Unveiled by Courtney Milan

measure.”
    â€œYou woke the cook for this?”
    â€œMrs. Lorens? God, no. I can warm a little milk on the range myself.”
    His arm returned to his side. Those hands could have been overpowering. Almost frightening in their strength, as ruthless as he was. She’d never thought before how gently he used them.
    She swallowed.
    â€œIt’s a remedy for sleeplessness,” he continued. “I used to make it for my brothers when I found them up and about at night.”
    He spoke casually, as if the nocturnal lobbing of soil was a regular occurrence in the Turner household, one usually met with hot drinks and a comfortable discussion. She could almost see him, puttering by the cast-iron heating plates.
    â€œAnd did you often find your brothers wandering about at night?”
    His eyes glinted at her. “In the first few months when I was back from India? I found them living on the streets, you know. They’d almost forgotten how to sleep.”
    â€œOn the streets? A duke’s cousins? That can’t be correct.”
    â€œSixth cousins, twice removed. And while I am correct, it certainly was not right. Parford didn’t care.” He spat those words out.
    It took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t angry at her. This wasn’t some form of complicated revenge. She couldn’t yet think what to say.
    He shook his head. “Speaking of whom, I’ll have someone look in on the duke in the early morning. Sleep late. You’ll need it.”
    She looked up at him, but he was already turning away, as if dukes’ heirs had nothing better to do than to deliver hot drinks to their dependents and tell them to sleep past the morning bells.
    â€œMr. Turner. You do realize I’m a servant, don’t you?”
    He cast a tolerant glance over his shoulder. “I was one, too. Before I made my fortune. If I lost it all, I’d be one again. This notion of class that we English hold to—it’s an interesting delusion. You don’t have to be a servant, Miss Lowell, just because you were born as one.”
    She shook her head blankly.
    â€œI crossed three oceans in a cramped hammock hung in the bilge, utterly besieged by rats. And yet here I am now. What does that tell you?”
    â€œThat you were quite, quite lucky?”
    He smiled again, this time with a little shake of his head that indicated he knew what she’d not said. She couldn’t have missed that aura of confidence he radiated. The air around him was simply more invigorating. Mr. Turner wasn’t lucky. He was strong—so strong that he had no need to be jealous of power in others.
    â€œWhen I looked at myself, I never saw a servant. What do you suppose I see when I look at you?”
    For months, everyone who had looked at her had seen a bastard.
    What did he see? She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure what she believed of herself, when she passed by a looking glass. These days, she tried not to look. Under his perusal, she had no response.
    What he dismissed with that lazy shrug of his shoulders was more than a delusion. It had been the guiding light of her life, the true constant of the North Star. Her belief that she’d been better than others because of her birth had seemed an unshakeable foundation. But that light had snuffed out and north had disappeared in a dizzying whirl. She’d been left fumbling in the dark for some hint of direction.
    She hadn’t spoken yet, and he just smiled at her one last time and walked away.
    Margaret had always thought a man seduced a woman by making her aware of his charms: his body, his wealth, his kisses. How naive she had been.
    Ash Turner seduced her with the promise of her own self. She longed to believe him, longed to believe that the nightmare of the past month was nothing more than a delusion, that if she simply screwed her eyes tightly shut, she would be important again. And that desire was