CHAPTER ONE

January 1824, Assam, India. 

Aaron watched as Captain Jonathan Lambton ducked out of the mess tent that his battalion was occupying on the outskirts of Cachar, the site of the first battle of the war. It had been bloody work. Colonel Aaron Fitzwilliam had led his regiment into Cachar where they had engaged the Burmese army in hand-to-hand combat. Aaron had lost many men and knew the memories of their bloody, broken bodies would live in his memory as long as he drew breath. He clenched his hand into a fist, anger flooding him again. The idea that one of the men he had travelled with, slept alongside, and fought shoulder to shoulder with was a traitor was overwhelming.

“Are you sure, Lieutenant General?” Aaron asked, dropping the flap of his commander’s tent to turn and face him. The Lieutenant General was several years older than him and much more seasoned. He bore the evidence of previous service across his face with an ugly looking scar along his jaw. Aaron trusted him with his life.

“I am afraid so, Colonel.” The Lieutenant General nodded gravely. Aaron’s heart sank. “Someone amongst our ranks has turned traitor against the King. They have been sending messages to the Burmese dissidents, and they fed them our tactics for the Cachar battle. They are the reason that Colonel Chambers’ regiment was nearly wiped out.”

“The bastard,” Aaron muttered to himself, feeling a swirl of anger as he remembered the way the Burmese soldiers had cut down the men who had been hidden for cover fire. Their leading commander had not been able to understand how they had been given away.

“There’s more,” the Lieutenant General said furiously. “Our intelligence suggests that the traitor is being supported by a peer of the realm.”

Aaron cursed and pinched his nose between his fingers. The Lieutenant General watched him sympathetically.

“I know this is hard for you, Fitzwilliam,” he said quietly. “Your position is delicate; however, the order comes from the General and you are my best soldier, the only man I trust with it.”

“Do not worry, Lieutenant General, I do not have my title yet.” Aaron’s mouth quirked in a sardonic smile. “Until I take up my own mantle as Duke of Abercorn, I am entirely yours to command. What are the orders?”

“Captain Lambton must die,” the Lieutenant General said flatly. Aaron’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“There is to be no court martial?”

“We cannot risk it.” The Lieutenant General shook his head ruefully. “If we court martial the captain, then whoever is pulling his strings in England shall be alerted to his discovery. We must allow the East India Trading Company the best opportunity to uncover the traitor at home.”

“So, what is to be done?” Aaron shifted uncomfortably. “For surely I shall face my own court martial if I am to shoot a fellow in arms.”

“He shall be leaving tonight on a mission. It is a ruse. Follow him out of the encampment until you are in the wild then shoot him.” The Lieutenant General pushed a box of tinder and a single shot pistol across the desk. “Check him for incriminating documents. Bring anything relevant back with you. Burn his body and any other evidence. We shall put about that he was killed by rebels. There will be no questions brought to your door, only the thanks of your General.”

Aaron stared at the tinder box and pistol. Like most men of his rank in the army, he carried a sword and fought with a rifle. Single shot pistols were rare, but Aaron was very familiar with them. His own father had trained him in all manner of firearms.

“You are the best shot in the camp, Fitzwilliam,” the Lieutenant General said, quietly. “Do not miss.”

“I never do,” Aaron said lightly, stuffing the tinder box into his pocket and checking the hammer on the pistol. “Though I admit, it will be the first time I have fired upon a brother in arms.”

“Captain Lambton is the traitor and cannot be allowed to continue in his actions. He will ruin us all if he does.” The Lieutenant General walked around the desk and clapped Aaron on the shoulder, looking at him with steely brown eyes. “We have lost many good men this month. We shall no doubt lose more in this war. I shall be damned if any of them fall because of the treacherous machinations of Captain Lambton.”

Aaron nodded firmly at his commander. “Yes, sir.”

“Get going, Colonel.” The Lieutenant General walked back around the desk, unbuttoning his coat and slinging it over the back of his chair. Without it, he suddenly looked much younger. Aaron couldn’t help wondering how many times his commander had given orders like this one and if they were what caused the years to wear so heavily upon him. “Report back when it is done.”

