Chapter 1

Leon stared for a long moment, then asked as if he'd misheard me, "Ivy, what did you just say?"

I picked up my cup of black tea, which had long since gone cold, and looked at him. "I said, if you're so set against marrying me, let's call off the engagement. Our lawyers can work out the terms tomorrow."

"Who said you could call it off?" He slammed his glass down on the table with a jarring crack. "Ivy Whitmore, do you think a Kane engagement is something you can sign and tear up whenever you please?"

"But you're the one who asked to end it." I glanced at Clara beside him. "And this is the tenth time."

Leon's face darkened. He seemed sure that by now I'd be red-eyed, explaining and apologizing, then handing Clara the seat at the head table. When none of that happened, all he could do was throw out, "You'd better not regret this."

Clara walked past me on his arm, a smile tugging at her lips. A brooch Leon had picked out himself was pinned to her wine-red silk dress. The engagement gift he'd given me, meanwhile, was still locked in my jewelry case, because he thought it was too flashy for me to wear in public.

The moment they were gone, the guests lowered their voices.

"Three days. I bet she goes to apologize within three days."

"Maybe tomorrow morning. She's chased Leon for ten years. How could she let go?"

"That woman's got it rough, though. Leon brought his mistress to his future mother-in-law's birthday dinner and expected Ivy to give up her mother's seat for his lover."

"Well, whose fault is that? She's the one who was dead set on marrying him. The Kane family wanted Leon with Clara from the start."

I sat without moving until my mother saw the last guest out. She'd spent half a month choosing the menu. The silver gleamed, and white roses lined the way from the front door to the dining room. But in the end, all anyone would remember was my fiancé humiliating me in public.

My father, George, walked into the study and set his whiskey glass down hard. "Ivy, you knew tonight was your mother's birthday. Why did you have to pick a fight with Leon now of all times?"

"I didn't start it." I looked straight at him. "Clara wanted Mom's seat, and I said no. So Leon said he'd break off the engagement. Over the past ten years, I've given in to him too many times."

My mother, Martha, unfastened the necklace that had been digging into my skin and said gently, "I know he went too far. But Mrs. Kane has always cared about appearances. If you don't explain yourself, I'm afraid she'll hold it against both our families."

Before she'd even finished, my father was shaking his head. "Why is it always Ivy who has to explain? Leon is the one who keeps humiliating her in public. We put three warehouses and two railway freight lines into this partnership, and it wasn't so our daughter could be treated like dirt.

"But since you publicly agreed to end the engagement this time," my father said, looking at me with a softer expression, "Eileen is bound to seize on it. She just sent word through her longtime butler. She's insisting you kneel in the family chapel for three nights to apologize to everyone who was upset at the party. I won't agree to something that absurd. I'll go talk to her tomorrow."

"Dad, I'll go." I pressed down on his hand as he reached for the phone. "Mom just had her birthday. You don't need to fight with Eileen over me. Going this time doesn't mean I'm admitting I was wrong."

The Kane family made young people do public penance in that chapel whenever they stepped out of line. In the past, every time I refused to apologize to Leon, I was ordered to kneel there for three nights, my knees pressed against the cold stone until I shook just trying to stand. All my father knew was that I kept going to apologize. He had no idea what humiliation came with those apologies. My mother tried to stop me several times, but I insisted on going. Three days in that chapel were exactly what I needed to make everyone believe I was scared.

When I was 12, I was taken by kidnappers and locked in a coal car. When the train passed the junction outside Blackbridge, a boy charged in through the gunfire and carried me out from behind the iron door. I had such a high fever I could barely think. All I remembered was his black wool coat and the words he said before he left. "Don't be scared. You're home now."

The next day, I woke up in our living room, and Leon was the one who'd brought me back. I asked him if he'd saved me. He looked at me for a long time and didn't deny it.

And so I loved him for ten years.

He said I spoke too bluntly, so I practiced high-society manners with a governess over and over. He liked the old songs Clara sang, so I practiced at the piano for hours. He sneered that my bookkeeping looked like a child's scribbles, so I spent three years copying out the old ledgers from my father's warehouses, until my handwriting was neater than our senior accountant's.

But he never gave me a second look. He said the one he really loved was Clara Bell, the daughter of a small tavern owner. On the day our engagement was announced, Clara collapsed into his arms in tears in front of everyone. Leon stormed over to my house and stood outside cursing me for an entire afternoon, convinced I'd forced him to give up the woman he loved.

Later, when I didn't give up my box at the racetrack to Clara, he said he'd break off the engagement. When I drank one glass too many at a family dinner, he said he'd break off the engagement. Once, all I did was correct a figure in the accounts in front of him, and he said a woman who loved showing off like that wasn't fit to be a Kane wife.

And every time, I was the one who ended up begging him to stay.

Looking back, I could see he'd never been afraid of losing me. He knew that no matter how much he hurt me, I'd always come back on my own.

On the third night in the chapel, my knees were so bruised and swollen I could barely stand to let them touch the floor. Lucy slipped past the guard at the door and pressed a folded receipt into my hand.

She leaned close and whispered, "The letter you sent north reached Ronan Kane. He took it from the messenger himself."

With the receipt clutched in my hand, I slept well for the first time in days.