The bells of St. George’s tolled noon as the new Duke of Merrow stood alone in his father’s study and stared at the wreckage of a life written in ink.
Rowan Everly did not sit behind the great mahogany desk; he perched on its edge, arms folded, his boots braced as if the very floor might give way. The room smelled of stale tobacco and dust, with a faint undertone of brandy spilled into the grain of the wood over years of careless drink. The green leather of the chair was cracked. Once, he would have thought it dignified. Now it just seemed… tired.
Like the house.
Like the duchy.
Like the name.
He picked up yet another ledger, its spine worn soft. Neat columns of numbers marched across the page, each sum circled, each note clear in the sharp, sloping hand his father had once used so confidently. The lines were all as straight as a soldier’s drill.
And all of them spelled ruin.
Rowan turned the page, jaw clenched. “This cannot be correct.”
From a respectful distance near the window, Mr. Whitlow cleared his throat. The estate steward had served the Everly family since before Rowan was born. He had a narrow face, a narrow frame and, Rowan was beginning to suspect, a narrow but stubborn hope that things could somehow be righted.
“I am afraid it *is* correct, Your Grace,” Whitlow said, his voice thin but steady. “I have checked the sums thrice. And Mr. Channing, the family solicitor, has gone over them as well.”
Rowan looked up, eyes narrowing. “The racing debts. The card debts. The loans.” He tapped one page with an impatient finger. “These names—Trevick, Barrow, Finchley. Moneylenders?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And these”—he flipped to the back, where the script changed to something more hurried, more desperate—“are promissory notes? Against future rents?”
Whitlow hesitated. “Against… future everything, Your Grace. Rents, timber rights, shares in the wool manufactory, shipping interests in Bristol…” He paused. “And wagers placed on… certain outcomes.”
Rowan let the ledger snap shut.
The late Duke of Merrow—Rowan’s father, a man whose laughter had filled this house like thunder, whose charm had dazzled half the ton and whose vices had ruined every corner of his life—had been dead three weeks.
Rowan had spent the first week in a numb blur of black cloth, murmured condolences and a funeral that seemed more performance than grief. The second week had been given to solicitors and letters of succession, to the quiet shuffling of servants in the halls of Merrow House, both here in London and in the country.
This third week had been all ink and reckoning.
He had known his father drank too much. He had suspected, in a distant way, that there were debts; gentlemen always had debts. It was practically a fashion.
He had not imagined this.
“Is there anything,” Rowan said, each word clipped, “that is not mortgaged or entailed or promised out to some vulture circling for his due?”
Whitlow adjusted his spectacles. “Your title, Your Grace.”
A harsh, humorless sound escaped Rowan’s throat. “Splendid. I shall dine on it tonight.”
Whitlow’s gaze flickered with something like sympathy. “There remain the entailed lands in Derbyshire. They cannot be seized, though the income from them is… already spoken for, to a degree. The London house is mortgaged heavily. The hunting box in Hampshire has been sold. The racing stable—”
“Yes, I remember that particular quarrel well enough.” Rowan pushed away from the desk and crossed the room in three long strides, stopping to stare out at the square. Sunlight bounced off the carriages rattling past. Gentlemen walked with measured gait; ladies fluttered past like bright birds in patterned silk.
They all looked so very solid. So assured. So… solvent.
Rowan swallowed an ugly laugh.
“How much?” he asked without turning.
Whitlow understood at once. “If every debt were called in today?” His fingers twitched on the ledger. “More than we could satisfy, Your Grace. However, that is rarely the case. Many lenders prefer to earn interest and… maintain leverage.”
“How much must I have in hand to keep them at bay for the next year?”
Whitlow’s pause was longer this time. “At least fifty thousand pounds. Likely more.”
Rowan’s shoulders tensed. “Fifty thousand.”
He had expected a large sum. His mind had prepared words for ten, even twenty. Fifty made his thoughts go blank.
