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the soft blue skirt.
    A footman walked past her, ferrying drinks on a tray. He offered her a glass, and she used the paper to gently wave him off. The servant proceeded toward Rainsleigh, but she must have called him back because he returned to her. She pivoted, telling him something.
    And that’s when he saw her face.
    For the second time that night, he could not look away.
    Her eyes were light. Blue? Perhaps green. He was too far away to tell.
    Her hair, he saw, was not strictly ginger but gold and blonde and pale red, all spun together.
    Rainsleigh took an inadvertent step toward her. The footman with the drinks passed him now, and he took a glass, not taking his eyes away.
    Without warning, she looked up, and their gazes locked. Her eyes grew huge. She sucked in a startled breath.
    For a long, taut moment, they stared.
    Beecham, reliably, broke the trance. “Egad, Rainsleigh, but you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Are you acquainted with Lady Elisabeth?”
    Rainsleigh shook his head: one slow, firm shake. He was not.
    His mouth had gone strangely dry. His voice was a low rasp. “I’ve never met her before in my life.”
    Fifteen years prior . . .
The Bronze Root Tavern
    B ryson awakened in the world’s smallest, most uncomfortable bed. He blinked at the ceiling, smoky and water-stained, and lifted his head to look at his feet.
    Boots, he thought. Thank God. At least they’d left him in his clothes and boots.
    His head throbbed. They’d drugged him—his father and his uncle and his cousin Kenneth. Or they’d knocked him out with a blow to the head. Or both. His vision blurred, sharpened, and then blurred again. When it came to the pranks of his father and cousin Kenneth, his priority had always been consciousness. Remain conscious. At all costs. Clearly, he’d failed again.
    He swore and shoved up in the damp, unfamiliar bed, willing his eyes to focus. When the room stopped listing, he saw it was small and cold and spare. The adjacent door was closed tight, naturally. If previous abductions were any indication, it would also be locked.
    He looked to the opposite wall, and—
    Bloody hell. The room was small, cold, spare, and occupied.
    Bryson rolled out of bed, blinking against his throbbing headache, and gaped at the silent figure huddled against the far wall.
    A girl.
    She stood beside a window, clutching a fireplace poker diagonally across her chest. Her hair hung unbound down her back. Her dress, or rather her shift, was marked with an ominous stain that seeped through the fabric at one shoulder. Blood.
    He looked at her face. Her eyes were wide with terror.
    â€œHello,” he said carefully. He held out his hand in a reassuring gesture. “You’re all right.”
    He took a step, and she gasped. She pressed herself more tightly against the wall.
    â€œDoor,” he told her, taking two steps. “I’m merely going to the door. Is it locked, do you know?”
    She didn’t move, but he was careful not to turn his back on her and the poker. He reached for the knob.
    â€œLocked,” he said, gripping the knob more tightly, rattling it left and right. It refused to give, and he added his other hand, his shoulder, his foot, kicking the base with his boot. He forgot about the girl and raged at the unmoving door, shouting profanity and threats.
    No one came.
    He spun back to the room. “The window,” he said, pointing beside the girl.
    â€œIt’s locked,” she said, her first words. He stopped. My God, but she was young. This had been obvious from across the room, but her voice sounded like that of a frightened child. Was she fifteen? Sixteen? He couldn’t guess.
    â€œCareful,” he said, starting again for the window. The girl leapt back and skittered down the wall, wedging herself between a heavy wardrobe and the corner.
    He held out a hand to calm her. “Be assured, miss, the sooner I can discover a route to