Felicity Faircloth’s heart had been pounding for long enough that she thought she might require a doctor.

It had begun pounding as she’d slipped from the glittering Marwick House ballroom and stared at the locked door in front of her, ignoring the nearly unbearable desire to reach into her coif and extract a hairpin.

Knowing she absolutely mustn’t extract a hairpin. Knowing she absolutely shouldn’t extract two—nor insert them into the keyhole not six inches away and patiently work at the tumblers within.

We cannot afford another scandal.

She could hear her twin brother Arthur’s words as though he were standing with her. Poor Arthur, desperate for his spinster sister—twenty-seven and high on the shelf—to be released into the care of another, more willing man. Poor Arthur, whose prayers would never be answered—not even if she stopped picking locks.

But she heard the other words even more. The sniggering comments. The names. Forlorn Felicity. Fruitless Felicity. And the worst one . . . Finished Felicity.

Why is she even here?

Surely she can’t think anyone would have her.

Her poor brother, desperate to marry her off.

. . . Finished Felicity.

There had been a time when a night like this would have been Felicity’s dream—a new duke in town, a welcome ball, the teasing promise of an engagement at hand with a new, handsome, eligible bachelor. It would have been perfection. Dresses and jewels and full orchestras, gossip and chatter and dance cards and champagne. Felicity would barely have had free space on her dance card, and if she had, it would have been because she’d taken it for herself, so she might enjoy her place in this glittering world.

No more.

Now, she avoided balls if she could, knowing they offered hours of lingering around the edges of the room rather than dancing through it. And there was the hot embarrassment that came whenever she stumbled upon one of her old acquaintances. The memory of what it had been like to laugh with them. To lord with them.

But there was no avoiding a ball bearing a shining new duke, and so she’d stuffed herself into an old gown and into her brother’s carriage, and allowed poor Arthur to drag her into the Marwick ballroom. And she’d fled the moment he had turned the other way.

Felicity had fled down a dark hallway, her heart thundering as she’d removed the hairpins from her coif, bending them carefully, and inserted one and then the other into the keyhole. When a quiet snick sounded, and the latchwork sprang like a delicious old friend, her heart had threatened to beat from her chest.

And to think, all that thunderous pounding was before she’d met the man.

Though, met wasn’t precisely the correct word.

Encountered did not seem quite right, either.

It had been something closer to experienced. The moment he’d spoken, the low thrum of his voice wrapping around her like silk in the dark spring air as he tempted her like vice.

A flush washed across her cheeks at the memory, at the way he seemed to draw her in, as though they were connected by a string. As though he could pull her to him and she would go, without resistance. He’d done more than pull her in. He’d pulled the truth from her, and she’d offered it with ease.

She’d catalogued her flaws as though they were a change in the weather. She’d nearly confessed it all, even the bits she’d never confessed to anyone else. The bits she held close in the darkness. Because it hadn’t felt like confession. It felt like he’d already known everything. And maybe he had. Maybe he wasn’t a man in the darkness. Maybe he was the darkness itself. Ephemeral and mysterious and tempting—so much more tempting than the daylight, where flaws and marks and failure shone bright and impossible to miss.

The darkness had always tempted her. The locks. The barriers. The impossible.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Felicity always wanted the impossible. And she was not the kind of woman who received it.

But when that mysterious man had suggested that she was a woman of consequence? For a moment, she’d believed him. As though it wasn’t laughable, the very idea that Felicity Faircloth—plain, unmarried daughter of the Marquess of Bumble, overlooked by more than one eligible bachelor because of her own ill fortune and properly unfit for this ball, where a long-lost handsome duke sought a wife—might be able to win the day.

The impossible.

So she’d fled, returning to her old habits and stumbling into the darkness because everything seemed more possible in the darkness than in the cold, harsh light.

And he’d seemed to know that, too, that stranger. Enough that she almost hadn’t left him in the shadows. Enough that she’d almost joined him there. Because in those few, fleeting moments, she had wondered if perhaps it wasn’t this world she wished to return to, but a new, dark world where she might begin anew. Where she might be someone other than Finished Felicity, wallflower spinster. And the man on the balcony had seemed the kind of man who could provide just that.

