“Maria, my darling,” her mother whispered on her deathbed, her dark eyes pleading. “Forgive me. Welton was so kind after your father passed. I-I did not see beyond the façade.”

“All will be well, Mama,” she had lied. “Your health will improve and we can leave him.”

“No. You must-”

“Please do not say any more. You need rest.”

Her mother’s grip was surprisingly strong for a woman so wan, a physical manifestation of her urgency. “You must protect your sister from him. He cares not at all that she is his own blood. He will use her, as he has used me. As he intends to use you. Amelia is not strong like you. She has none of the strength of your father’s blood.”

She had stared at her mother in dismay. In the decade of the Welton marriage, Maria had learned many things, but most of all she had learned that beneath Lord Welton’s incomparably handsome face, Mephistopheles dwelled.

“I am not old enough,” she breathed, the tears falling. She spent most of her time at school, training to become a woman Welton could exploit. But on her occasional visits, she watched the way the viscount belittled her mother with razor-sharp barbs. The servants told her of raucous voices and pained screams. Bruises. Blood. Bed rest for weeks after he left.

Seven-year-old Amelia remained in her rooms when her father was in residence, frightened and alone. No governess would stay long with them.

“Yes, you are,” Cecille whispered, her lips white, her eyes red. “When I go, I will give what strength I have to you. You will feel me, my sweet Maria, and your father. We will support you.”

Those words were her only anchor in the years that followed.

“Is she dead?” Welton had asked flatly when Maria emerged from the room. His bright green eyes held no emotion at all.

“Yes.” She waited with bated breath and shaking hands.

“Make whatever arrangements you desire.”