“We don’t have time for this.” Livid red rose across her cheeks as she reached for my neck.

“Go.” I stepped back. “I’ll put everything back in order and join you in a trice.”

She glanced at the door and drew in a breath. And another. Shoulders squared, head held high, she composed herself into a portrait of social grace.

“Don’t delay.” She cast me a withering glare. “And if I see that disgraceful necklace again, I shall tie your wrists with it and have you flogged.”

In a swish of lavender silk, she breezed into the hall and shut the door behind her.

A rush of air vacated my lungs, and I opened my hand, cradling the precious pendant in my palm.

Crowned by a filigree band of gold, the green stone was the length of my thumb and half as narrow. Serrated cuts decorated dozens of mysterious facets as if it had been painstakingly sawed from the earth.

I’d never seen anything so unrefined and magical.

As a child of English nobility, I’d been weaned on restrictive clothing, polished smiles, and the art of dissembling. But my heart belonged on a ship with the seafarer who’d given me a jade stone and loved me for who I was. Impulsive. Wild. Rebellious.

I returned the pendant to its hiding place beneath my garments and plastered my curls into a mold of proper English fashion.

It wouldn’t kill me to look like a lady. But if the marquess liked what he saw, a wedding would go forth and kill my dreams.

If I sabotaged this introduction, there would be other suitors. Other offers. And a flogging, to be certain.

I could endure the flogging. It was my mother’s sadness that knotted my stomach in an endless loop. I shouldn’t make her work so hard to be happy. She’d pushed me into this world, and I’d been pushing back ever since. No wonder she never smiled.

With a hard shake of my head, I tested the subdued array of blond curls.

Then I heard it. The distant bark of a dog. I froze, listening with my entire being, as a second dog joined in.

My pulse careened into a gallop.

Could it be? Had I imagined it?

I darted to the window, bumping the pannier into furniture and knocking over a lamp. At the sill, I pressed my brow to the glass and studied the landscape.

Acres of woodland lay between the rear of the estate and the coast. The barking came again, and I tracked the sound to the northern edge of the tree line.

Two hounds raced back and forth, yelping their message, loudly and persistently, as they were trained to do.

His hounds.

His messengers.

I choked upon air.

“He returned.” I stumbled away from the window, spinning awkwardly in the cage of my gown. “Oh, Lord, he’s here.”