The knock came like a drumbeat—sharp, official, impossible to ignore. A royal messenger stood on the threshold of the Douglas drawing room with a scroll tied in blue ribbon and the weight of the crown in his chest. He took off his hat. He did not smile. "By royal writ," he announced, voice even, the words practiced and cold, "you are promised to Prince Devereux." Silence fell so hard the curtains stopped moving. Lord Alistair Douglas toppled into the nearest chair as if something under his feet had given way. He clasped the armrests with both hands and stared at the messenger as if the man were a trick. The household steward, a thin man named Fen, blinked twice and began calculating in the margins of his mind—dowry, carriage, the price of travel, favors to call in. Grace Douglas did not move. She sat at the window with her veil in her lap, fingers tracing the embroidered edge. The veil hid more than a cheekbone and a pale temple; it had kept people from the pity that came with sight of her illness. Today it kept others' pity from surfacing. She listened. "His Highness requires a bride within the month," the messenger read. "A noblewoman of suitable standing, to be presented at the Devereux estate and, thereafter, at court." Lord Alistair's breath left him in a sound that was almost a sob. "The Devereux—" he began, and stopped. The name itself was a gauntlet; the Seventh Prince