Chapter One
Hertfordshire, England – Spring 1814
Juliana Merrick had never intended to eavesdrop.
She had been reaching for her bonnet, the one with the pale blue ribbon her mother had once sewn by hand, when her aunt's voice drifted through the half-open parlor door like smoke—sharp, curling, impossible to ignore.
"She's too wild for London, I tell you. Too opinionated, too outspoken. That child needs taming."
Juliana froze, fingers still gripping the bonnet's brim. Child? She was nineteen—not quite on the shelf, but certainly not a child. And if speaking her mind qualified her as wild, then heaven help the meek and silent women who floated through drawing rooms like pretty ghosts.
Another voice answered, drier and less anxious. Uncle Frederick. "Taming her will be like trying to bottle thunder, Catherine. And you know it."
There was a long pause, followed by a huff.
"Then perhaps London will do it. The Season has a way of pressing the willful into shape. And if it doesn't—" Her aunt's voice dropped to a hiss. "We'll find someone who can."
Juliana didn't wait to hear the rest.
She spent the carriage ride to London staring out the window, pretending she wasn't furious. Her aunt had packed half her wardrobe and every expectation imaginable. Her uncle had kissed her forehead and muttered something about surviving the coming onslaught. And Juliana—determined not to be 'tamed'—had smiled sweetly and plotted her escape from every dance, every tea, and especially every suitor.
Juliana was orphaned at a young age, her parents claimed in a carriage attack by philanderers. The carriage was overturned during the chase and ended up falling in a cliff that swiftly took the life of her parents. She's a sweet child and was given to the care of her father's brother, Uncle Frederick.
Her Uncle Frederick and Aunt Catherine have one daughter and a son but they still welcomed and treated Juliana as one of their own. Who wouldn't? Juliana is extremely well-read and talented. Her raven hair shining and loustrous while her green doe eyes with flecks of gold is framed by delicately arched eyebrows and lush lashes, making it all the more striking. She has a pert nose and a lips that begged to be kissed. She was a conundrum of sorts as if wanting to lure you in and yet telling a person to keep distance - always alert and prepared.
But what she hadn't planned on was him.
Lord Ashbourne.
The Duke.
It was at the Marchmont ball that she first saw him—tall, striking, and so absurdly handsome that he looked like he'd stepped out of a Gothic novel. He wore disdain like other men wore cravats, effortlessly and with precision. The crowd parted around him, a living sea of silk and whispers. Some curtsied too quickly. Others didn't dare speak.
Juliana, of course, said the first thing that came to mind.
"That man looks positively miserable."
Lady Cecily, her cousin, gasped. "You don't know who that is?"
"I don't particularly care."
"That's Lord Sebastian Ashbourne—the Duke of Ashbourne."
Juliana blinked. "The brooding one with the ruined fiancée and the fortune from coal?"
Cecily hissed. "He can hear you!"
Apparently, he could. His gaze cut toward them—cool, unreadable, and entirely too aware.
Their eyes met.
For one startling moment, the air felt thick.
Then his mouth tilted—just slightly—into something that might have been a smirk. And then he turned away, as if she were a footnote to a page he'd already read.
Juliana's jaw tightened.
She hadn't come to London to be married off to a cold-hearted duke with a tragic past and a god complex. She'd come to prove—if only to herself—that she couldn't be controlled.
Which was precisely why, when he approached her the following week and asked for a dance in that maddeningly calm voice, she said—
"No."
Right in front of half the ton.