Chapter 1
As the last note of the pianoforte lingered in the air, Bridget pursed her lips together, thinking. There was still something missing in the piece she was composing, but she couldn’t determine what it was. It simply didn’t have the depth that it should have.
“It is an excellent piece.”
Bridget looked over her shoulder at Anna, her younger sister and nearly her mirror image. Both sisters had brown hair and green eyes, which they had inherited from their father. They also had their mother’s delicate facial features and slight figure. Anna held her sketchbook in hand, and, considering the odd angle at which she sat on the settee, Bridget suspected that the nearby vase of flowers had caught her sister’s attention.
“Your latest piece is also excellent.”
Anna’s latest painting was of the two of them, dressed in white gowns, lounging in a garden. Their mother, Lady Louise Crampton, had declared that the painting was a masterpiece and had insisted on it being displayed in the drawing room.
“It is adequate,” Anna said.
“More than adequate!”
Bridget rose from where she sat and strode to the painting. With her fingertips, she traced the details of the flowers and the gowns. Everything was so carefully and lovingly done that it made Bridget’s heart swell with pride for her sister’s accomplishments. “It is beautiful. I have seen nothing that rivals your talents.”
Anna’s face pinkened, and she scoffed. “You praise me much too highly. I will concede that it is good, and it ought to be given how often I have painted over the years. It would be most shameful if I had developed no talent for artistry. However, it is not as good as you say.”
Bridget hummed and turned her back to the painting. “You know our mother would not have insisted on hanging it in the drawing room if that were true,” she said. “She has wonderful taste in aesthetics.”
Anna shook her head with that familiar look of conceding because she knew victory was impossible. Bridget grinned victoriously; she was not an especially gifted rhetorician, but she was determined.
“Enjoy your sketching,” she said. “I have an engagement with Rose this afternoon.”
“I shall inform you if any suitors come searching for you,” Anna said.
Bridget doubted that they would. The Season had scarcely begun, but Bridget had seldom received calls in the previous Seasons. As a young lady of twenty years, she was not unmarriageable, but she had already noticed her lack of suitors with heavy dread. There were only a few Seasons left before she would be put on the shelf.
However, she did not wish to burden her sister with such thoughts, so Bridget forced an easy smile for her sake. “Thank you.”
She stepped lightly from the drawing room, past the morning room and her father’s study. A low, masculine voice drifted from behind the closed door, and Bridget paused. She had been unaware of her father having any visitors.
“You know what my price is.” The voice belonged to the Marquess of Thornton. “I have told you how you might emerge unscathed, if you will only agree.”
Escape from what?
The Marquess of Thornton was a familiar presence in Crampton House. He and Bridget’s father, the Duke of Crampton, had known one another since their days at Eton.After that, they attended Oxford together, and now they were business partners and friends. Although Bridget had always thought there was something cold about the marquess, she was cordial to him out of respect for both his position and his long friendship with her father.
“The price you ask is far too high,” Bridget’s father said. “I cannot ask that of Bridget.”
She drew in a sharp breath, her pulse quickening. She ought not listen to her father’s private conversation, but how could she not? He had just uttered her name in the company of his business partner and friend.
“It is her lot in life,” said Lord Thornton. “Is it not, Your Grace? A young lady must be wed, and we know that you cannot afford a dowry for her. I do not imagine that you will find a better offer than mine.”
Bridget put a hand over her mouth to muffle the gasp that emerged without warning. Her father could not have gambled away her dowry! Lord Thornton must have misunderstood something, and surely Bridget’s father would soon correct him. But a long silence followed, broken only by the sound of Bridget’s racing heart and her quickened breath.
“I ask no more of her than any other man,” Lord Thornton continued. “I want an heir. Any other suitor would expect the same of Lady Bridget.”
“I have always promised Bridget that she might find a love match,” her father said. “I must keep that promise to her. She wants so desperately to marry for love, Thornton.”
“Noble,” replied the marquess, “but you do not have the means to ensure that she can marry for love. Surely, I am a better alternative to condemning her to a life of spinsterdom or worse—a governess! You cannot possibly expect Lady Bridget to suffer such indignations.”
Warmth rushed to Bridget’s face. Her mouth gaped, followed by a sharp jolt of repulsion. She did not think herself an uncharitable woman, but the thought of bearing an heir to Lord Thornton, a man old enough to be her own father, made her stomach lurch.
“And you will pay all my debts,” her father said, his voice barely carrying past the closed door, “in return for Bridget’s hand?”
Bridget felt ice claw at her spine. Was she to be treated like—like a mare or a piece of livestock, then? Was she to be sold to this man, merely because she could bear an heir? How long had her father known that she would have no dowry? How long ago had he gambled it away, along with her future?