“Yes, Lieutenant General.” Aaron threw a salute and tucked the pistol into his belt. Carefully he slipped out of the commander’s tent and walked through the camp. They had not been there long, only a few weeks since the battle of Cachar, but already the men were treating it like a sort of home. Aaron passed by a few infantry soldiers playing cards over an upturned barrel, another few trying to tempt a monkey down from a nearby tree with hard tack.

He smiled at the men as he passed and they nodded and saluted, smiling back. They trusted him. He was a strong leader, compassionate but firm. He could laugh with them but also kept enough distance that they respected him and the rank he held, both in the forces and society. Some of the men, he knew, were soldiers raised on land that belonged to his future Duchy. They were his soldiers and his tenants. When they fell in battle –If they fell in battle, Aaron tried to correct himself- it would be his duty to write to their families and then his further duty to give those families on his estate the support they needed. The weight of responsibility settled heavily on his shoulders as he walked past them. God, how he prayed that they all lived. How he prayed he would not have to bury another man.

“Anyone seen Captain Lambton?” Aaron asked when he came across a friend, Colonel Gregory Chambers, lounging against one of the posts erected at the edge of the camp, smoking a cigarette. The two of them got along well in the Officers mess, both of them destined for the Peerage in the future. Chambers would become the Viscount Ellerton when his father passed. Aaron found him good company and hoped they would remain friends after the war. If they both survived. Chambers was looking out over the makeshift graveyard, no doubt mourning for the many men he had lost in the battle. All due to Lambton. Aaron felt a flash of rage.

“Over there.” Chambers nodded towards the edge of the forest, his eyes catching the pistol at Aaron’s belt. “Have business with him, do you?”

“I do,” Aaron said levelly. “Orders from the Lieutenant General.”

Chambers nodded knowingly, taking a long inhale of Indian tobacco.

“I’ll watch for your return,” he said quietly. “Good luck, Fitzwilliam.”

Aaron nodded silently, wondering if his friend in arms had surmised the situation. Chambers would have likely volunteered for such a mission if it had been advertised. He had many friends to avenge. Yet it fell to Aaron to act for him. He would not fail him.

Stepping away from the camp and towards the green leaves of the jungle, he passed by the pyres they had built to burn their dead comrades. Aaron’s anger flared once again when he saw the wooden crosses stuck in the dirt. In the unbearable heat of the subcontinent, it was dangerously unwise to bury bodies, since they brought both scavengers and disease, yet Aaron hated the fact his soldiers could not be given a proper Christian burial. He briefly took solace in the fact that at least this traitor would be denied one too.

Lambton looked up as Aaron approached, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He was a handsome man, Aaron had to admit, younger than him by a few years and his complete opposite in looks. Whilst Aaron was dark, his skin tanned almost as dark as the Burmese they fought against in the endless sunshine, Lambton was fair. His blond hair curled close to his head, almost bleached white in the sunshine and his skin burned red in the sun, like strawberries and cream. He looked like an innocent almost, except for his eyes. Aaron found that eyes were a good measure of a person’s truth and by his measure, Captain Lambton had something of the rake about him. His eyes were scheming and dark blue, full of secrets and anger.

“You’re roped into this mission too, sir?” Lambton asked respectfully enough, but Aaron found himself flinching at his tone.

“Yes, Captain,” he said in clipped tones, “Reconnaissance in the jungle. Let us go.”

“I see,” Lambton eyed him snidely. “Lead the way, sir.”

“I shall bring up the rear, Captain,” Aaron had no intention of turning his back on this traitor. “You are a skilled navigator. Lead on.”

Lambton looked for a moment like he might disagree but then shrugged sullenly, and began clearing a way through the undergrowth, snapping twigs intentionally so they could find their way back. Soon, they were absorbed into the tight, heavy silence of the jungle. Aaron knew that he needed to make sure Lambton was far enough away from the camp so that the smoke from his burning body would not attract immediate attention but walking behind the man he was about to murder was its own kind of torture. This was a man he had shared a cigarette after the battle, both of them bloody and exhausted, dirt in their hair, their uniforms filthy. How many of those men’s deaths could be Lambton’s fault? How could anyone have looked down on all that destruction that they had helped bring about and not feel guilty?

