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Chapter 1

 

 

London – 1816

 

The weather was perfect for reading. It was a good thing, then, that Miss Isabella Owen carried a bag filled with new books. Her lady’s maid, Miss Eliza Harper, had her own bag of books, too. They slowed their pace as they entered the park.

 

It was one of Isabella’s favorite parks. It seemed like something out of a painting. The houses around the park were large and neat, with their own sprawling gardens that matched the stately park in shapes and colors.

 

The sky was gray, and the birds called out before the coming rains. Eliza let out a soft shiver.

 

Despite their closeness, Eliza was quite the opposite to Isabella. Isabella’s black hair and piercing blue eyes were her most recognizable features. Whereas Eliza wore her ash blonde hair in her usual braid and her brown eyes seemed to disappear into the recesses of her mind.

 

Eliza was a short woman who always took quick hurried steps. Isabella was of average build and while she walked at a pace, she did so elegantly, as if the world would always wait for her.

 

“It will be good to see that fireplace at home,” she said as she pulled her arms closer to her body for warmth.

 

A soft breeze picked up, and Isabella let it wash over her as she enjoyed the fresh air. The prospect of new stories to read excited her. She could already picture the spot on her father’s bookshelf where she would keep the books.

 

“I don’t know how you read all those stories, miss,” Eliza said. “All that action makes me too tense.”

 

“I love it,” Isabella confessed. “The characters in my books live such different existences to me. The kind of lives that I can only imagine in my dreams.”

 

“Oh, no thank you,” Eliza said. “I don’t want those kinds of dreams. You gave me that book to read last year about the woman who went off into the jungle in search of a lost land. There were sword fights and kidnappings. I was having the worst nightmares.”

 

“I really liked that one,” Isabella said. “Imagine the fun she had. Her life had so much meaning. She had an important task in the world. She made a difference to someone.”

 

Eliza chuckled. “You don’t need to get into sword fights to make a difference in someone’s life.”

 

“No,” Isabella agreed. “But you have to do something drastic if you have any intention of changing the world.”

 

“I don’t think I’d like to change the world,” Eliza confessed. “Life is pretty and calm when it is small. My uncle worked on the ships. While he was my father’s youngest brother, he looked at least a decade or two his senior.”

 

Isabella had often imagined herself as various characters of her books. Particularly on nights when she had trouble falling asleep. She would picture herself as a strong woman, sailing for months to follow in her father’s legacy of searching for land.

 

Or some nights she imagined she was a sleuth, leaving the home at night in search of answers pertaining to a recent murder. She would interrogate suspects in her mind and chase murderers down alleyways, taking them down in the nick of time.

 

“I’ll have an adventure of my own one day,” Isabella said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

 

“Oh no, please don’t,” Eliza quickly responded. “I’ll be far too worried about you.”

 

At twenty-seven, Isabella was considered a spinster. She had not married and had little interest in suitors. She preferred to spend her time tucked into the pages of books, or learning new skills. Some days, she would pick out books on law and anatomy.

 

She had a wealth of knowledge that most other women didn’t care about. Isabella found it difficult to socialize with other women. She found little interest in the subjects that intrigued them. Once her father had tried to do something nice for her and invited a few women on their street for tea. They spoke about the color of curtains for an hour straight.

 

It had bored Isabella so much that she had considered an at-home lobotomy to get herself out of it. Later that day she had made her father promise never to do something like that again.

 

He’d thought it was funny. He was like that.

 

“What kind of books do you read then?” Isabella asked.

 

“Romance, like most women,” Eliza said with a laugh.

 

“There’s romance in my books,” Isabella argued.

 

Eliza shook her head. “No, those romances are not normal,” she answered. “Nobody should find true love in the middle of a remote jungle. It should be found on a dance floor, or at first sight in a crowded room.”

 

“Are those the kinds of books you keep yourself entertained with?” Isabella asked. “That’s the same story recycled!”

 

“You’ll understand one day when you’ve experienced it yourself,” Eliza said. It sounded almost like a warning. “You will fall in love one day. And it won’t be in the middle of some remote jungle.”

 

Isabella wasn’t so sure that was true. While she was certain that she’d never see the middle of a remote jungle, she was also sure that she would never find true love. Her time for that was running out, and soon, her family would choose a suitor for her just so that she didn’t grow old alone.

 

While Isabella could pretend, she couldn’t be the kind of woman that men of her generation wanted to marry. She would always want more from life. It felt like a curse some days.

 

What excited most women simply didn’t interest her, and most men found that challenging. Isabella was difficult to please. She needed life to be interesting. Mundane tasks made her feel like running away.

