Arrival
The carriage wheels crunched upon the gravel drive of Hartmoor House as the equipage drew to a stately halt, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the elegant façade of the Earl’s London residence. Eveline Cross, her heart aflutter with a mixture of trepidation and weary anticipation, allowed the footman to hand her down. Her dark brown curls, artfully arranged yet slightly dishevelled from the journey, framed a face still pale from recent mourning. At twenty, she had known grief too intimately—the sudden passing of her beloved father, Sir Thomas Cross, had cast her into a year of black crepe and solitude in the country. Now she returned to the ton, a lamb among wolves, to be presented at Court alongside her dearest friend, Leonora Cavendish.
The great doors swung open before she had mounted the steps, and there stood Lady Margaret Cavendish, Countess of Hartmoor, her blonde hair gleaming beneath a lace cap, her grey eyes cool yet not unkind as they swept over her guest. “My dear Miss Cross,” said the Countess, extending a gloved hand with the graceful authority of her station. “You are most welcome. The journey from the country must have fatigued you dreadfully. Come inside at once.”
Eveline curtsied, her simple travelling gown of dove-grey muslin whispering about her ankles. “I thank you, my lady. It is exceedingly kind of you and Lord Hartmoor to receive me thus. Leonora has been the dearest of friends through all my sorrows.”
No sooner had the words left her lips than a swirl of pale blue muslin and golden ringlets appeared at the top of the staircase. Leonora Cavendish, three inches taller than her friend and possessed of the radiant bloom that came so naturally to the daughter of an earl, descended with the lightness of a summer breeze. “Eveline!” she cried, quite forgetting propriety in her joy, and flung her arms about her. “At last! I have been watching from the window this age. You look... oh, my love, you look so very tired, but so very pretty still.”
The two young ladies embraced warmly, Leonora’s blue eyes sparkling with mischief even as she drew back to study her friend’s countenance. Eveline managed a tremulous smile, though her green eyes betrayed the lingering shadow of loss. “I am here now, Leo. And ready, I hope, for whatever the Season may bring.”
They were ushered into a charming morning room where tea had been laid, the silver service gleaming upon a mahogany table. Lord Hartmoor himself, a tall, distinguished gentleman of fifty with grey hair and piercing blue eyes, rose to greet her with grave courtesy. “Miss Cross,” he intoned, bowing over her hand. “My condolences upon your father’s passing. Sir Thomas was a fine man. You shall find every comfort here while you remain under our roof.”
Eveline murmured her thanks, seating herself upon a striped satin settee beside Leonora, who immediately began to chatter of ribbons, balls, and the latest on-dits from Almack’s. Yet even as she listened, a strange disquiet settled over Eveline’s breast. The journey had been long, the roads dusty, and her thoughts had turned more than once to the whispers that had reached even her secluded country retreat: of a certain gentleman whose name was spoken with equal parts fascination and dread. Dominic Harrow, Duke of Ashbourne—tall, loose-limbed, his salt-and-pepper hair marking the passage of five-and-forty years, his hazel eyes said to pierce the soul. El Diablo, they called him in the clubs and drawing-rooms. Trouble incarnate. A man whose reputation for ruinous seduction and darker appetites made even the boldest matrons lower their voices.
She pushed the thought away as unworthy. Tonight she would rest, tomorrow she and Leonora would begin the delightful business of preparing for their presentation. No shadow of a dangerous duke should cloud her first evening beneath this hospitable roof.
Yet as the tea was poured and the conversation flowed, a faint shiver traced her spine, as though some unseen gaze had already marked her arrival in Town. Unseen, perhaps—but not, she would soon discover, unintended.
The morrow dawned bright and fair over London, the spring sunshine spilling through the tall windows of Hartmoor House and gilding the elegant chambers with promise. Eveline Cross rose early, her slight frame still heavy with the remnants of travel weariness, yet her green eyes sparkled with a tentative excitement she had not felt in many months. The mourning weeds had been laid aside; today she would be measured and draped and transformed into the sort of young lady who might catch the eye of the ton.