“You’re a Duke, are you not, Colonel?” Lambton asked suddenly as they carefully moved thick green leaves out of their way.

“Not yet,” Aaron answered automatically. “My father still lives.”

“Though not for long, I hear,” Lambton responded.

Aaron almost froze up to hear such words from a subordinate. Not only were they utterly inappropriate, it was the kind of thing no regular Captain in the King’s Army would know. Only fellow Peers knew that his father was rapidly degrading, a lifetime of drinking and gambling finally catching up with him. His mother’s last letter had informed Aaron that his father’s liver would not last more than a year. Only his father’s equals and family knew of the diagnosis. Aaron realised that Lambton was revealing his connection to someone of that high society.

He knows I’m going to kill him, Aaron realised coldly.

“You seem very well informed, Captain,” Aaron said tightly. “Might I inquire as to your source?”

“Ah, now, Colonel,” Lambton chuckled softly, “a good man takes such secrets to his grave.”

“Those kinds of secrets are dangerous,” Aaron snapped back, thinking wildly of the dead men he had dragged from the battlefield, their blood soaking into the sandy dirt. “Those are the kinds of secrets that lead to other men’s graves.”

“I don’t think that’s why you’re here, Colonel.” Lambton stopped in his tracks. They had reached a clearing deep in the jungle. Lambton didn’t turn around but stared straight ahead.

“Get on with it then,” he said.

“Jonathan Lambton, you are a traitor to the crown. Turn around,” Aaron swallowed hard. “Face me like a man.”

“Like a man?” Lambton laughed cruelly. “I don’t think we can talk of manners when you have followed me into the jungle to kill me.”

“I have my orders.” Aaron drew the pistol and levelled it at the back of Lambton’s head. He might be a traitor, but Aaron would not shoot any man in the back. “Turn around. Face me like a soldier.”

“That’s the thing, Colonel Aaron Fitzwilliam, future Duke of Abercorn,” Lambton chuckled darkly. Aaron tried not to be disquieted by the way he used his full name like an insult. “I’ve never been much of a soldier.”

In one fluid movement, Captain Lambton spun around and raised a knife, murder in his eyes. Aaron did not think twice. He pressed the trigger and fired. The one shot rang out, the reverberations instantly swallowed by the thicket of jungle around them. Lambton staggered back, crumpling at the knees, a trickle of blood between his dead, blue eyes, a bullet in the centre of his forehead. The traitor fell forward, his head hitting the soft jungle floor with a dull thump. Aaron let out a long breath, lowering his firing arm slowly. He pulled out the tinderbox, amazed to see his hands were shaking. There was something about a pistol in his hand that took away his nerves, but now guilt was creeping back in. This man was an Englishman, a son of a sovereign nation, and Aaron had cut him down like a common stag. Lowering himself to his knees, Aaron pushed the dead man over, wincing to see the look of surprise still etched on his face. Trying not to flinch, he closed Lambton’s eyelids. He reached inside the man’s jacket pocket to carry out the rest of his orders. He pulled out a sheaf of a paper and a small keepsake portrait. The woman featured was beautiful. She had an angelic face, long red hair which she wore loose, as was common in lover’s portraits, and green eyes.

“Damnation,” Aaron breathed. “You were loved, weren’t you, Lambton?”

With trembling fingers, Aaron checked the letters. Each one was signed, “your dearest love,” and addressed to “my dearest intended, Jonathan.” Lambton had clearly been engaged to the enchanting woman. His stomach churned at the thought of this young lady receiving a brusque letter from the Lieutenant General, explaining her betrothed had been killed in action. Sighing, he checked the last letter. It was a sealed envelope, addressed to Miss Catherine Headon. Aaron touched the name with his thumb, wishing that his actions this day would not cause her pain. He knew that his wishes would be in vain. Not only had he taken a life today, but he had also ruined another.

“Well, Jonathan Lambton,” Aaron sighed heavily. “I shall give you more honour in death than you deserved in life. I shall return your darling’s letter and portrait and she shall never know of your betrayal.”

