child!” She reached out a gnarled hand to pat her shoulder in an awkward and unconvincing display of motherly concern.
“You’re a whore, my dear. Born into it right and proper, though I was married to your father for all that. You’d best get used to the idea because you can never be aught else. You’ve no breeding, no property, and there’s no chance any decent man will have you. A girl like you won’t ever be married and who would want it? Your own father was a useless bastard. But for all that you’re a rare beauty, with his raven hair and very fine eyes indeed. And you’ve charm and a quick wit. Such gifts are wasted on a wife. She’s no need of them to catch a man, provided she has money, and she’s nay allowed to make use of them once she’s married. Property she is. Broodmare and slave.”
Hope was too shocked to speak. It was the longest conversation she’d ever had with this stranger who’d once been her mother, and it was not the awkward declaration of love she’d both dreaded and longed for. She blinked back tears, feeling like the world’s biggest fool. She didn’t keep me safe to protect me, but to add to my value. She wanted to feel contempt and hatred but she couldn’t move past a soul-killing pain. I should have known. I should have known.
Her mother stroked her hair as she spoke, taking no notice of how it made her flinch. Is this how she recruits new girls? Stroking and cooing like a beady-eyed pigeon? Is this all I am to her?
“Now look here, at the pretty dress his lordship has sent you!”
The dress, with its white satin underskirt and sleeves shot through with silver braid, looked like a wedding dress but for the indecently low-cut bodice. She knew what it meant. There would be no prince for her. No choice. No happy ending.
“Which lord?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Let’s leave that as a surprise for now. It will add authenticity to the undertaking.” Taking her silence for acceptance, her mother rubbed her hands together and nodded briskly. “Good girl! The anticipation is building, child. We’re to have an auction tonight and you are the prize. There’s naught to fear. You’ve seen enough of what happens here to know that, and only my best gentlemen will take part. Remember what all the other girls have told you and use it well. You’ll fetch a fine price, my dear. Half to you and half to the house. You’ll be off to a grand start in life. No daughter of mine will be a common whore. You’ll be a rich man’s mistress. You’re a lovely girl. Sharp and lively, too. You’ll climb higher than I ever dreamed or dared.”
There must have been something—a flash in her eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin that hinted at rebellion—because when her mother left she locked the door behind her and positioned a doorman in the corridor.
They bathed and perfumed her, and then tamed and combed her unruly hair so it fell like a dark silken river to her waist. They ushered her into a paneled room where her mother and two of her “ladies” sat in attendance, as if she were a bride. There were at least five gentlemen present, though all she could see were their boots. She kept her eyes on the floor, willing them all to disappear, imagining if she but closed her eyes and opened them again the day would start anew.
But it didn’t, and she stood red-faced and mute as they joked and murmured, waiting for the bidding to begin. There was no doubt as to the outcome. Sir Charles Edgemont would have her. ’Twas he who’d provided the dress. Nevertheless, her mother knew an auction would raise the price he paid for her “dowry” and had refused to spare her the humiliation when several hundred pounds might be at stake. Two of the ladies stripped her of her bodice and overskirt as the bidding heated up, leaving her tearstained and trembling, standing in her shift.
Inflamed by the sight of her and determined no other man should see naked what was meant to be his, Edgemont rose and bid two thousand pounds, raising howls of protest from the other gentlemen but effectively quelling the game. She looked at him then, from under her lashes. His hair was dark and close-cropped, interspersed here and there with flecks of grey. His eyes were cold, his face harsh, his jaw square.
Furious at being duped when he’d expected a private negotiation, but too proud to back out in front of his friends, Sir Charles took her wrist in a cruel grip and jerked her toward the door, stopping before he left to toss a heavy purse on the table. “This will have to do for now, madam. I had not expected the price to soar so high. My man will bring you the rest tomorrow.”
“But of course, my lord. You are known throughout London as a man who pays his debts. I shall await your pleasure. In the meantime, take the girl and enjoy her.”
It was clear the auction had raised far more than even she had anticipated, and the poorly concealed smirk on her face and hard-edged gleam of avarice in her eyes almost made Hope retch. Instead, she placed a delicate hand on Sir Charles’s chest and leaned into him, shivering, tucking her head against his shoulder. His lips twisted in annoyance, but he released his grip on her wrist and removed his coat, wrapping it around her. She spoke for the first time since entering the room.
“You must only give her one half of it, my lord. For the rest was promised to me.”
“You’re as greedy and canny as your mother, girl,” he growled. “If you’re a virgin still, I’m Archbishop of Canterbury. But I’ll have my money’s worth from you nonetheless.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy. Amidst her mother’s furious squawking and the laughter of the other men, a grim-faced Sir Charles bit back a reluctant chuckle and bundled her out the door and into his waiting coach.
The day she met her own true love was the day her mother sold her. It was the day she lost all hope of him. The day her childhood ended. She never saw him again. She never spoke to her mother again, and she stopped believing in happy ever after. Her mother had named her Hope. It seemed a cruel jest, but she did the only thing she could do. She took the name and made it a talisman. She did what she needed to keep her own hopes alive. The day she left her mother’s doorstep she stopped dreaming about what couldn’t be, and started planning for what might. The only thing she couldn’t stop was asking herself one question. What kind of parent puts a price on innocence and sells their child like a slave? It still had the power to steal her breath.
Nevertheless, what started as a cruel betrayal and felt like the end of the world was the start of a journey that transformed her into a well-spoken, smartly dressed, well-educated young woman. An accomplished dancer with a smattering of French and the attention of a monarch. How dramatic and shortsighted we are as children. Along the way she let go of her fantasies of true love and imaginary princes, and found herself a real one, with all his flaws and imperfections. If from time to time her heart ached for something more, for someone else, no one knew it but her.
CHAPTER ONE
Cressly Manor, Nottinghamshire, 1662
HE DARTED AROUND a corner, his pursuers snarling at his heels. It was dark, the sky an impenetrable blanket smothering a ruined town blackened and seared by fire. Pockets of angry flames licked the sky and bodies littered the street. Those who’d survived the inferno and escaped the sword huddled in cellars, wells and ditches, hushed and trembling, waiting for the storming of booted feet to pass them by.
He sprinted toward the town center and ducked down a secluded street that was little more than an alley. There was no moon and no illumination other than the reddish glow of torchlight. The path he’d chosen led nowhere but a wall too high to climb. He’d reached a dead end.
Straightening, he turned to face his pursuers. They slowed and stopped, suddenly wary, something in his face, his stance, turning anticipation into confusion and fear. He growled low in his throat. Ferocious. Triumphant. This was the moment he’d been training for, waiting for, living for. They stumbled over each other, slowly backing away; all but their leader, who seemed oddly bemused. They’d understood too late. They were the prey.
He might have got off two shots with his pistols in those first moments of stunned surprise, but this wasn’t an act of war. This required intimacy. This was personal. His eyes flashed and metal sparked as he drew a gleaming sword, attacking with a lightning-quick savagery