Excerpt: Lady Courtney’s Second Chance

Prologue

Lord Rockwell Ware sat in the leather-worn carriage, hoping this wasn’t a wasted trip. He was traveling to a small village called Malahide outside of Dublin, Ireland, in very temperamental weather. He glanced at his companion and prayed the weather would hold. He closed his eyes and memories of a previous trip filled his thoughts, when he’d sat in a dingy tavern in Dublin a few weeks ago, sure he was seeing a ghost.

The man had been seated in shadows, his back to the room, but something about the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head as he bent over his ale, had sent ice through Rockwell’s veins. When the stranger had turned slightly, offering a profile view, Rockwell had nearly choked on his drink. The beard was fuller, the face more weathered, and a vicious scar ran from forehead to cheek, but those features…

Lucien.

His best friend since childhood. His brother in all but blood. The man who had vanished into the chaos of the Irish Rebellion five years ago and never returned. The man they had buried in an empty grave at Danvers Parish Church while his father, the Earl of Danvers, had wept, and his sisters had worn widow’s weeds for their lost brother.

He shook the images away. He’d arrived in Ireland again a few days ago to look for the man he’d seen in that tavern on his previous visit. He had to know if it had been Lucien and if his friend was alive. He’d made good progress. After a few days in Ireland, he’d managed to learn from a market trader and brothel madam, the name of a man who could be Lucien.

“Aye, that’d be John Collins. Lives up near Malahide. Good man, John. Keeps to himself mostly, but he’s helped many a neighbor with their crops.”

John Collins. The name had tasted like ash in Rockwell’s mouth.

And so here he was, in a carriage driving toward Malahide with Lady Farah Perrin at his side—another impossible complication in his increasingly complicated life. She had been injured while hiding in his trunk, and she’d found herself shanghaied on his ship bound for Ireland to find Lucien, another long story.

On top of looking for a friend everyone thought was dead, he now had to contend with figuring out how he would sneak Lady Farah back into London without anyone being aware of her absence. Otherwise, she’d be completely compromised, and he’d find himself married to her. Currently, Farah was pretending to be his sister, Ashley.

Unfortunately, Farah was as invested in this mad journey as he was. Perhaps more so, given her tender heart and romantic notions about lost loves and second chances.

“There,” Farah said softly, pointing toward a collection of cottages. “That must be Malahide.”

Rockwell squinted against the sun, making out the cluster of whitewashed cottages that dotted the coastline like scattered shells. Somewhere among them lived the man who might be Lucien, Viscount Furoe, and heir to an earldom, living as a simple Irish farmer named John Collins.

The impossibility of it all struck him anew. How could Lucien—brilliant, educated, aristocratic Lucien—have survived all this time in such circumstances? How could he have simply vanished from his former life without a trace? And why had he never returned home or even let anyone know he was alive? Why John Collins? It just couldn’t be him. Could it?

“What if we’re wrong?” Farah asked, as if reading his thoughts. “What if this John Collins is simply a man who resembles your friend?”

“Then we will have taken a very tedious journey and risked your reputation for nothing,” Rockwell replied, though his gut told him otherwise. That glimpse in the tavern, brief as it had been, had ignited a certainty in him that defied logic. “But I don’t think we’re wrong.”

As their carriage approached the village store, Rockwell’s mind raced through the implications. If Lucien was indeed alive, what had happened to him? Why had he stayed in Ireland, living under an assumed name? And what of his family—his father and sisters who had mourned him these five years? What of Lady Courtney, who had worn black for a full year and still, four years later, remained unmarried, claiming no man could compare to her lost love?

The questions multiplied with each shuddering wheel turn, but Rockwell forced himself to focus on the immediate task. First, they had to find this John Collins. Then they had to determine if he was truly Lucien. Only then could they begin to unravel the mystery of what had happened during those missing years.

The village was quiet in the early afternoon, with only a few fishing boats preparing for work on the shoreline. Rockwell helped Farah from the carriage and then stood for a moment, taking in the peaceful scene. It was so different from the London they had left behind—the frantic pace, the constant noise, the weight of social obligation that pressed down on every interaction. Here, the air smelled of salt and seaweed and growing things. Gulls cried overhead, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the lowing of cattle.

If Lucien had indeed been living here for five years, Rockwell could understand why he might have found contentment. There was something deeply appealing about the simplicity of it all, the connection to land and sea that was absent from their London lives.

