"Rosamund need not trouble to listen," said Lady Sedgwick. "She broke every one of those rules before she was 20."Eleven women in the blue drawing room at Raxford Hall turned to look at her.Rosamund Penrose—seven-and-twenty, unmarried, and companion to her cousin for six years—sat on the hard chair by the door. It was the only chair in the room without a cushion; her aunt had chosen it for her.What was required? Miss Araminta Wexford held the paper. Nothing further. The Dowager Duchess had ordered a copy made for every young lady in the house. Miss Wexford had volunteered to read hers aloud slowly, as if it were scripture."The fourth," she read, "'She shall not laugh aloud.'"Rosamund laughed. It was not a polite laugh; it was the laugh her aunt said could be heard in the next parish. It went up to the painted ceiling and came down again, and nobody in the room breathed.She had expected to be overlooked at Raxford. She had expected to carry Clarissa's shawl and sit behind Clarissa at dinner like a second shadow. She had not expected to be held up before a house party as everything a duchess must not be."Is something amusing, Miss Penrose?" asked Miss Wexford."Only the arithmetic," said Rosamund. "My aunt says I have broken all ten. You have only read us four."The room went silent. Mrs. Wexford's fan stopped halfway open. Clarissa stared at her own gloves. Lady Sedgwick's mouth became a single straight line—the line it made when the coal merchant sent his bill.I'll regret this. Rosamund looked at the grate. Worth the coal, I think, she said to herself.At the far window, a man turned round. He was tall and lean in a dark blue coat gone pale at the cuffs where rains had rubbed it. His hair was auburn and cropped short, his face weather-browned. His eyes were dark blue, the color of ink before it dries. He was one-and-thirty, master of 40,000 acres and the Raxford Hunt, and unmarried after nine seasons of his grandmother's trying. He was Ambrose Alderton, Duke of Raxford. He had written the list. He was the only person in the room who had not been listening to it.He crossed to the bell and pulled it once. "Coal," he said to the footman who came.Then he left without a word to anyone."Well," said Mrs. Wexford. "Well."Rosamund's room was at the top of the east stair under the leads. It smelled of damp plaster, cold tallow, and a welcome that had not been extended."Rosamund does not feel the cold," Lady Sedgwick had told the housekeeper on their arrival.Rosamund felt the cold very much; she had simply stopped mentioning it.Her aunt came up at 5:00. She did not sit. "You laughed," she said. "In front of the Dowager Duchess, and in front of him.""He was not listening, Aunt.""Everyone was listening." She picked up the single candle from the washstand. "You have burned half of this already. Candles at Raxford are not ours to waste."