Burning Secrets of a Lady’s Pen (Preview)

Prologue

May 1816

My Dearest Imelda,

I haven’t yet returned home. You might think me a fool for writing you so soon, but I simply couldn’t let another day go by without thanking you for the last two weeks. I wanted to say so much more the night of my departure. I wanted to tell you how lovely you looked, and how your hair shone so much brighter than all of the other gathered ladies at Tabitha’s. I wanted to claim every dance as my own. Most of all, I wanted to kiss you goodnight. 

I know writing such things is unheard of, but I hope I’m right enough in my estimation that the glimmer there in your eyes before we were interrupted was welcoming of such things. 

Two weeks doesn’t seem hardly long enough to forge the bond that we did, but if I’m being terribly poetic, I have to admit it seems as if the stars aligned. Even as I sit here and compose this missive, I cannot help but envision your radiant smile amidst the grandeur of Florence. That very first night, your presence at the Count’s soirée enchanted me beyond words. 

Every day after was like a fever dream, I fear that I still have yet to wake from. 

Is that too forward? I fear we’ve moved past that. The sight of you with that blush in your cheeks looking up at me as you were plagues me. I imagine the feel of your lips, the taste of them, far more often than can be considered healthy. 

Perhaps fever dream isn’t the right wording. It calls to mind the ailing and sickly, but I can think of no other descriptor to put in its place. If it is a fever dream it is of the very best kind. 

Do you remember the night after the palazzo? 

I’d never seen such a blue before that night. I’m sure your mother could tell you that I had eyes for no one but you that evening. I’m afraid that condition is one that stuck as well. No matter my best intentions, you haunt me. And, apparently, you make me bandy about phrases that sound good only just the moment before I put them to paper. You ensnare me. You bewitch me. 

Permit me, if you please, to cherish our shared moments those two weeks until our paths intertwine once more.

And put me out of my misery by reassuring me that my estimation was correct. 

Fondly, 

Corin Langford

 

Dear Corin,

Your words, like a gentle breeze in a sun-kissed garden, fill my heart with joy and hope. You were right to think that such a glimmer existed. I know it’s untoward of a lady to admit such things, but I had hoped that that was your intention. I would not have refused such an advance. How could I? 

If you are too forward than I am equally, if not more, so. If our last night was the first time you imagined kissing me then you are well behind. That very first day I confess to have thought of it. And dreamed of it ever since.

I’ve always fancied myself to have a way with words. To meet someone who could make me forget them, even on the tip of my tongue, was an experience I don’t think I can…well, put into words. Those two weeks felt like so much more. They meant so much more. I have never shared so many of my dreams, my hopes, my innermost person with another living being before, not even the old farm cat that I used to consider my confidant. 

Each letter from you is a treasure I hold dear, weaving dreams of our reunion. Anticipation dances within me as I await my return to your side. Is that conceited or too heavy-handed?

You pen words with such eloquence and passion. You stir emotions within me that I scarce ever dreamed to exist. As I read your letter each word resonated with the melody of our shared moments, the words weaving a tapestry I didn’t dare hope for. 

Florence, for all of its splendor and majesty, feels incomplete in your absence. The streets, once alive with the magic of a new, foreign place, now seem devoid of all charm, lacking the warmth of your presence. Yet, amidst all of this, your letters serve as a lifeline, as a bridge to cover the chasm that separates us.

Ever yours,

Imelda

 

Dearest Imelda,

I feel a fool trying to match the wit and prose you speak with. Eloquence and passion in my letters? The latter perhaps. As for arrogance or conceit, I could never accuse you of either such foul things. By my side is exactly where I want you to be. I confessed to you how stridently I have avoided any serious entanglements and all of my dear mother’s greatest aspirations toward marriage for me…You are the first woman to ever make me think that maybe her outlook on romance and union might not be the worst fate in the world.

Rereading that makes me seem pompous and like more of a cad than I’d like to think that I am. I love women—that is to say that I love women in an abstract way. Or maybe not abstract. 

Lord, how, even over this great distance now between us, are you still managing to make me trip over my words? 

I respect women, Imelda. 

Although maybe you above most others of my acquaintance. 

When I dared you to drink that brandy that night on the terrace, I expected you to back down. Most well-bred ladies would have. I’ll confess that your doing so, and the way that you laughed after you did, only furthered my affection toward you. Not because I believe your claim that you thoroughly enjoyed the taste. I still believe you to be a rotten liar on that front. But because of your determination to prove me wrong. An odd thing to further my affection, I’ll admit, but…

Every day, my thoughts drift to you, lingering in the memory of your grace and charm. The way that you never failed to make me laugh and the riddles you were constantly trying to make me solve. Were you testing my intelligence or trying to vex me? 

