerous. It clouded judgement. It made women foolish, pliable, blind.

And yet … she wondered.

Even more foolishly, she hoped. 

“What are you thinking?” Charlotte asked, tilting her head.

Eleanor blinked, startled. “Nothing.”

Charlotte gave her a sly smile. “You look like someone thinking something they won’t say aloud.”

“I am,” Eleanor said, then added softly, “and I won’t.”

She rose before her thoughts could tangle further, crossing to the window and gripping the sill.

Outside, the roses bloomed wild and heavy on the trellis. Inside, her world had changed entirely and the man at the centre of that change was tall, unreadable, and possibly humourless.

She might loathe him. She might long for him. And she could not quite decide which would frighten her more.

Charlotte followed suit and stood up. Then, she stretched like a cat, smoothing her skirts with uncharacteristic seriousness. 

“Come now, Eleanor. You need air and motion, not stuffy rooms and political marriages. You should go for a ride to clear your head. You’ve got that look again, the one that means you’ll either burst into tears or start reciting Byron.”

Eleanor hesitated. Her thoughts swirled like mist, thick and shifting, impossible to pin down. But the idea of the open path, the wind against her cheeks, the steady rhythm of hooves striking earth … it tugged at her like a tether.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I shall take you up on that offer. Maybe a ride through Hyde Park is just what I need. There aren’t many people there this early in the morning.”

Within minutes, Lucy was fastening the row of tiny silver buttons down the front of Eleanor’s dark blue riding habit, the wool soft beneath her fingers, but the collar stiff with elegance. The fitted bodice and long sweeping skirt felt like armour more than attire. It was something she could disappear into, if only for an hour.

As Lucy reached up to adjust her cravat, Eleanor caught a glimpse of herself in the tall mirror by the hearth.

The woman reflected there stood straight and composed, her features strangely calm, even serene. But her eyes held a tension that did not belong to a girl at all. She looked like someone being shaped. Positioned. Prepared.

Not simply a daughter now. Not simply Eleanor.

Lady Loxley. 

She swallowed hard at the name she was to take. 

Charlotte flounced into the room, already gloved and wearing her usual wide-brimmed hat with an overabundance of ribbons. “You’ll scandalize half of Mayfair if you glare like that from horseback. Someone will think you’ve taken a pistol to your lover.”

Eleanor shot her a look.

Charlotte grinned. “Oh, come now. You’ve always had a weakness for a handsome face.”

“I have not,” Eleanor said, stunned with mock shock. 

“You have,” Charlotte replied cheerfully. “Remember Mr Allerton with the square jawline? You barely heard a word he said.”

Eleanor had to laugh. “What? That was you, you scandalous thing!”

“Oh, yes.” Charlotte giggled playfully. “But that’s because he only ever spoke about himself and the superiority of Norfolk hunting dogs.”

“And he had dimples,” Eleanor teased. 

Charlotte laughed again, taking her friend by the hand. “Go on, my dear. Off with you now. You need to change the course of this day and make it a fine one.” 

Eleanor smiled. She wanted to believe her friend. Only, that was easier said than done. 

 

Chapter Two

Lord Nathaniel Fairfax, the Marquess of Loxley, didn’t bother with a cravat that morning. His coat hung unfastened, the dark wool creased from where he’d shrugged it on half-asleep, summoned before breakfast by a note bearing his father’s unmistakable script: 

See me at once.

Nathaniel had expected estate ledgers or word of the shipping consortium in Leith. A report from the Commons, perhaps, or another tangle in the tenants’ arbitration in Shropshire.

What he certainly had not expected was to be told, with the clinical clarity of a man discussing rainfall, that he was to marry.

“Lady Eleanor Henshaw,” his father Reginald Fairfax, the Duke of Wycombe said, as if the lady’s name were simply the next step in a long arithmetic.

Nathaniel stared at him across the desk. The scent of ink and tobacco clung to the study like a second skin. Behind his father, the tall casement windows revealed the manicured rear gardens of Loxley House, untouched by the rising heat of the day. The light had not yet softened the frost of morning.

The muscle in Nathaniel’s jaw twitched.

“I’ve made my position clear several times already, Father,” he said evenly. “I have no need of a wife.”

