The rain fell in relentless sheets that evening, drenching the earth and turning the gravel road to mud. She clutched her cloak tightly around her body as she stepped through the gates of Blackwood Manor, heart pounding beneath layers of wool.

She had never seen a house so large. Towering stone walls stretched toward the stormy sky, windows flickering with faint candlelight. The kind of house that didn’t belong to kind men. The villagers whispered about the man who owned it. A Duke with a ...