“Perhaps,” Whitlow ventured, “if certain expenditures are curtailed, if we sell the lesser carriage horses and reduce staff here in town, and at Merrow Park—”
“And tell the ton that the new Duke of Merrow is already on his knees?” Rowan turned, his mouth twisting. “They may suspect, but I have no intention of confirming it for them in tomorrow’s scandal sheets.”
Silence.
He drew a long breath, forcing his temper down. Whitlow was not the enemy in this room.
His father was beyond reproach now, beyond anger. Beyond everything. Rowan had said his last words to him at a gaming table in White’s, sharp and cold, the night before the apoplexy had taken him. The duke had laughed and tossed a handful of cards onto the table, delighting in the drama. He’d died as he’d lived: with a crowd, and owing more than he could pay.
Rowan rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “We cannot save everything.”
“No, Your Grace.” Whitlow’s voice was gentle. “But we can save something. The name. The principal estates. The tenants at Merrow Park deserve a steady hand.”
He did not say they deserved better than they’d had for the past decade. He was too loyal for that. But Rowan thought it anyway.
“I will not let the estate go down in history as… as a cautionary tale. Or worse.” He looked once more at the ledgers, stacked like gravestones. “I will not be my father.”
“No, Your Grace,” Whitlow said quietly. “You are not your father.”
That, at least, stirred something in him—a prick of pride, of grim determination.
Rowan took his seat at the desk at last, the leather creaking beneath his weight. The ducal signet ring, newly resized for his hand, caught the light. It felt like a shackle.
He opened a clean sheet of paper, dipped his pen and began to write.
“Your Grace?” Whitlow asked. “May I ask to whom you are writing?”
“To Mr. Channing,” Rowan said. “I require a list of every creditor with a significant claim. I will not have them ambushing me in the street like villains in a cheap novel.”
He wrote quickly, his hand sure; if his life was in disarray, at least his pen could march in a straight line. After sealing the letter, he slid it to the edge of the desk.
Then he looked up at Whitlow and forced the words out.
“What are my options?”
Whitlow had clearly been waiting for this.
“There are economies to be made, as I have said. There is land that is not entailed which might yet be sold, though at present prices…”
He trailed off and straightened his shoulders.
“And there is marriage, Your Grace.”
The word fell between them, heavy.
Rowan barked a short laugh. “Ah yes. The traditional solution to every noble difficulty. Acquire a wife. Acquire her dowry. Patch the holes in the ship with her father’s gold.”
Whitlow did not quite flinch, but his mouth tightened. “It is not uncommon. Many families of good standing seek alliances with established names. And you are… an eligible gentleman, Your Grace.”
“Eligible.” Rowan pushed back from the desk again, restless. “Eligible to be hunted by every ambitious mama in Mayfair, you mean. Have you seen the way they look at me at Almack’s? As if I am a plump goose just before Michaelmas.”
Whitlow’s lips twitched despite himself. “Indeed, Your Grace.”
Rowan paced. “I do not intend to sell myself to the highest bidder.”
“Not sold, Your Grace,” Whitlow said softly. “Married. To a lady who is aware of the arrangement and consents to it, in pursuit of mutual advantage.”
It was an old language, a cold one. And yet it had governed aristocratic marriages for centuries.
He had always believed—foolishly, perhaps—that he would do things differently. That he would marry late, for liking at least and, if he were very fortunate, for more.
Love, some called it. He had seen too many examples of that fickle thing to lean heavily upon it.
But partnership? Respect? If he could not have a marriage of romance, he would, at the least, have a marriage of equality.
Would any woman agree to that, knowing the depth of his need and the state of his affairs?
“Mr. Channing has certain… lists,” Whitlow offered carefully. “Ladies with significant portions and no immediate encumbrances. He has mentioned one name in particular as…” He hesitated, then plunged on. “As unusually promising.”
Rowan arched a brow. “Promising?”
“In the matter of a dowry of sufficient size,” Whitlow clarified. “As well as… ah… independence.”
Rowan’s curiosity stirred despite himself. “And who is this paragon of fortune and freedom?”
