CHAPTER ONE

      “HIS EXCELLENCY IS not at home, madam.” The butler sniffed, visibly appalled.

      He did not so much bar the door to the grand and ancient palatial home as inhabit it, because such a glorious door—crafted by the hands of long-dead masters and gifted to the aristocratic occupants likely on bended knee and with the intercession of a heavenly host, because that was how things happened here in this fairy tale of a place that had claimed this part of Spain for many centuries—could not be blocked by a single person, no matter how officious or aghast.

      And the butler was both, in spades. “One does not drop in on the Nineteenth Duke of Marinceli, Most Excellent Grandee of Spain.”

      Amelia Ransom, considered excellent by her closest friends instead of an entire nation and with decidedly lowbrow peasant blood to prove it, made herself smile. Very much as if she hadn’t, in fact, turned up at the door of a house so imposing that it was unofficially known as el monstruo—even by its occupants. “I know for a fact that the Duke is in.”

      An old acquaintance of hers still lived in one of the nearby villages—“nearby” meaning miles upon miles away because the Marinceli estate was itself so enormous—and had reported that the Duke’s plane had been seen flying overhead two days ago. And that the flag with the Marinceli coat of arms had been raised over the house shortly thereafter, meaning the great man was in residence.

      “You mistake my meaning,” the butler replied, his deep, cavernous face set in lines of affront and indignation that should have made Amelia slink off in shame. And might have, had she been here for any reason at all but the one she’d come to share with Teo de Luz, her former stepbrother and the grandiose Duke in question. “His Excellency is most certainly not at home to you.”

      It was tempting to take that as the final word on the matter. Amelia would have been just as happy not to have to make this trip in the first place. It had been a gruesome red-eye flight out of San Francisco to Paris, particularly in the unappealing seat that had been all she could get on short notice. The much shorter flight to Madrid had been fine, but then there was the drive out of the city and into the rolling hills where the de Luz family had been rooted deep for what might as well have been forever, at this point.

      “I think you’ll find he’ll see me,” Amelia said, with tremendous confidence brought on by fatigue. And possibly by fear of her reception—and not from the butler. She stared back at the man with his ruffled feathers and astonished air, who did not look convinced. “Really. Ask him.”

      “That is utterly out of the question,” the butler retorted, in freezing tones. “I cannot fathom how you made it onto the property in the first place. Much less marched up to pound on the door like some…salesman.”

      He spat out that last word as if a salesman was akin to syphilis.

      Only far more unsavory.

      If only he knew the sort of news Amelia had come to impart. She imagined he would cross himself. Possibly spit on the ground. And she could sympathize.

      She felt much the same way.

      “I expect you go to great lengths to keep the Duke’s many would-be suitors from clamoring at the door,” she said brightly, as if the butler had been kind and welcoming or open to conversation in any way. “He must be the most eligible man in the world by now.”

      She’d personally witnessed the commotion Teo caused when enterprising women got the scent of him, long before he’d assumed his title. That was why she hadn’t even bothered attempting to get in the main gates, miles away from the front entrance of the stately home that was more properly a palace. The grand entrance and gates were guarded by officious security who could be reliably depended upon to let absolutely no one in. Amelia had therefore driven in on one of the forgotten little medieval lanes that snaked around from the farthest corner of the great estate, there for the use of the gamekeeper and his staff. Then she’d left her hired car near the lake that had been a favorite reading spot of hers back in the day.

      That way she could walk to clear her head from the flight and so little sleep, prepare herself for the scene before her with Teo and best of all, actually make it to the soaring front door that would not have looked out of place on a cathedral. Her car would have been stopped. A woman on foot was less noticeable. That was her thinking.

      She hadn’t really thought past getting to the door, however, and she should have.

      The butler was slipping a sleek smartphone from the pocket of his coat, no doubt to summon the security force to bodily remove her. Which would not suit her at all.

      “I’m not another of Teo’s many groupies,” Amelia said, and something flashed in her at that. Because that wasn’t precisely true, was it? Not after what she’d done. “I’m his stepsister.”

      The butler did not do anything so unrefined as sneer at her for the unpardonable sin of referring to Teo by not only his Christian name, but a nickname. He managed to look down his nose, however, as if the appendage was the highest summit in the Pyrenees.

      “The Duke is not in possession of a stepsister, madam.”

      “Former stepsister,” Amelia amended. “Though some bonds far exceed a single marriage, don’t they?”

      Her smile faded a bit as the butler stared down at her as if she was a talking rat. Or some other bit of vermin that didn’t know its place.

      “I doubt very much that His Excellency recognizes bonds of any description,” the butler clipped out. His expression suggested Amelia had offended him, personally, by suggesting otherwise. “His familial connections tend toward the aristocratic if not outright royal and are all rather distant. They are recorded in every detail. And no stepsisters appear in any of these official records.”

      Amelia pressed her advantage, scant though it was. “But you don’t know how Teo feels about members of the various blended families his father made while he was still alive and marrying, do you? Do you really dare send me away without finding out?”

      And for a long moment, they only stared at each other. Each waiting to call the other’s bluff.

      Amelia wished that she’d stopped somewhere and freshened up. She’d dressed to impress precisely no one back in San Francisco many, many hours ago, and she was afraid that showed. She didn’t particularly care if Teo saw her looking rumpled, but butlers in places like this tended to be far more snobbish than their exalted employers. Her ratty old peacoat was a good barrier against the blustery cold of the