Chapter One
Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1517
“Straighten your spine.” Her father’s voice cut through the silence. “You’ll fetch nothing if you slouch like a kitchen maid.”
Fetch. As though I am a hound he is bringing to market.
She straightened anyway, because she would not give these men the satisfaction of seeing her cowed. Through the carriage window, she counted the arriving conveyances. Six coaches, fine enough to bear noble crests she did not recognize. Eight men on horseback, their clothing marking them as wealthy. Scots, some of them, if the plaids half-visible beneath their cloaks were any indication.
Her father had been pleased about that. “Highland coin spends as well as English,” he’d said three days before, when he’d finally told her why they were making that journey.
Not that he’d used the word auction. He’d called it a “gathering of interested parties.” As though wrapping ugliness in silk made it any less vile.
She had learned the true nature of it by listening at doors, as she’d learned most things worth knowing in her father’s house. The servants whispered when they thought she couldn’t hear.
“Daughters sold to the highest bidder while their fathers drank wine and called it business.”
“I hear he is taking poor Lady Elinor there to be sold.”
Shocked at the servant’s words, she’d hurried to confront her father.
She had found him in his study, a glass of claret already in his hand though it was barely past noon. When she had knocked, he had not responded, neither had he looked up when she had entered.
“Father, I need to speak with you.”
“Then speak.” He turned a page, his finger tracing a column of figures marked in red. Debts, Elinor realized.
Her hands twisted in her skirts, but she kept her voice strong. “There are rumors that you mean to take me to an auction. That you intend to—” The words stuck in her throat like shards of glass.
“To sell you?” He looked up then, his expression utterly calm. “Yes.”
The simple confirmation struck harder than a blow. She had expected denials, anger at her eavesdropping, perhaps even shame. Not this casual acknowledgment.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am entirely serious.” He took a long drink, his eyes never leaving her face. “We need coin, Elinor. Despite you blissfully indulging in your everyday luxuries, the estate is drowning in debt. The creditors are circling like vultures. And you are the only thing of value I have left.”
“Me?! I am your daughter!”
“You are an asset.” He set down his glass with deliberate care. “One I have fed and clothed for three and twenty years. It is time you provided a return on that investment.”
When she’d protested, his hand had cracked across her face so fast she hadn’t seen it coming.
“You will do as you’re told,” he’d said softly, “or I will drag you there in chains if I must.”
Her mother had stood in the hallway, pale and silent as a ghost. Their eyes had met. Her mother had looked away first. No help would come from that quarter. It never did.
Now, the manor loomed ahead, its stone façade grey and unwelcoming against the winter sky. Elinor’s hands were numb inside her gloves, partly from the cold and mostly from dread, she was sure.
After three days, the bruise on her cheek had faded to a dull yellow. She’d covered it with powder that morning, her hands steady despite the tremor in her chest.
Let them see a lady, not a victim. Let them see someone worth more than the coin they’d pay.
Though what difference it would make, she did not know.
“You’ll do as you’re told,” Her father’s voice cut into her thoughts, startling her back to the present. His breath carried across the small carriage distance, reeking of stale wine. “You’ll smile. You’ll curtsy. And you’ll go with whichever man pays the most. We need the coin, girl, so do your own part and save the family estate.”
He’d said it as though she should be grateful. As though being sold like a mare at Smithfield was an honor she didn’t deserve.
The carriage lurched to a stop, jolting her forward. Her father merely gave her a cutting glance before descending first, not bothering to offer his hand. He never did. Elinor gathered her skirts and stepped down onto the frozen ground, her eyes sweeping the manor’s entrance. Light spilled from the windows. Men’s voices drifted out: laughter, the clink of glasses. The sounds of commerce.
Do any of you have daughters? Will you think of them tonight while you stand in rooms like this, deciding which girl is worth the most coin?
“Lord Royse!”
The voice made her stomach clench before she even turned to see who spoke it.
Sir Edmund Langley strode toward them, his crimson cloak billowing behind him like a banner of war. His face was flushed, his jaw tight, and his blue eyes were fixed on her father with an intensity that made her take an instinctive step back.
Not fear. Calculation. Edmund Langley angry was Edmund Langley unpredictable.
“Langley.” Her father’s tone was flat, dismissive. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“Did you not?” Edmund’s smile was sharp as a blade. “When I heard whispers of this gathering, I thought surely I had misheard. Surely Lord Thomas Royse would not be so foolish as to parade his lovely daughter before every fortune-hunter and titled scoundrel north of London.”
“My affairs are no concern of yours.”
“They became my concern when you refused my suit.” Edmund’s gaze shifted to Elinor, and she met it without flinching.