Though distance separates us now, know that my affection for you only continues to grow.

As an aside…No, that last night was not the first I dreamed of kissing you. I’ll confess to many a night doing the same. I’ve just had to re-pen this letter at least a million times on account of every other way I phased it came out far more than just forward and borderline scandalous.

Yours devotedly,

Corin

 

My Beloved Corin,

I’ve been quite beset with trying to figure out how one might love women in an abstract way. Your penned tongue-tied state is as endearing as it is amusing, I assure you. I like to think that I, of all people, might make the great Corin Langford forget his renowned silver tongue. 

I shall admit to no such heinous lies such as not loving the taste of brandy. How would you know? You were too busy laughing up your sleeve to pay any real attention. As for the riddles…I will admit to testing your intelligence there. I’ll go a step further, even, and admit that I was, perhaps, trying to trip you up and find some flaw within you. You seemed quite…inhuman in many respects. Too good to be true. 

I was trying to fight my growing affection for you, probably. 

To avoid a scandal, as you mentioned in your last letter. Though now I admit I dream about that as well. 

Ah, we are being frank. There was no probably about it. You frightened me. You still do, you know. I expected this flame to fade, not be fanned by the distance. I expected the distance to dull the spark between us, but it doesn’t at all seem to be the case. And that frightens me as well. 

You spoke, during our last dance, of showing me London. You spoke of parading me about on your arm and I took that all in good fun. I tried not to imagine that there was any such chance…and yet…now…

Tell me if it is only a dream, please. 

The Florentine splendor seems…smaller without your presence in it. I wander amidst it and feel like a shadow. 

Eternally yours,

Imelda

 

Dearest Imelda,

I wish you wouldn’t fight it. You would make me look the fool you know, rather than just occasionally sounding one in these letters. I do not want to frighten you. I wish for nothing more than to do the opposite. Is it unmanly of me to admit that that fact frightens me? 

All of that still holds true. I wasn’t trying to talk my way into that kiss goodbye or any other rakish pastimes either. If you are a shadow, you are a beautiful one. If you are a shadow, you are mine. I feel you all the time, in the background of my day, laughing at quips that everyone around me misses, writing to me in the margins of books like you did throughout those two weeks. 

Don’t tease me with talks of scandals. Or tempt me. However it is that I mean to phrase that I hardly know. You have the softest skin of anyone I’ve ever touched, did you know that? I dream of making that blush stain your cheeks permanently, of what words or touches might accomplish that, of—well, I digress. 

The passage of time seems cruel in its slow march, yet it does nothing to dim the flame burning within me. I say admiration. I say affection. But those words seem pale. There is another, four letters and all the more frightening for it, that hangs heavy in my mind. 

Consider me reformed. 

My intention, upon your return to London, my dear Imelda, is not to simply parade you about and show you the sights. My intention is to keep you on my arm. My intention is to visit you at home and meet your four siblings and your father. My intention is to court you. 

I am being very blunt, forget frank, because I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding between us. 

I think of your chestnut-colored hair and the dimple in your right cheek. I think about the way your hand fit so perfectly into mine and the freckles like constellations across the bridge of your nose. 

I think of you, daily, Imelda.

Yours faithfully,

Corin

 

My Dearest Corin,

In the stillness of the Florentine nights, I find solace in the echoes of your promises.

I never much fancied being a kept woman.

That wording is wrong. I was going to continue on to say something to the effect that if being kept meant being on your arm, it would be worth it, but I forgot the connotation of the words until after I wrote them. I’m exercising great restraint as a writer, I’ll have you know—in sending you my first draft of every letter raw and unedited.

It’s too brash to say I would want to be a kept woman if it meant being yours, but Lord help me if the temptation isn’t there. To be even more brash, I suppose I could request a short engagement. I imagine after we are married, kissing you whenever I desire would be well within my right.

Each word penned by your hand breathes life into my longing heart. Though oceans may separate us, know that my love for you remains steadfast and true. I will say that four-letter word if you fear it. If I am to be bold, I will be doubly so. 

I will return home in the next two weeks. 