Whitlow folded his hands. “Miss Livia Harcourt. Only child of Mr. Silas Harcourt, the shipping and import magnate. He owns considerable warehouses along the river, as well as shares in several manufactories. The fortune is… substantial. Quite liquid.”
Rowan considered the name. He had heard it, surely. Harcourt. There were whispers of some upstart merchant with enough money to pave Bond Street twice over, who longed for a title to cap his warehouses; equally, there were murmurs of a daughter that made drawing rooms go quiet.
“A merchant’s daughter,” Rowan murmured. “I can almost hear my great-grandfather spinning in his grave.”
“Your Grace,” Whitlow said quietly, “your great-grandfather is not the one receiving demands from Mr. Trevick and his ilk.”
“Fair point.”
Rowan moved back to the window, mind working. “Is she pretty?” he asked, almost absently.
Whitlow started. “I could not say, Your Grace. But she is said to be… clever.”
Clever. The word pricked his interest far more than beauty would have done.
“And much sought after, I suppose?” he said dryly. “Every impoverished baronet and viscountling in the kingdom knocking at her father’s door, promising their decaying estates in exchange for his gold?"
Whitlow hesitated in a way that made Rowan turn sharply.
“In truth, Your Grace,” the steward said, “there have been suitors. But none… successful. Miss Harcourt is… particular.”
“Particular how?”
“She is… involved in her father’s business, Your Grace. To an unusual degree for a young lady. There are stories of her attending meetings. Reading contracts. Correcting clerks.” His tone held both admiration and faint horror. “Some say she keeps her own ledgers at home.”
Rowan’s brows rose. “Does she.”
“Yes, Your Grace. She is said to be frank in her opinions. Intimidating, even. It has… put off certain gentlemen.”
“Gentlemen who prefer their wives to be decorative and quiet,” Rowan said, his mouth curling. “Which, to be fair, is most of Mayfair.”
Whitlow cleared his throat. “There have also been rumors that she has… turned away men whose finances are not in order. Fortune hunters, Your Grace.” He met Rowan’s gaze steadily. “She is thought to be… vigilant.”
Rowan huffed a breath. “So. I’m half the ton’s most eligible bachelor and half its most tempting target, and she is the wealthiest lady in London and half its most difficult prize.” He shook his head faintly. “What an intriguing world we live in.”
“Mr. Channing suggests that Mr. Harcourt has been cautious,” Whitlow added. “His daughter is his heir. He will not marry her to a man who would squander what he has built.”
If he were Mr. Harcourt, Rowan thought, he would do precisely the same.
“And what, exactly, would I be offering Miss Harcourt?” he asked slowly. “Beyond my name and my pressing set of obligations?”
Whitlow’s gaze was steady. “You would offer her the rank that her fortune has not yet purchased. Entry into a world that continues to view her with… suspicion.” A faint edge entered his voice now, born of his own years watching aristocrats waste what farmers and merchants worked themselves to the bone to earn. “You would offer her partnership in an ancient house. Perhaps children who inherit both name and acumen.”
Rowan thought of a woman with ink on her fingers, arguing with ship captains and clerks, sending fortune hunters away with cool eyes.
He thought of his father’s ledgers, and the tenants at Merrow Park, and the vultures already circling.
Marriage had always been part of his future. He had simply imagined having more… luxury to choose.
He did not have that luxury. But choice remained, of a sort.
“Very well,” he said at last, the words tasting like iron on his tongue. “Have Mr. Channing make discreet inquiries. I will not be paraded in front of this Miss Harcourt like a prize bull, but if she can be persuaded to… entertain a meeting…”
His voice trailed off as an odd certainty slid through him. He could not say what form it took, only that it settled behind his ribs and anchored there.
He would not deceive her. That, at least, he could cling to. If he courted her, it would be with the truth.
Whitlow bowed his head. “I will see it done, Your Grace.”
Rowan glanced once more at the ledgers, then picked one up.
“Send this Miss Harcourt a copy,” he said suddenly.
Whitlow blinked. “Your Grace?”