Which was mad, obviously. One did not run off with strange men one met on balconies. First off, that was how a person got murdered. And second, her mother would not approve. And then there was Arthur. Staid, perfect, poor Arthur with his We cannot afford another scandal.

And so she’d done what one did after a mad moment in the dark; she’d turned her back and made for the light, ignoring the pang of regret as she turned the corner of the great stone facade and stepped into the glow of the ballroom beyond the massive windows, where all of London shifted and swirled, laughing and gossiping and vying for the attention of their handsome, mysterious host.

Where the world she’d once been part of spun without her.

She watched for a long moment, catching a glimpse of the Duke of Marwick on the far side of the room, tall and fair and empirically handsome, with aristocratic good looks that should have set her to sighing but in fact made no impact.

Her gaze slid away from the man of the hour, settling briefly on the copper gleam of her brother’s hair on the far side of the ballroom, where he was deep in conversation with a group of men more serious than their surroundings. She wondered what they were discussing—was it her? Was Arthur attempting to sell another batch of men on Finished Felicity’s eligibility?

We cannot afford another scandal.

They couldn’t afford the last one, either. Or the one prior. But her family did not wish to admit that. And here they were, at a duke’s ball, pretending that the truth was not the truth. Pretending that anything was possible.

Refusing to believe that plain, imperfect, tossed-over Felicity was never going to win the heart and mind and—more importantly—the hand of the Duke of Marwick, no matter what kind of potentially addled hermit he was.

There had been a time when she might have, though. When a hermit duke might have collapsed to his knees and begged Lady Felicity to notice him. Well, perhaps not so much collapsing and begging, but he would have danced with her. And she would have made him laugh. And perhaps . . . they might have liked each other.

But that was all when she’d never even dreamed of looking at society from the outside—when she’d never even imagined society had an outside. She’d been inside, after all, young and eligible and titled and diverting.

She’d had dozens of friends and hundreds of acquaintances and invitations for visits and house parties and walks along the Serpentine in spades. No gathering was worth attending if she and her friends weren’t in attendance. She’d never been lonely.

And then . . . it had changed.

One day, the world had stopped glittering. Or, more aptly, Felicity had stopped glittering. Her friends faded away, and worse, turned their backs, not even attempting to shield her from their disdain. They’d taken pleasure in cutting her directly. As though she hadn’t once been one of them. As though they’d never been friends in the first place.

Which she supposed they hadn’t. How had she missed it? How had she not seen that they never really wanted her?

And the worst of all questions—why hadn’t they wanted her?

What had she done?

Foolish Felicity, indeed.

The answer did not matter anymore—it had been long enough that she doubted anyone even remembered. What mattered was that now barely anyone noticed her, except to look upon her with pity or disdain.

After all, no one liked a spinster less than the world that made her.

Felicity, once a diamond of the aristocracy (well, not a diamond, but a ruby perhaps. A sapphire, surely—daughter of a marquess with a dowry to match), was a proper spinster, complete with a future of lace caps and invitations offered out of pity to look forward to.

If only she’d marry, Arthur liked to say . . . she could avoid it.

If only she’d marry, her mother liked to say . . . they could avoid it. For as embarrassing as spinsterhood was for the spinster in question, it was a badge of shame for a mother—especially one who had done so well as to marry a marquess.

And so, the Faircloth family ignored Felicity’s spinsterhood, willing to do anything to land her a decent match. They ignored, too, the truth of Felicity’s desires—the ones the man in the darkness had instantly queried.

The truth. That she wanted the life she’d been promised. She wanted to be a part of it again. And if she couldn’t have that, which, frankly, she knew she couldn’t—she was not a fool, after all—she wanted more than a consolation of a marriage. That was the problem with Felicity. She’d always wanted more than she could have.

Which had left her with nothing, hadn’t it?

Felicity heaved an unladylike sigh. Her heart wasn’t pounding any longer. She supposed that was positive.