Forever yours,

Imelda

 

Imelda had read and reread the letters inside of her briefcase so many times the words were imprinted upon her very mind. She had devoured them, both the ones sent to her and those that she had hurriedly copied before sending off. She had sent her first drafts, she had been honest in that, but she had needed to keep some record of what she had said. She always did. 

But Corin never answered her last letter. 

And she had spent the entirety of the rest of her trip in Florence and the time traveling back home thinking about it and wondering what might have kept him from doing so. 

Corin had been a fantasy. 

He had been every literary masterpiece rolled into one bound between the finest of leather and crafted by the most studious of hands, and Imelda—Imelda had wrapped herself in the memory of him ever since the night he had departed. 

It was hardly academic for her to fall in love with a man she had only shared the presence of for two weeks. It was hardly intelligent to become so tied up in him. But…

The knocker of Old Laurel Manor was loud in the otherwise silent house, her whole body jumping as she tapped her pen idly against the empty page in front of her. 

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The heavy metal against the wood had her hastening to rise from her desk as she barely refrained from running her ink-smudged fingers down her face. 

Corin. 

God help her but she had to stop thinking about him. 

Her mother and father had gone to call on the Iversons not but an hour before, and Hilda and Carrington were both out running errands for the house. That left only her to answer the door, though who would be calling midafternoon in the Lancashire countryside was beyond her.

“I’m coming!” she called out as the dreaded thud started again. “Just—” 

Trying not to worry over the fact that she had no time to straighten the messy bun of her unruly hair or at least somewhat ready herself for being seen by another person. 

“So sorry.” She huffed as she threw open the front door, leaning on the doorjamb and offering the person on the other side of the wooden paneling a wide, apologetic smile. 

One that slid right off of her face the moment that she recognized the dark brown curls and tawny gaze staring back at her. 

“Corin!” Her shock melted into delight as he nodded, her body straightening off of the jamb and her skin tingling with that same fiery current that it had the month before when in his presence. “You’re here!” 

She hadn’t been sure after the absence of his letter. 

Oh, it was so difficult not to throw herself across that short distance and into his arms and—

“You…are here, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice more hesitant as she noticed the marked lack of a smile on his face. For one brief moment, she was terrified that she might have stepped into some horrid nightmare.

“I am,” Corin answered cordially. 

Cordially. 

Not passionately. Not with that crooked grin of his or the smirk that had almost made her forget grammatical rules. 

Cordially. 

She didn’t understand how he could be cordial when the last time that they had seen one another, he’d dared push the rules of society so far. How he could be cordial when he had run the side of his hand along her thigh under the dim lighting of the theatre or brushed his thumb against the corner of her elbow so brazenly at dinner.

Her heart stuttered in her chest as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his tawny eyes pleading with her for understanding. 

“Corin…” 

“I had a speech planned,” he cut her off brusquely. “I was going to ask you to tea and explain things. I was going to go about this with finesse. Slowly. But standing here, I cannot for the life of me remember the words I rehearsed. My dearest Imelda, I was going to say, I think—but now, in the face of things, that seems cruel and like a form of address I shouldn’t be using. Imelda, alone, seems too cold. Miss Merrit, however…” He trailed off, wincing as he did. 

And Imelda wanted to shut the door in his face there and then to stop him from what he had to say next. To stop herself from hearing it. As it was, her knuckles blanched white from the hold she still had on the door, her spine tense. 

“I wanted to reach you before the papers did. To tell you of my betrothal before you were forced to read it—” 

As it turned out, that was all she had needed to hear. 

There was more. She knew. She heard him talking, but the words faded as she focused on those that broke her heart so fully in her chest, and the rest of the world faded with it. 

All the colors she had seen since meeting him, all the joie de vivre seemed to fade into simpler shades of black and white. 

And she closed the door. 

On Corin Langford and his explanation. On the life she had allowed herself to imagine and the love she had thought she felt. 

She closed the door. And Corin didn’t knock again.

Chapter One

February 1818

London was colder and damper than Imelda remembered. A fact that she hadn’t been able to escape ever since having arrived. She had tried being optimistic. After all, she quite regularly felt the same way about Lancashire after returning from one of her travels, but that was different. It was more marked, probably, because she wasn’t arriving in London from some far-off tropical destination, but Lancashire itself. 

“Oh, stop slouching, Spencer!” Lady Merrit cried, pulling Imelda’s attention off of the drab streets of London, passing by the window of their carriage and back to the company within it. 

“I’m not slouching,” Spencer argued glibly, pulling at the lapels of his coat with a pointed eye-roll in the direction of their aunt. 