“A summary, at least. If she truly keeps her own accounts, let her see what she would be stepping into.” Rowan set the book down with finality. “If she recoils, we are spared a farce. If she does not…”
The thought trailed off into something he did not quite dare to name.
“I highly doubt, Your Grace,” Whitlow said slowly, “that any other gentleman in your position would reveal his debts to a prospective bride.”
“Then it is well that I am not any other gentleman,” Rowan replied. “And if I am to ask for her fortune, she deserves to see exactly where it would go.”
He met the steward’s gaze head-on.
“I will not be my father,” he said again, more quietly now. “If I must marry to save this house, I will do it with my eyes open. And hers.”
Whitlow bowed. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
Outside, the bells finished their tolling. Carriages rattled past. The world went on, oblivious.
Rowan sat back down at the desk, lifted his pen, and began to chart the strangest bargain of his life.
***
Two hours later, when Whitlow had gone and the house had settled into its creaking afternoon quiet, Rowan poured himself a measure of brandy.
He stared at the amber liquid, feeling the weight of the glass in his hand. His father had always said a good drink could soften any blow, polish any grief, blur any inconvenient thought.
Rowan set the glass down untouched.
He needed his wits clear.
There would be time enough for drink when he’d earned the right to it.
***
Across London, in a tall house off Fenchurch Street, Miss Livia Harcourt inked a neat column of numbers and said, without looking up, “No, Father. You may *not* simply cut the price by a third to secure the contract. That isa folly.”
Silas Harcourt, whose bulk filled most of the chair by her writing table, squeezed his hat in his hands and looked at his daughter with mingled exasperation and admiration.
“I’m telling you, Liv,” he growled, “Kerridge will take his business to the French if we don’t sweeten the pot. Man’s as slippery as an eel. He’ll have us over a barrel if we’re not careful.”
“And I am *telling* you,” Livia said, finally lifting her head, eyes bright, “that Kerridge values reliability. He’s dealt with you for twelve years. He knows your ships, your captains, your warehouses. He complains about the harbor fees but he always comes back. Why?”
“Because I knock a bit off when he whines,” Harcourt said gloomily.
“Because you deliver,” Livia corrected. “On time. In full. Without barrels of sugar arriving half-rotten or cloth mildewed. If he goes to the French, he’ll gain a discount and lose his temper." She tapped her quill against the table. “Offer him a smaller concession. And an additional clause guaranteeing faster turnaround at the dock.”
Her father’s brows drew together. “Can we guarantee that? We’re already running at capacity.”
“We can,” she said, a small smile curving her mouth, “if you finally hire that additional crew supervisor for the East Warehouse, as I have advised you for *months*.”
He snorted. “You and your blasted supervisors. In my day—”
“In your day, you nearly lost the Rumford account because your foreman double-booked two ships.” She arched a brow. “You complain that I remind you. I note that you did not enjoy writing that apology.”
Harcourt glowered at her a moment longer, then burst into a laugh that shook his broad shoulders.
“Ah, Livia-girl,” he said, his voice rough around the edges. “Your mother would’ve been proud to see you sitting there, terror of shipping agents and savior of contracts.”
Her hand softened on the quill. At her father’s words, a familiar ache flickered through her, sharp and sweet. “Do not make me sentimental, Father. We have sums to finish.”
He grinned and sat back, the chair creaking in protest.
Livia turned back to the ledger, only to pause as the clock on the mantel chimed two.
“Drat,” she muttered.
Her father’s brows rose. “Language, girl.”
“Says the man who called Lord Westbridge a ‘mutton-headed, over-larded peacock’ at dinner last week,” she said absently as she wiped her pen.
“That was in private,” Harcourt protested, his mustache twitching. “And accurate.”
“Private? The footman in the corner nearly swallowed his tongue in mirth.”
“And you, little hypocrite, made a sound that suspiciously resembled a snort.”
“I would never.” Her lips fought a smile. “In any case, I am late. Mrs. Barstow will have a fit if I keep her waiting again.”
Harcourt’s expression darkened. “Still set on that dressmaker’s appointment, are you?”
