Prologue
Somewhere in the North of England
1841
Marietta Greentree opened swollen eyelids and peered miserably across the small, cluttered room. Her bag lay on the floor, clothing spilling from it. Among the froth of undergarments was the fine silk nightgown she had thought to wear on her wedding night. Her gaze slid away, found the light that trickled through a narrow window. There were sounds drifting up from the stableyard. Grooms, servants, employees who worked and lived at the inn—the voices of those going about their daily routine. Everything normal.
Except for Marietta, whose life could never be the same again.
Gerard Jones, the man she had believed she loved, the man she had trusted, the man who had persuaded her to run off with him to Gretna Green, was gone. He had left her here, in an impoverished inn on the road to the Scottish border.
Her mother, Lady Greentree, had warned her, her sister Francesca had warned her, but she hadn’t listened. His unsuitability in their eyes had only made him the more appealing to her—in her youth and romantic idealism, she had been certain that she knew best. They just didn’t understand, she told herself. This was love as she had always dreamed it to be! So when Lady Greentree refused to allow the banns to be called, Marietta thought her heart was broken and made the desperate decision to agree to run away with him. He loved her, and she loved him—surely that was all that mattered? She told herself that when her family realized how happy they were together, they would see their mistake and all would be forgiven.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Marietta groaned and covered her face with the pillow.
Gerard hadn’t loved her at all. He had wanted her body, or perhaps not even that. Perhaps he was the sort of character who found his enjoyment in destroying a young girl’s heart and reputation. He was the sort of cad who had been secretly laughing at her all the time as he lured her into his trap. And she was too silly to know it.
And yet…was being warm and loving and trusting so silly? Marietta had been in love with love for as long as she could remember, and Gerard had seemed a natural progression. She had fallen in love with him, or had she? Was she simply in love with the idea of being in love with him? She had imagined herself Isolde to his Tristan, Genevieve to his Lancelot.
Her heart was numb. She squirmed with the knowledge that she had been putty in his hands—naïve putty, but putty all the same. Gerard had come to her room last night, pleading to be allowed to make her his in truth—that was what he had said, “mine in truth,” just like a melodrama. Indeed, as he kissed her and wrapped his arms about her, she had felt as if the entire moment was slightly unreal. Delightful, yes, but dreamlike.
Briefly she had heard a serious voice, a little like her mother’s, telling her that what Gerard was saying sounded suspiciously like flummery. But then he was kissing her and saying he loved her and only her, and…Her mind skipped forward, finding the scene all too humiliating. In her favor, she had protested a little—a very little—but she was young and inexperienced and Gerard was neither. In fact he had not been the gentle and caring lover she had imagined he would be—she had felt nothing in his arms beyond the creeping onset of doubt and dismay. She had simply wanted it to be over.
With burning cheeks she remembered how Gerard had risen from the bed, afterwards. Anxiously, she had said something about their wedding, about how she hoped her mother would forgive her—already deep in her heart the golden image of the make-believe Gerard was beginning to tarnish.
He had laughed at her. “Wedding?” he said. He began to taunt her, informing her in a smug voice that he had never intended to marry her. He had heard that she was the natural daughter of Aphrodite, a famous London courtesan, and he had wanted to sample her firsthand. And really, dear me, he’d had better.
At first she had been too shocked to take it in. She tried to smile. He must be joking her, she told herself, he must be playing a cruel prank. But he kept on, and slowly, surely, the horrible truth had sunk into her brain.
Suddenly Marietta felt as if she was looking back upon herself from a distance, as if at a complete stranger whose pitiable actions were seriously flawed. When Gerard had closed the door behind him, abandoning her to her fate, he had taken more from her than her reputation. He had stolen something innocent and sweet and trusting, and Marietta doubted it would ever return. She did not want it to return. She swore that she would never place herself in such a vulnerable position again.
With a wince, aching in mind and heart and body, Marietta sat up. She gazed bleakly about her. It was done. They had spent the night together in the same inn. In the same room.