Aaron got to his feet, gathered dry leaves from the forest floor which he put around and over Lambton’s body before he pulled out the tinderbox and started the fire. He waited until he saw the flames catch Lambton’s dry uniform and curly hair before turning back into the jungle. By the time he saw the familiar graves and tents, the smell of burning was in the air. Slowly he approached Chambers who was watching the skyline intently.

“Seems like the rebels are having some kind of fire,” Chambers said conversationally. “Is Lambton not with you?”

“Lost him in the forest,” Aaron lied easily, leaning against the post next to his friend.

“I see,” Chambers offered him his pipe and Aaron took a drag, grateful for the calming smoke and taking a deep breath. He exhaled heavily, smoke and guilt laced on his breath. Chambers looked down at his pistol and then back up at his face, holding his eye with a steely glare.

“You didn’t miss, did you?” he asked quietly.

Aaron didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. Justice had been served, but it did not make Aaron feel less guilty for ruining an innocent young woman’s happiness.

“No.” Aaron handed the cigarette back to his friend and turned towards the Lieutenant General’s tent. “No, I did not.”

CHAPTER TWO

“I am so excited!” Maria squealed from her seat in the parlour, watching as the dressmaker pinned the sleeves of Catherine’s wedding dress. “It is so wonderful! You are getting married!”

“Yes, it’s a miracle,” Catherine’s cousin Lavinia said, rolling her eyes obnoxiously.

Catherine tried not to flush at her cousin’s casual dismissal. Lavinia could not stand it when her cousin was in the limelight, even for a moment.

“You are right, Lavinia, that dress is miraculous,” Maria gushed, deftly turning Lavinia’s insult into a compliment. Catherine saw the way it made Lavinia frown in frustration. “It is so lovely with Catherine’s delicate complexion.”

This made Lavinia frown even more.

“Yes, I suppose… If red-headed simpletons could be called delicate,” Lavinia said cruelly. Catherine knew she could say nothing. Lavinia would take any hard word she said back to Catherine’s uncle, and then he might decide it was too much trouble to pay for her wedding gown. Catherine caught Maria’s eye and tried to shake her head, even lightly, but Maria seemed undeterred by Lavinia’s spite. Maria was Catherine’s best friend, and the only friend she had maintained from her childhood before her parents’ untimely deaths. Maria was the daughter of a local Viscount, so was always welcome to visit at Catherine’s uncle’s home due to her status, but Maria only endured socialising with Lavinia in order to spend time with Catherine. The two friends walked a careful balancing act, making sure Lavinia never completely realised their deception. Maria’s friendship with the Viscount’s daughter was all a ruse to cover up a friendship with her poor cousin. Catherine knew that Maria endured Lavinia’s spoiled character and mean habits in order to stay close to her, and she couldn’t be more thankful for her friend.

“The lace is astonishing,” Maria added gently, sipping from her teacup. “That particular shade of cream makes you look like an angel.”

“Charmant,” the dressmaker added quietly, flicking her eyes deferentially up to Catherine. “You shall be a beautiful bride if I have anything to do with it, Miss Headon.”

“I’m bored,” Lavinia announced, setting her cup down with a sharp click and rising to her feet, gliding towards the door in her fabulous silk gown. She always wore the best. At a mere sixteen-years-old, she was already become a fashionable beacon of society. “I’ll be back in an hour to fit my ballgown, Madame Fleur. Hopefully you’ll be done with … this by then.”

Catherine winced at her cousin’s implicit disregard. She had even declined to be Catherine’s bridesmaid at her wedding, stating that it would be beneath her status as the daughter of an Earl to be part of her poor cousin’s wedding, especially when the poor cousin was her father’s ward, no less. It had stung but Catherine was used to bearing pains caused by Lavinia. She had been enduring them since she was orphaned at the age of twelve. She had appeared on the Earl of Gordon’s doorstep mere hours after her mother’s passing only to find herself face-to-face with an aloof young Lavinia.

“You have red hair,” Lavinia had said, looking her up and down slowly, sniffing. “Do you curl it?”

“No,” Catherine had stammered, fingering her red curls. “It curls naturally like this.”