“You were definitely slouching,” Sir John snorted in clear amusement. 

The trio, despite their argument, all worse smiles as they bickered, their evening finery shadowed by the buildings their carriage passed under. 

“Imelda, dearest, tell your brother that he was slouching,” Lady Merrit commanded as she twitched the skirts of her dress to better face everyone at once. She was a fine woman, with or without the lovely dress that she wore. At an age she wouldn’t allow anyone to announce, she was only just beginning to show the regal streaks of silver throughout her auburn hair, her blue eyes even brighter and more rapt than they had been in her youth. 

Imelda adored her. It was why she didn’t hesitate to smile at the way she was being ordered about. 

“I can hardly say that I saw him doing so,” Imelda teased. “Though I can also hardly say that I doubt he was doing such a thing.” 

“Imelda!” Spencer chimed, the faux-hurt in his voice almost unbearable. He widened his hazel eyes, so similar to her own but just a shade more gray than green, and leaned forward. “As your older brother—” 

“By two minutes and forty-seven seconds,” Imelda reminded him dryly. 

“As your older brother!” Spencer raised his voice slightly to speak over her. “I think you should show a bit more deference—” 

“What do either of you know about deference?” Sir John boomed, laughing through the words. “The two of you could have given Castor and Pollux a run for their money, you know. And I say that with all due deference to their very references in our newest play—”

“Oh, your play!” Lady Merrit fanned herself with a fond smile toward her husband. “God save us from another lecture on your newest play, my love. Everyone within this carriage knows that you are a playwright. Everyone within this carriage has listened thrice over to the premise of your newest production! We are on our way to drop Imelda at her first meeting of the Woman’s Word, my darling. Shouldn’t we be talking about that instead?”

Imelda’s cheeks warmed as her aunt sent her a jaunty wink, the reminder of the favor her uncle had done her, sending her once more into a frenzy of nerves and excitement. 

The Woman’s Word was one of the foremost collectives of feminine power in the literary world, one she had always aspired to join. To have been accepted…

“Maybe I ought to join you this evening,” Spencer mused aloud. “Instead of whatever nonsense musical our dearest aunt is dragging me to. I dare say a collective of all women will have need of my presence…” 

“Thank you,” Imelda said primly, “but no thank you.” 

“It’s not a musical, Spencer,” Lady Merrit sighed for what had to be the eighteenth time. “It’s a musical performance. A social gathering. The Thiebalds have so graciously invited us.” 

“To listen to their youngest two daughters who can’t string a violin,” Spencer grumbled.

Imelda tried not to laugh. She had been delighted with the change in her plans. As much as Spencer complained about social engagements, he wasn’t wrong in his summarization of the Thibealds’ talents. 

“As opposed to listening to short stories and the like that have recently been published,” Imelda reminded him. 

“One of them at least is sure to be good,” Spencer shrugged. “I do like the one that they chose to publish of yours this week. Especially the bit about the bosomy lady.” 

“There is no bosomy lady.” Imelda dug her elbow into his side as she spoke. “Only bosom friends, remember? Do you even read what I send you, or do you just skim the pages?” 

Spencer grinned unapologetically, his dimples carving out caverns on either side of his face as the carriage slowed to a stop. “It depends,” he teased, “on what my week holds and just how bored I am.” 

“Stop teasing your sister.” Sir John chuckled as the sound of the footman scurrying about carried through the walls of the carriage. “This is her stop. You’re sure you’re happy to go on your own?” 

“She won’t be on her own, Lydia promised she would look out for her tonight,” Lady Merrit cut in, winking at Imelda again. 

Lady Lydia de Trafford, Countess of Waddeson was a bosom friend of hers and one that Imelda had only very briefly been introduced to upon her arrival a few days before. All she could really remember of the woman was her shocking silver hair and the fact that she was the hostess of the literary salon: The Woman’s Word. 

“I’ll be fine,” Imelda assured the both of them with a smile. With or without Lady Waddeson. “I’ll enjoy my words being discussed much more than listening to any musical stylings by the Thiebald sisters.” She couldn’t resist the last jab at her twin as the carriage door opened, and the footman appeared to help her step down. 

Spencer groaned, but her aunt and uncle laughed as they waved her off, Spencer’s grumbling the backdrop to it all as she stepped off the step and down onto the driveway of what had to be the largest house she had ever stood in front of in London. 

“Oh, my.” 

