“Now you see why I chose to be a nobody,” Dorian said.
Hoskins had learned Dorian’s true identity only yesterday, at the same time he’d been informed of Dorian’s medical condition—and offered the opportunity to depart, if he wished. But Hoskins had fought and been wounded at Waterloo. After the horrors he’d experienced there, looking after a mere lunatic was child’s play.
Moreover, to Dorian’s vast relief, Hoskins’s manner remained matter-of-fact, with occasional ventures into a gallows humor that lifted Dorian’s spirits.
“Is it the irascibility of age?” Hoskins asked mildly as he handed the letter back. “Or was the old gentleman always like this?”
“He’s impossible,” Dorian said. “Born that way, I suppose. And quite convincing. For most of my youth, I actually believed I was always the one at fault. There is no dealing with him, Hoskins. All one can do is try to ignore him. That won’t be easy.” He frowned at the letter.
His remaining aunt, Hugo’s widow, had visited Dartmoor a short while ago and spotted Dorian on one of his gallops through the moors. She’d written the earl a highly exaggerated description of Dorian’s riding garb—or lack thereof—and passed on a lot of local gossip, mostly ignorant speculation about the reclusive eccentric living at Radmore Manor.
The earl’s letter ordered Dorian to appear—his hair properly shorn and his person decently attired—at a family council on the twelfth of May, and explain himself.
If they wanted him, they’d have to come and get him, Dorian silently vowed, and they would never take him away alive.
“Did you wish to dictate a reply, sir?” Hoskins asked. “Or shall we chuck it into the fire?”
“I’ll write my own reply. Otherwise you’ll be targeted as an accomplice, and made to feel the weight of his righteous wrath.” Dorian smiled faintly. “Then we’ll chuck it into the fire.”
On the twelfth of May 1828, the Earl of Rawnsley and most of his immediate family were gathered in Rawnsley Hall’s drawing room at the moment that a section of the ancestral roof above them chose to collapse. In a matter of seconds, several tons of timber, stone, and miscellaneous decorative debris buried them and made Dorian Camoys—one of the very few family members not in attendance—the new Earl of Rawnsley.
In a small sitting room in a house in Wiltshire, Gwendolyn Adams read the weeks-old newspaper account several times before she was satisfied she had not overlooked any details.
Then she turned her attention to the other three documents on her writing desk. One was a letter written by the present earl’s recently deceased aunt. According to it, her nephew had turned into a savage. His hair hung down to his knees, and he galloped half-naked through the moors on a murderous white horse named after a bloodthirsty pagan god.
The second document was a draft of a letter from the earl to his “savage” grandson. It gave Gwendolyn a very good idea why the heir had failed to attend the funeral.
The third document was the present Lord Rawnsley’s reply to his grandfather’s obnoxious letter, and it made Gwendolyn smile for the first time since the duc d’Abonville had arrived and made his outrageous proposal.
Abonville’s mother had been a de Camois, the French tree from which the English Camoys branch had sprouted centuries earlier—and thus Rawnsley’s very distant cousin. Abonville was also the fiancé of Gwendolyn’s grandmother, Genevieve, the dowager Viscountess Pembury.
The pair had attended the Camoys’s funeral, after which a harassed solicitor had sought the duc’s assistance as nearest male kin: papers needed signing, and any number of legal matters must be attended to, and the present Lord Rawnsley had refused to assume his responsibilities.
Accordingly, the duc and Genevieve had journeyed to Dartmoor. There, they discovered that the new earl had fallen victim to a terminal brain disease.
Gwendolyn’s smile faded. Bertie Trent, her first cousin, had taken the news very hard. At present, he was hiding in the stables, sobbing over an old letter, creased and faded past legibility, from his boyhood friend Cat Camoys.
She moved the papers aside and took up the miniature Bertie had given her.
The tiny likeness allegedly represented Bertie’s friend. It had been painted years earlier by a singularly inept artist, and it did not tell her much.
Still, twenty-one-year-old Gwendolyn was too levelheaded a girl to base the most momentous decision of her life upon a picture two inches in diameter.