Lavinia’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed with dislike. She petted her own blonde curls, clearly the result of hot irons.

“You’re pretty,” Lavinia had stated, as if it gave her no pleasure at all to say so. “Yet you dress like a peasant. Which I suppose you are, really.”

She had grinned nastily at those words, a mean idea coming into her head.

“You’re twelve and I’m ten, but I am still in charge of everything,” Lavinia took her arm and pulled her upstairs to her bedroom. “You can have my leftover gowns, but not new ones and as soon as we debut, you can’t dance with more gentleman that I at balls.”

“I understand,” Catherine had muttered in a haze of grief and confusion, letting herself be led away. When she looked back on it now, standing with the dressmaker making careful adjustments to her wedding gown, she wished that she had the presence of mind at the time to stand up to Lavinia then. She wondered if it would have made a bit of difference.

“Do you like it, Madmoiselle?” Madame Fleur asked, pulling Catherine out of her reverie and turning her to face the mirror standing on the dresser.

“It is beautiful, Madame Fleur,” Catherine said honestly.

The cream lace gown was very simple. Lavinia had thrown a fit when her father told her that Catherine would be having a new gown for her wedding, bought for her by her betrothed. To pay Catherine back for this unfairness, Lavinia had demanded that Catherine not be allowed any flourishes or expensive accessories. Nevertheless, Catherine had never felt so beautiful.

“Non, you are beautiful, Mademoiselle.” Madame Fleur smiled at her in the mirror. “You would shine in any garment.”

“Amen,” Maria echoed sharply. “Ignore Lavinia. She is only jealous.”

Catherine didn’t answer. She knew it was true. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, admiring the way that the new tight lace cuffs flattered her slim wrists. As Catherine had grown, she had only become more beautiful. Her skinny, childish frame growing into a willowy, womanly figure whilst Lavinia stayed thin and awkward. Catherine’s reddish hair had only grown more lustrous as her hair thickened, and her skin softer and more supple as she became a woman. Lavinia, by comparison, had lost the lustre of her blonde childhood hair and now had mousy blonde hair that she still had to curl nightly. Resentment had only built, and Catherine had been miserable. Then Catherine had met Jonathan. Catherine knew that Lavinia hated and loved her upcoming wedding in equal measure; she hated the attention Catherine was garnering, but loved the idea that soon, Catherine would be gone from her family home forever.

“I hope Jonathan likes it,” Catherine whispered, brushing her hands down the front of the gown, feeling the soft lace underneath her fingers.

“Captain Lambton will adore it,” Maria said firmly, “he is besotted with you. I saw you both, that night of your uncle’s ball.”

The night in question had been the best night of Catherine’s life. She had started it miserable, wearing yet another one of Lavinia’s hand-me-down gowns in a creamy yellow that didn’t suit her at all, watching Lavinia hold court with her friends and various gentlemen and feeling incredibly lonely. Maria was yet to arrive. Then, to her utter surprise, the most handsome man she had ever seen bumped into her, spilling her drink a little.

“Oh, excuse me, Miss!” he exclaimed. “I am dreadfully sorry.”

“It is quite alright,” Catherine had demurred, dabbing her wet hand with a napkin.

“You must forgive me, my manners are not as they should be, for I am little used to polite society.” He grimaced and gestured to his scarlet uniform.

“Oh, there is nothing to forgive, officer,” Catherine said, darting her eyes down from his open face and charming blue eyes.

“Captain Jonathan Lambton at your service,” he said, dipping into a smart bow, the blond curls on top of his head gleaming in the candlelight.

“Miss Catherine Headon,” Catherine said quietly, curtseying as elegantly as she could and wishing that Lavinia had let her borrow a more flattering gown.

“Well, Miss Headon, it seems I might owe you a dance to make up for my manners.” Jonathan’s eyes had shone with a mischievous light that Catherine found equally delightful and exciting. He offered her his hand. “Would you honour me with the first?”

It was not just the first dance of the night; it was the first dance of her life. At seventeen-years-old, Catherine had never danced with a gentleman before. She took in a small breath, trying to savour this moment, feeling like an enchanted princess whose spell only lasted until midnight.

