Prologue
Summer 1793
Ewan Hoffstead had known his father hated him for every moment of every day of the ten years he’d been on this earth. He even knew why: he’d been unable to speak his entire life. He’d tried, of course. Stood in front of the mirror for hours, pushing and breathing, and nothing would come out. His father had tried, too, whipping him for disobedience when he couldn’t manage anything more than a few helpless grunts.
It was all for nothing. Ewan was mute, and it seemed mute he would stay. His father said it made him stupid and damaged. Ewan felt damaged, certainly, but he wasn’t as certain about stupid. He’d taught himself to read and write, for his father refused to waste time on his education. And when he was with his cousin Matthew and his family, no one seemed to think he was stupid. In fact, he often knew answers to questions before Matthew did and they were almost exactly the same age.
But none of that mattered. The Duke of Donburrow despised him and that was never clearer than when they were visiting Matthew and his father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Tyndale, as they had been for the last week. It was as if seeing a boy Ewan’s age, with none of his failings, made Donburrow all the more vile and hateful.
Now Ewan crouched behind a hedge that stood below a window in his uncle’s estate, watching as the two dukes roared at each other. He could hear their shouting but could not quite make out their words through the glass.
Still, he knew they were fighting over him. His chest hurt with that knowledge. His eyes burned with tears.
“You’re caught! This isn’t a very good hiding place for hide-and-seek, Ewan.”
He jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice behind him and the feel of two hands gripping one of his arms. He turned to find Charlotte Undercross smiling up at him. She was three years younger than he was and the sister of Baldwin Undercross, Matthew’s best friend and the son of yet another duke, the Duke of Sheffield. That family was also in attendance at the small party his father had taken him to.
Charlotte was only seven, but she was already very pretty, with blonde hair and the darkest, greenest eyes Ewan had ever seen. She was always smiling and laughing, and unlike most children who met him, she didn’t seem consumed with curiosity and judgment about his inability to speak.
He liked her, but right now he felt so very hurt and vulnerable, and he didn’t want her or anyone else to see. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Charlotte tilted her head, looking into his eyes like she could see all the way into his soul.
“Are you crying?” she asked, not teasing but inquiring earnestly.
He shook his head, though it wasn’t exactly the truth. He was about to cry, he could feel it swelling inside of him. She lifted on her tiptoes and looked past him through the window. She saw just what he did, the Dukes of Donburrow and Tyndale, still shouting at each other.
“Are they fighting over you?” she asked.
Ewan worried his lip a little and then nodded slowly.
She frowned. “Do you want to know what they’re saying?” she whispered.
He considered that a moment. Part of him didn’t want to know. All those ugly words hurt so much. But part of him needed to hear it. He nodded again. To his surprise, she grabbed his hand and all but dragged him around the side of the house and in through an open parlor door.
“These rooms connect and the walls can be opened to make them one room for bigger parties. I saw Tyndale’s servants do it once,” Charlotte explained as she released Ewan’s hand and snuck to the wall. She unhooked a latch and carefully pushed the wall open in a place Ewan would never have guessed held so many secrets. Then she motioned him over as she sat down and pressed her eye to the crack she’d created between the two rooms.
Ewan could already hear his father’s voice, clear now, booming as he shouted, “I don’t know why you waste so much time defending a child who is hardly more than an animal. He’s touched in the head, Aldous—the asylum is where things like him belong.”
Ewan stiffened and sank to his knees at those words, pushing his face against the crack just above Charlotte’s. An asylum. He’d heard his father talk of such a place often. He’d even driven Ewan by one once, telling him it was where he’d end up if he didn’t speak. But now this sounded more serious.
“The boy is not stupid or touched in the head, nor does he deserve to be put into one of those horrible places,” Ewan’s uncle, the Duke of Tyndale, snapped back. “And you know that. You’re so obsessed with what you think you lost by Ewan’s inability to speak, you refuse to see anything good about him.”
“What good is there in him?” Donburrow all but spat.
“Stephen, you cannot mean that!”
Ewan blushed—he hadn’t realized his aunt Mary was also in the room, but now she moved forward to stand beside his uncle Aldous. She had such a kind face, nothing like her brother’s. Now it was twisted in horror.
“You can afford to collect broken things, Mary,” the Duke of Donburrow blustered. “Your heir is intact and whole. You needn’t be ashamed of your son. So don’t you judge me on how I feel about mine. It is decided. Ewan is going to the asylum and then my dukedom will pass to Josiah. My spares are far more up to the task.”
Panic clawed at Ewan. The asylum. It was finally going to happen. He wanted to run and cry and hide, but before he could do any of those things he felt Charlotte’s fingers thread into his. She said nothing, she didn’t even look up at him. She just took his hand, and suddenly the room stopped spinning just a little bit. He clung to her, a raft in a stormy sea, and watched to see what would happen next.
To his shock, Uncle Aldous took a long step forward and grabbed for the Duke of Donburrow’s lapels. He jerked Ewan’s father forward, and suddenly it was very clear who the superior man was, at least physically.
“You listen to me and you listen very well, you spoiled, inhuman prick. That boy is not going to an asylum. You will take him over my dead body.”
