Until then, Christian de Montfort, the young Duke of Lexington, had led a charmed life.
His passion was the natural world. As a child, he was never happier than when he could watch hatchling birds peck through their delicate eggshells, or spend hours observing the water striders that populated the family trout stream. He kept caterpillars in terrariums to discover the outcomes of their metamorphoses—brilliant butterflies or humble moths, both thrilling him equally. Come summer, when he was taken to the seashore, he immersed himself in the tide pools and understood instinctively that he was witnessing a fierce struggle for survival, without losing his sense of wonder at the beauty and intricacy of life.
After he learned to ride, he disappeared regularly into the countryside surrounding his imposing home. Algernon House, the Lexington seat, occupied a corner of the Peak District. Upon the faces of its chert and limestone escarpments, Christian, a groom in tow, hunted for fossils of gastropods and mollusks.
He did run into opposition from time to time. His father, for one, did not approve of his scientific interests. But Christian was born with an innate assurance that took most men decades to develop, if at all. When the old duke thundered over his inelegant use of time, Christian coolly demanded whether he ought to practice his father’s favorite occupation at the same age: chasing maids around the manor.
As if such nerve and aplomb weren’t enough, he was also tall, well built, and classically handsome. He sailed through life with the power and imperviousness of an ironclad, sure of his bearing, convinced of his destination.
His first glimpse of Venetia Fitzhugh Townsend only further fueled that sense of certainty.
The annual Eton and Harrow cricket match, a highlight of the London Season, had just paused for the players’ afternoon tea. Christian left the Harrow players’ pavilion to speak to his stepmother—his former stepmother, as a matter of fact, as she had recently returned from her honeymoon with her new husband.
Christian’s father, the late duke, had been a disappointment, as self-important as he’d been frivolous. He had, however, been fortunate in his choice of wives. Christian’s mother, who’d died too young for him to remember, was generally praised as saintly. His stepmother, who came into his life not long thereafter, had proved a great friend and a staunch ally.
He’d seen the dowager duchess earlier, in the middle of the match. But now she no longer stood in the same spot. Scanning the far edge of the field, the sight of a young woman momentarily halted his gaze.
She was casually perched on the back of an open phaeton, yawning behind her fan. Her posture was slouchy, as if she’d secretly rid herself of the whalebone undergarments that bludgeoned other ladies to sit as stiff as effigies. But what made her stand out from the crowd was her hat—a coronet of apricot-colored feathers that reminded him of the sea anemones that had fascinated him in childhood.
She snapped closed her fan and he forgot all about sea anemones.
Her face—he lost his breath. He’d never encountered beauty of such magnitude and intensity. It was not allure, but grace, like the sight of land to a shipwrecked man. And he, who hadn’t been on a capsized vessel since he was six—and that had only been an overturned canoe—suddenly felt as if he’d been adrift in the open ocean his entire life.
Someone spoke to him. He couldn’t make out a single word.
There was something elemental to her beauty, like a mile-high thunderhead, a gathering avalanche, or a Bengal tiger prowling the darkness of the jungle. A phenomenon of inherent danger and overwhelming perfection.
He felt a sharp, sweet ache in his chest: His life would never again be complete without her. But he felt no fear, only excitement, wonder, and desire.
“Who is that?” he asked no one in particular.
“That’s Mrs. Townsend,” answered no one in particular.
“She is a bit young to be a widow,” he said.
The arrogance of that statement would amaze him in subsequent years—that he would hear her called a missus and immediately assume her husband to be dead. That he took it for granted nothing could possibly stand in the way of his will.
“She isn’t a widow,” he was informed. “She happens to be very much married.”
He hadn’t noticed anyone accompanying her. She appeared to him as if on a stage, alone and flooded by limelight. But now he saw that she was surrounded by people. Her hand rested casually on a man’s forearm. Her face was turned toward this man. And when he spoke, she smiled.
Christian felt as if he were falling from a great height.
He’d always considered himself a breed apart. Now he was just another sod who might yearn and strive, but never achieve his heart’s desire.