That girl was a luxury she could no longer afford.
The carriage door opened. A footman, his face impassive, lowered the steps.
Helena gathered her gray wool cloak around her and descended, her feet landing on the gravel of her new home, her new prison.
The air was colder out here, and she drew it into her lungs, a sharp, cleansing sting.
She did not look back at the carriage.
She looked forward at the massive oak doors of Ravensdale.
The doors opened before she reached them, swung inward by a butler who looked as ancient and weathered as the house itself. He was tall and thin, his spine bent into a permanent questioning curve.
“Miss Withorp,” he said.
His voice was a dry rustle, like dead leaves skittering across flagstones.
“His Grace is expecting you. I am Hemlock.”
He did not smile.
No one, it seemed, smiled at Ravensdale.
She followed him into the great hall.
It was a cavern of shadow and cold. A vast black-and-white marble floor stretched into the gloom, its checkerboard pattern dizzying. High above, the vaulted ceiling was lost in darkness.
A fire struggled for life in a hearth large enough to roast an ox, its meager flames doing little to combat the profound chill of the hall. The air was thick with the scent of beeswax and something else, something like old grief.
A man was standing by the fireplace, one hand resting on the marble mantel.
He turned as she entered.
The Duke of Blackwood.
He was taller than she had expected, and leaner. He was dressed entirely in black, from his polished boots to the severe cut of his coat and the dark silk of his cravat. It was not mourning dress, not precisely, but the absolute absence of color was a statement in itself.
His hair was as black as his coat, raven black, and his face was a collection of sharp aristocratic angles: a strong jaw, a straight nose, and a mouth that was a thin, unyielding line.
But it was his eyes that held her.
They were the color of the sea on a stormy day, a turbulent, restless gray that seemed to see everything and reveal nothing.
He was thirty-two years old, and he looked both older and younger. Older in the weary set of his shoulders, younger in the raw, unguarded pain that flickered for a moment in his eyes before being extinguished.
He inclined his head, a fractional movement.
“Miss Withorp.”
His voice was a low baritone, as devoid of warmth as the rest of him.
“Your Grace,” she replied, her own voice steady.
She would not be intimidated.
She had sold her life, but not her dignity.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, amplified by the echoing emptiness of the hall. He made no move to come closer, to take her hand, or to offer any word of welcome.