Lady Margaret presided over the breakfast table with cool grace, her grey eyes approving as both girls appeared in simple morning gowns. Lord Hartmoor had already departed for his clubs, leaving the ladies to their feminine pursuits. “The modiste will arrive at ten, my dears,” announced the Countess. “Madame Rochelle has been most particular in her instructions. Nothing but the first stare of fashion for you both.”
Leonora, ever the more vivacious of the pair, clapped her hands with delight. “Oh, Eveline, you shall look divine in the new silks! I have ordered the most heavenly primrose sarcenet for myself, but for you—something richer, I think. Gold, perhaps, to match those wicked green eyes of yours.”
The morning passed in a delightful whirl of fabric and pins. Madame Rochelle, a sharp-eyed Frenchwoman of formidable reputation, descended upon the drawing-room with bolts of shimmering satin, delicate muslin, and lengths of exquisite lace. Eveline stood upon a low stool in her shift, her dark brown hair pinned loosely atop her head, while the modiste’s assistants circled her like so many twittering birds. The measuring tape whispered over her petite form—five feet two inches of sweetly rounded femininity—lingering at the generous swell of her bosom, the narrow span of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips.
“Parfait,” murmured Madame, her eyes gleaming with professional appreciation. “Such a waist! And the décolletage—mon Dieu, mademoiselle, you will slay them all.”
Leonora, already half-draped in pale blue, laughed gaily from her own stool. “She will, indeed. Though I fear some gentlemen may prove rather too dangerous for our innocent Eveline.” Her blue eyes danced with mischief as she leaned closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper while the modiste’s back was turned. “Have you heard the latest on-dit, my love? They say the Duke of Ashbourne is back in Town. Dominic Harrow—El Diablo himself. Mama says we are to give him the widest berth imaginable. He is five-and-forty, you know, tall as a tower and twice as wicked. Salt-and-pepper hair, hazel eyes that see straight through a lady’s defences, and a reputation that could ruin a girl with nothing more than a single dance.”
Eveline’s breath caught. The tape around her ribs suddenly felt far too tight. Dominic Harrow. The very name sent a dark, forbidden thrill racing along her skin.
“Is he truly so very terrible?” she asked, striving for lightness even as her pulse quickened.
Leonora’s ringlets bounced as she nodded vigorously. “Worse. They say he has ruined more debutantes than any three rakes combined—and enjoyed every moment of their undoing. He does not merely seduce, Eveline. He possesses. One look from those eyes and a girl finds herself aching for things she ought never to name. Mama swears he is the very devil in evening dress.” She gave a delicious little shiver. “But oh, he is devastatingly handsome in that dangerous, older sort of way. Tall and loose-limbed, with shoulders broad enough to make a lady feel positively delicate. I vow, if he were to fix his gaze upon me, I should melt into a puddle of wicked longing right there on the ballroom floor.”
Eveline said nothing, but her cheeks burned crimson beneath the modiste’s careful pinning. The golden satin now being draped about her form clung to every curve, the low neckline framing the creamy swell of her breasts in a manner that made her feel both exposed and strangely powerful. She could almost feel the weight of a certain duke’s hand at her waist, the heat of his tall body behind her, the brush of his breath against her ear as he whispered things no innocent miss should ever hear.
“Gold becomes you exceedingly, Miss Cross,” declared Madame Rochelle, stepping back with satisfaction. “It makes your skin glow like warm honey. The gentlemen will be quite undone.”
Leonora clapped again. “Especially the dangerous ones.”
Eveline met her own gaze in the tall looking-glass. The girl who stared back was no longer the grieving daughter in mourning black. She was a woman on the brink of something perilous and intoxicating. And somewhere in the glittering streets of Mayfair, Dominic Harrow—tall, commanding, and infinitely wicked—moved through his day, unaware (or perhaps all too aware) that a petite brunette with green eyes and a body made for sin had just arrived in Town.
The fitting ended at last, bolts of fabric and promises of delivery exchanged. Yet as the ladies retired to change for nuncheon, Eveline could not shake the sensation that the very air around her had grown heavier, charged with the dark electricity of a storm about to break.
A storm named the Duke of Ashbourne.
