Lord George Lyon, the Earl of Denbruck, sat in his comfortable leather armchair in the drawing room, watching his son and daughter with their spouses and children play snapdragon. His eyes drank in the sight of his happy family. At the age of seventy-two, he was getting on in years, but staying young was easy when he spent time around his grandchildren.

“Father?” His son, Archibald, came over, holding out a letter. “This came for you. The footman left it on the table, but I believe you missed it.”

“Thank you, Archie.” George took the letter, studying the seal upon the parchment, and his heart jolted. It was a seal he had not seen in almost two months, yet he’d longed to see it every day. He struggled to open the letter hastily but without damaging it. As he began to read, the world around him seemed to fade into a gray recess.

Lord Denbruck,

It is with a heavy heart that I must share the fate of your daughter, Joan, and her husband, Rafay. They were killed in a raid by a rival power in the region who now claims his lands. Your granddaughter, Zehra, is among the missing. Our men have searched through the bodies and could not find her. We believe she has been taken, as many of the females in the palace were, to be sold into slavery. I will make it my mission to find her, or, that failing, at least to learn what happened to her.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Southerby

George let the note drop from his fingers as his eyes blurred with tears.

“Papa?” His daughter Elizabeth joined Archie at his side. “What’s the matter?”

“Take the little ones. I…” He choked. “I need to speak with you both alone.”

Archie’s wife and Elizabeth’s husband collected their children and took them away. Once they were alone, George begged his children to sit. He pointed to the parchment on the floor, which Archie bent to retrieve.

“Read it.” George could only whisper the words.

Archie scanned the letter, his eyes widening. Without a word he handed it to his sister.

“Joan is dead?” Elizabeth gasped. Archie put a comforting arm around her.

“Father, what happened?” Archie’s voice grew rough with pain.

It took every bit of George’s strength to speak to his two remaining children and tell them everything.

“Ever since your sister married Rafay Darzi, I’ve been keeping an eye on them. An old friend’s son, Michael Southerby, has been stationed in Persia close to their home. He has been watching over Joan and Rafay whenever time allowed.”

“For all these years?” Elizabeth asked. “You told us you had disowned her for marrying Rafay.”

He had, to his shame and regret, not been comfortable with his eldest child marrying a foreigner, even if he had been a shah of the territory. Joan had married Rafay and walked away from her English life. It had broken George’s heart as well as his wife’s. She had died two years later, Joan’s name upon her lips as she breathed her last.

“I had said I would…but I could not let her go, not without knowing she and her daughter were safe.”

“She had a daughter?” Archie asked quietly. “We have a niece?”

“Yes. Zehra is twenty years old now. Lovely girl, according to the reports. Smart as a whip too. Southerby says she has her mother’s eyes.” George shook with grief. “And now she’s gone. Southerby is a good man, but I fear he will never be able to track her down, assuming she’s still alive.”

Elizabeth’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh God, oh, the poor dear. Is there really nothing to be done?”

“We would do whatever we could to help, Father,” Archie added.

George bowed his head. “If I could fly back on the wings of time to that night Joan said she had accepted Rafay’s proposal, I wouldn’t have pushed her away. Everything might have been different if I hadn’t let my damned pride get in the way.”

“We…” Elizabeth paused to collect herself. “We need to have a service for Joan, and her close friends must be told, the ones who stayed true to her after the scandal.”

“Quite, yes, quite right,” George murmured, but his mind was a thousand miles away and his heart beating back to the past, fighting hard to grasp onto golden memories, the ones of sunny days when his darling girl danced in the gardens, her little pinafore smudged with dirt and her voice as sweet as any songbird as she sang a lullaby about a nightingale.

“Do you believe, Papa?” the child asked.

He took the small hand she held out and walked with her down the garden path. “Believe what?”

Joan beamed up at him, her cunning mind mixed with an open heart. “That in every bit of the world, there is, in essence, a soul? And they fit together like a grand puzzle.”

How could he not have adored such a child? And how could her growing up not break his heart?

“My dear little girl…” He came back to himself, realizing Archie and Elizabeth had left him alone to his grief. He raised his hands to cover his face and wept bitterly. His pride and his mistakes had taken his child and grandchild from him forever.

* * *

“The red one. And the blue one, of course,” Lawrence said, his eyes sweeping over Zehra from head to foot. She curled her arms around her waist as she stood on the small dais in Madame Ella’s viewing area. Mirrors flanked her, and she caught glimpses of herself gazing back in wide-eyed wonder. The gowns were lovely—no, beyond lovely. They were extravagant in quality, yet not overdone in ornament and style.

Lawrence crossed his arms over his chest as he prowled in a small circle around Zehra. “What do you think, Madame Ella?” The modiste was tapping her chin with a finger, also studying Zehra.

“Any bold colors will do, my lord. Anything pale would not do justice to her coloring. And those eyes… You must buy sapphires. They will reflect the stunning shade quite well.”

“Agreed. I’ll have three carriage dresses, four evening gowns, four day gowns, and several chemises and other underpinnings. Matching gloves, of course. We will stop at the milliner and shoe shops next.”

“Really, Lawrence, I cannot ask—” Zehra began.

“Don’t say another word, or I’ll double the order.” Lawrence winked at the modiste, who started to laugh.

“We can have half the gowns ready in a few hours since we had some ready-made dresses on hand and the rest in a few days. You can take the nightclothes and the gown she’s wearing now if you like.”

“Perfect.” Lawrence waited until Madame Ella had left them alone, and then he approached the dais. It put Zehra at an equal height to him, and she had to admit she rather liked looking at him eye to eye. Yet as he drew near, her stomach fluttered with fresh nerves.