Let him see that she was not some trembling thing to be fought over.
“I offered marriage to your daughter, my lord. An honorable arrangement. Alliance with my family’s name and resources. And you spat on it.”
“Your offer was inadequate.”
“Inadequate?” Edmund’s voice rose, his control slipping. “I offered you a generous settlement, Royse. Lands in Sussex. Connections at court. A bride price that would have cleared half your debts, with the remainder held in trust for your daughter’s security. What more could you possibly want?”
Elinor’s chest tightened. So that was why her father had refused. The trust. The protections Edmund’s marriage contract would have provided, protections that would have kept the money from her father’s hands.
Her mother had wept with relief when Edmund came calling, had spoken of it as deliverance. But Elinor had seen the way Edmund looked at her. Like a possession he intended to own completely. Marriage to him would have been trading one prison for another.
“Your offer,” her father said coldly, “came with too many conditions. Too many restrictions on how the funds could be used.”
“Restrictions meant to protect your daughter!”
“I don’t need you to protect her. I need coin.” Her father’s fingers tightened on her elbow. “And this gathering will provide it without your meddling contracts and trust provisions.”
The truth settled over Elinor like a wet blanket. Her father saw only limits. The portions of the bride price he could not immediately touch. The funds set aside for her use rather than his.
This gathering offered no such protections. Just a sale, clean and simple. Here, he could sell her outright and walk away with a purse heavy enough to pay his debts and keep him in wine for years, while she became the property of whoever paid could afford his price.
Edmund’s voice dropped to something dangerous. “You would sell her like livestock rather than see her properly wed?”
“I would see her placed where she brings the greatest advantage to her family.” Her father’s hand closed around her elbow, fingers digging through the fabric of her sleeve hard enough to bruise. “Now step aside. We have business within.”
Chapter Two
“No.”
The single word was spoken quietly, but it stopped her father mid-step. Edmund moved to block their path, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
Elinor’s pulse quickened. Men and their pride. Men and their swords. And she would likely be caught between them.
“You will not take her inside,” Edmund said.
“I will do as I please with my own daughter.”
“She should be mine.” Edmund’s composure cracked, and something wild showed through. Something possessive that made Elinor’s skin crawl. “I made my intentions clear. You had no right.”
“I have every right!” Her father’s grip tightened until she could feel each individual finger pressing into her arm. “She is mine to give or sell as I see fit. You had your chance, Langley, and your purse was not heavy enough. Now move.”
He yanked her forward. She stumbled, catching herself against his arm.
“No!” Edmund lunged forward, his hand reaching for her other arm. “You’ll not—”
Her father jerked her back. Edmund’s fingers caught her wrist, closing around it like a manacle.
And suddenly she was trapped between them, pulled in opposite directions.
“Let her go!” Edmund snarled.
“Release her, you fool!” her father countered.
They were speaking in loud voices now, their faces inches apart, and neither seemed to notice or care that they were tearing her apart between them. Her father’s nails dug crescents into her skin. Edmund’s grip was iron around her wrist. She tried to pull away from both, tried to wrench herself free, but they were too strong, too focused on each other to acknowledge her struggle.
“She is not a prize to be auctioned!” Edmund’s voice was righteous, as though he were her savior rather than another man trying to possess her.
“She is whatever I say she is!”
“Stop it. You’re hurting me!”
But her father responded by yanking hard. She pitched forward, her feet slipping on the frozen ground. Edmund pulled back, refusing to release her. Her head snapped to the side.
And then her father’s fist landed hard across her face.
The blow was not meant for her. She knew that in the split second before pain exploded across her mouth. He had been reaching for Edmund, trying to shove him away, but she had been between them. His ring, the heavy gold signet he wore on his right hand, caught her lip, tearing the delicate skin.
She tasted blood at the exact moment the world went very quiet. Not silent. She could still hear Edmund’s ragged breathing, her father’s muttered curse. But distant, as though she were underwater.
Both men froze, their hands still locked around her arms. Warmth trickled down her chin. She raised her free hand to her mouth, her gloved fingers coming away dark and wet.
“Elinor…” her father began, his voice taking on that false note of concern he used when servants were watching.
She looked at him. Not at his mouth forming empty apologies, but at his eyes. At the calculation already returning to them, sharp and cold as winter. He was not sorry. He was assessing. Wondering if the split lip would lower her value. Wondering if he should take her inside now or wait for the bleeding to stop.
A wave of hatred so pure it nearly stole her breath rolled through her chest. She was about to tell him what she thought of his actions, when the sharp voice sounded from behind them.
