Tied With a Bow

mind, he understood Amherst’s offer as fair and reasonable, even generous. But his soul rebelled at the ultimatum, the choice between abject obedience and penury.
    Knuckle under or be cut off. Cast out. Again.
    Insurrection flared in Lucien’s blood. Pride hardened his voice. He would not plead with the earl for understanding. “I’ll be damned first.”
    “Not damned. But condemned, nevertheless, to a significant decline in your standard of living.” Amherst tilted his head. “Possibly even to debtors’ prison.”
    “Unless I marry,” Lucien threw at him.
    Amherst stared as if a second head had sprouted suddenly from his shoulders. “Marry?”
    Lucien clamped his teeth together. It was a stupid idea.
    Or was it?
    He needed money. He wanted his freedom. There was no way he was giving up the little house on Maiden Lane even for a hundred estates.
    “If I must woo for favors, I would rather court a woman.” Lucien forced his lips to curve in a mocking smile. “Unlike you, I do not doubt my ability to convince a wife to tolerate my flagrant excesses.”
    The library was very silent.
    Bowing deeply, he left without another word.
    And without looking back.
     
     
    MOULTON HALL, ENGLAND, TWO MONTHS LATER
     
    Miss Julia Basing leaned across Aimée’s battered dressing table to tweak at a butter-colored curl in the mirror. She was a pretty girl, a true English beauty despite her half-French mama, but this afternoon she did not appear at all pleased with the image in the glass.
    “This mirror is too small,” she complained. “And very spotty. How ever do you see what Finch has done with your hair?”
    Her cousin, Aimée Blanchard, sat on the bed, darning. The small chamber’s only chair was presently occupied by Julia, who had gone to the unprecedented effort of climbing three flights of stairs to find her. Aimée doubted Julia had ever even seen the servants’ quarters before. She thought of pointing out that Finch hardly had time to dress Aimée’s hair in addition to all her other duties. But since she did not wish to criticize the lady’s maid, she merely shrugged. “One accustoms oneself.”
    Julia left off fussing with her curls to glance over her shoulder. “You truly do not mind, Amy? Giving up your room for the holidays?”
    Aimée summoned a smile. It wasn’t Julia’s fault that she had been banished to the attics to make room for Lady Basing’s other guests. Aimée had learned upon her arrival eight years ago that as a poor female relation she existed to serve the whims and convenience of others, to earn her place in her cousin’s house—if not her cousin’s affections—by acting as an unpaid, invisible drudge. “Indeed, I do not. And it is only for a little while,” she said reassuringly.
    Though which of them she was attempting to cheer she could not say.
    “That’s true.” Julia brightened. “Anyway, it’s quiet up here. Mama says you will be more comfortable away from the noise.”
    Aimée’s hand tightened on the darning needle. Her new quarters were quiet. No one of consequence would hear her if she screamed. The maids at least shared a bed, which offered them some protection. Aimée had taken to sleeping with the chair propped against the door and her sewing shears tucked under her pillow.
    “But I told Mama you must come down to dinner sometimes and not hide yourself away as you usually do,” Julia continued, blithely unaware of the realities of survival on the fourth floor. “I want you to meet him.”
    Aimée pricked her finger. “Him?”
    Julia dimpled. “Mr. Hartfell.”
    Aimée blinked, unable to contain her surprise. She had heard the name, of course. Hartfell’s sire, the Earl of Amherst, lived half a day’s journey away—not near enough to be counted a neighbor but certainly close enough to be topic of gossip. As for Mr. Hartfell himself, Julia could talk of little else since the family’s return from the Naesmyths’ house party a few weeks ago. Mr. Hartfell was tall—much taller than Lord Echlin, who had almost offered for Julia in London this Season. And handsome, more handsome even than Sir Andrew Waugh, who had danced two sets with Julia at her come out and had such a delightfully wicked reputation. And charming, far more charming than Tom Whitmore from the neighboring estate, who treated Julia with the blunt familiarity of friends who had grown up together.
    Used to tales of her cousin’s conquests, Aimée had received her confidences with a