The duke did not so much as glance up from the sheaf of correspondence he was arranging with fastidious precision. “And I’ve made mine clear. You require an heir. More than that, you require stability. The Henshaw girl provides both.”

“I am perfectly capable of finding my own wife,” Nathaniel spat, holding back. 

“No, you are not,” his father replied calmly, but underneath that serenity, a storm was already brewing. “And that is why I have taken it upon myself to make that choice for you because you have wasted enough of both our time. Truth be told, your mother also needed some convincing regarding the girl, but I have made detailed enquiries, and her father assured me that their family is in the same situation as ours.”

Nathaniel’s fingers curled around the arm of the leather chair. “You’ve signed the contract.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think I might wish to meet her first?”

“Why? Would that alter the necessity?”

His voice remained calm, that practiced ducal detachment Nathaniel had loathed since boyhood. It was the same tone used to discuss troop movements, estate expansions, and the price of coal. The world, as the Duke of Wycombe saw it, was a ledger.  Daughters were columns to balance. Sons were ink and signature.

“The identity of the girl in question is utterly irrelevant,” his father reminded him cruelly. “As I’ve said, you have wasted enough time, and it has become clear that you will not make that choice on your own. So, I have made it easier for you.  Lady Eleanor is well-bred and educated, with an unblemished reputation. No debts, no scandal. The earl is eager to secure a position for her now that his sons are inconveniently scattered to the wind. You will marry her within the fortnight. A special licence has already been arranged.”

The tick of the mantle clock filled the space between them.

His father blinked heavily upon not hearing a response. “I refuse to leave this world without seeing you settled.” 

“You mean married,” Nathaniel scoffed. “That is not the same.” 

“It most certainly is. You are just too stubborn to see it.” His father’s jaw tightened. “You know what the physicians have said.” 

He knew well. His father had the wasting disease, also known as cancer of the bowels. His lack of appetite was becoming more and more noticeable, as well as his intermittent abdominal pain, but he had been concealing it with excuses of the usual kind: stress, overwork, old age. However, they both knew that once it reached a certain stage, the decline would become painfully obvious to all. 

“It would bring me peace, Nathaniel,” he finally said, and this was one of the rare times that he actually sounded more like a father and less like a duke issuing an order. 

Nathaniel sighed. He could say nothing to that. All he could do was nod. As it turned out, that was more than enough for his father. 

“Well then, If that is all …” 

Nathaniel stood slowly, forcing his hands to remain loose at his sides. “Yes. That is all.” 

He left the study with controlled, measured steps, though every muscle in his body ached to break into movement, to transform it into something fast, something violent, something his.

In the corridor, he drew a breath through his nose. The sharp scent of bay rum still clung faintly to his skin from his morning shave. He closed his eyes for a beat and exhaled.

Lady Eleanor Henshaw.

He knew the name. The Henshaws were old blood; they had solid lineage. He’d seen her once, perhaps twice at some society affair he’d been obligated to attend. A glimpse across a crowded ballroom: chestnut hair pinned in elegant coils, a mouth set not in flirtation but in quiet thought. She hadn’t looked in his direction. That, oddly, had stuck with him.

Still, she could be anyone. Pretty or plain. Sharp or dull. Willing or furious.

None of it mattered.

His marriage, like every other facet of his life, had been prearranged by forces greater than whim. His father did not believe in affection. He believed in empire. A son who questioned his role in that design was merely a cog refusing to turn.

He poured himself a glass of water from the crystal decanter in his chamber and drank it cold and fast. Then, he braced his hands on the edge of the washstand, breathing steadily.

He reminded himself that marriage was no tragedy. It was a tool like any other. But something was unsettling about this match, perhaps because he hadn’t chosen it, perhaps because it had been decided so easily as if he were the part being bartered, not the lady.

Or perhaps because he did not know what this woman would ask of him, not in words, but in glances, in silences, in expectation. 

The glass clinked as he set it down. Somewhere beyond the window, horses moved in the mews, hooves sharp against cobbles. The city would wake soon. He hastily grabbed his coat. 

Minutes later, his carriage cut through the streets with smooth, unhurried purpose, and the wheels were whispering over cobblestones slick with the morning’s dew.

