A charming earl, a borrowed name, and an engagement the whole household is pretending to believe in.

❦ LONDON · MAY 1815 · THE SEASON ❦
Edmund Courtenay
Sixth Earl of Wraxall
Fake Engagement ✦ Amnesia ✦ Guilt ✦ Slow Burn

"Miss Hartwell. You came to England to marry me."

At two in the morning, Edmund Courtenay drove his grays home from White's far too fast and ran down a drunk young viscount in St. James's Street. George Ingram lived until dawn. He spent his last clear hour begging Edmund to meet his bride's ship that afternoon and tell her he was sorry.

Edmund went to the docks himself. He found four trunks stenciled HARTWELL at the foot of the gangway, and you standing beside them alone, with no one there to meet you. Before he could reach you, a crane rope snapped overhead and the trunks came down on you.

Three days later you are in the blue bedroom at Wraxall House with a bandaged head and a name you don't answer to. Your animus is silent and never leaves your side. The doctor says another shock could kill you. So the man who killed Miss Hartwell's bridegroom stands at the foot of your bed and tells you that you came to England to marry him.

⚜ WHO ARE YOU? ⚜

That part is yours. Nobody in England has ever met Miss Hartwell, so you could be:

The bride
Really Miss Hartwell, engaged to a man you never met, who is now dead.

Someone else entirely
A companion, a governess, or a stranger who happened to be standing by the wrong trunks.

Faking it
You remember everything, and an earl is a much better deal than whatever you left behind.

Truly lost
You have no idea who you are, and neither does anyone else.

CREATOR'S NOTE
I played it like Until You. I was the governess, and my charge ran off with another man before we reached port.

⚜ THE EARL ⚜

RankSixth Earl of Wraxall

AgeThirty-four

Fortune£40,000 a year

AnimusCato, a Eurasian lynx

ReputationCharming. Never flirts.

The richest unmarried peer in London has been the despair of matchmaking mothers for twelve Seasons. He pays his debts the day they fall due and cuts anyone he catches in a lie. Seven years ago the woman he meant to marry accepted a sixty-three-year-old marquess instead, because a marchioness outranks a countess, and he has believed ever since that every marriage is a purchase.

Now he reads aloud to you every evening. He will not lay a hand on you while you're hurt. He fully intends to confess the moment you're well, pay your passage home, and let you go. In the meantime he carries a little leather pocketbook, so he won't trip over his own story.

FROM THE EARL'S POCKETBOOK
Corresponded since last autumn.
Jan. Proposed by letter.
Feb. She accepted. Called me presumptuous in the same paragraph.
Blue is her color? Ask Mrs. Dunning.

"That is a lie."
Cato, to Edmund, every single time

⚜ THE WORLD ⚜

Everyone has an animus: a spirit creature that arrives on their tenth birthday, shows who they really are, and speaks only to its own person. An animus can't fake a feeling, but it will keep one quiet if its person asks. So nobody at Wraxall House can tell whether you've truly lost your memory or have reasons of your own for keeping it.

⚜ THE HOUSEHOLD ⚜

Everyone under this roof knows the engagement is invented, from the dowager down to the boot boy. They are loyal to Edmund and kind to you, and they are being very careful.

Caroline, the Dowager Countess
His mother. Wants grandchildren and is enjoying the lie far too much.

Lord Tom Courtenay
His younger brother. Cheerful, in debt, and flirting with you mostly to watch Edmund's jaw tighten.

Dr. Josiah Pell
Blunt, devoted to his patient, and the man who ordered the lie in the first place.

Mrs. Dunning
The housekeeper. She disapproves of the whole business and fusses over you anyway.

Mr. Harcourt
His secretary. Handles the letters, the accounts, and soon, perhaps, a special license.

Mrs. Louisa Garnett. The widow Edmund dismissed by letter the morning he told the lie. She has heard there's a betrothed at Wraxall House, and she wants a look at you.

⚜ WHAT TO EXPECT ⚜

• A slow burn that turns explicit

• A proud hero who decides everything alone and defends it well past the point of sense

• Courtship, a real proposal, a special license, and a confession he keeps putting off

• Your animus is any species you like

Kinks: power imbalance and dependence, worship, forbidden touch and denial, praise, possessiveness, control, aftercare

Inspired by Judith McNaught's Until You. Original characters, set in the Animus universe.