Three sisters were sent to Aldridge Hall to win a duke’s fortune — one was prepared to charm him, one was the backup, and Nora only wanted to disappear. She hid behind a curtain to avoid being noticed, but the Duke found her first — and from that moment, he never looked at her sisters again.

PART 3

The heat and noise of the drawing room hit her like a physical blow. Nora kept her head down, melted into the crowd, and didn’t look back — not until she was halfway across the floor, and something made her glance at the burgundy drape.

A large, masculine hand parted the fabric through the narrow slit.

Nathaniel Reed was watching her. He was no longer bored. He was looking at her the way a hunter looks at a scent he’s just caught.

Lady Edith’s sharp eyes found her a heartbeat later, and her mother began marching through the crowd, furious.

Nora didn’t care. Her heel was bleeding. Her corset was still a torture device. Her family was still broke. And a duke had just looked at her like she was the only interesting thing in the room.

The guest chamber assigned to the Montgomery women sat in the north wing — pale blue and silver, beautiful, and freezing, the fireplace smoking and the sash windows practically a gale. The moment the heavy door clicked shut, Edith’s fingers dug into Nora’s forearm.

“Where did you go?” Her voice was a harsh, terrified hiss — never a shout. Yelling could be heard through walls, and the Montgomerys could not afford to be loud. “I spent an hour looking for you. Lady Shelby asked if you’d taken ill. Do you know how damaging an impression of frailty is?”

“I was behind a curtain.” Nora pulled her arm free, skin throbbing where her mother’s nails had bitten in.

Edith stared at her, the lines around her mouth hardening into bitter grooves. “While your sister fights for our survival, you play hide-and-seek with the drapery.”

“I was suffocating, Mother. My heel was bleeding. I removed myself so I wouldn’t faint on the Duke’s Persian rug.”

Edith waved this away — physical pain was irrelevant, survival was everything — and turned her frantic energy on Rosalind, standing perfectly still in the center of the room like a shattered porcelain doll.

“Unlace her, Celia.”

Celia’s trembling fingers worked the silk cords. When the gown fell away and the brutal canvas corset loosened, Rosalind let out a ragged, whistling breath and slumped forward, bracing her hands on her knees. Her linen shift was soaked through. Deep red welts dug into her ribs where the whalebone had compressed her organs for six hours.

Nora felt a surge of fierce, protective pity. She hated the game. She didn’t hate her sister. Rosalind was simply the best soldier they had, sent to the front lines in silk armor.

“Did he smile, Rosalind?” Edith paced. “When you spoke of the hounds, did he smile?”

“He nodded.” Rosalind’s voice was hollow. “Said his gamekeeper handles the breeding.”

“Did he look at your mouth?”

“I don’t know, Mother.” Her eyes closed. “He looked through me. Like I was a pane of glass.”

“You are not glass. You are a mirror. You reflect back exactly what he wishes to see.” Edith lifted her daughter’s chin. “Tomorrow, the promenade to the lake. You’ll wear the peach muslin. You will be vibrant. You will not let him look through you again.”

Nora turned away, quietly unlacing her own ruined bodice, not asking for help. The cool drafty air hit her damp skin. Her ribs mirrored Rosalind’s — bruised, red, tender. This was what the world never saw. The men in drawing rooms only saw tiny waists and effortless grace. They never saw the bleeding heels, the desperate calculations made in freezing bedrooms at midnight.

She thought of Nathaniel in the dark alcove. They smile with their mouths, but their eyes are doing arithmetic. He’d seen the machinery beneath the silk. He’d seen it in her, too — and hadn’t looked away.

Morning delivered a heavy, bruised sky over Somerset — no rain yet, only its threat, pressing on the manicured lawns. The breakfast room was psychological warfare disguised as a meal. Thirty young women pushed eggs delicately around their plates; to eat heartily was vulgar, to have an appetite unladylike.

Nora sat at the far end, entirely out of her mother’s line of sight, and quietly demolished a plate of kippers, three sausages, and buttered bread. She was starving, and she had no intention of fading away.

Nathaniel was absent. His footman murmured that his grace was in the study with the estate manager. A collective sigh of disappointment rippled down the table — the peacocks pining for an audience that hadn’t come.

As soon as she finished her tea, Nora slipped out the side door. She had no interest in the needlepoint and blood-sport compliments of the morning room. She wanted the library.

She found it behind heavy brass-studded doors — a room that smelled of beeswax, old leather, and faint woodsmoke. Shelves stretched two stories high, reached by iron spiral staircases. Magnificent. Quiet. She pulled a worn volume of Greek myths from a shelf and turned to find a window seat.

“If you’re looking for the poetry, it’s in the east wing.” A rough voice. “My grandfather thought poetry frivolous and banished it.”

Nora jumped. The book slipped from her grasp — and a large hand caught it midair.

Nathaniel stood there, materialized from between the shelves, dressed now in a simple linen shirt with rolled sleeves, forearms corded with muscle, a smudge of ink on his thumb. He looked less like a duke and more like a man who worked for a living.

He looked at the book, then at her. “You didn’t give me your name last night.”

Nora stood frozen in the narrow aisle, dust motes drifting in the light. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It mattered to me.” He handed the book back. His fingers brushed hers — warm, faintly calloused. Heat traveled up her arm. She pulled the book to her chest like a shield.

“Nora Montgomery.” No point in lying. “I’m Rosalind’s sister.”

Recognition flickered in his dark eyes. “Ah. The beauty in the pale blue silk. The one who dropped her fan with the precision of a military tactician.”

Nora’s jaw tightened. “She’s fighting for her life, your grace. Try not to hold it against her.”

He leaned against the shelf, arms crossed, exhaustion carved into his face. “I don’t hold it against her. I understand the mechanics of the market. It just makes for miserable conversation.” He studied her. “You’re not fighting for your life.”

“I’m the third daughter,” Nora said, a blunt, cynical edge in her voice. “My family has capital enough to launch one of us. Rosalind is the capital ship. Celia is the dinghy. I am the ballast — here to make the room look full and stay out of the way.”

“The ballast.” His mouth twitched. “That’s a terrible way to view yourself.”

“It’s a practical way. It prevents disappointment.”

He didn’t laugh. He just looked at her, the aristocratic veneer stripping away — the same searching, unsettling look he’d given her behind the curtain.

“Come here,” he said, and didn’t wait for her agreement. He turned and walked toward a massive oak desk buried under a snowdrift of papers, maps, and leather-bound ledgers.

Nora hesitated. Then she followed.

He picked up a thick ledger bound in scuffed green leather and dropped it heavily onto the desk, flipping it open. Cramped, aggressive handwriting. Columns of numbers marching down the margins.

“Do you know what this is?”