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Chapter One

Burghsey House

Seat of the Dukedom of Marwick

The Past

There was nothing in the orld like his laugh

It didn’t matter that she was unqualified to speak of the orld She’d never strayed far from this enormous manor house, tucked into the quiet Essex countryside two days’ walk northeast of London, where rolling green hills turned to wheat as autumn crept across the land

It didn’t matter that she didn’t know the sounds of the city or the se other than English, or seen a play, or listened to an orchestra

It didn’t matter that her world had been li fluffy white sheep and massive hay bales and a community of people hom she was not allowed to speak—to whom she was virtually invisible—because she was a secret that was to be kept at all costs

A girl, baptized the heir to the Dukedo line of dukes, anointed with oils reserved for the hsey House residents Given a boy’s name and title before God even as the man as not her father paid servants and priests for silence and falsified docuhter with one of his own bastard sons, born on the sa hiacytheft

Offering that useless girl, theloneliness that cae and so small, all at once

And then he’d arrived, one year earlier Twelve years old and full of fire and strength and the world beyond Tall and lean and already so clever and cunning and theover bright amber eyes that held a thousand secrets, and a quiet, barely ever heard laugh—so rare that when it caift

No, there was nothing in the orld like his laugh She knew it, even if the orld was so far beyond her reach she couldn’t even ian

He could

He loved to tell her about it Which hat he did that afternoon, one of their precious, stolen moments between the duke’s ht when thehis three sons But today, in that quiet afternoon, while the duke ay in London, doing whatever it was that dukes did, the quartet took happiness where they could find it—out on the wild,land that made up the estate

Her favorite place was on the western edge of the land, far enough away frootten before it could be re into the sky, lined on one side with a s stream, less streaiven her hours, days, weeks of chattering coer and conversation with the water had been all she could hope for

But here, now, she was not lonely She was inside the trees, where dappled sunshine flooded the ground where she lay on her back—collapsed after racing across the land, taking great breaths of air heavy with the scent of wild thyme

He sat next to her, his hip to hers, his own chest rising and falling with heavy breath as he stared down into her face, his ever-lengthening legs stretched past her head “Why do ays come here?”

“I like it here,” she said siht, the tattoo of her heartbeat cal hide-and-seek beyond “And so would you if you weren’t so serious all the time”

The air in the quiet place shifted, thickening with the truth—that they were not ordinary children, thirteen and without care Care was how they survived Seriousness was how they survived

She didn’t want that now Not while the last of the su the whole place with ed the subject

“Tell me about it”

He didn’t ask her to clarify He didn’t need to “Again?”

“Again”

He swiveled around, and she moved her skirts so he could lie next to her, as he had dozens of times before Hundreds of them Once he was settled on his back, his hands stacked behind his head, he spoke to the canopy “It’s never quiet there”