by Alys Murray
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Alys Murray. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
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Suite 105, PMB 159
Fort Collins, CO 80525
[email protected]
Embrace is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Alycia Tornetta
Cover design by Bree Archer
Cover photography by AlexSava/GettyImages
ISBN 978-1-64063-853-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition August 2019
Dear Reader,
Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.
xoxo
Liz Pelletier, Publisher
For Mom and Derek, who gave me a guitar for my twelfth birthday even though you knew I would never learn how to play it.
Chapter One
Twelve shots. Twelve shots stood between Sam Dubarry and getting everything she ever wanted. And no matter how much her stomach revolted at the sight of the clear tequila lined up in haphazard twin lines on the eighteenth-century long-table before her, she would not back down now.
She couldn’t. Her life was on the line here.
Well, maybe not her literal life, but the life she wanted. The life she needed.
Tension twisted the entire room, slicing the air like the score from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Across from her, the gentlemen of the 183rd class of the Oxford University Animos Society stood in wait, their eyes hungry for her failure and their lips curled in waiting laughter. In America, they would have been frat bros, but in England, they were in control of one of the most storied clubs in England… And one day, whether as political masterminds or heads of finance or members of the landed gentry who desperately clutched the power that the House of Lords gave them, together, they’d probably rule the country.
They were cruel. Entitled. Secretive. Destructive and everything that was bad about the world, everything that Sam had hated for most of her life.
And she couldn’t wait to be one of them.
At the head of the table, holding an egg timer and a fading sheet of paper with the Animos Society crest emblazoned on it in fading gold leaf, the leader of their little dinner party sat in the high-backed chair usually reserved for the most senior member of the household. Everyone in Animos had their own nickname, but the spindly man with a too-large head had inherited the flattering title of Captain from his predecessor once he’d ascended to the position. Sam thought “Upside Down Exclamation Point” or “Cabbage Patch Doll” probably would have suited him better, but she didn’t have a say in her own nickname, much less anyone else’s.
The eyes of the room settled heavy on her shoulders, but she felt Captain’s especially, drilling into the side of her head as if he wanted to unravel her from the inside out. It took every bit of strength she had inside of her to maintain her posture under the weight of his piercing gaze… And to keep from retching at the scent of the tequila wafting up from the glasses before her.
“Are you ready?” he asked after a long, silent moment.
“Yes.”
Not that she had any choice, of course. They would have sent her off to her final task of her Rage—the last weekend of humiliating activities that stood between her and one of those shiny blue-and-white coats of theirs—whether she liked it or not. But even if she hadn’t been ready, she wouldn’t have let them see it. As her brother always said, these men were bloodhounds for weakness, and if she wanted to join their ranks, they could never be allowed to sniff her out. With slow, deliberate motions, Captain twisted the egg timer, putting two minutes on the clock, before slamming it down. Two minutes. Ten Questions. Twelve Shots.
She could do this… Right?
“What is your name?”
The first shot scorched its way down her throat.
“Samantha Renard Dubarry.”
The name was almost entirely true, but it hadn’t always been. Two years ago, a brother she didn’t even know she had suddenly showed up at the library in New York City where she was studying for the last of her community college exams. Thomas had told her he’d just discovered her existence in his father’s old files and wanted to make things right, that he wanted her to come and take her rightful place as an English lord’s daughter. After that, she’d left Samantha Green, a nobody who’d spent most of her teen years slipping through the foster-care system, behind.
But, again, no one in Animos needed to know that.
“And what is your school and your degree?”
Shot.
“Blavatnik School of Government. War and Peace Studies.”
“Why War and Peace Studies?”
Shot.
“I want to make a difference in the world.”
As she threw back her next mouthful of tequila, her answer received an echoing chorus of guffaws from the Animos audience around her. It wasn’t exactly the best answer she could have given—they all would have been more sympathetic to some answer about power or wanting to spit on a statue of Lloyd George—but it was certainly a better answer than the truth, which was: I signed up to study politics because I thought it would earn my father’s acceptance, and when that clearly didn’t work, I signed up to join your stupid little club.
“Blavatnik is a new school, not one of the Old Houses. What makes you think that you deserve to be here?”
Shot.
“I don’t,” she answered, the words coming to her mind easily, if not to her tingling lips. Some of the questions were hers to answer, and some of them she’d had to study for. That one was the standard Animos reply expected of a new initiate.
“What is the Animos Society?”