“Where do we begin?” Farah asked, adjusting her simple traveling cloak. They had both dressed as plainly as possible, hoping to blend in among the locals rather than announce themselves as English nobility.

Rockwell, scanning the coastline, replied, “We’ll start walking and ask as we go.”

“Let’s split up. I’ll find the vicarage. Surely the local vicar will know everyone.”

“Good idea. I’ll ask in the village.”

Unfortunately, his clothes could not hide his accent and he got very little information from the suspicious and anti-English villagers. So he made his way up the hill toward the graveyard and vicarage to meet Farah. He pushed open the rusty gate and began to walk through the gravestones when he heard Farah talking. As he rounded the corner he saw her—and then—oh, my God—Lucien.

The next minute, Rockwell found himself barreling toward his friend. But Farah caught him, pulling hard on his coat and pulling him away from Lucien. “He doesn’t know who you are, let alone who he is. He’s got amnesia.”

Rockwell stumbled backward, shock and then relief on his face.

“Lucien,” Rockwell breathed.

As if hearing his name spoken, the man straightened and looked him in the eye. Rockwell’s knees nearly gave way. The beard was fuller than it had been in the tavern, and that scar was even more prominent in the daylight—a jagged reminder of whatever violence had befallen him. But the eyes, the shape of the face, the way he held himself…

There was no doubt. This was Lucien, Viscount Furoe, lost heir to the Earl of Danvers. Alive.

Before Rockwell could speak, a small figure pulled on his coat—a little girl with dark curls bouncing as she moved. She launched herself at Lucien’s legs, and he swept her up with the ease of long practice, his face transforming with a smile that was achingly familiar.

“Daid!” The child’s voice carried on the morning air. “Look what I found!”

She held up something small in her hand—a shell or perhaps a pretty stone—and the man examined it with the grave attention that such treasures deserved. The domestic scene was so peaceful, so complete, that Rockwell hesitated. What right did he have to shatter this contentment? What right did any of them have to drag Lucien back to a world he no longer remembered, to duties he couldn’t recall accepting?

But then he thought of the Earl of Danvers, and the family that was about to lose everything. The earl already thought he’d lost his heir. He thought of Lauren and Madeline, who still wore lockets with their brother’s miniature. Of Lady Courtney, who had turned down three proposals in the past year alone because no man could measure up to her lost love.

And he thought of Lucien himself—the brilliant, passionate man who had once argued politics until dawn and written poetry by candlelight. Who had been destined for great things, who had responsibilities and a legacy that stretched back generations. Did that man not deserve the chance to choose his own fate, rather than having it chosen for him by circumstance?

“Daid, this is my new friend, Farah. But I don’t know this man,” the little girl said, pointing at them.

The man—John, Lucien, whoever he was now—looked at him and Rockwell saw only polite curiosity there. No recognition. No spark of memory. This man looked at his oldest friend and saw a stranger.

“Stay calm,” Farah whispered. “We must be careful not to shock him.”

Rockwell could see the changes five years had wrought. Lucien’s hands were callused from farm work, his skin weathered by sun and sea air. He moved with the easy confidence of a man comfortable in his skin, but there was something watchful in his eyes, the wariness of someone who had learned not to trust too easily.

“I don’t know him either,” Lucien said, his accent purely Irish now, with no trace of the cultured English tones Rockwell remembered. “Who are you?”

Rockwell watched the girl cradled in Lucien’s arms. The child was undeniably Lucien’s daughter—she had his dark hair, his intelligent eyes, even his stubborn chin. But her manner of speaking, her accent, spoke of an upbringing far different from the formal education a viscount’s daughter would have received.

Farah recovered first. “I’m here in Malahide looking for someone.”

“Oh, you’re English,” Lucien said, shifting the little girl across to his other arm. “I’m John Collins. This is my daughter, Ava-Marie.”

John Collins. The name felt like a knife twist in Rockwell’s chest. His friend, his brother, reduced to this fiction. Who had done this to him? How had Lucien become this humble farmer with no memory of his past?

“Yes, she introduced herself to me,” Farah said, and Rockwell could hear the strain in her voice as she struggled to maintain the pretense. “Have you always lived here in Malahide?”