“You may, Captain Lambton,” she said, taking his hand. By the end of the dance, she was in love.

Catherine snapped out of her memories as one of Madame Fleur’s pins caught her shoulder. She winced slightly, noticing Maria looking at her and flushing, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming.

“Must have been a happy thought,” Maria teased lightly. “To evoke such a reaction.”

“I was thinking of Jonathan,” Catherine confessed, not wishing to elucidate further.

“Of your courtship?” Maria rolled her eyes. “It was obnoxiously prolonged.”

“Yes, but only because we could not truly court,” Catherine said softly. Jonathan had made it clear early on that he needed to save some money before his suit would ever even be entertained by Catherine’s uncle, despite Catherine’s insistence that her uncle would be more than glad to get rid of her if he could. Consequently, they had danced around one another for months, chatting at balls but never declaring their intent. Finally, after an agonising three months, Jonathan expressed his suit to her uncle. A month later, he had proposed before his commission took him away to India.

“Well, you quickly made up for that,” Maria waggled her eyebrows. “You’ve been engaged for nearly nine months!”

“It’s not that long,” Catherine said, defensively. “He has been at war.”

“He should have married you before he left,” Maria sighed. “You could have run away to Gretna Green!”

“Oh, and you think I could have survived living here when I was Mrs. Jonathan Lambton?” Catherine raised her eyebrows at her friend. “Imagine my cousin’s feelings.”

“Yes, she would be insufferable,” Maria mused, speaking as Catherine never could about Lavinia. “She would not like that you were married before her.”

“Exactly,” Catherine said tartly. “It is better now. He returns from India this week and then, god willing, we shall be wed the next and I shall leave Gordon House behind forever.”

“Do you not think you shall come back occasionally?” Maria’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “To lord your married status over Lavinia?”

“Oh, trust me, Lavinia will not stand being unmarried for longer,” Catherine snorted. “She has her heart set on being a Duchess.”

“Oh, does she now?” Maria shook her head, dismissing the younger lady’s materialistic nature. “She better hope that the young eligible heirs involved in the war all come back in one piece.”

“They shall all come back in one piece,” Catherine said firmly, her stomach swooping as she said it. There had been a slight unease in the back of her mind the last few weeks. It had been nearly a month since her last letter from Jonathan. They wrote regularly to one another, declaring their love and tenderness and exchanging tokens, but it seemed like an unusually long time for him not to write, even if he was due home so soon. He would usually write on the journey.

“What is it?” Maria asked, catching up her friend’s hand gently. “You look pale suddenly.”

“Oh, it is probably nothing,” Catherine waved her other hand dismissively. “It is only that I have not had a letter from Jonathan this month. I had thought he might write on the journey, but he has not.”

“Well, it hardly matters. You shall be his wife by the end of this month.” Maria smiled softly. “How wonderful it shall be for him that his first sight of you after all this time shall be your wedding day.”

“Yes,” Catherine agreed, turning her neck in the mirror and trying to dismiss her fears. “I admit, when I heard about the skirmish breaking out in Cachar, then I realised he was stationed there, I was down on my knees every night, praying for his safe return.”

“Of course you were,” Maria murmured, squeezing her hand. “I should hate to have a suitor in service. I am sure I could not endure the waiting.”

“It shall be no easier being a military wife, I am sure.” Catherine squared her shoulders and tried to look determined. In truth, the waiting for her future husband to come home from danger was almost torture, but she knew it would be worth it. Living with Lavinia and her uncle all these years had been its own torture and she would rather be alone, waiting for Jonathan, than bear another year in their company.

“You are stronger than I, my friend,” Maria said softly. “But then, you have had to be.”

Catherine caught her best friend’s eye in the mirror and the knowledge of all the nights Catherine had been pushed aside and made to feel worthless flowed between them. Maria knew the truth of Catherine’s loss. That her father had been a Baron and if both her parents had lived, she would have been eligible and beloved. Yet as they had no son, upon their deaths, the Baronetcy had ended and Catherine was forced to endure the guardianship of her father’s older brother, who had no love for his niece.