Shot.
“There’s no such thing as the Animos Society,” she said, giving them another one of their canned answers. For a “secret” society, it seemed that everyone in the world knew about their existence, but still, they prided themselves on at least the appearance of exclusivity and absolute discretion.
Shot.
“To uphold the traditions of our brotherhood.”
A lie. Blatant and unabashed. When she’d come here from New York, with nothing but her one backpack of clothes and a few books stashed under her arm, Thomas, her brother, had given her false expectations of her life here. Thomas was warm and welcoming. Until she began her Animos pledge, he seemed hell-bent on making up for lost time with her, on making her part of the family she’d never had before.
But her father…he wasn’t as magnanimous or kind. The one man in the world she’d wanted love and respect from more than anything could barely deign to look at or speak to her. Joining Animos was the key to getting everything she’d ever wanted from her father. If she could prove her legitimacy, prove that she wasn’t just a mistake he made with some woman back in New York twenty-three years ago, then perhaps he’d open up and give her the family she always dreamed of having. Maybe, if she intertwined her legacy with his and wore the blue suits of Animos, she’d prove that she was his daughter, not just someone who lived in his house and ate his food and used his name and title to get into fancy nightclubs in London.
Just like these men didn’t give a damn about her, she didn’t give a damn about their club.
Only what it could get her.
All she wanted was a place to belong. She hadn’t belonged in her mother’s life because the woman didn’t want her. She hadn’t belonged in foster care because no one belonged in foster care. She’d spent most of her life aching with loneliness, burning to connect with someone, anyone. But now, she had a chance to finally belong to people, to be part of something. And if she had to make a fool of herself in front of these Animos guys for the rest of her life to get it, she’d do it with a smile. So far, burning hundred-pound notes in front of homeless men or trashing small country pubs hadn’t stopped her. A little liquor and humiliation wouldn’t, either.
“And what are those traditions?”
Another shot. They were getting harder and harder to hold down, but she focused on enunciating every single syllable of every single word she spoke, in the hopes that maybe concentrating on that would distract her from the riot going on in the pit of her stomach. If she vomited, she would lose. Game over. No Animos. And she’d have to tell her father she’d failed.
No way could she do that. Swallowing the sensation back, she focused on the words, forcing them from between her teeth.
“To drink, to rage, to cause chaos wherever they’re stupid enough to let us roam wild.”
“And why are those our traditions?”
Shot.
“They’re our birthright as sons of England.”
“Your birthright? Who gave that to you?”
Shot. Her stomach revolted. Her mind blurred. She decided not to tell them she was a bastard. If anyone of them were smart enough to get into Oxford without the help of their daddy’s money, they’d probably already figured it out on their own.
“I am the daughter of Lord Dubarry, and twelfth-generation member of the Animos Society.”
As far as Sam could tell from living with the man for two years, her father cared about three things: antique cars, his future as the leader of the House of Lords, and the Animos Society. Every male of the Dubarry family had been a member since the club’s inception—apparently, her twelfth great-grandfather was in the founding portrait, alongside a prince and a future prime minister—and if Sam could become the first woman they ever allowed in, he’d have to see her.
He’d have to.
At the end of the table, the egg timer ticked louder and louder in her mind, no doubt a symptom of all the liquor coursing through her veins. It couldn’t possibly be going faster, but it felt like it was, as if any second now it would screech out that she’d taken too long and lost.
“Recite the Ancient Words of the Brotherhood.”
Another shot. She blinked, her eyes heavy but not as heavy as her breathing.
“Silence or death.”
Only one shot glass left and the room filled with the evidence of its own motto: silence.
There was nothing but the ticking of the egg timer and the pounding of her own heart. Nothing, that is, until Captain finished his own glass of wine and the timer screamed, shattering the quiet.
“Drink,” Captain commanded.
And no matter how much her stomach protested, she let the cool liquid slither like egg yolk down her throat. When she came up for air, slamming the glass down upon the table, it was as if a fog had lifted. Sure, her vision was starting to blur. Sure, she was incredibly grateful that she’d taken her brother’s advice and pounded nothing but water and carbs for the last four days. Sure, she wasn’t positive she’d ever be sober enough to walk straight again. But she’d done it.
“I did it,” she whispered, before she could help herself.
“All right, Piggy”—she fought a grimace at her nickname—“keep your shirt on—”
“Or don’t. We won’t mind.”
