A fat winter moon poured light over the old stone and brick of the inn on The Square. In its beams, the new porches and pickets glowed, and the bright-penny copper of the roof glinted. The old and new merged there—the past and the now—in a strong and happy marriage. Its windows stayed dark on this December night, prizing its secrets in shadows.

There were times when Lady Frederick Staines, nee Miss Penelope Deveraux, deeply regretted her lack of a portable rack and thumbscrews.

Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?

Ghosts were so bloody unpredictable.

More than a few residents of Wynette, Texas, thought Ted Beaudine was marrying beneath himself. It wasn’t as if the bride’s mother was “still” the president of the United States. Cornelia Jorik had been out of office for over a year. And Ted Beaudine was, after all, Ted
Beaudine.

Everyone knew that Sophie Beckett was a bastard.

The sun was high and white when she woke. There was an ache, dull and somehow sweet, through her body to remind her of the night. She wanted to smile, to snuggle back in bed and hug it to herself like an accomplishment, like a bag full of the finest diamonds. But there was still a part of her, a part dug deep, that believed a woman’s submission in bed meant submission everywhere.