Livia rose and moved to the small mirror by the window. Her maid had already arranged her hair in a neat knot, but she smoothed a stray wisp anyway. Her gown was last Season’s silk, pale green and perfectly serviceable, but Mrs. Barstow had declared it a moral failing that Livia possessed so few evening dresses suitable for balls.
“Yes, Father,” she said. “I am still set on it. You engaged Mrs. Barstow at great expense. It would be ungrateful not to attend her fittings.”
He huffed. “I engaged her because Lady Tansley told me that a merchant with money and an unmarried daughter must do such things if he didn’t want to be hissed at in drawing rooms.”
“You do not attend drawing rooms,” Livia pointed out. “You attend counting houses.”
“And I prefer them,” he muttered.
She turned, hands on hips. “We have discussed this. You brought us to the City when Mother died because the air agreed with your lungs and there was more profit in being near the docks. But you cannot have it both ways, Father. You cannot grumble that I am unwed at five-and-twenty and simultaneously refuse to send me anywhere I might encounter eligible men, however little I may wish to.”
His eyes softened. “You don’t wish to.”
She hesitated. “I do not wish to be hunted,” she said quietly. “Those two gentlemen last Season—”
Harcourt’s jaw clenched. “Scoundrels. Coming here with their velvet coats and their smooth words and their ‘ancestral homes’ already borrowed from every bank in London. Thinking I’d hand you and my warehouses over like a trinket.”
“They thought,” Livia said delicately, “that you were… eager for a title.”
His snort was explosive. “A title! I’ll tell you what I’m eager for: a son-in-law with a spine and a brain who doesn’t flinch at the sight of an invoice. Someone who doesn’t look at my dockyards as if they smell of fish and desperation.”
He broke off and glared at the far wall. “I swore to your mother, Livia. I swore I’d make sure you weren’t married to a fool. Or a villain.”
“And you have kept that promise admirably,” she said gently.
He looked at her, some of his bluster fading. “Too admirably, perhaps,” he muttered. “You should have had your pick of the lot by now. You’re—”
She held up a stern hand. “If you say ‘pretty as your mother,’ I shall expire from humiliation.”
“—the sharpest girl in London,” he finished instead, eyes crinkling. “And that’ll have to do.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “It will. I have no wish to be admired for my face.”
“Then you’ll have to learn to tolerate it, because any fool with eyes—”
“Father,” she groaned, but her cheeks warmed.
She knew what she looked like. Her mirror did not lie. She was not the ethereal sort of beauty poets sighed over—no wisp of a fairy with golden curls and a tendency to swoon. She was middling tall and solidly built, her shoulders strong from hours bent over ledgers and samples, her waist less pinched than Mrs. Barstow would like. Her hair was a dark, glossy brown that refused to arrange itself in the delicate little curls the fashion plates demanded; it preferred to sweep back in a thick, sensible knot. Her eyes were green, her nose too decisive, her mouth prone to quirk at one corner when she was amused.
Men had called her handsome, which always sounded to her like an apology. It never troubled her much.
They were more troubled by her mind.
She had watched potential suitors sit across from her in the parlor, their eyes sliding from her face to the shelf of account books by the wall, to her ink-stained fingers. When she asked them what provisions they intended for their tenants, how they managed their steward, whether they understood the shipping times from Bristol versus London, their expressions had tensed.
They did not want a partner. They wanted a purse.
“I will go to the fitting,” she said now, picking up her gloves. “I will smile at Mrs. Barstow’s apprentices and allow her to poke me with pins. I will attend Lady Tansley’s supper on Thursday. I will, no doubt, converse with some perfectly respectable gentlemen about the weather.”
“And if one of them is after your dowry, you’ll see it,” her father said, half statement, half prayer.
“I always do.” Her voice was dry. “They grow twitchy when asked to explain their accounts.”
He barked another laugh, though his eyes remained shadowed. “You’re too clever by half, Livia-girl. That’s your trouble.”
“Or theirs.”
She kissed his cheek, ignoring his grumble, and swept toward the door.
