Suzanna looked up at him with worry in her eyes and he shook his head grimly.
“Milady,” a small voice murmured from the side.
Suzanna turned to find Chastity bobbing a little, holding out a piece of crumpled paper. “’Twas tied to the rock,” she explained.
He watched as his sister unfolded the note, her face turning a ghastly white as her eyes scanned the missive.
Ignoring the debris, he stepped over to her and took the note from her hands.
The paper was nothing fancy, made of rather low quality, and bore no significant markings that might identify where it had come from. However, scrawled across the slip were five words that inspired a sense of foreboding in his heart.
Next time, I won’t miss.
Chapter 1
Two Months Earlier
Claire Rowley, the eldest daughter of the Viscount of Ranhold, closed the book with a soft sigh as she stared out the great bay windows of the library in the Ranhold House.
Winter was making way for spring and in a few more weeks, the warmer weather would make the roads to London passable once more, heralding the coming of the Season. With it, the members of the peerage would descend upon the city for a few months of balls, parties, and revelry, before summer called them back to their country homes.
Lady Catherine Delaney, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Rathbourne, had been in rapture when she described her first Season.
“Oh, there is nothing quite like it!” she had said, her blue eyes shining. “So much to see and so much to do. And so many handsome young men to dance with!”
Claire had watched as she giggled and sipped her tea to mask the lovely blush that spread across her cheeks. By the end of summer, Lady Catherine was married to Lord Huxley.
Oh, how lovely it would be to go to London,she mused.
She sighed and leaned her cheek on her hand. She had heard many fascinating stories about the city—of the great buildings and cathedrals, of Bond and Regent Streets packed with the ladies of High Society as they shopped for the latest fashions, of elegant townhouses that lined Mayfair.
“You can buy anything you want and need in London,” Lady Suzanna Slade once told her. “The city has everything and even—” she winked at Claire “—things you have absolutely no use for.”
“One would think that your sole purpose for venturing into London was to drain our assets,” her brother, Oliver, had remarked with a wry smile, earning the laughter of his sister.
Of course, Claire was not oblivious to the true goal of the London Season. Young ladies of her status were expected to dedicate their efforts to one thing and one thing only during the Season, and that was to find a suitable match that one could learn to live with and one that her family would approve of. Marriage was a purely transactional event and disappointment was its most expected outcome.
In truth, she had her own reasons for wanting to go to London and none of them included bonnets and gowns and fripperies. Neither did she dream of wrangling a marriage proposal from various prospects of the fashionable elite, although, she supposed it would not be too hard if she put her mind to it.
No, what Claire wanted more than anything else was to see London in all its beauty. She wanted to be able to see the great cathedrals and the grand buildings. She wanted to walk along the streets and see the beautiful townhouses where thetonheld breakfasts and tea parties. She wanted to stand in awe of the architectural marvels she had seen in her books, to soak in their history, and admire the genius that produced them.
And then, she wanted tocreateher own marvels, too.
Unlike most young ladies, she had no interest in bonnets and gowns and baubles. She had spent countless hours studying these buildings and was quite knowledgeable in architecture. Her sketchbooks were filled with her own designs and notes, garnered from years of studying these beautiful, beautiful structures.
She sighed as she stared out of the window to the thawing snow beyond. She knew that passions and hobbies of that nature were generally frowned upon in Society and there were very few who would look kindly on a young lady with such unladylike pursuits. If she let on, she could be labeled as a bluestocking and be struck off the lists of elite dandies on the lookout for a biddable wife.
Claire snorted delicately at the notion of her as a biddable wife. There were certainly more things to life than being relegated to the mundane duties of the ladies of her time. Although she was well-acquainted with running the household, she hardly thought that it was the only viable pastime for a lady.
That, and child-rearing, and holding innumerable balls and parties.
“I could not be threatened to live out such an existence,” she told her father one afternoon in his study. “That would feel like the very end of my life—to carry on as if one had no other passion besides what Society dictates of me.”
“Then you must learn to defy Society,” her father had said with a twinkle in his gentle brown eyes. “But to do that, you will first need to learn its rules so you can become adept at breaking them!”
Claire shook her head at the memory of her father’s words. He was a wise man and indeed, he was well-versed in the art of breaking the rules without seeming to.
“There you are! I have been looking all over the house for you!”