She joined the queue of women bustling from the drive into the house, her eyes roving over the expansive estate—or at least as much of it as she could see from the front door—and all of the yellow lilies that were placed decoratively about the entryway as she was ushered in. 

“Miss Merrit!” 

From the familiar chatter of her family into the parlor of a home she had never visited, the gentle hum of laughter and conversation filling it even as Imelda fought to see every aspect of it at once. Imelda had no problem socializing, she enjoyed it, really—but her name being called out like it was still served as a shock, her eyes widening slightly as she spun on her heel to face the one calling her. 

“Lady Waddeson,” Imelda greeted back as she caught sight of the only semi-familiar woman with silver hair. 

Lady Waddeson, upon closer inspection, should have been far more memorable. 

She was a tall woman, five foot eight or nine at the very least, with her hair so silver it defied her barely creased skin and still-young brown eyes. Her hair was piled fashionably on her head, and the green dress that she wore had been obviously and expensively tailored just to her frame that it was impossible to miss the money behind it. 

“I was so glad to hear that you were joining us tonight,” Lady Waddeson grinned as she pulled Imelda into the small group that she stood amongst. “I told your aunt we would be overjoyed—that I would be overjoyed. Come and meet my daughter, Lady Charlotte—and our dear friend Miss Tuberville. She’s also an aspiring writer. Girls, I’d like you to meet Lady Merrit, although tonight, we might be more comfortable referring to her as Ellar Dance.” 

Lady Charlotte looked much like her mother, though a fairer and more slender version. Her brown eyes lacked the same confidence, though they made up for it with a warmth and kindness that couldn’t be missed. Miss Tuberville looked equally friendly, though somewhat less finely dressed than the two women that she stood with. 

“Ellar Dance!” Lady Charlotte exclaimed excitedly. “Not the Ellar Dance who wrote With Changing Winds!” 

Imelda’s chest tightened, her whole face warming as she nodded. Despite her embarrassment, she could feel her lips twitching, the reminder of her accomplishment warming her in a way that little else could. 

“I enjoyed that story immensely,” Miss Tuberville said softly. “Especially the parallels between Caroline and Sarah, it was very finely crafted, Miss Merrit. I’ve seen quite a bit of praise in the papers for it already.” 

Imelda’s eyebrows rose slightly as she looked down at the bundled papers that Miss Tuberville held, her surprise genuine. 

“I’ll confess I haven’t read the critique on it yet,” she admitted softly. “I was hoping to wait until tonight…” 

Musical chimes cut off whatever else she might have said after trailing off, Lady Waddeson’s eyes brightening as she clapped her hands together. “That is just the time for it!” she encouraged happily. “Although, before duty calls, I would like to extend a dinner invitation to you for later this week, Miss Merrit. And I won’t hear no for an answer. However, that is the sound of duty calling. I need to get this meeting started, if the three of you will excuse me.” 

She didn’t wait for an answer, from Imelda or from the other two either, before bustling off, pulling a wave of admirers in her wake. It was clear to see that she was a highly favored companion. 

“My mother means well,” Lady Charlotte murmured, leaning in conspiratorially. “She just doesn’t know how not to manage everything around her.” 

“Everyone around her,” Miss Tuberville giggled. “It isn’t like anyone has the wherewithal to dare to tell her no.” 

“I wouldn’t have wanted to,” Imelda assured them both, smiling and feeling more welcomed than she had anticipated. 

“Good. And hopefully, you’ll understand our wanting to take our seats before she starts barking out orders,” Lady Charlotte said with a grin. She took Imelda’s arm, tucking her own through it as the two of them flanked her. “I do prefer to sit on the right side of the room. I know the best couches, you know.” 

Imelda grinned, allowing herself to be toted along between the two of them as Lady Wadderson’s voice rose in the background to address the rest of the room. 

“Here,” Miss Tuberville handed the papers to Imelda with a wink. “You can read over them before we start.” 

“Are these—” Imelda cut off as she looked down to see the critic’s section, her heart freezing in her chest along with the smile on her face. She had been brave before, talking about it, but the truth was that she had avoided looking yet for more than just the one reason. 

She’d heard feedback for years on her stories…but there was something different and altogether more terrifying about reading what the London papers had to say. 

Miss Tuberville and Lady Charlotte continued talking around her as they ushered her into a seat, but Imelda’s eyes were already devouring the reactions to her piece. 

Immersive…fantastic…lovely, the words jumped off of the page and reinforced the pride that Imelda had already been feeling. 

