Prologue

“Belle, We don’t have any money.” My father’s voice came out shakey. I had slowly placed the broom down, knowing where this conversation was going.

The conversation always started like this.

But this time I knew a decision would have to be made.

I drew the curtains in an attempt to distract myself from getting emotional. The late afternoon light slanted weakly through the small parlor window, catching the dust in the air and turning it to drifting gold.

Our curtains had once been ivory. Now they were the color of old parchment, worn thin at the hems. Everything in this house felt tired. The chairs. The walls. My father.

And now, perhaps, me.

"Belle," he said when I didn't respond.

“Father, please,” I whispered. My hands were clenched so tightly in my skirts that my knuckles ached. “I have always dreamed of a love like you and Mother had. I cannot marry a man I do not love—let alone know.”

His jaw tightened at the mention of her. It always did. “Belle,” he said more gently, though his voice trembled beneath the softness, “I am not asking you to think of me. I am asking you to think of your sisters.”

He gestured vaguely toward the narrow hallway that led to the rest of the house, where faint laughter echoed.

“There are four of you,” he continued. “Four girls to clothe. Four mouths to feed. I have already taken two jobs. I rise before dawn and return after dark. You work at the semetress shop as an apprentice, and still it is not enough. It cannot sustain us.”

I swallowed hard. I knew this. I saw the numbers as clearly as he did. I knew how often he skipped meals. I knew the boots he wore were splitting at the soles. I knew the grocer had begun extending credit with the kind of tight smile that meant it would not last.

Still, knowing did not make it easier.

“Father, please,” I said again, though the word felt smaller this time.

He pressed a hand against his chest, just briefly. “Belle,” he said, and now there was something raw beneath his composure, something fragile. “I would not ask this of you if it were not urgent. I must see the doctor again concerning my heart. The medicine alone…” He paused, as if calculating whether the truth would wound me more than the lie. “The medicine bills are too high, my dear.”

My throat tightened.

The doctor had visited twice this winter already. Each time leaving with folded bills tucked into his coat and grave concern in his eyes. Each time my father insisting he felt better, though the color never truly returned to his face.

I looked down at the worn floorboards so he would not see the fear in my expression.

I did not want him to suffer. Not because of me.

If it meant I had to marry an old crone of a man to give my father a comfortable last few years… if it meant freeing him of stress until my sisters were grown and of marrying age… then perhaps.

Perhaps love was a luxury we could not afford.

“Lord Rathcliffe is an honest man,” my father said, as though sensing the direction of my thoughts. “He has three children. William, Katherine, and David. All he wants is for them to have a mother.”

A mother.

The word settled heavily upon me.

I had never imagined becoming one without first knowing love. Without laughter shared in secret. Without stolen glances across a crowded room. Without a hand reaching for mine because it wished to, not because it must.

“I never thought…” My voice faltered. “I never thought I would be a mother without bearing children of my own.”Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them.

"You will dear. Eventually Lord Rathcliffe will give you children."

I turned toward the window so my father would not see tears finally fall.Outside, in the narrow patch of garden that stubbornly refused to die despite our neglect, my youngest sister spun in circles with the dog at her heels. Her hair caught the light like spun honey. She shrieked with laughter when the dog leapt clumsily at her skirts.

She did not remember our mother.

She had been only two years old when fever took her.

The rest of us remembered.

I remembered the way Mother hummed while mending stockings. The way she brushed my hair each evening, long, careful strokes that I can still feel when I close my eyes and think of her.

I remembered sitting beside her bed during her final days, the air thick with the scent of herbs and desperation. I remembered the way she gripped my hand.“Take care of them,” she had whispered. “You are the eldest, Belle. You have my strength. Do not let them feel alone.”

I had promised.

God help me, I had promised.

And in truth, I had already been a mother long before this proposal. I had wiped tears. Braided hair. Read stories by candlelight when storms frightened them.

I had shielded them from Father’s worries, even as my own grew.

Perhaps this was simply the next step in that unchosen role.

Behind me, my father’s voice softened. “He is a respected man. His estate is stable. You would never know hunger again. Your sisters would have dowries. Security. Futures.”

“How old is he?” I asked quietly.

There was a pause.

“Old enough to value steadiness,” my father replied carefully.

That was not an answer.

“How old?” I pressed.

“He is thirty years your senior."

I turned away.

I was only nineteen.

I closed my eyes.

“I have met him,” my father added quickly. “He is stern, yes. Reserved. But not cruel. He has lost his wife. He needs someone gentle in that house.”

Someone gentle.

.

“Does he know why?” I asked before I could stop myself.

My father frowned. “Why what?”

“Why I would agree.”His gaze sharpened slightly.

“He knows that we are not in the strongest financial position. But he does not know desperation, if that is what you mean. Nor does he need to.”

The dog barked outside. My youngest sister stumbled and fell into the grass, laughing. My second sister hurried to pull her up, brushing dirt from her sleeves with exaggerated seriousness.

Four girls.

Four futures balanced on my decision.

I inhaled slowly, steadying myself.