Chapter 1
“The Duke of Coldwell? Are you absolutely sure you heard your father correctly?” Esme Montague’s voice came out in a high-pitched squeal. “You cannot have that right, Isabella, truly you cannot.”
“I heard my father as clearly as I hear you now, Esme. The whole thing is true, absolutely true.” Lady Isabella Tate could hear the tremor in her own voice.
She was terrified and had been for three successive days. In all that time, she had had nobody to talk to on the matter, not even her own mother. As always, her mother was of little use when it came to her daughter’s defense. The Countess of Upperton was utterly afraid of her husband, the Earl, and would never have gone against him, even if her own daughter’s life depended on it.
“And when did he say it to you? When did your father tell you that you must marry?”
“On Sunday after church. Really, not an hour after I saw you last, my father sat me down and told me that I am to marry a monster. I do not know how I have managed these last days without you, my dear Esme. I have felt so alone.”
Lady Isabella thought back to the afternoon which seemed to have changed everything in her world. Every Sunday, after church, Isabella took refuge in her own room for the afternoon until dinner was served. It was the only day when her father would undoubtedly be at Upperton Hall all day long, the only day he would not be out somewhere on the estate barking instructions at servants, tenants, and stewards alike.
For Isabella, Sundays had their routines, and she had grown accustomed to them. She always kept a good supply of books in her room and seemed to do most of her reading on that day in particular.
However, on the Sunday in question, she had been in her room not more than ten minutes before there came a sharp knock at the door.
Isabella, who had been reclining on her bed to read, still wearing the fine gown that she had worn to church, hurriedly rose to her feet and straightened her clothing out. She hastily raised a hand to her hair, checking that her dark curls were still neatly tucked away, before calling out that her visitor might enter.
“Isabella,” her father said in his customary tone, a sharp and clipped manner, as he entered the room.
“Papa?” Isabella answered, entirely surprised by her father’s presence.
Isabella could not remember the last time her father had visited her in her own room. She thought, perhaps, that it had been a good many years.
Her brother Anthony, who at just fourteen years was almost six years younger than Isabella, had taken the lion’s share of his father’s attention from the day he had been born. He was, of course, the son her father had always longed for and, from that moment onwards, Isabella had almost ceased to exist.
“I should like you to come down and speak to me in my study as soon as possible, please,” he said in the same gruff tone before smartly turning and leaving the room, shutting the door tight behind him.
Isabella had thought instantly that she had done something wrong and spent the next several minutes racking her brains for what on earth it could be. It had been a long time since Isabella had misbehaved; after all, she was not a child anymore. And yet her father’s tone could only suggest that she was in some sort of trouble.
And so it was, her insides quaking utterly, that she made her way down to her father’s study. As fearful as she felt, Isabella knew that she ought not to keep him waiting long. Nobody who kept her father waiting came out of it unscathed.
By the time she had reached the study door and gently knocked upon it, Isabella could feel a thin film of perspiration, cold and prickly, on the smooth skin of her back. She was truly afraid.
“Ah, good,” her father said the moment he set eyes on her. “Now, come closer. Stand at my desk,” he instructed when she seemed set to loiter by the door as if ready to make a hasty escape.
Without a word, Isabella did as she was told, moving as silently as a ghost to stand before her father who was sitting comfortably on the other side of his desk, his elbows leaning heavily and his fingers pressed together, forming a steeple.
“I have some news for you, Isabella,” he began, and she thought, for a moment, that he smiled.
Perhaps, after all, she was not in trouble. Perhaps this news was even good news of some sort, something to look forward to and be glad of.
“News, Papa?” Isabella said quietly.
“Yes,” her father said, taking his elbows from the desk and leaning back heavily into the high-backed chair. “You are to be married, my dear.”
“Married?” Isabella’s voice was a little louder than ordinarily it might be.
“Yes, married,” her father confirmed in a level tone which suggested she ought not to begin complaining.
“But Papa, I have not met a young man that I wish to marry.”
“That is of little matter to me, Isabella,” he said dismissively.
“You do not care who it is I marry, Papa?” Isabella said, sensing already that she was tiptoeing onto dangerous ground.
“On the contrary, Isabella,” her father said, his watery dark eyes fixed on her in a way which made her shrink a little. “I have very carefully picked the most suitable husband for you. He is wealthy and titled, and I am content that he shall be able to look after you very well for the rest of your life. He will, in fact, be able to pick up where I am soon to leave off.” He attempted a smile and, in doing so, reminded Isabella of a hunting animal of some sort; a wolf, perhaps.
“And might I ask, Sir, who it is I am to marry?” Isabella said, careful to moderate her tone just enough to put her back in the realm of the dutiful daughter, however much her instincts told her that all was not well.
“You are to marry the Duke of Coldwell,” her father replied with a certain amount of relish.
“The Duke of …?” Isabella could not finish; her throat had gone dry, and her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Coldwell, yes, that is right.”
“But Papa, is he not a good deal older than I am?”
“He is but eight and thirty, Isabella. Eighteen years between man and wife is nothing to be squeamish about, is it?” Isabella could sense that her father was beginning to lose patience with her.
“No, perhaps that is not something to be squeamish about, Papa,” she said and could hardly believe that she continued to speak. “But there is the matter of him being a reclusive monster, renowned throughout the county for being such; that might well be something to be squeamish about, might it not?”
“How dare you?” Already, her father was rising to his feet behind his desk.
“Papa, please,” Isabella said beseechingly, holding both hands out before her and hoping that it would placate him. “I only speak so because I am afraid.”