“Unhand her.”
Deep, steady, and utterly calm in the midst of this chaos.
All three of them turned.
The man stood only five paces away. Tall and lean, with dark hair tied back and a face that might have been handsome if it were not so carefully expressionless. He wore dark clothing, practical rather than ornamental, and though she could see no crest or colors, everything about him spoke of authority. From the set of his shoulders to the way his hand rested near his sword. His eyes, black as a winter sky, moved from her father to Edmund to the blood on her chin.
When his gaze met hers, she saw something flicker there. Recognition, perhaps. Or anger on her behalf, though that seemed unlikely from a stranger.
“I said unhand her.” His accent marked him as Scottish. One of the men her father had been so eager to attract.
“This is none of your concern,” her father snapped, though his voice lacked its earlier certainty. Even he could sense danger when it stood before him.
The stranger’s gaze did not waver. “A lady is bleeding. That makes it me concern.”
“She is my daughter.”
“And that excuses ye striking her, daes it?” The words were soft, but they cut like winter wind through wool.
Edmund finally released her wrist, though whether from shame or strategy, Elinor could not tell. Her father’s grip loosened but did not let go entirely, his fingers still pressing into her elbow as though she might flee if given the chance.
I might. If I had anywhere to run.
“I did not mean it. It was an accident.” Her father’s explanation sounded hollow even to her own ears.
“Aye. I’m certain it was.” The stranger took a step closer, his movements deliberate and controlled. His eyes found hers again, and this time she saw something unexpected in them. Not pity. She could not have borne pity. But a question… and oddly a flash of concern. “Are ye hurt, me lady?”
The simple courtesy of it nearly undid her.
When had anyone ever asked her that? Not her father, who had caused it. Not Edmund, who claimed to want to protect her. Not her mother, who was too afraid of her husband to show any type of alliance to Elinor.
Not once in all the years she had lived beneath her father’s roof had anyone asked if she was hurt, as though her pain mattered, as though she were a person whose suffering deserved acknowledgment.
Her throat was too tight to answer. She pressed her handkerchief to her lip, tasting linen mixed with copper, and tried to gather the scattered pieces of her composure.
“Who the devil are you?” Edmund demanded, apparently recovering himself enough to remember his pride.
The stranger’s attention shifted to him, slow and deliberate as a drawn blade. “Someone who daesnae like seein’ a lady bleed.”
His gaze returned to her father, and Elinor saw Edmund stiffen at the quiet authority in his voice.
“This is none of your concern.”
“It is now.” The stranger’s voice remained level, almost pleasant, but there was steel beneath it.
“Release her.”
“I will not be ordered about by some Highland savage.”
A second man appeared at the Scotsman’s shoulder. Sandy-haired, younger, with a soldier’s build and an expression that suggested he had seen his laird do inadvisable things before and expected to see him do so again.
“David,” he said, very quietly. “What are ye daeing?”
“Preventing a lady from being mauled in the street, Tristan.” His tone was cool, the type that accompanied a man who was capable of anything.
“The auction is about tae start.”
“Aye. I’m aware.”
Tristan looked between them all and sighed like a man whose worst suspicions had been confirmed. “This is madness.”
“Perhaps.” David’s eyes––for that it seemed was his name––never left her father. “But I’ll not walk past a woman bleeding while two men fight over her like dogs over a bone.”
“How dare you.” Edmund started forward, his hand moving to his sword.
The Scotsman’s hand moved to his own blade. He did not draw it. He did not need to. The message was clear enough, written in the set of his shoulders and the steadiness of his gaze.
Edmund stopped.
In the silence that followed, Elinor heard the manor door open. A servant stood in the doorway, his face carefully blank in the way of all good servants who had learned not to see their betters’ shame.
“My lords,” he said, his voice carrying across the frozen drive. “The proceedings are about to commence. If you would care to come inside?”
Her father’s grip shifted to something almost gentle. A mockery of paternal concern for the servant’s benefit. “Come, Elinor. We mustn’t be late.”
She looked at the door. At the light spilling from within, warm and false as her father’s sudden solicitude. At all the men gathering inside to bid on flesh and futures, to purchase women as though they were bolts of cloth or parcels of land.
Then she looked at the Scotsman who had asked if she was hurt.
His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes steadied her. Some flicker of understanding.
He sees me. I’m not property or prize to him. He sees a person.
It was such a small thing, and yet it felt like the first kindness she had been offered in years.
She lowered her handkerchief from her lip, lifted her chin, and met her father’s eyes with all the cold fury she had learned to hide beneath compliance.
Without a word, she turned and walked toward the door.
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