At least until the headline from one column caught her attention. 

 

A Story Even Older in its Retelling:

 

I turn my discerning eye this week to a recent addition to the literary landscape. This critic hates to shame one for trying but there was nothing changed about the winds of this story. If anything, it was long-winded and dull, full of unnecessary prose and with a plot that we’ve seen too many times before. While the focus on friendship over romance is a break from the recent influx of the latter, I cannot fully sign off on this piece. 

The author uses a delicate hand to paint the conflict, but the conflict itself remains overdone and trite. One cannot deny the author’s skillful use of language; however, beneath that veneer of well-crafted word lies a narrative that struggles to transcend the conventions of its genre. 

The characters, though finely drawn, adhere too closely to archetypal tropes, failing to elicit the depth of emotion necessary to truly engage the reader. 

Furthermore, the pacing of the story leaves much to be desired. The central conflict is rushed, undermining the emotional impact and leaving this reader feeling somewhat unsatisfied. Additionally, certain plot points are left unexplored, robbing the narrative of the complexity it so desperately needs to resonate with a discerning audience. 

In short, while a commendable effort, With Changing Winds falls short of greatness. While the author demonstrates ability, the story ultimately lacks the depth and originality necessary to leave a lasting impression. 

As always, I eagerly await the next installment in our literary journey, hoping to encounter a work that does transcend the boundaries of its genre. 

–Prospero

 

“Prospero?” Imelda found herself testing his name aloud, her brows furrowing with frustration as she looked back up at the shreds he had made of her work. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him,” Miss Tuberville comforted her in a quiet undertone as more and more ladies gathered around to find seats. “He’s very difficult to please.” 

“Who is he?” Imelda asked, trying to bury the sharpness of her words. Prospero. That wasn’t even a real name, she was sure of it. She wanted to know exactly who had ripped apart her work so fully. Not some penname that he hid behind. 

“Well—” Lady Charlotte looked decidedly uncomfortable, shifting in her seat as she looked to Imelda with wide eyes full of apology. 

But whatever she had been about to say was cut off by the musical chimes ringing through the room again, and her mother standing at the head of the room with a wide smile as everyone fell silent. 

Imelda didn’t think it should have been at all possible for her to be disappointed that the Woman’s Word was starting. But she was, the question of Prospero and his cutting critique still indenting itself behind her lashes as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying desperately to focus on Lady Waddeson’s opening words. 

Prospero…Who did he think he was?

Chapter Two

“God save me from dry champagne,” Romeo muttered, swirling the champagne flute in his hand with an irritated look as if the glass itself had offended him. His mouth was pinched, his brow set, and he had the look of a man who would rather be anywhere but where he was. 

Even if where he was happened to be one of the finest sitting rooms in all of England. 

Corin tried not to frown in return at his brother and didn’t succeed. It was hard to keep a neutral expression when Romeo was in one of his moods. Especially when one of his moods had seen him out of the country and in France for the past fortnight while his wife pined away at home, and Corin was left to take care of her. 

“No one told you that you needed to drink any,” Corin said placidly, biting back all of his more acerbic remarks. 

“It’s all that our aunt has put out yet,” Romeo sighed, falling down gracelessly into an armchair and splaying himself out upon it. “No whiskey, no brandy…Just…champagne drier than my wife’s nether regions.” 

At that tactless remark, Corin didn’t bother to hide his severe frown. 

“Perhaps you should remember that she is your wife,” he bit out, fighting the urge to stand and shake his brother. It was an urge he had been fighting for more than half of his life and one that he feared was only becoming more prominent with age. 

“Perhaps you should remind her of such,” Romeo responded off-handedly, clearly unbothered by his brother’s ire. “She’s not let me back home yet, you know.” 

Corin did know. Unfortunately, he knew in great detail more than he ever cared to. Sybille wasn’t allowing Romeo back home, because once again, Romeo had been caught in flagrante with one of his many, many mistresses. Or, to hear Romeo tell it, framed—but they all knew the truth of the matter, no matter what protestations Romeo put up. At twenty-two, he was unchanged from his sixteenth year, and Corin had long given up the hope that that might change. 

So he didn’t comment. 

Not even when he caught his brother eying him speculatively. 

He knew what was coming. Romeo was nothing if not predictable. 

“Perhaps you might talk with her,” Romeo pressed, his voice dropping to try and be convincing. 

Corin grimaced, also wishing that his aunt had set out something stronger than champagne, in that moment. 

