SHE WORE A FADED DRESS TO THE INTERVIEW—SHE DIDN’T KNOW THE DUKE WAS WATCHING

Part 1

I stood in the corner of the grand drawing room at Marston Hall, keeping my hands folded tightly in front of my faded blue dress.

I was twenty-three years old, and my name was Megan.

My dress had been new once, many long years ago.

Now, the blue had washed out to the color of a tired, cloudy sky.

I had mended the lace at the sleeves twice already.

I knew it looked shabby.

I did not care.

I had walked nine miles in the pouring rain to reach this estate.

The carriage from my village had broken a wheel, and I had spent my last coin on the fare.

The dress had survived the rain, and that had to be enough.

The drawing room smelled of beeswax and old roses, a sharp contrast to the damp cold seeping into my worn shoes.

A clock ticked softly in the corner, marking the slow passage of time.

I kept my chin level and refused to look at the other people in the room.

There were four other women waiting.

They were all dressed in pristine silks that had never seen a needle and thread.

They had not spoken a single word to me since I arrived.

They only looked at my dress and then looked away.

They looked at me the way a person looks at something broken and discarded in the street.

A tall man with neat gray hair entered the room and called my name.

I stepped forward, trying to ignore the cold rain still soaking my stockings.

He told me that Lady Marston was unwell and that I would have to wait to see the steward, Dan.

I thanked him and stepped back to my place by the wall.

The four women in silk stopped pretending not to look at me.

One of them, a woman named Tracy with bright red hair, made a small sound in her throat that was almost a laugh.

I kept my hands folded and counted the panes of glass in the tall window across the room.

There were exactly twelve panes.

I counted them again just to give my mind something to do.

I had not eaten since the day before.

My aunt Carol had told me there was no room for me in her house anymore.

If I did not get this position as a companion to the elderly Brenda, Lady Marston, I had nowhere else to go.

A small movement made me look up from the window.

A man was standing in the open archway at the side of the room.

He had come from the garden, and there were dark spots of rain on the shoulders of his coat.

His boots were caked with mud at the toes.

His hair was dark and slightly wet from the weather.

He had the kind of eyes that did not move quickly, observing everything with a quiet intensity.

He was looking directly at me.

I looked back at him, refusing to lower my gaze.

Looking away would have felt like flinching, and I had promised myself I would not flinch today.

He did not smile, and he did not nod.

He simply looked.

Tracy noticed him then and made a startled sound, standing up far too fast.

The other three women jumped to their feet as well, smoothing their expensive skirts.

They tried to arrange their faces into pleasant, flattering smiles.

The man did not even glance at them.

He looked at me for another long moment before turning and walking back out through the archway.

Tracy sat down again, her mouth twisting into an ugly sneer.

She remarked loudly that one could hardly tell the gentlemen from the gardeners anymore.

Kelly, a woman with a pale face, looked straight at me and added her own cruel comment.

She said that one could hardly tell the ladies from the kitchen maids, either.

She claimed that with the right cheap dress, anyone could pretend to belong.

I did not move a single muscle.

I kept my chin level and counted the panes of glass again.

Twelve.

Kelly waited for me to answer, and when I did not, she laughed even louder.

She leaned toward Tracy and said that Lady Marston must be desperate to let a girl like me walk through the front door.

She declared she would not let me near her dog.

Tracy covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

My face did not change, but under my folded hands, I pressed my thumb hard against my wrist bone.

I held it there until the sharp pain steadied my racing heart.

I did not know the man in the garden was Craig, the Duke of Ashdown and the owner of the estate.

I did not know he had heard every single word they said.

I did not know he had been watching me count the glass panes.

And I certainly did not know what he was about to do to those women because of it.

It started the very next day when I officially took up my duties with Lady Marston.

I thought I had become invisible to the world.

I thought I was just a small brown shape that people no longer saw.

But the Duke had seen me.

He had seen the wet shoes, the mended lace, and the way I held myself together.

And his quiet, devastating revenge on my behalf was about to change my life forever.