Her father and uncle had hated each other since her father had won the hand of Catherine’s mother, a beautiful lady that her uncle had coveted. Catherine didn’t know the full story of her father’s rift with her uncle, but she knew enough. Her uncle had envied her parents’ happiness and resented her because of it. He constantly sneered at her, needled her with comments about her father’s inferiority, and never turned down an opportunity to suggest her mother had made a poor choice. Catherine had borne it all, learning early on that showing her distress and crying only resulted in more disgust and cruelty. Maria had been the only one to see the true impact of all those years of unkindness and rebuke.

“Soon I shall be rid of them,” Catherine said quietly, nodding at her friend. “I shall no longer be a burden.”

“You were never a burden,” Maria said, voice quiet but firm. Her eyes flashed with anger for all the pain her friend had endured. “That they made you think so is their fault and is a flaw on their own conscience, not yours.”

Catherine felt that after six years of daily insults, dismissals and being made to feel inferior, it was hard to truly believe it. Yet here she was, standing in her wedding dress and soon she would be married to the man of her dreams, a man who knew exactly who she was and loved her entirely. She thought of Jonathan’s whispered words before he had left for India, the press of his warm lips against her palm as he held her close, closer really than she should have allowed. Yet he was the man she loved, the man who would be her husband.

“My beautiful girl,” he had whispered, brushing her red curls. “Do you love me?”

“Yes, Jonny,” she had whispered back, leaning into his touch. “Yes, I do.”

What harm could have come from allowing him to embrace her when it was the dearest call of her own heart?

“Everything will be different,” Catherine said firmly, distracting herself from longing for his touch again. Soon she would see him, soon he would hold her in his arms. Soon she would be his wife. “Everything shall be different with him.”

“So it shall,” Maria smiled at her softly. “Captain Lambton shall make you very happy.”

“He already has.” Catherine shrugged gently, trying to make light of it but couldn’t stop the red flush creeping up her cheeks. It was true; she felt it right down to the fibre of her being. Captain Jonathan Lambton had changed her life and she loved him more than she had words to say.

“Miss Headon? A letter has come for you,” a footman offered a silver plate to her, a letter sat in the centre.

“Right on time!” Maria exclaimed. “Here must be the Captain’s last letter, no doubt full of words of love and encouragement now your wedding day is so close.”

“It is not his writing,” Catherine frowned, breaking the seal at the back of the page and unfolding the letter to peruse it. “Oh, it is from his mother, Mrs. Lambton, it must be her arrangements for the wedding …”

Catherine stopped speaking suddenly, staring at the creamy parchment, the words dancing before her eyes.

“Catherine? Catherine, what is it?” Maria asked beside her, grasping her elbow with a strong hand. Catherine recognised faintly that Maria was holding her up. Her knees had sagged.

“Read it!” she gasped, pushing the letter into her best friend’s hand. “Read it, please! I cannot.”

“Why? What on earth is happening?” Maria looked down at the page and began to read aloud. “Dear Miss Headon, it is with a broken heart that I must write and inform you that I have received a letter this very day that has told me my dearest son, Jonathan, has fallen in action in India —”

“Dear God, no!” Catherine moaned, slumping to her knees as Madame Fleur rushed to get water and help and Maria held her up, continuing to read as if it was imperative.

“— he was killed by Burmese rebels outside of Cachar. I am sorry for your loss, my dear girl, please forgive the shortness of this note. I am too overcome to say more.”

“Let me see the words again,” Catherine demanded shakily, her hand trembling as she ripped the letter back. This cannot be true, please God let it be a mistake. “I must see them!”

She stared at the page, her eyes already wet with tears. Blearily, she saw the words, written in Mrs. Lambton’s shaky hand: he was killed. It was true. It was real.

“Oh God, Jonny!” she cried out, her private pet name for him bursting out, as if part of her knew that she would never be able to speak it to his face ever again. She collapsed into her friend and felt the world tilt away from her. Everything was going black, and Maria’s cries of worry were becoming distant, but Catherine didn’t care. Her Jonny, her one true love, was gone from the world and now there was nothing more for her.

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