The Terms of Surrender

Penniless and trapped in borrowed silk, Iolanthe Ashford watches her brother's debts close like a noose around her throat. When Lord Pemberton's solicitor delivers an impossible offer, a debt-ridden estate cleared in exchange for her hand in marriage to the reclusive Cassian Delacroix, she signs before she can think twice about what surrender truly costs. Cassian is colder than the marble halls of Pemberton, his motives buried beneath impeccable manners and a watchful housekeeper who knows too much. Margaret Delacroix, his mother, greets her new daughter-in-law with a photograph of a dead man and a whispered warning: someone at Pemberton wants Cassian's bride gone before the ink is dry. As society deaths pile up in the newspapers and Inspector Malone begins asking questions, Iolanthe discovers Solomon Greer's investigation leads straight to her husband's door, and to Viktor Sorokin's shadowed ledger of debts paid in blood. With Evangeline and Julian Delacroix guarding secrets of their own, and an enigmatic Auditor circling the family fortune, Iolanthe must untangle a conspiracy that began long before she arrived. The contract promised her security, but the fine print never mentioned a body in the garden, a husband who may be a murderer, or a heart that refuses to stay detached. To survive Pemberton's gilded cage, she will have to decide what she is willing to surrender, and what she will fight to keep.