A frown crossed Lucien’s face, and he touched his scar unconsciously. “No. I think I lived in England before coming home, because I got injured in France, I believe. Or so my wife used to tell me. I can’t remember anything from before five years ago. A head wound took my memories.”

France. Rockwell nearly laughed at the bitter irony. Someone had told Lucien he’d been wounded in France, probably to explain his injuries and his presence in Ireland. But Lucien had never fought in France—he had been in Ireland, fighting in the rebellion that had nearly torn the country apart.

Someone had lied to him. Someone had taken advantage of his injured state and stolen his entire identity.

The rage that filled Rockwell was so intense it nearly overwhelmed him. His friend—brilliant, trusting Lucien—had been deceived in the cruelest possible way. Robbed not just of his memories but of his very self, his family, his future. Someone had committed a theft so profound, it beggared belief.

“Mr. Collins,” Farah said carefully, “this is my friend, Lord Rockwell Ware, and he has been looking for you for a long time. He’s simply overjoyed at finding you. Is there somewhere we could go talk?”

Lucien looked between them, confusion and wariness warring in his expression. “Looking for me? But how could you be looking for me when you don’t even know me?”

The simple logic of the question was heartbreaking. How could they explain that they were looking for someone he used to be? Someone he couldn’t remember being?

“Perhaps we could sit down,” Rockwell said, finding his voice at last. “What we have to tell you… It will be difficult to believe.”

The truth, Rockwell reflected grimly, was indeed more complicated than any lie. But he’d found his friend and now he was determined to take him home, ensure he took his place in society and with his family, and help him restore the Danvers good name and finances.

Chapter One

Lucien Furoe stared up at the imposing façade of Danvers House, his throat tight with an emotion he couldn’t name. The grand Georgian mansion loomed before him, its weathered stone and tall windows holding no hint of familiarity. According to Lord Rockwell Ware, who stood beside him radiating quiet concern, this had been his home for the first three and twenty years of his life. He was now eight and twenty and had not stepped foot in this house for the past five years.

Home. The word felt hollow, meaningless. His home was a modest cottage in Malahide, Ireland, with worn wooden floors and a leaky roof that had driven him mad every spring. But that home, like so much else in his life, had proven to be built on lies.

“Are you ready?” Lord Wolfarth—Wolf, as he preferred—asked from his other side. Both brothers had become unexpected allies, though Lucien was still working out their motives for bringing him back to England. Rockwell professed it was because they were best friends in his past life, and that this family needed him because his father had gambled away the family’s finances, to the point that they were looking at debtor’s prison.

Rockwell cleared his throat again. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Lucien straightened his cravat, a nervous gesture he’d developed since donning these foreign gentleman’s clothes. The fine wool coat felt confining after years of simple linen shirts and sturdy working clothes. But he was a viscount now, or so they told him. Viscount Furoe, heir to the Earl of Danvers.

The grand entrance door swung open before they could knock, and an elderly butler appeared, his eyes widening at the sight of Lucien.

“My lord,” the man whispered, his lined face paling. “It cannot be…”

“Hello, Phillips,” Rockwell said smoothly. “Might we come in? We have news for the family.”

Phillips stepped back, his rheumy eyes never leaving Lucien’s face. “Of course, my lord. The family is at home. I shall announce—”

“No need,” Wolf cut in. “Better we handle this…delicately.”

Lucien followed them into a vast entrance hall that stretched up two stories, dominated by a sweeping marble staircase. Strong June sunlight filtered through tall windows, catching on gilt-framed portraits and crystal chandeliers. The faded opulence made his head spin. This was supposedly his birthright, yet he felt like an imposter in a play he hadn’t rehearsed.

A soft gasp drew his attention to the staircase. A young woman stood frozen on the stairs, her knuckles white against the banister. She was perhaps twenty years of age, with dark hair like his own and eyes the color of storm clouds.

“Lucien, you’re alive!” she breathed, and the naked hope in her voice made his chest ache. “Where have you been?” She came tearing down the stairs and threw herself into his arms.

The impact of her embrace sent shock through his system. His body went rigid, every muscle tensing as unfamiliar arms wrapped around him with desperate familiarity. She hugged him hard and long as her tears fell, yet he could only stand frozen, his own arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

As she hugged him, he felt helpless in her grief. “How could you stay away?”

