PROLOGUE
Athunderous crash. Nathan started from a fitful sleep. All sleep in Hutton Castle was fitful, at least for those who wanted to survive the cruelty of its master. Nathan pushed ash-blond hair from his eyes, blinking away the last remnants of sleep. His tiny room was silent. His breath clouded the air in front of him, there was no fireplace in his room. Curtainless windows cast no light into the room, the stars and moon were obscured by clouds. From below the castle’s main courtyard, a howling arose. First from one throat, then from others. The pack of hunting hounds kept by his father in the kennels below. Savage, feral beasts who frightened Nathan with their ferocity. Many times his father had used their slavering aggression as a means to terrify his son into obedience.
Another crash and, Nathan was sure, a voice. It sounded almost like a croak of pain. A tortured sound from a hoarse throat. Perhaps whoever it was had been screaming for so long they could no longer push the sound from their ravaged throat. It came again, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of footfalls. All the sounds came from above, carried by the ancient timbers of Hutton castle. Nathan knew those creaks, he could translate their message as if they were speech. The footsteps belonged to his father and they came from his study. Heavy and thumping with every other step punctuated by a slight drag, an injury sustained falling from a horse years before.
Nathan knew that he should pull the covers up around himself and close his eyes.
Let the old devil rage himself into oblivion. Nothing good comes of getting in his way. Mother learned that the hard way.
It was the thought of his mother that moved him. Swinging his legs out of bed, he stood barefoot, but otherwise fully dressed against the cold. For a boy in his early teen years, he was tall and broad-shouldered. Awkwardly long limbs gave him a gangly appearance. The characteristic of the Ramsay men was already prominent, a long, thin nose that hooked slightly at its end. Combined with the high, slanted cheeks he had inherited from his mother, it gave Nathan a distinctive appearance. He stole across the room to the door and paused before opening it.
That was a shout. Cut off quickly but a shout. This isn’t just the usual drunken fury. Something is wrong up there.
Nathan opened the door, peering out along the dark narrow stone passageway beyond. It led to a stone staircase that spiraled up and down. Up was the floor on which his father’s luxuriant chambers were located as well as the opulent library for which Hutton was famous. Down led to the public rooms and, ultimately, the doors that would allow Nathan to lose himself in the extensive woods that surrounded the grounds on all sides. He stole along the hallway and then hesitated again. A flicker of lamplight shone around the corner of the stair below. Above was darkness.
Down to safety and light, or up to darkness and danger. Obvious really, but if the old devil is in distress…
Nathan grinned wolfishly, thinking of his mother and how she had fought to protect him from his father’s cruelty. Then he began to climb the stairs. The sounds got louder. He reached the next floor and walked silently along the plushly carpeted corridor. He stopped before the tall, double doors that led to his father’s private study. To enter that room without permission was to invite a thrashing. But he could hear a hoarse, agonized whisper on the other side and occasional soft thumps, as if a hand was repeatedly being beaten against the carpet. Heart racing in his chest, he crouched and put his eyes to the keyhole.
Inside, he could see his father’s desk, papers spilling from its top to scatter across the floor. A decanter lay on its side, dark liquid forming a pool under it which had overflowed over the side of the desk to soak into the burgundy carpet below. The Duke of Hamilton, Lord of Hutton Castle, Benedict Ramsay, lay face down on the floor. He was reaching for the door, hand clawed. His face was almost purple, mouth open and eyes bulging. With spasming movements, he seemed to be trying to push himself along the floor toward the door. With each push, his clawing, clutching hand stretched and then fell short, thumping against the carpet. Nathan had opened the door before being consciously aware of what he was doing.
It swung open, leaving his hand to bang against the wall. Nathan stood in the doorway, looking down at the man who had terrorized and brutalized himself and his mother for so many years. The fear that he had thought to be burned into his very bones, was gone. This helpless creature was not to be feared. One of his father’s feet kicked out as he tried to propel himself. A shoe hung from his heel, not fully dislodged from his stockinged foot. It hit something and sent it spinning across the floor. The movement drew Nathan’s eyes. It was a dark, glass decanter, no more than a few inches tall. It was unstoppered and dark liquid dripped from it. He knew exactly what it was. The medicine that his father had been given to quell his rebellious heart.
Benedict must have felt the bottle against his foot, he looked over his shoulder, moving with agonizing slowness. Nathan held his breath, beginning to see what had happened.
He waited too long to take the medicine. Or perhaps drank himself into a stupor and forgot. Then the pain woke him and he dropped the bottle in his panic. If I give it to him, he will recover.
But Nathan did not move. His father’s agonized face turned back to him and Nathan fancied he saw a plea in his tortured, pale eyes.
How can he expect help and mercy when he has shown me none. Showed my mother none. If I help him, perhaps he will treat me well as a reward.
The grasping hand reached towards him, fingers opening and closing in quivering movements. Nathan still did not move, thinking of his mother.
She was so kind and gentle. She should never have married him. Better they never met and I was never born than for her to suffer so at his hands. Better by far that he be dead!
That last thought shocked Nathan into movement. It struck him as blasphemous and wicked for a boy to think that of his father. Surely, only God had the right to decide who lived and who died. It was not for Nathan, a boy of eight years, to decide. And it was his duty to honor his father. That was what the stone-faced priest told him every Sunday. That was what the thin-lipped governess had told him whenever he had raged against his father. He took a step, but backward. Away from the door and away from the small bottle that would give his father life. He realized that he was shaking his head, his eyes locked on his father’s. The old man’s hand fell one last time, clawed at the carpet, and was then still. Utterly still. Nathan’s mouth fell open. He thought that he should feel triumphant. The bane of his childhood was no more. But he didn’t. He felt empty. Desolate.
The sound of running footsteps reached him and the figure of Walter Carlisle came bounding down the stairs.
“Master Nathan? I heard noises. Where is His Grace?”
Walter had a shock of red hair, blue eyes, and a square face with a pugnacious jaw. He looked wildly from Nathan to the door from which he was retreating. Nathan could not summon words but raised a hand to silently point at the open door. Walter’s already pale complexion seemed to turn gray and he leaped forward, running down the hallway and pulling himself to a halt with a hand to the closed half of the study’s double doors. He looked in and gasped.
“Oh God, no!” He cried and dropped to his knees beside the still form of the Duke.
He saw the bottle and scrambled for it. Then, the bottle poised above the dead man’s lips, he stopped. Shaking his head slowly, he stood, putting the bottle into a pocket in his waistcoat. He turned around and closed the doors to the study, before walking toward Nathan.
“Go downstairs, Master Nathan, and wake the house. Tell them your father is dead and that a physician needs to be sent for to confirm the fact.”
“What will happen?” Nathan asked, his voice small.
“We will talk of that. You are the Duke now, and as such, my employer. You are the master of this house now.”
“I…I don’t know what to do,” Nathan said plaintively.
“I will guide you,” Walter said, forcing a wavering smile. “All will be well, Your Grace.”
CHAPTERONE