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” her father said, mercifully retaking his seat behind his desk. “I have spoken to the man on many occasions, and I do not find him a monster myself.”
Isabella could not take that as any kind of reassurance. Her father was not a good or kind man, and so any recommendation from him was to be viewed with the utmost suspicion, especially regarding another man’s character, not to mention his appearance.
“I see,” Isabella said quietly, her mind racing as she thought how best to proceed.
“And as I have already said, he is a wealthy and titled man. A Duke, no less. There, you will have married very well indeed, will you not?”
“Forgive me, Papa, but is there no other man in the county you might have settled upon as a husband for me? Is there no other who has come to your attention in that regard?” Isabella felt desperate.
“None who has the resources of the Duke, I am afraid,” he responded, flapping his hand dismissively. “And so, I cannot settle for any man other than the Duke, for he is the only one who is content not only to forego any dowry I might be expected to make but to make a settlement upon you instead.”
Isabella swallowed hard; at that moment, she knew there would be no escape for her. Although the thing was hardly mentioned, Isabella was very well aware that her father’s estate, the grand Earldom of Upperton, had been failing for many years.
And, above all things, her father was a proud man. He believed wholeheartedly in the aristocracy and the maintenance of family lines and titles, blood, and wealth. More than anything, the Earl of Upperton wanted to hand down a fine and thriving estate to his son. All that mattered to the Earl was his son, and Isabella knew it.
There would be nothing that she could say now to save herself because her father would always put Anthony and his happiness before Isabella and her own.
“Oh, my dear Isabella,” Esme Montague said the moment that Isabella had finished telling her every part of the conversation she had had with her father. “It would seem that you were not at all mistaken.” Tears shone in Esme’s eyes.
“No, please do not cry, Esme. If you cry, then I shall cry. I shall be sunk then, and I do not want to be sunk,” Isabella said bravely.
“Forgive me; I shall be brave for your sake.” Esme dabbed at the corner of her eye with a neatly embroidered handkerchief. “After all, it is you who has an ordeal ahead, not me.”
“Perhaps it shall not be such an ordeal, after all, Esme,” Isabella began with false hope. “Perhaps the man will be very different upon meeting. After all, all we have to judge him on is what we have heard over the years. Neither one of us knows him since nobody knows him. Perhaps he is not a monster.”
“Perhaps he is not a monster in his ways, my dear,” Esme said gently.
“But he is very likely to be a monster in his appearance, is he not?” Isabella said, her hope dying. “Is that not what the entire county says about him? That he is too repulsive to be out in society, and so he has shut himself away all these years in that dreadful, overgrown estate.”
And it was true, that was exactly what the people of the county said of him; those who were inclined to gossip, at any rate.
It was said that the Duke had been disfigured many years before, so badly that nobody could look upon him without fear. And because of his disfigurement, the Duke had hidden himself away, refusing all company, intent to see out his years alone.
As children, Isabella and Esme had often told stories of this monster. He had been a feature of their lives, dropping in and out of their world on a whim, making an appearance whenever they felt the need to frighten themselves in that childish, excited way of young girls.
And all the county knew that his estate, the Duchy estate of Coldwell, was a place out of bounds to all. Its very perimeter was so overgrown with the tallest trees and the densest, sharpest hawthorns, that the hall seemed almost as a fortress, a place from a dreadful fairytale that ought never to be entered by any good soul.
Isabella had seen great swathes of the perimeter for herself over the years, the dense greenery so commonplace to her that it was almost beneath notice. It had been that way for as long as she could remember.
“I wonder why it is that the Duke has never taken a wife before?” Esme said, breaking the silence.
“If he is so disfigured, then I hardly think that there would be a woman who would marry him,” Isabella answered and shuddered involuntarily.
“But so many women, as you now well know, do not have a choice in these matters. So many women of our class are simply forced to marry a man of their father’s choosing, and so it would seem unusual that the Duke has not sought to find a wife by these means before.”
“Perhaps he has not yet met a man who is so close to financial penury that he would consider selling his own daughter. For, in the end, it is nothing more and nothing less.”
“And your father is such a man, is he not?” Even after all these years, Esme still spoke with caution when she spoke of Isabella’s father.
“Oh yes, he is such a man,” Isabella said with such an open display of distaste that Esme seemed taken aback. “And not only is he a man lacking funds, but he is a man who cares only for his son. I am nothing more than a commodity to be bartered. I am something to be used so that my spoiled little brother can live the full life of an Earl when the time comes. My life is sacrificed to his, is it not?”
“I know it is often so, my dear, but I think this is the cruelest case of such a thing I have ever seen.” Isabella’s open hostility in talking of her father had given Esme the confidence to speak fearlessly herself. “For not only is your father bartering you away as so many fathers have done over the years, but he is bartering you away to a monster, one that the rest of the county would fear to set eyes on.”
“And there is not one thing I can do about it,” Isabella said with a sigh, blinking hard lest the tears finally fall.
And she was determined, above all things that she would not cry about it. Crying would do her no good whatsoever, and she knew it.
“Can your mother not be petitioned to help you?” Esme said in a tone which suggested that even she did not believe such a thing would come to pass.
“I think you know my mother as well as I know her, Esme. She is a weak creature at the best of times, but really, when it comes to something of such magnitude, I cannot think for a moment that she would open her mouth to speak once on the subject.”
“Then it would seem that there is nothing to be done,” Esme said, her voice full of pain at the thought that she was soon to lose a friend.
“Unless, of course, I think of something,” Isabella said doubtfully. “Unless I think of something very soon.”