“I wonder if I might leave without anyone noticing?”

The words were barely out of her mouth when the massive glass door leading into the ballroom opened, and out spilled half a dozen revelers, laughter on their lips and champagne in their hands.

It was Felicity’s turn to press into the shadows, tucking herself against the wall as they reached the stone balustrade in breathless, raucous excitement. Recognition flared.

Of course.

They were Amanda Fairfax and her husband, Matthew, Lord Hagin, along with Jared, Lord Faulk, and his younger sister, Natasha, and two more—another couple, young and blond and gleaming like new toys. Amanda, Matthew, Jared, and Natasha liked to collect new acolytes. They’d once collected Felicity, after all.

She’d once been the fifth to their quartet. Beloved, until she wasn’t.

“Hermit or not, Marwick is terribly handsome,” Amanda said.

“And rich,” Jared pointed out. “I heard he filled this house with furnishings last week.”

“I heard the same,” Amanda said with near-breathless excitement. “And I heard he’s doing the rounds of the doyennes’ tearooms.”

Matthew groaned. “If that doesn’t make the man suspect, I don’t know what does. Who wants to drink tea with a score of dowagers?”

“A man in need of a bride,” Jared replied.

“Or an heir,” Amanda said, wistfully.

“Ahem, wife,” Matthew teased, and the whole group laughed, making Felicity remember for half a second what it was to be welcome in their jokes and jests and gossip. A part of their glittering world.

“He had to meet the dowagers to get London here tonight, no?” the third woman in the party interjected. “Without their approval, no one would have come.”

There was a beat of silence, and then the original foursome laughed, the sound edging from camaraderie into cruelty. Faulk leaned forward and tapped the young blond woman on her chin. “You’re not very intelligent, are you?”

Natasha swatted her brother on the arm and offered a false, scolding, “Jared. Come now. How is Annabelle to know how the aristocracy works? She married so far above herself, the lucky girl never required it!” Before Annabelle could experience the full lash of the stinging words, Natasha leaned in and whispered, loud and slow as though the poor woman were unable to understand the simplest of concepts, “Everyone would have come to see the hermit duke, darling. He could have appeared in the nude and we all would have happily danced with him and pretended not to notice.”

“With how mad everyone’s made the man out to be,” Amanda interjected, “I think we were all half-expecting him to appear nude.”

Annabelle’s husband, the heir to the Marquessate of Wapping, cleared his throat and attempted to bypass the insult to his wife. “Well, he’s danced with a score of ladies already this evening.” He looked to Natasha. “Including you, Lady Natasha.”

The rest of the group tittered while Natasha preened—all, that is, but Annabelle, who narrowed her gaze on her laughing husband. Felicity found the response deeply gratifying, as the husband in question surely deserved whatever wicked punishment his wife was devising for not leaping to her defense.

And now it was too late.

“Oh, yes,” Natasha was saying, looking every inch the cat that got the cream. “And I might add that he was a sparkling conversationalist.”

“Was he?” Amanda asked.

“He was. Not a glimpse of madness.”

“That’s interesting, Tasha,” Lord Hagin replied casually, drinking his champagne for dramatic pause. “As we watched the whole dance, and he didn’t appear to speak to you once.”

The rest of the group jeered as Natasha turned red. “Well, it was clear he wished to talk to me.”

“Sparkling, of course,” her brother jested, toasting her with his champagne.

“And,” she went on, “he held me quite tightly—I could tell he was resisting the urge to pull me closer than was appropriate.”

“Oh, no doubt,” Amanda smirked, her disbelief plain.

She rolled her eyes as the rest of the group laughed. That is, the rest of the group, save one.

Jared, Lord Faulk, was too busy looking at Felicity.

Bollocks.

His gaze filled with hunger and delight in a way that sent Felicity’s stomach straight to the stones beneath her feet. She’d seen that expression a thousand times before. She used to go breathless when it appeared, because it meant he was about to skewer someone with his wicked wit. Now, she went breathless for a different reason.

“I say! I thought Felicity Faircloth left the ball ages ago.”