“I’m not asking you to make her forgive me, you know,” Romeo continued with a long-suffering sigh. “Just for you to talk her into letting me back into the house. And to let me plead my own case. You know that I love her.” 

Corin bit down on the inside of his cheek. 

He did know that. Romeo loved Sybille beyond reason. It just didn’t seem to be enough for him to change his womanizing ways. 

“Corin…” 

“I’ll talk to her!” Corin snapped, standing and snatching Romeo’s champagne flute from his hand. He downed the last of it in one swift drink. “But at some point, you’re going to have to learn to settle things with her on your own.” 

Or else Corin might perish from an ulcer from the stress of it all. 

“Settle what with who?” a delicately feminine voice asked from the doorway. 

If Corin had been sure his aunt wasn’t lurking behind the corner, he might have cursed. Charlotte, despite being far gentler and kinder than her mother, had the older countess’s impeccable timing. 

“My wife,” Romeo answered unapologetically. He rose languidly from where he’d been lounging, shooting a charming grin at Charlotte before leaning to kiss her on her temple on his way out of the door. “But it’s all settled now. Corin is going to be a wonderful brother and take care of it for me. And I’m going to go try and hunt out where your mother has hidden the good liquor. I can hear guests now. She must have set it out somewhere.”

Corin bit back a sigh, following his brother and offering his arm to his cousin as Romeo disappeared. 

“You’re going to have to stop bailing him out eventually, you know,” Charlotte said softly as Corin escorted her from the room. “Sybille really doesn’t deserve what he puts her through.” 

“I’m sure that there are things Sybille puts him through as well,” Corin lied artlessly. “Marriage is a private affair, Charlotte. One never knows what goes on behind closed doors.” 

Charlotte gave him a peevish look, her brows furrowed as she considered him. He instantly regretted his choice of words. He’d been avoiding talking about marriage for weeks with her ever since she’d gotten it into her head that his mourning period ought to be over.

“Mother will be happy to hear you speaking so fondly of marriage,” Charlotte said instead of chastising him. Though her words were almost the worse for it. “She’s mentioned several eligible ladies this season to keep an eye on, you know, and—” 

“I’m not interested in ladies, Charlotte, eligible or not,” Corin cut her off bluntly, refusing to rise to the bait. 

He knew what his aunt thought of his matrimonial state; Lord knew she didn’t bandy about words frivolously. 

“Oh, are you interested in men then?” Charlotte teased, her voice so low it might well have been a whisper. 

Corin almost choked on air, his breath wheezing in his chest as he turned to look at his cousin with wide eyes. “Charlotte!” 

“You’re the one who said it,” she returned with a giggle, her whole face pink from the scandal that she hadn’t just implied but had outright said. 

It was the most damning thing that Corin had ever heard out of her mouth. 

“I said no such thing,” Corin answered stiffly, recovering more slowly than he would have liked. He’d certainly meant nothing along those lines. He didn’t judge those who dabbled in such things so harshly as most that he knew; he’d had the great fortune of rooming with a lad in school who had indulged in such preferences and liked to think of himself as rather open-minded. 

Just…not so much as his cousin was implying. 

“You know that Mother is going to push, Corin,” Charlotte confided gently, keeping her voice so low that only he could hear her as they passed from the entryway into the slowly filling ballroom. 

Already, ladies were milling about, fanning themselves with coquettish expressions while the gathered men watched hungrily from their packs. It was like an animal study, only worse, because Corin knew that his family meant for him to be thrown into the fray of it. A fate he thought he’d escaped upon his marriage two years before. 

“She can push all she wants,” Corin muttered. “I have no wish to join the throngs of eager bachelors. I’m a widower, in case she’d forgotten.” 

“You know she’s done no such thing.” Charlotte eyed the gathered guests with a kind, judgment-free eye. “She hardly counts your marriage to Alice, you know. It only lasted six months and—” 

“Yes, well, she died, didn’t she?” 

Corin knew he’d been too harsh the moment the words left his lips. Charlotte’s eyes watered as she looked away from him, her sensitive spirit uncomfortable with the brittle, angry notes between Corin’s words. 

Most people usually shied away from him when Alice came up. It was a fact he’d grown accustomed to over the last year and a half. 

But he hadn’t meant to be unkind to Charlotte, of all people. 

“Charlotte…” 

“No, I know. I am aware that she died, Corin. And so is Mother. But she said a year and a half is enough time to move past your mourning, especially considering the short nature and circumstances of your marriage in the first place.” Charlotte stared adamantly out at the crowd, refusing to meet Corin’s expression as he tried to apologize to her with his eyes. 