He wanted to respond, to say something—anything–but his throat had closed. This woman—this stranger—was crying tears of joy over him, and he felt nothing but the hollow ache of absence where recognition should have been. The guilt was immediate and crushing.

She stepped away, and he saw her face crumple as she took in his stiff posture, his vacant expression. Her joy flickered and died like a candle in wind.

“Lucien?” The uncertainty in her voice was worse than her tears.

He turned toward her, searching her features desperately for any spark of recognition. The shape of her nose, the curve of her mouth, even the way she tilted her head—it all seemed significant, like a language he should understand but couldn’t read. He recognized his features but not her. Nothing. Just as with the house, the gardens, the butler—she was a stranger wearing the face of family.

Wolf said quietly, “Your brother has no memories of who he is or who you are. He received a head injury in the Irish Rebellion and cannot remember anything from before that day. He has been living in Ireland, believing his name to be Mr. John Collins.”

Lucien was surprised that this sister didn’t crumple to the ground. Isn’t that what ladies of quality did when faced with dreadful news?

She looked at him closely. “I’m just so thankful you’re not dead. Father… He’ll be, he’ll be so relieved.”

“Lady Lauren,” Rockwell said gently, “might I present Lord Lucien, Viscount Furoe.” The formal introduction hung awkward in the air between them. “Lucien, this is your sister, Lady Lauren Cavanaugh.”

“My sister.” He tested the words, finding them strange on his tongue. He executed the bow he vaguely remembered from a dark recessed area of his brain, and Rockwell had also refreshed the social graces he wasn’t quite sure of. “My lady.”

Lauren’s grey eyes swam with unshed tears; her face paled with barely contained emotions. She was dressed in a morning dress of soft blue muslin that spoke of better times. He could see patches on the sleeve. Behind him, Wolf shifted restlessly, and Lucien caught the significant look that passed between him and Lauren. There was history there, he realized. Yet another story he should know but didn’t.

“Welcome home,” Lauren said, her voice trembling slightly. “Madeline will be beside herself. She’s at a friend’s house, but I think it would be best if I spoke to her first. It will be quite a shock. And as for Father—”

“Another sister?” The information Rockwell and Wolf had given him on the journey tumbled through his mind. Everything was so new, and he struggled to keep it all in order.

“Yes.” Lauren swallowed hard. “Your younger sister. She was twelve when you…when you died—that is when you left.”

Left. Such a gentle word for whatever violence had stolen his memories and sent him stumbling, half-dead, into a new life in Ireland. Into Ava’s life.

Ava. His chest tightened at the thought of her. Beautiful, mercurial Ava who had nursed him back to health, who had spun pretty lies about a marriage that had never happened, who had given him their daughter—

No. He couldn’t think about Ava-Marie now. His little girl was safe at Rockwell’s London townhouse with her cousin Caitria, and no one here need ever know the truth of her birth. The story Rockwell and Lady Farah crafted on the journey back was simple enough: a hasty marriage to a local Irish girl, now deceased. It was close enough to the truth to sit easy on his conscience, and it protected his daughter’s future.

Now it also protected his sisters and family name.

Lauren stood wringing her hands. “Is nothing familiar? Would you… would you like to see through the house, or perhaps our mother’s portrait?”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her nothing would bring the memories back. But he would humor her, given what a shock this must be. Besides, it put off the main reason for being here–to learn how precarious the family financial situation was. Rockwell had hinted it was very dire, and the shabbiness and lack of servants indicated he was right. Anger at the father he didn’t remember grew.

He nodded, following her up the sweeping staircase and into a long gallery lined with stern-faced ancestors he should recognize but didn’t. She stopped before a large portrait of a striking woman in her early forties. Dark hair like his own was arranged in elegant curves around a heart-shaped face, and something in her slight smile tugged at the edges of his mind.

“She’s lovely,” he said softly, meaning it.

“She died two years ago.” Lauren’s voice cracked. “I wish she could be here to see that her son is alive and the heir is not lost…” She trailed off, watching his face with desperate hope.

The twist of grief in his chest surprised him. He mourned not the mother he couldn’t remember, but the fact that he couldn’t remember her. That he’d been alive and well in Ireland, working his small piece of land, while this woman died, believing her son lost.

A crash from above made them all start. Heavy footsteps stumbled across the upper floor, and Lauren’s face tightened with something like resignation.

“Father,” she whispered, just as a man appeared at the top of the stairs.