“I thought we drove her out,” Amanda said, not seeing what Jared saw. “Honestly. At her age—and with no friends to speak of—you’d think she’d stop attending balls. No one wants a spinster lurking about. It’s positively depressing.”

Amanda had always had a remarkable skill at making words sting like winter wind.

“And yet, here she is,” Jared pronounced with a smirk and a waved hand in Felicity’s direction. The whole group turned in slow, gruesome tableau, a sextet of smirks rising—four well-practiced and two with a slight discomfort. “Lurking in the shadows, eavesdropping.”

Amanda investigated a speck on one of her seafoam gloves. “Really, Felicity. So tiresome. Is there no one else you might skulk upon?”

“Perhaps an unsuspecting lord whose rooms you’d like to explore?” This from Hagin, no doubt thinking himself exceedingly clever.

He wasn’t, although the group did not seem to notice, sniggering and smirking. Felicity loathed the wash of heat that spread across her cheeks, a combination of shame at the remark and shame at her past—at the way she, too, used to snigger and smirk.

She pressed back against the wall, wishing she could disappear into it.

The nightingale she’d heard earlier sang again.

“Poor Felicity,” Natasha said to the group, the false sympathy in her tone crawling over Felicity’s skin, “always wishing she were of more consequence.”

And like that, with that single word—consequence—Felicity found she had had enough. She stepped into the light, shoulders back and spine straight, and leveled her coolest gaze on the woman she’d once considered a friend. “Poor Natasha,” she said, mimicking the other woman’s earlier tone. “Come now, you think I do not know you? I know you better than anyone else here. Unmarried, just as I am. Plain, just as I am. Terrified of being shelved. As I have been.” Natasha’s eyes went wide at the descriptor. Felicity went in for the final blow, wishing to punish this woman the most—this woman who had played so well at being her friend and then had hurt her so well. “And when you are, this lot won’t have you.”

The nightingale whistled again. No. Not the nightingale. It was a different kind of whistle, low and long. She’d never heard a bird like that.

Or perhaps it was the thrum of her heart that made the sound strange. Spurred on, she turned to the newest additions to the group, whose wide eyes were fixed upon her. “Do you know, my grandmother used to caution me to beware—she was fond of saying one could judge a man by his friends. The adage is more than true with this group. And you should watch yourselves lest you be tainted by their soot.” She turned to the door. “I, for one, count myself lucky I escaped them when I did.”

As she made for the entrance to the ballroom, quite proud of herself for standing up to these people who had consumed her for so long, words echoed through her from earlier:

You are a woman of serious consequence.

A smile played at her lips at the memory.

Indeed. She was.

“Felicity?” Natasha called to her as she arrived at the threshold.

Felicity stilled and turned back.

“You didn’t escape us,” the other woman snapped. “We exited you.”

Natasha Corkwood was just . . . so . . . unpleasant.

“We didn’t want you anymore, and we tossed you out,” Natasha added, the words cold and cruel. “Just like everyone else has. Just like they always will.” She turned to the assembly with a too bright laugh. “And here she is, thinking she might vie for a duke!”

So unpleasant.

That’s the best you can do?

No. No it wasn’t. “The duke you intend to win, correct?”

Natasha smirked. “The duke I shall win.”

“I’m afraid you are too late,” she said, the words coming without hesitation.

“And why is that?” It was Hagin who asked. Hagin, with his smug face and noxious perfume and hair like a fairy-tale prince. And the question was asked with such condescension, as though he deigned to speak with her.

As though they had not all been friends once.

Later, she would blame the memory of that friendship for her reply. The whisper of the life she’d lost in an instant, without ever understanding why. The devastating sadness of it. The way it had catapulted her into ruin.

After all, there had to be some reason why she said what she said, considering the fact that it was pure idiocy. Absolute madness.

A lie so enormous, it eclipsed suns.

“You are too late for the duke,” she repeated, knowing, even as she spoke, that she must stop the words from coming. Except they were a runaway horse—loosed and free and wild. “Because I’ve already landed him.”