In the first place, she knew she was no great beauty herself, with her pointy nose and chin and impossible red hair. She doubted that her green eyes, to which several suitors had composed lavish—and very silly—odes, compensated for everything.
In the second place, physical attractiveness was irrelevant. Rawnsley had not been asked to fall in love with her, nor she with him. Abonville had simply asked her to marry the earl and bear him a son to save the Camoys line from extinction.
She’d been asked to do this because she came of a phenomenally fertile family, famous for producing males. Both characteristics were critical, for the Earl of Rawnsley hadn’t much time to sire an heir. His physician had given him six months to live.
Unfortunately, there were no documents offering any insights into the brain disease itself. The little Genevieve and Abonville knew they’d learned mainly from the earl’s manservant, Hoskins. His Lordship had volunteered no details, and pressing him for information would have been unkind, Genevieve had said.
Gwendolyn frowned.
Her mother entered the room at that moment and softly closed the door behind her. “Are you truly thinking it over?” she asked as she took the seat next to Gwendolyn’s desk. “Or are you only making a show of hesitation for Papa’s benefit?”
Though she had taken time to reflect, Gwendolyn did not feel hesitant. She knew the task she’d been asked to undertake would not be pleasant. But that did not daunt her in the least.
Unpleasantness was only to be expected. Illness, whether of the mind or the body, was disagreeable; otherwise so much labor wouldn’t be dedicated to making it go away. But illness was also exceedingly interesting, and lunatics, Gwendolyn felt, were the most interesting patients of all.
Lord Rawnsley’s case, combining both a mysterious neurological disease and aberrant behavior, could not have excited her more.
If the Almighty had sent her a letter, signed, witnessed, and notarized, she could not have felt more certain that He, in His infinite wisdom—about which she had entertained doubts on more than one occasion—had made her expressly for this purpose.
“I was making absolutely certain there wasn’t anything to think about,” Gwendolyn told her mother. “There isn’t.”
Mama gazed at her for a long moment. “Yes, I heard the celestial summons—as clearly as you did, I don’t doubt. Papa is another matter, however.”
Gwendolyn was well aware of this. Mama understood her. Papa did not. None of the males of the family did. That included Abonville. Gwendolyn was sure the marriage idea was one her grandmother had planted in his head while convincing him it was his own. Fortunately, Genevieve had an enviable talent for making men believe just about anything she wanted them to.
“We’d better let Genevieve talk him round,” Gwendolyn said. “Otherwise he will create delays by raising a lot of needless obstacles, and we have no time to lose. There’s no telling how long Rawnsley will retain his reason, and he must be of sound mind for the legalities.”
That wasn’t Gwendolyn’s only anxiety. At this very moment, the Earl of Rawnsley might be taking one of his reckless rides and risking a fatal tumble into a mire.
Then she would never have a chance to do something truly worthwhile with her life.
Before she could voice this concern, her mother spoke.
“Genevieve has already begun working on your father,” she said. “She knew what your answer would be, as I did. I shall go downstairs and signal her to administer the coup de grâce.” She rose.
“Thank you, Mama,” G
wendolyn said.
“Never mind that,” Mama said sharply. “It is not what I would have wished for you, even if you will be Countess of Rawnsley. If that young man had not been Bertie’s friend, and if he had not looked after your idiot cousin all through Eton—and doubtless saved his worthless neck a hundred times—” Her eyes filled and her voice was unsteady as she went on, “Oh, Gwendolyn, I should never let you go. But we cannot leave the poor boy to die alone.” She squeezed Gwendolyn’s shoulder. “He needs you, and that is all that ought to matter, I know.”
Dorian Camoys stood, trapped, in his own library.
Less than a fortnight had passed since the duc d’Abonville had turned up at the door.
Now the Frenchman was back—with a special license and a female he insisted Dorian marry forthwith.
Dorian could have dealt with the Frenchman and his ludicrous command easily enough. Unfortunately, along with Lady Pembury and the girl Dorian had not yet met and knew better than to consider meeting, Abonville had also brought his future grandson, Bertie Trent.