The Earl of Danvers was a wreck of a man, his clothes fine but rumpled, his face flushed with what could only be strong drink despite the early hour. He swayed slightly as he stared down at their group.

“My boy? Are you a ghost come back to haunt me?” The words came out slurred.

He half-stumbled down the stairs, and Lucien tensed, fighting the urge to step back. The earl reached the bottom and lurched forward; his arms outstretched. This time Lucien did pull back, an instinctive retreat that made the older man’s face crumple.

“Of course you are a figment of my imagination. My son is long dead, and I have no heir. God is punishing me… I’m sorry, so sorry.” The earl’s hands fell to his sides. “Lauren, forgive me…” Then he turned to go back upstairs.

“Father,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m not a ghost. It’s me. Lucien.”

His father slowly turned and then slid to the floor. “Lucien?”

“Perhaps we should move to your library, Lord Danvers,” Rockwell suggested smoothly, stepping forward. “There’s much to discuss.”

The men helped his father stand but his lordship brushed them away and swayed his way to the Danvers library. Then he collapsed into a worn leather chair, while Lucien remained standing, his body humming with the need to move, to run, to escape back to his simple life in Ireland.

But that life had been built on lies, he reminded himself harshly. Ava’s lies. Ava had stolen his true identity, and he was here to claim it back.

The once-grand library of Lord Danvers bore silent witness to the family’s declining fortunes. Tall Georgian windows, their paint peeling and wood frames warped, still managed to cast long rectangles of summer light across what remained of the Turkish carpet. The room stretched two stories high, its upper gallery accessed by a curved mahogany staircase.

Empty spaces between books told their own story—precious volumes likely sold off, one by one, to keep the family afloat. The remaining collection stood in uneven rows, their leather bindings dry and cracked, some sprouting tufts of green mold along their spines. A musty sweetness pervaded the air, mingled with the sharp tang of wood rot from the sagging shelves.

The ceiling’s ornate plasterwork, once cream and gold, had yellowed to the color of old teeth. Water stains mapped continents across its surface where the roof leaked, though strategically placed copper pails caught the worst of the drips. Their dull surfaces matched the tarnished oil lamps that hadn’t been polished in some time.

“Please excuse the…” Lauren stuttered to a halt.

Lucien was beginning to see the extent of the fiasco he’d come home to. He suddenly understood why, on the journey home from Ireland, Rockwell had urged him to make marriage for a large dowry a priority.

He walked further into the room, his dismay barely able to be hidden. A massive marble fireplace dominated one wall; its mantel cluttered with miniature portraits in gilt frames too precious to sell. The armchairs grouped nearby—once plush crimson velvet—all faded to a tired rose, their stuffing visible through worn patches and frayed seams. Yet he sensed there was still a certain dignity to them.

Near the window stood Lord Danvers’ desk, its leather top cracked and dry as autumn leaves. Stacks of unpaid bills and increasing other correspondence weighed down one corner, while a half-empty decanter suggested how his lordship often chose to face them.

A single footman entered to tend the meager fire, carefully rationing the coal and wood. Through the windows, the untended wilderness of what was once a formal garden spoke volumes about the current state of the Danvers town house.

Lucien couldn’t bring himself to wonder about the state of their country estate–or was it estates? He didn’t even remember. He sank into another chair, staring at the man who was his father. He ignored his sister and his friends.

“The debts,” the earl said suddenly, his voice thick with shame. “I thought you dead, boy. Dead like your mother. The cards…the dice…they helped me forget, just for a while.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened. “How bad?”

“Bad enough to lose it all, if something isn’t done soon,” Wolf said bluntly, ignoring Rockwell’s warning look. “He should know the truth of what he’s coming home to.”

“We need a moment with Lady Lauren,” Rockwell said quietly. “If you’ll excuse us?”

They withdrew to the corridor, leaving Lucien alone with his father. The silence stretched between them, heavy with five years of absence.

“Ten thousand pounds,” the earl said finally, staring into his empty glass. “At least. The money lenders are circling like vultures. I’ve mortgaged what I could, but I can’t touch the entailed estates. Still, they too are almost ruined…” He looked up, his bloodshot eyes desperate. “I never thought to saddle you with this burden. When you disappeared after the rebellion…when months passed with no word…I lost myself in grief and guilt. If I hadn’t picked that stupid argument with you about taking that trip with Rockwell—”

“I don’t remember any of it,” Lucien cut in, his voice harsher than he’d intended. “Not the rebellion, not my reasons for being there, none of it.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture that felt familiar though he couldn’t say why. “My life began five years ago in a village near Dublin, with a head wound and no memory of who I was.”