Had she been foolish kissing him earlier that day? She didn’t think so, but it had been wild, scandalous, and entirely inappropriate. Had she done that to anyone back home, her father would have fought the man for her honor, and if he had survived, her father would have forced him to marry her.

She blushed, thinking about marrying Lawrence. She didn’t even know him, not in the way she wanted to know the man she planned to marry. Not that she would marry Lawrence or any man, for that option was lost to her now. It was the true reason why she had kissed him, why such a fierce desperation to live at least a short time on her terms was overpowering. It had been a thank-you kiss, a kiss of passion, and a kiss goodbye all at the same time.

Perhaps I can know pleasure and happiness with him, know the touch of a man of my own choosing before…

Before she was sent back to Persia. Even if the people who had broken up the ring managed to catch Al-Zahrani, she would find no freedom back home. Her parents’ fortunes had been taken, and she would have no claim to them. At best she might find work as a commoner.

At worst, Al-Zahrani was still free and would find her.

“I can’t help but wonder what you are thinking about when you seem so distant.” Lawrence cupped her chin in one hand and curled his other around her waist, his fingers swirling soothing patterns on the rose-red muslin gown she wore.

“You wouldn’t wish to know my thoughts,” she said, sorrow growing inside her so strong for a moment that the bleakness almost consumed her.

And then his lips were on hers. Though it started much like her own kiss earlier that day, something more soon crept into it. A heat and hunger stirred in her until she lost all thoughts of the past. There was only him, his kiss, his touch, his arms around her. She pressed against him, craving anything he could give her. He held her, keeping her from falling off the dais as their lips parted. His silly grin was an echo of the happiness that was filling her, making her a little dizzy.

“What was that for?” she asked, smiling as she bit her lip.

“My father used to say a good kiss could cure anything. Especially a fit of the blue devils.” He stroked a playful fingertip down her nose. His hazel eyes were merry, like firelight reflecting on honey.

“Blue devils?” She’d never heard such a silly turn of phrase.

“It’s when you feel a bit down. Did it work?”

“Oh!” She giggled. “Yes, it certainly did.” All it had taken was one good kiss and she’d almost forgotten what distressed her.

“Good.” He stroked the pad of his thumb over her lips, his eyes fixed on her as though he was thinking about kissing her again. She would not have minded, except the dressmaker cleared her throat from behind Lawrence.

“The gown and other clothes are all packed. I can have them delivered to your residence this afternoon if you wish.” Madame Ella lifted a hand to brush a strand of her dark silvery hair back into place.

“Thank you, that would be preferable,” Lawrence said without bothering to look toward the modiste. Zehra blushed as he caught her by the waist and lowered her down off the dais. He held on a moment too long, long enough to let her breathe in his scent and feel the heat of his tall, strong form so close to hers.

“On to shoes, hats, and jewelry?” he asked with an impish grin.

“Truly, Lawrence, we mustn’t,” she protested.

“Nonsense, Zehra. Madame Ella is quite right. Your lovely neck requires sapphires.” She let him escort her from the dress shop, her arm tucked through his. Although she wore a lovely red-and-white-striped muslin gown, she felt strangely exposed as they stepped onto the street.

At home she had lived a fairly cloistered life. She’d been kept apart from most men except from her father and friends of her parents. But at the same time, she’d had the freedom to take her horse and ride off into the hills behind her father’s palace and spend hours reading in the sun or studying as she lay stretched out on a blanket.

There was no such freedom here. London was full of people, couples, servants, men riding by on horseback, and carriages rumbling past. It was busy and noisy and all a little overwhelming. By the time they had finished with the shoes, jewelry, and hats, Zehra’s head ached from all the sounds of chaos around her.

“Are you feeling all right?” Lawrence asked as he got back into the coach with her.

“Yes, I’m not used to such…activity.” She touched her temples with the tips of her fingers.

“Why don’t we get you home to rest? We can have a quiet dinner before I have to go.”

She sat up straight, worry filling her. “Go?” She didn’t want to cling to him, but he was the only person she knew and trusted in this overwhelming new country.

Lawrence’s happy countenance fell. “I fear I have to attend a ball tonight. I won’t be gone long, I hope. Perhaps two hours.”

“A ball?” She couldn’t hide the hope in her voice. Her mother used to tell the most wonderful stories about the nights she’d attended balls, the exquisite gowns she’d worn, the dances, the handsome gentlemen and the music…

“Yes, I promised my mother I would go.” His sour tone made him sound boyish, and she laughed.

“You do not like balls?” she asked.

“Like balls?” He scoffed. “What on earth is there to like about them?”

Zehra flushed. “Well, I’ve been told they are both beautiful and enjoyable. The candlelight, the dancing, the music…” She trailed off when she noticed him watching her closely. Lawrence leaned forward in his seat.

“Have you ever been to one?”

She shook her head. “I’ve heard about them and have longed to go to one since I was a child, but they aren’t a part of my country’s customs. It isn’t done, for men and women to dance and hold each other close or to touch.”

Lawrence was silent for a moment, and then he laughed softly. The rich, deep sound of it sent delicious shivers through her.

“We aren’t supposed to be close either, except during waltzes, of course.” As he said this, he leaned closer to her, reaching across the space of the coach to grasp her hands in his. “Tomorrow, we can go to Richmond and have a proper picnic. They have some lovely hills with pleasant views. We can enjoy ourselves away from the bustle of the city. What do you think?”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“Excellent.” Lawrence grinned, but she saw his happy gaze was tempered with a hint of melancholy.

Seven days lay between them. It was all she had.

I must make the most of them.