This is your chance, she had thought to herself.This is your chance to change your life.
Three years ago, Lydia had begun writing radical political tracts, distributed anonymously by the scandalous circulating library Belvoir’s. Lydia’s first pamphlet had called for universal suffrage for both men and women. Her second had argued for the complete abolition of the aristocracy in England.
It had been that second pamphlet that had prompted the Earl of Strathrannoch’s response, delivered care of the library.
Dear H, he had written.I admire your fighting spirit and wonder when you mean to write on the question of Scotland.
(Lydia had, of necessity, employed a simple pseudonym for her pamphlets.HforHope-Wallace.Hforheartandhardihood.HforHoly hell, what have I done?andHope I don’t end up in prison!)
Dear Strathrannoch, she had written back.What Scotland question do you have in mind? I assure you, I have numerous opinions, most of which you probably will not appreciate. Your lordship.
Two weeks later, she’d had his reply:Dear H, I suppose you mean because the Strathrannochs have for five generations allied themselves with your monarchy instead of our own people? Aye, I can see why you’d think I’d oppose your incendiary ideas. You’d be wrong, however. Tell me what you think about the Scots fighting for your English king against Napoleon and don’t hold back. I’d like for my eyebrows to burn off when I read your next letter.
She’d written back. And in the months and years that had followed, she and the Earl of Strathrannoch had developed a peculiar friendship.
He did not know her true identity. He did not know she was an absurdly rich spinster. He had no idea that she was so terrified of interacting with other humans that, despite her fortune, she’d been a disaster during her seven unbearable Seasons.
But he knew her, in a way. He knew the heart of her—at least, the political part—and the shape of her ideas. And he agreed with them all, even the most outrageous.
When Strathrannoch had confessed in his last letter that his ancestral home in the Scottish Lowlands could scarcely support itself financially, that he was struggling to keep the place running, an idea had crystallized in her mind.
She could marry him.
Strathrannoch needed money, and Lydia had coin in abundance.
And Lydia needed—
Her chest felt tight. She rubbed her fingers at the ache there and stared down at the papers in her lap.
In the years since her ignominious debut, she had folded in on herself. She’d hidden behind the protective wall of her older brothers and let herself become smaller and smaller. More and more invisible.
Her anonymous pamphlets had felt almost miraculous at first.Suddenly, she had a voice—a way to make herself heard even when she could not manage to speak aloud.
But the rich, honeyed taste of independence that her writing had given her only made her crave more of the same. Her pamphlets were secret, hidden; she had no real autonomy. Almost no one in her life knew of her work—to everyone else, she was only silent, mousy, helpless Lydia Hope-Wallace.
Except to Strathrannoch. He did not know her for an awkward wallflower. He saw only her radical spirit, the bright ferocity of her writing.
And if she had her way, he would never know the way thebeau mondeperceived her. If she marched into his house and proposed a marriage of convenience—if he said yes—
She couldbethe woman from the pamphlets, strong and independent. She could be proud of who she was.
“This is my chance,” she murmured to the letters. “I will not waste it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She blinked and met Georgiana’s gaze. “I am not going home in disgrace. I can do this. It’s going to work out.”
“Your abilities are not my primary concern,” Georgiana said. Her lovely face had gone slightly peevish. “I don’t doubt that youcanpersuade this stranger to marry you. I wonder whether you are certain that you want to.”
Lydia set her teeth. “I’m certain.”
The coach shuddered and slowed down. Bacon made an excited circle in Georgiana’s lap, leaving a trail of white hairs.
Georgiana pressed her lips together firmly, and Lydia knew her friend would not speak of her hesitations again. She might doubt Lydia’s plan, but if anyone could understand a desperate desire for independence, it was Georgiana.
“Time to pluck up, then,” Georgiana said, “because we seem to have arrived.”
Lydia had known what to expect from the castle itself. She’d found a picture of it in advance, in an illustrated guide to the great estates of Scotland. She’d blinked at the page in shock, wondering if it was romanticized, so closely did it match the drawings of a fantasy castle one might find in a children’s storybook.