That was bad, very bad.
And yet…Marietta sat up straighter, something of her old spark returning. She was a long way from Greentree Manor—this inn was well beyond the sphere of her family or those they knew. Had anyone seen her arrive with Gerard? She did not think so. Perhaps she could escape Gerard’s cruel trap after all, at least that would be a small victory over him.
Melancholy lifted as new hope surged through her. The situation could be salvaged. No one but she and Gerard knew the truth, and he was long gone. She doubted he would show his face again—he was too cowardly for that. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she could make her way home incognito, no one would be the wiser. She would beg the forgiveness of her family, allow Mr. Jardine, her mother’s secretary and family friend, to make up some clever story to account for her short absence. No one need ever know that Lady Greentree’s second daughter had fallen into the clutches of Gerard Jones…
The c
hamber door opened and a tall dark shadow stood there. The face was starkly familiar, and the mean little eyes were gleeful. With sinking heart Marietta recognized Lady Greentree’s former estate manager, Rawlings. Her mother had sacked him years ago, and he had always resented her for it. What shocking bad luck had brought him to this place at this moment?
“Miss Marietta Greentree!” he crowed. “I thought it was you last night when I saw you climbing the stairs, and then this morning when I heard one of the maids say a young lady had been left high and dry…Aye, I see you’re surprised to see me. I warned her ladyship many years ago that she was bringing trouble on herself when she took you and your sisters into her home. I was right.”
His smug self-satisfaction was plain to see—he hadn’t even knocked in his eagerness to discredit her. But Marietta knew all depended upon winning him to her side, and she swallowed what pride she had left.
“You won’t…won’t tell anyone?” she managed, despising herself for the pleading note in her voice.
“’Course not,” he said, “wouldn’t dream of it.”
She knew at once he had no intention of keeping quiet. She should have saved her breath. In a day everyone in the district would know her misfortune, in a week everyone in the county, in a month it would even have trickled down to London.
Marietta Greentree was well and truly ruined.
Chapter 1
Vauxhall Gardens, London
1845
The gas-filled balloon bobbed sluggishly in the breeze, as if seeking to escape its tethers, reaching toward the distant blue sky. The wicker basket, fastened to the balloon by an iron band and cords, appeared smaller than she remembered, while the crowd gathering to watch the ascent appeared larger.
Marietta wasn’t afraid.
No, not at all. She was exhilarated!
She had been planning this outing all week, ever since she had come to Vauxhall Gardens with Mr. Jardine, and for the first time seen a balloon ascent over London. Her breath had caught in sheer wonder and she had begged Mr. Jardine to allow her to pay her money and become a passenger. But he had refused even to contemplate it.
“What would your mother, Lady Greentree, say if I allowed you to do something so dangerous?”
“She would understand that fear has no place in our new world of science and discovery.”
“That’s all very well, Miss Marietta, but it doesn’t alter my decision. You’re a single young lady and it would not be proper—”
“Psht!” It was a sound she had heard Aphrodite make—Aphrodite the famous courtesan and her real mother. “What does that matter? My reputation is already in tatters, you know that as well as I. If it wasn’t ruined long ago by being one of Aphrodite’s daughters, then it was certainly ruined by Gerard Jones.”
“Your sister Vivianna doesn’t believe that for a moment—”
“Then she is deluding herself, Mr. Jardine. Vivianna believes she can make everyone better, but she can’t repair me. I am ruined and there is no chance I will ever make a good marriage. I have resigned myself to it. Going up in a gas balloon can make no possible difference to that plain fact.”
“Whether or not that is so, I won’t let you put your life in danger in one of those…those contraptions, Miss Marietta!”
However Marietta was not the sort of girl to be easily thwarted when she had made up her mind about something. At home in Yorkshire, at Greentree Manor, she and her sisters had been allowed a great deal of freedom—to her own cost, unfortunately—and although Marietta knew that things were different in London, she could not see the point of being fettered. Especially when it could make no possible difference to her prospects of finding a suitor, which were already nil.