Charlotte didn’t need to parrot her mother. 

Corin knew what she said. He knew her opinion on his staying out of the marriage market just as well as he knew his own name. He just didn’t feel the need to bow to her desire to see him back in front of the altar again when getting in front of it the first time had been so damning, to begin with. 

Across the room, Romeo stood in the middle of a gaggle of young women, his hands gesturing dramatically as he charmed the lot of them right by the entrance, set up to be seen by anyone who entered. 

It left a sour taste in Corin’s mouth, especially given the topic of his and Charlotte’s discussion. 

And apparently hers as well. 

“You really don’t have to clean up every mess that he makes,” Charlotte whispered sadly. 

Corin almost laughed. 

Didn’t he? 

“If not I, then who?” he asked dryly. 

Their father? The man was so far gone that Corin didn’t think he knew the day of the week on any given day well enough to tell anyone, much less have the attention span to see what his youngest son was getting up to. No, that was Corin’s job…and had been for quite some time. 

“Oh, Lucy Thiebald is wearing that dreadful gray dress again,” Charlotte muttered as she leaned into Corin’s arm, squeezing it gently. “But…maybe you ought to consider allowing him to clean up his own mess from time to time.” 

Corin did laugh at that. 

Loudly. Too loudly and bitterly, his teeth gritting together as he forced his lips back to a close. 

Romeo clean up his own mess? Their father would recover before that happened. 

“He would have to care enough to do so first,” Corin reminded her, not-so-gently. And be motivated enough to fix it on his own, too, a thing that Romeo had never been. 

Corin watched him sweep one of the ladies he was entertaining away to the dance floor, his hands just toeing that line between proprietary and indecency as he did. Because that was what Romeo did—toe the line. Every line and every boundary that he could find. Almost as well as he crossed right over them mindless to the consequences that would follow. 

“He cares,” Charlotte sighed, turning her face away from where Corin was staring with a frown. “He’s just…” 

There were a lot of adjectives she could have used and been right in using. Corin could think of at least twenty off of the top of his head that he would have used himself. 

Selfish, childish, reckless, impetuous, carefree, emotionally stunted…

“Can we talk of no happier topics?” Corin asked Charlotte as he bumped his shoulder into hers. “First Romeo, then the topic of nuptials that won’t be happening, and then Romeo again. We’re at a gathering, my dear cousin. Surely there is something more exciting for you to bring up.” 

Anything would have been preferable to those two topics. 

“Oh, there she is!” Charlotte said excitedly, craning her neck toward the entrance with a quick, happy smile. “The new friend I was telling you about!” 

Corin’s lips twitched as he chose not to point out that Charlotte made a new friend at least twice a day with her countenance and instead turned to see who she was referring to. 

The woman in question had her back to him when he looked, already trapped by his aunt in some conversation or another, but that didn’t stop him from looking her over. 

She was a small thing, barely reaching his aunt’s shoulder, with a slender waist and curves that her evening gown did nothing to hide, even from the angle that he was looking at her from. But that wasn’t what caught his eye the most, despite how it should have. 

It was her hair. 

Long and not done up like the majority of the ladies piled atop of her head it was only half up, the rest of the chestnut waves cascading down her back and even framing her face as she turned…

And skewered Corin right to the spot…

She was dainty even from the front, her features soft and slightly pointed like some fairy creature, with wide, almond-shaped hazel eyes that sparked even across the distance of the room that separated them. 

Corin’s heart stopped completely as recognition ignited every inch of his being, his whole body going stiff. 

Imelda.

---

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Imelda Merritt, a spirited young woman with a passion for writing, finds herself thrust into the spotlight when her work catches the eye of a renowned literary critic known only by his pen name. As their professional relationship blossoms into a forbidden romance, Imelda is swept into a whirlwind of emotions with this tempting man whose mysterious past holds the key to her deepest desires…

With a shocking betrayal threatening to tear her heart apart, she must find the strength to forge her own path and reclaim her destiny.

Baron Corin Langford, a respected literary critic known only by his pseudonym Prospero, is instantly captivated by Imelda’s raw talent and fierce independence. But, as he becomes entangled in a scandalous affair with the very writer he’s sworn to critique, he risks everything he holds dear. Haunted by his past and torn between duty and desire, Corin must confront the truth of his feelings for Imelda before it’s too late.

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