The city unfurled around him in measured grey light. Shopkeepers were slowly lifting shutters, messengers darting like hares, all while chimney smoke curled above damp slate roofs. But inside the carriage, the world was silent but for the steady ticking of his pocket watch.

He sat rigidly, gloved hands resting on his cane, though he did not need it. It was a prop. A weapon, sometimes. A shield more often.

Marriage.

The word looped through his mind with the same cold regularity as the horses’ hooves. He had spent his adult life weaving order from chaos. He learned everything there was to know about managing estates, debts, politics, war, and the mess men made of themselves. He’d never allowed passion to unseat him, never chased scandal or flirted with ruin.

This marriage wasn’t simply an inconvenience. It was a disruption. A threat, even. 

He stepped from the carriage before the footman had fully lowered the step, nodding once to the doorman of St James’. The club was as it always was. Its wood-panelled, fire-warmed atmosphere offered both cigar smoke and quiet judgement. This was where, in the hush of polished leather and cut glass, a man could still believe himself master of his fate.

At the far end of the reading room, Captain Jonathan Marsden lounged in his usual armchair. His boots were outstretched, and there was a glass of brandy in one hand, but the most obvious thing about him was the mischief in his eyes.

“You’re late,” Marsden said, lifting the glass in salute. “I’ve already insulted two members and scandalized a third with an anecdote about a Portuguese duchess. You’ve missed the fun.”

Nathaniel pulled off his gloves and sat opposite with a sigh. “I’ve been summoned. Ordered, really.”

Marsden’s brows rose. “To Parliament? The Admiralty? Or your tailor?”

“My father.”

“Ah.” Marsden winced. “God preserve us. What’s the damage?”

Nathaniel accepted the brandy offered him and took a long drink before replying. “I am to marry.”

Marsden blinked. “To whom?”

“Lady Eleanor Henshaw.”

There was a pause. Then a low whistle.

“Well,” Marsden said, shifting to sit straighter. “You don’t do things by halves, do you?”

Nathaniel only looked at him.

Marsden set his glass down as if what he intended to say required his full focus. “She’s not one of the silly ones if that’s your concern. I’ve seen her in company, old boy. She never simpers, never scrambles for notice. People say she’s clever. Sharp-tongued if crossed. Has a fondness for books, painting, and the kind of quiet that makes hostesses uneasy.”

Nathaniel drained half his brandy in a single swallow.

“I’ve never spoken to her,” he said flatly. “I’ve barely looked at her. And now her name clings to my every thought like a burr.”

Marsden chuckled. “Burrs can be dangerous things.”

“I’ve heard her to be independent,” Nathaniel continued, ignoring him. “Not easily impressed. The kind of woman who demands … things. Space. Answers. Opinions.”

Marsden grinned. “So … a person, then.”

Nathaniel scowled. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m not.” The captain leaned forward with a hint of amusement tempered by a glint of understanding. “You don’t want a challenge, Loxley. You want quiet. Control. A wife who nods and smiles and never asks why. You simply could have chosen a mousey thing like that and got it over with. Now, your father has chosen for you and you’re brooding.” 

Nathaniel said nothing. He looked down into his glass, where the amber liquid caught the light like a flame behind glass. 

Was Marsden right? 

He set the glass down with a soft clink. “This is politics. That’s all. My father’s game. I’ll play it.”

“Hmm,” Marsden said, finishing his own drink. “Just remember—some games change the rules the moment you sit down.”

Marsden watched him with that infuriating ease of his, with one leg slung over the other, hands steepled, dark eyes alive with curiosity. He might have been sitting in a gaming hall instead of the oldest gentlemen’s club in London, and Nathaniel suddenly loathed him for how lightly he seemed to carry himself.

“Well, I’ll just have to make sure to change the rules so that they suit me,” Nathaniel said, but there was little conviction in his voice. 

“What exactly is bothering you, old boy?” Marsden asked. 

“I’m not …” Nathaniel began, then exhaled harshly and leaned back. “It’s not the resistance that unsettles me. It’s that … part of me doesn’t mind the idea.”

“Of marrying her?” Marsden asked mildly.

“Of being challenged,” Nathaniel muttered.