 

It didn’t bother Isabella that she wasn’t married yet. Societal pressure was easy to escape when she had her father’s library to hide away in. That was where she spent a large part of her day most days. She had a chair that she’d sat a dent in over the years.

 

It was precisely that chair that she longed for as they crossed the park.

 

“Is that the Duke of Trent?” Eliza asked, looking out ahead of them.

 

It was the duke. He had a recognizable manner in which he walked. His long legs stalked beneath him with his hands clasped behind his back. It wasn’t often that the duke was seen walking on his own.

 

He was a popular man who had never done anybody wrong. And so, he hardly appeared in public without a friendly and recognizable face to join him.

 

The Duke of Trent would be celebrating his fortieth birthday that year. It would be his first birthday since his wife had passed. Isabella found him to be an interesting man, and his round, friendly features made him enjoyable to be around.

 

His political career was unmatched, too, since nobody could ever find anything bad to say about him. Public favor had never been swayed for as long as he’d been in his position.

 

A shadow appeared from behind a nearby bush and caught Isabella’s eye. She was about to point it out to Eliza, but before she could say anything she saw the light reflect off a metallic object extended from the figure’s arm.

 

***

 

Mr. Mason Alton stretched his arms as his horse carried him slowly through the park. He had hoped for a sunny day. Sunny days reminded him that he was still alive—an achievement to be proud of.

 

It was a quiet day, with only the sound of some laughter in the distance, the birds in the trees, and the distant sound of London’s hustle and bustle in the background.

 

Mason often walked through the park when he needed to clear his head. However, that day he would not have the relaxing escape he had hoped for. The sound of the horse’s hooves had reminded him of some of the things he’d seen as a man of the infantry, and threatened his peace.

 

It was hard not to think of the thousands of men who had died in the battle of Waterloo just the year before. Mason had seen so much of the world. Most of it had been exciting and beautiful. But there were a few rare moments of devastation that often drowned out the good.

 

Sometimes, when he thought he could quiet his mind and ease his worries, the memories of gunfire and chaos snuck back in and put him on edge. He couldn’t stop his sweat-dampened back from straightening.

 

The park was quieter than he expected. There were two women who walked and giggled after what appeared to be a successful shopping trip, the man on a horse who had passed him earlier, and ahead was the unmistakable gait of the Duke of Trent. Then, there were some who sat and watched the weather roll in, hoping to catch the last of the birds before they retreated to their treetops.

 

He searched for something to soothe his mind. He ran his fingers through his hair to fix his tousled brown curls. Mason was weathered from his various adventurous pastimes. He wasn’t often just meandering through the park on his horse.

 

Most of the time, if he was not stationed somewhere, he was mountaineering or chartering ships. Whatever he fancied as something fun to do. Something to distract him from the horrors of war. But occasionally, he had to return and was forced to face a normal, mundane day.

 

However, when a horseman came from behind a bush, he knew something was wrong. The trajectory the man had chosen, the hood that obscured his face from view, and the fact that he seemed to come out of nowhere bothered Mason.

 

The man was headed straight toward the duke.

 

Automatically, Mason instructed his horse to pick up the pace so that he could reach the duke as quickly as possible.

 

When the figure reached into his coat, and Mason saw the reflection of light against something metallic, he pushed his horse into a full gallop. He had to get the duke before things went horribly wrong.

 

His mind cleared as he raced toward the duke, but the hooded rider seemed to be gaining on him faster. Everything felt like second nature to Mason then.

 

As he reached the duke, Mason reached out and grabbed him by the collar. By the time he got there, the gun in the hooded rider’s hand was pointed directly at the duke. There was no time to think.

 

“Get down!” he shouted, leaving the duke little choice.

 

Mason threw his leg over the back of his horse and threw himself on top of the duke right as he heard the crack of a gunshot through the air.

 

The duke slammed into the ground, and Mason fell on top of him. The sound of the shot was still echoing through the air as the sound of the hooded rider’s horse faded away from them.

 

The bullet had missed them by a hair. Mason had felt the brush of air past his head as the projectile traveled past it. The duke was alive. He had heard the grunt he let out as he hit the ground.

 

Mason rolled off of him and looked in the direction that the rider was going in. There were no features that he could get his eyes on. The gunman was on his horse, and Mason had abandoned his.

 

There was no chance for him to catch up to the gunman.

 

“Stop that man!” he called out hopelessly.

 

Mason could not leave the duke there to give chase anyway. There was no certainty that there weren’t other gunmen lurking nearby. The duke had struggled to his feet and was standing beside him, entirely bewildered.

 

It was good news to know that the duke was unharmed, but Mason’s heart was racing. His mundane day had turned out to be quite the opposite of that.

 

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was not on the battlefield. He was in a park in London. He was safe.