And Bertie had got it into his head that he would stand as his friend’s groomsman.
When Bertie got something into his head, it was next to impossible to get it out. This was because Bertie Trent was one of the stupidest men who’d ever lived. This, Dorian had long ago recognized, was the reason Bertie was the only friend he’d ever had—and one whose childlike feelings Dorian couldn’t bear to hurt.
It was impossible to rage at Abonville properly while trying not to distress Bertie, who was so thrilled about his best friend marrying his favorite female cousin.
“It’s only Gwen,” Bertie was saying, misconstruing the issues, as usual. “She ain’t half bad, for a girl. Not like Jess—but I shouldn’t wish m’sister on anybody, especially you, even though you’d be m’brother then, because I can’t think of anything worse than a fellow having to listen to her the livelong day. Not but what Dain can manage her—but he’s bigger than you, and even so, I daresay he’s got his hands full. Still, they’re already shackled, so you’re safe from her, and Gwen ain’t like her at all. When Abonville told us you was wanting to get married, and he was thinking Gwen would suit, I said—”
“Bertie, I wasn’t wanting to get married,” Dorian broke in. “It is a ridiculous mistake.”
“I have made no mistake,” said Abonville. He stood before the door, his distinguished countenance stern, his arms folded over his chest. “You gave your word, cousin. You said you recognized your duty, and you would marry if I could find a girl willing to have you.”
“It doesn’t matter what I said—if I did say it,” Dorian said tightly. “I had a headache when you came, and had taken laudanum. I was not in my senses at the time.”
“You were fully rational.”
“I could not have been!” Dorian snapped. “I should never have agreed to such a thing if I had. I’m not a damned ox. I shan’t spend my last months breeding!”
That was a mistake. Bertie’s round blue eyes began to fill. “It’s all right, Cat,” he said. “I’ll stick by you, like you always stuck by me. But you must have promised, or Abonville wouldn’t have said you did, and talked to Gwen. And she’ll be awful disappointed—not but what she’ll get over it, not being the moping sort. But only think how we could be cousins, and if you was to make a brat, I could be godfather, you know.”
Dorian bent a malignant glare upon the accursed duc. This was his doing. He’d filled Bertie’s head with the kinds of ideas he was sure to set his childish heart on: standing as groomsman for his dying friend, becoming Dorian’s cousin, then godfather to imaginary children.
And poor Bertie, his heart bursting with good intentions, would never understand why it was impossible. He would never comprehend why Dorian needed to die alone.
“I’ll stick by you,” he’d said—and Bertie would. If Dorian wouldn’t wed his cousin, Bertie would stay. Either way, Dorian wouldn’t stand a chance. They would never let him die in peace.
Once Dorian was no longer capable of thinking for himself, Bertie—or Abonville or the wife—would call in experts to deal with the madman.
And Dorian knew where that would lead: he would die as his mother had, caged like an animal…unless he killed himself first.
But he would not be hurried to his grave. He still had time, and he meant to enjoy it, to relish his sanity and strength for every precious moment they remained.
He told himself to calm down. He was not trapped. It only seemed that way, with loyal, dim-witted Bertie on one side, prating of godchildren, and Abonville on the other, blocking the door.
Dorian was not yet weak and helpless, as his mother had been. He’d find a way out of this so long as he kept a cool head.
Half an hour later, Dorian was galloping along the narrow track that led to Hagsmire. He was laughing, because the ruse had worked.
It had been easy enough to feign a sudden attack of remorse. Given years of practice with his grandfather, Dorian had no touble appearing penitent, and grateful for Abonville’s efforts. And so, when Dorian requested a few minutes to compose him self before meeting his bride, the two guests had exited the library.
So had he—out the window, through the garden, then down to the stables at a run.
He knew they wouldn’t pursue him to Hagsmire. Even his own groom wouldn’t venture onto the tortuous path this day, with storm clouds roiling overhead.