The earl flinched. “The physicians Lord Rockwell consulted… Do they think your memory might return?”

“I didn’t consult with anyone. I don’t need to.” Lucien moved to stare out the window at the gardens below. This was all so different from his humble vegetable patch in Ireland, where Ava-Marie had toddled after him, helping to plant carrots with her tiny hands. “The man you knew, your son…he is gone forever.”

“You’re here now,” the earl said softly. “That’s what matters.”

Lucien’s laugh held no humor. “Yes, just in time to save the family from ruin, it seems. For you had no concern that your daughters could be thrown on the streets.” The bitterness in his voice surprised even him. He turned back to face his father as Lauren and the men returned. He didn’t know what they told her, but Lauren’s eyes were red-rimmed, even though she managed a tremulous smile.

“Madeline will be home soon. Shall I have Phillips prepare your old rooms?”

The thought of sleeping in a stranger’s chambers—even if that stranger was his former self—made his skin crawl. “Thank you. I’ll need other rooms prepared too.” At Lauren’s confused expression, he added, “My daughter and my wife’s cousin are to join me.”

“Your daughter?” The earl sat up straighter, suddenly more alert than he’d appeared all morning. “You’re married?”

“No. My—wife—died two years ago of the lung disease.” His father’s relief was obvious and at that moment, he hated the man. He was counting on his son marrying well.

Lucien kept his voice carefully neutral. “My daughter, Ava-Marie, is four.” And illegitimate, his mind supplied treacherously. But they would never know that. As far as England was concerned, he’d married Ava in a small village church, and their daughter was as legitimate as any peer’s child. The lie sat bitter on his tongue, but he would tell it a thousand times to protect his little girl.

“My son returns, and I have a grandchild,” the earl breathed, wonder replacing some of the worry in his face. “I never thought… That is, when we believed you dead…”

“She’s all I have of her mother,” Lucien said quietly, the half-truth easier to speak than the full lie. In truth, Ava-Marie was all he had of his life in Ireland, the only pure thing to come from Ava’s deception. “I would appreciate it if we could delay any…formal announcements of my return until she’s settled.”

“Of course,” Lauren said quickly. “Whatever you need.” She hesitated, then asked, “Will you at least stay for tea? There’s so much to tell you, about the family, about…” She trailed off, biting her lip.

About his life before, he knew she meant. About the man he’d been, the brother she’d lost. About the fiancée no one had mentioned yet, though he knew from Rockwell that she existed. Lady Courtney Montague, the woman he’d supposedly loved enough to pledge his life to, yet couldn’t summon even a shadow of memory for.

“Tea would be pleasant,” he said finally, because he couldn’t bear to disappoint them further. Not when they looked at him with such desperate hope, searching his face for glimpses of a man who might as well be dead.

As Phillips wheeled in the tea cart, Lucien caught his reflection in a gilt-framed mirror. A stranger stared back at him, wrapped in fine wool and starched linen, playing at being a viscount. Somewhere in Ireland, a humble farmer called John Collins had died, leaving only this hollow shell of a lord in his place.

He accepted a cup of tea from Lauren, noting how her hands trembled slightly as she passed it to him. His sister. The word still felt foreign, though something in her grey eyes tugged at him, like a half-remembered dream. Perhaps that was a start.

He leaned forward and spoke about the elephant in the room. “I had a fiancée, I believe. She is still unmarried?” When Lauren looked swiftly between Rockwell and Wolf, he added, “Tell me about her.”

Lauren’s smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. As she began to speak, Lucien settled back in his chair, letting her words wash over him. He couldn’t be the brother she remembered, but perhaps he could become someone new, someone worthy of the hope in her eyes. Someone who could protect his daughter’s future and save his family from ruin, even if he never remembered being part of it.

But that may rely on another woman he could not remember–Lady Courtney. He dreaded meeting her. He’d have to see if Lauren had any etchings of her.

But it was a beginning, of sorts. Easing back into society would have to be enough for now.

he had already swept her up into his arms

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