He stared into the flames, the gold light catching on the angles of his face, shadowing the hollows beneath his eyes. “She’ll demand things. She’ll want answers. She’ll ask why I do what I do, why I think the way I think. And I … I don’t know that I can be that man.”

Marsden raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you care about being that man?”

“I don’t,” Nathaniel snapped. Then, after a beat, more quietly: “Or I thought I didn’t.”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, jaw tight. The firelight made the brandy in his glass glint blood-red.

“I swore to myself years ago, after my uncle fell in love with a woman who left him in pieces, that I would never become that. That I would never allow a woman to have so much control over me.”

Marsden lifted an eyebrow. “So, in other words, all you want is a marriage of convenience … exactly what your father has arranged for?” 

“No,” Nathaniel’s brows furrowed. “I don’t want marriage, period, Marsden. I just want to be left alone.” 

Marsden clicked his lips together. “That might not be a possibility for the son of a duke. You know that far better than I do.” 

Nathaniel sighed. “I do.” 

“Or perhaps you are intrigued by this lady, and intrigue is sometimes halfway to being in love,” Marsden teased. 

Nathaniel shot him a look that could have frozen the Thames. “I should throw this drink at your face.”

Marsden smirked. “You could. But I’d only say I told you so. Besides,” he added, swirling the last of his brandy, “you were always going to care. That’s your problem, Loxley. You pretend you don’t feel things but underneath, you feel everything. And you’re terrified of it.”

Nathaniel rose to his feet, restless. The club felt suddenly too close, the heat too thick. His shoulders ached from the tension he hadn’t noticed building.

“I need air.”

“Of course, you do. Go walk in the park. Brood at a duck.”

Nathaniel didn’t bother replying. He tugged on his gloves with short, sharp motions and strode towards the door, his coat flaring behind him. But even as he pushed through the heavy oak and into the cool, bracing London air, her name whispered through his mind again.

By the time Nathaniel returned to Loxley House, the grey of morning had sharpened into the clear, brisk brightness of late spring. The staff parted around him like water, their eyes averted, their movements well-rehearsed. No one spoke. No one asked why the marquess had returned earlier than usual, or why his jaw was locked tight enough to crack molars.

He went straight to his rooms.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, a familiar grunt met his ears, and it was immediately followed by the rapid, snuffling thud of tiny paws on polished oak.

“Percival,” he muttered, too tired to be stern.

The pug hurtled towards him with all the dignity of a well-fed footstool. His squashed face was wrinkled in gleeful expectation, stubby legs pumping like bellows, tail wagging in tight, furious circles. He snorted just once but loudly enough and then launched himself with absurd ambition at Nathaniel’s boot.

“Down,” Nathaniel said, kneeling with a sigh. Percival immediately clambered into his lap, his whole body vibrating with joy. “You are utterly without pride.”

In return, Percival licked his chin, sneezed in his cravat, and promptly settled into a loaf of warm, smug contentment on Nathaniel’s thigh.

It was ridiculous. Embarrassing, even.

And oddly comforting.

Nathaniel exhaled and scratched behind the pug’s ears, his shoulders easing a fraction for the first time since his father had uttered the words Lady Eleanor Henshaw.

“She’ll hate you,” he muttered into Percival’s fur. “You’re spoiled, loud, and partial to sugar biscuits.”

Percival sneezed again and wheezed with what might have been pride.

With a resigned groan, Nathaniel stood and set the dog gently down. He crossed to the wardrobe and rang for his valet, issuing clipped instructions: his dark riding coat, doeskin breeches, high polished boots. Hyde Park might already be full this time of day, but he needed the movement. The illusion of choice. Of forward momentum.

When he descended to the stables, his black gelding was already being saddled. Percival was tucked under his arm like a scandalous accessory.

He mounted with practiced grace, then tucked the pug into the shallow saddlebag he had fitted especially for such outings. In reality, it was a compromise between dignity and affection that he still refused to speak of aloud.

He turned towards the Row.

The wind picked up, crisp and bracing, and Nathaniel leaned into it, reins loose in hand. Behind him, Percival snorted once in approval, then promptly fell asleep, as always. 

And in front of him, somewhere amid the rustling trees and bright chatter of Hyde Park, was a world he no longer controlled.

And a woman whose name … damn her … he could not stop thinking about.