But he and Isis had waited out Dartmoor storms before. There was plenty of time to find the cracked heap of granite where they’d sheltered so many times previously, while Dorian beat back the inner demons urging him toward the old habits, the illusory surcease of wine and women.
Even if they searched, his unwanted guest would never find him, and they would give up awaiting his return long before he gave in. He had not yielded to his private demons or to his grandfather, and he would not yield to an overbearing French nobleman obsessed with genealogy.
There would be no more submitting to Duty. The new Earl of Rawnsley would be dead in a few months, and that would be the end of the curst Camoys line. And if Abonville didn’t like it, let him uproot one of the French sprigs and plant him here, and make the poor sod marry Bertie’s cousin.
Because the only way she would marry Dorian Camoys, he assured himself, would be by coming into Hagsmire with the entire bridal party and the preacher, and even then someone would have to pin the groom down with a boulder. Because he would dive into a bottomless pit of quicksand before he would take any woman into his life now and let her watch him disintegrate into a mindless animal.
Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.
Or so Dorian thought at first, until he noticed that the rumble didn’t pause, as thunder would, but went on steadily, and steadily grew louder. And the louder and nearer it came, the less it sounded like thunder and the more it sounded like…hoofbeats.
He glanced back, then quickly ahead again.
He told himself the recent confrontation had agitated him more than he’d suspected, and what he believed he’d just seen was a trick of his degenerating brain.
The ignorant rustics, who believed pixies dwelt all over Dartmoor, had named Hagsmire for the witches they also believed haunted the area. During mists and storms, they mounted ghostly steeds and chased their victims into the mire.
The hoofbeats grew louder.
The thing was gaining on him.
He glanced back, his heart pounding, his nerves tingling.
Though he assured himself it couldn’t be there, his eyes told him it was: a demonic-looking female riding an enormous bay. A tangled mane of fiery red hair flew wildly about her face. She rode boldly astride, a pale cloak streaming out behind her, her skirts hiked up to her knees, shamelessly displaying her ghostly white limbs.
Though it was only a moment’s glance, the brief distraction proved fatal, for in the next instant, Isis swerved too sharply into a turning.
Dorian reacted a heartbeat too late, and the mare skidded over t
he crumbling track edge and down the slippery incline—toward the quagmire waiting below.
The pale mare managed to scramble back from the edge of the murky pit, but she threw off her master in the process.
Gwendolyn leapt down from her mount, collected the rope she’d brought, and climbed down the incline to the edge of the bog.
Several feet from where she stood, the Earl of Rawnsley was thrashing in a pit of grey muck. In the few minutes it had taken her to reach the bog, he’d slid toward its heart, and his efforts to struggle for footing where there wasn’t any only sucked Kim in deeper.
Still, the muck had climbed only as far as his hips, and an assessing glance told Gwendolyn that this patch of mire was relatively narrow in circumference.
Even while she was studying her surroundings, she was moving toward the mare, making reassuring sounds. She was aware of Rawnsley cursing furiously, in between shouting at her to go away, but she disregarded that.
“Try to keep as still as possible,” she told him calmly. “We’ll have you out in a minute.”
“Get away from here!” he shouted. “Leave my horse alone, you bedamned witch! Run, Isis! Home!”
But Gwendolyn was stroking under the mare’s mane, and the creature was quieting, despite her master’s shouts and curses. She stood docilely while Gwendolyn unbuckled the stirrup strap, removed the stirrup iron, and rebuckled the strap. She looped one end of the rope through the strap and knotted it. Then she led the mare closer to the bog.
Rawnsley had stopped cursing, and he was not thrashing about so much as before. She did not know whether he’d come to his senses or was simply exhausted. She could see, though, that he’d sunk past his waist. Swiftly she tied a loop at the free end of the rope.
“Look sharp now,” she called to him. “I’m going to throw it.”
“You’ll fall in, you stupid—”
She flung the rope. He grabbed…and missed. And swore profusely.
Gwendolyn quickly drew it back and tried again.
On the fifth try, he caught it.
“Try to hold on with both hands,” she said. “And don’t try to help us. Pretend you’re a log. Keep as still as you can.”