Her life was likely never to be quite the same again.

While Lydia wouldn’t grieve leaving the soulless, gilded prison of her father’s house, the place where she had always been largely invisible and barely tolerated, she was entering into a union with a man she did not know, or ever hope to understand.

The open, optimistic, impetuous, fiery and charming Owen of her youth was gone. He was still thoroughly charming, at least he had been right up until he had proposed marriage to her, and clearly still impetuous if their unexpected and hasty elopement was any gauge. But the optimism and openness were no more. All the fire had been dampened, instead replaced by the cynical, emotionless businessman who played his cards close to his chest.