“Oh,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “a letter came from Mr. Channing. My solicitor, you know. Asking whether I’d be amenable to… an introduction.”
She paused, hand on the doorframe. “An introduction to whom?”
Harcourt shifted, suddenly ill at ease. “Some noble. A duke, no less. New to his title. Wants to meet ‘respectable men of commerce.’”
Livia snorted. “Does he now. How considerate of him.”
“I didn’t say yes,” her father said quickly. “But I didn’t say no, either. Told Channing I’d think on it.”
She eyed him. “Why the hesitation? You are not usually shy of meeting men who play at being important.”
“Because this one’s very important,” he muttered. “And in debt, if the rumors are true. Gamblers, all of ‘em,” he went on, voice rising. “Cards, horses, mistresses—”
“Who is he?” she cut in.
Her father sighed. “Rowan Everly. The new Duke of Merrow.”
The name hovered in the air between them.
Livia’s fingers tightened on her gloves. She had seen that name in the papers for years, attached to race results and parties. The Marquess of Wescott, then. Handsome. Charming. Reckless, some said, though others swore he was nothing like his father. Now he was duke and the subject of half the gossip in London.
“A duke,” she said slowly. “Looking to meet… respectable men of commerce.”
“So says Channing.” Harcourt scowled. “If he thinks I’m about to throw you at some titled boy with a pack of debts on his heels—”
“Did he mention me?” Livia interrupted quietly.
Harcourt’s gaze flickered away. “Said the man was looking for a wife. ‘A lady of means and sense,’ he wrote. As if such a combination grew on trees.”
“And you thought of me,” she said, her voice very level.
“I thought of all the fools who’ve come sniffing round,” he growled. “Thought maybe a man who knows his own ruin might be more honest about it.” He looked at her, his face oddly naked. “I didn’t promise a bloody thing, Livia. Told Channing if the duke wants to talk *business,* I’ll talk.”
Business. As if that were all it could be.
“Do you want to meet him?” Harcourt asked, the question heavy. “Because if you don’t, that’s the end of it. Title or no title, I won’t have you forced on some man just because he’s got an old name and we’ve got new money.”
Livia drew a slow breath. The room seemed smaller suddenly, the walls closer.
Did she want to meet him? A desperate duke, whose father had gambled his estate into the ground. Seeking *respectable men of commerce.* Seeking, perhaps, more.
Seeking her.
She thought of the drawing rooms where ladies tittered behind fans, of the way conversations stuttered when she mentioned warehousing fees. She thought of the crooning tones in which other men had praised her dowry, and the cool silence that had descended when she’d asked about their own.
“I do not enjoy being paraded for inspection,” she said at last. “You know that.”
Harcourt nodded.
“But,” she went on, very carefully, “I also do not enjoy being dismissed as… unsuitable. Or being told that my future hinges upon whether some baronet with half a brain finds me pleasing.”
He made a wordless noise of agreement.
A duke in debt. A woman with money and a mind. It sounded like the beginning of a cautionary tale—or something else entirely.
“Tell Mr. Channing,” she said, “that if the Duke of Merrow truly wishes to speak of business, I would be curious to hear what, precisely, he has in mind.”
Her father studied her. “Curious, are you?”
“Curiosity is cheaper than regret.” Her mouth curved slightly. “And far more useful than fear.”
He huffed, half a laugh, half a sigh. “You get that from me, you know.”
“I get my stubbornness from you,” she said. “My curiosity is my own.”
She slipped out of the room before he could reply, her heart beating just a little faster than before.
In the hall, she paused by the window. The street below bustled with carts and apprentices, clerks and carriages. Somewhere, across the city, a new duke sat in a house built on old money and fresh ruin, with ledgers as grim as any she’d seen.
Livia tightened her gloves.
“If you expect me to fall at your feet because you have a title, my lord,” she murmured to no one, “you will be tragically disappointed.”
She smiled, sharp and instant.
“Let us see,” she whispered, “whether you can count.”
Then she went to be fitted for a gown that, unbeknownst to Mrs. Barstow, would be worn like armor.
***