“We’ll have another round,” Graham snapped, his sandy-blond hair shaking in time with his empty glass. “And you’ll need a whole bottle, Piggy.”
Her stomach shuddered at the reminder. On a Rage weekend, the initiate was required to drink only bottles, and by the end of the weekend she would have to drink fifteen bottles on her own before they would even consider her an official member. Sam popped up from the creaking antique chair. Her head swam, the swirling sting of alcohol taking hold of her, but she soldiered on.
Trusting them with her father’s heirlooms about as much as she trusted them with her body, Sam hustled to the wine cellar and back, carrying armfuls of wines and champagnes before doling them out generously to her guests. They all muttered appreciatively, snarking under their breaths about the vintage or the bouquet. Sometimes, the way they treated her gave Sam some pause. Did they always exclude the initiate from the conversation? Or did they not know how to deal with her specifically? She always wore pants, always kept her hair up, and insisted they call her Sam. Gave them no reason to treat her like a woman.
Was this normal for them, or should she expect it to always be normal for her?
“Now”—Captain took his glass away from his lips—“show us your room.”
Her anxieties stretched. Nothing about his voice told her this was going to be an innocent stroll.
“My room?”
“Did I stutter, or do you really not speak English?”
That was the other thing. She could try as much as she wanted to fit in as a man, but she would never fit in as an Englishman. Sam Dubarry might have had a duke’s blood racing through her veins, but in every way that mattered, she was as American as they came. Her accent gave her away, even if she tried to employ every bit of slang her brother taught her.
“No.” She shrugged and took a generous sip from her wine bottle. Her stomach revolted, but her courage was glad for the bolstering. “Don’t want there to be any funny business, that’s all.”
“You’re saying funny business is off the table?” Captain smirked, revealing a row of perfect teeth. Too perfect. Sam had to wonder if they were even real, or had he rotted them by the time he was twenty and required a mouthful of fake ones?
A snarky comeback danced on her lips, but Captain rose and gave her a little shove toward the door, killing the words before she could speak them.
“Get upstairs, girl.”
If she hated the nickname Piggy, it was nothing to how she loathed being called girl. The column of her throat burned with the desire to snap, to retort, to hold her own, but she swallowed it back. Even the slightest step out of line could have gotten her kicked out. No. She couldn’t accept failure, but she could accept being called girl for a few days longer. She was sure that once she was among their ranks, an official member, the nicknames and cruelty would fall away…
Shaking off the insult, she led the men upstairs to the tune of their drinking songs (“Well, Mary jumped i
n the bed and she covered up her head, and she said that I couldn’t find her. Boy, I knew quite well that she lied like hell, so I jumped right in beside her…”) and the quiet sloshes of spilled red wine. Passing stately oil paintings and countless doorways, they paraded through the winding corridors until they reached her bedroom in the manor’s western wing.
“Here we are,” she said, as the stampede behind her rushed to peek beyond her doorway. “Home sweet home.”
“Lads!”
A familiar voice came out of nowhere, shattering the atmosphere of the party. As if snapped out of a snake charmer’s spell, the wild men stiffened and straightened, clearing their throats and adopting stern, imperious expressions. Disappointment tightened Sam’s jaw. She couldn’t see the intruder, but she didn’t have to. They’d been joined by her brother, Thomas. Thomas, her father’s legitimate child. Thomas, the apple of his eye. Thomas, who had also been in Animos. Thomas, the only one in this house who ever treated her like a human being. She didn’t turn to greet him.
“Thomas,” Captain said, recovering, and Sam heard the slapping of palms in an overtly friendly handshake. “Didn’t know you were gonna be home.”
“Leaving in the morning. Animos reunion at the Royal Thames in London.”
“Good man.”
“Can I see my sister for a moment?” Damn, Sam thought to herself as her brother’s hand wrapped around her own, tugging her away from the men as they let themselves into her bedroom, so I’m not going to escape this. “Family matter. You understand.”
“Don’t keep her long,” Captain said, sniggering. “She’s got a long weekend ahead of her.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.”
The door shut, leaving them alone in the hallway. Through the walls, Sam could clearly hear the sounds of Animos debauchery. She struggled not to imagine what would happen when they located her underwear drawer, but it got easier when she looked up to Thomas lording over her with stern disapproval on his face.
“Samantha—”
“Sam,” she corrected.
“Jesus, are you still going by your stupid boy’s name? It’s not going to make them treat you any better.”