For the first time in his entire life, Ewan saw fear flash over his father’s face. Fear Ewan knew too well, though he didn’t feel sorry for him.
“What will you do, Tydale?” Donburrow choked out. “Take him yourself?”
“Yes!” Mary burst out as she rushed forward. “Yes, we’ll take him.”
Ewan’s mouth dropped open as he stared at his aunt and uncle, the two people who had been kindest to him in his life. But they couldn’t be serious, could they? His uncle had said nothing as of yet.
Slowly, Uncle Aldous glanced at his wife and then back to Donburrow. “We are taking him,” he ground out. “He will live with us from now on.”
“You cannot be serious,” Donburrow sputtered, jerking free of Tyndale’s grip and staggering away. “He is mine.”
“Not anymore,” Tyndale said, straightening up. He looked so very big in that moment. Big and safe and almost like he glowed. He was a beacon in a dark night that Ewan wanted to run to. “Let me be clear. Your son is no longer your problem, Donburrow. You are no longer a part of his life or of ours. And if you ever move on that child, if you come near him, you and I will have pistols at dawn and I will shoot you between the eyes without hesitating.”
“Aldous,” Aunt Mary said softly, taking his hand.
He looked down at her. “Your brother or not, I have had enough of the way he treats that child.”
She nodded slowly and then faced her brother. “We are taking him, Stephen. That is the end of the discussion.”
Ewan’s heart was pounding so hard as he stared at his father that he feared those inside could hear it. Donburrow’s face was twisted in a mask of absolute hatred and rage.
“Take him, then,” he spat at last. “I’ve no use for him. But know this—that boy will never be duke. I will make sure that one of my undamaged sons will inherit.”
“We’ll see,” Tyndale said with a shrug. “But you should know that I will fight with every last breath in my body to make sure Ewan gets his due.”
Donburrow’s face was purple now with anger, and he pivoted on his heel and left the room, shouting, “Get my carriage ready and pack my things! I’m leaving!”
Ewan’s lips parted. His father was leaving. Leaving without even saying goodbye to him. Leaving him with his aunt and uncle. Was it true? Could it be happening?
He watched as his aunt turned into his uncle’s arms, heard him whispering to her gently, though he had no idea of the words being said. He pushed to his feet and staggered away, toward the fireplace. His world was spinning, and his stomach rolled, threatening to cast up his breakfast.
“Where could they be?”
Ewan stiffened. That was his cousin Matthew’s voice. It was swiftly followed by Charlotte’s brother Baldwin, who said, “We said we wouldn’t hide in the house. It isn’t fair if they did.”
Charlotte caught her breath as the two boys passed the parlor. She grabbed Ewan’s hand again. “Come on.”
He followed, hardly feeling his feet on the ground as he stumbled after her. His eyes were so filled with tears that he could hardly see, but somehow he trusted Charlotte to figure out where to go. At last she stopped and he looked around. She’d taken him to the lakeside, back behind the little building where his uncle kept the boats they rowed out into the middle of the lake to fish. She plopped down on the lawn, seemingly not caring that her dress would be stained. He did the same, numb as he plucked at the blades of grass.
“You’ll live here now,” she said after what felt like a silent eternity when he was trying to gather himself.
He nodded slowly. Yes, that was true. He would live here with Matthew and his aunt and uncle. They’d be kind to him, he knew that.
“That’s better, isn’t it?”
He dug into his pocket, trying to find the little notebook he carried to answer questions. It wasn’t there. He glanced up at her, feeling the color go out of his cheeks.
“It’s not there?” she asked. He shook his head. “That’s all right. I’ll just ask you yes or no questions, Ewan.”
He shrugged one shoulder, unable to keep the heat out of his cheeks. It was times like these that he hated not being able to talk. When it was obvious he was different. Only Charlotte really didn’t seem to judge.
“Wait, I have an idea!” Charlotte said, clapping her hands together.
He nodded to encourage her. It was impossible not to.
“What if we made up our own language? We could make up signs for letters and for words, so it won’t matter if you have your papers or not. You could talk with your hands.”
He hesitated. Right now he could hardly think of anything but his father’s abandonment and the future that he didn’t fully know anymore. But Charlotte was so lit up, and Ewan caught his breath at the sight. Girls were often a foreign thing to him, he avoided them whenever possible.
But this girl was…different.
He found himself nodding again, and she lunged across the distance between them and hugged him unexpectedly. He couldn’t move as she did it, just sat there frozen as she squeezed him and then flopped back into her original position.
“Wonderful. We just have to come up with a signal for each letter! And the longer words, so it won’t take forever for you to say something like parsimonious or accouterment.”
His eyes widened, though he wasn’t surprised she knew such big words. She was very clever, after all. Still, he couldn’t think of a time when he’d want to use big words. It seemed better just to avoid communication as much as possible.
She didn’t seem to detect his hesitation, though, for she continued, “Oh Ewan, it’s going to be wonderful. You’ll see.”
He swallowed as she kept talking, chattering on and on, waving her hands around in potential finger movements for letters and words. He wasn’t certain anything was going to be wonderful anytime soon. But when he looked at this girl, he found himself believing that maybe, just maybe, it could be one day.