Julian shook his head. He had wanted the physician to tell him that Samuel had died of some natural cause. But he could not. The answer was clear to Julian. After all, his father was an expert on matters arcane and occult.
The library from which Julian was forbidden, but had sneaked into in the dead of night, was a place of dark books and relics. Harold Barrington knew of curses and he had warned Julian what would happen to anyone that Julian touched with his bare hands. He scrubbed the tears from his eyes, hardening his heart against the grief. Carefully, he stepped away from the doctor, who watched him with a face alive with concern. Julian shook his head.
“It is the curse.”
The doctor snorted. “There is no such thing, boy.”
Julian shook his head wordlessly, seeing the truth, even if this man of science could not. The answer was simple, clear to his immature mind. He was cursed. Tainted. And must be kept away from people. He turned and ran from the room.
CHAPTER ONE
TWENTY YEARS LATER
“This is foolish. I must be mad. Walking a lonely road at night. Whatever am I doing?”
Ester whispered the words under her breath, trying to alleviate the loneliness by talking to herself. She knew the risk she was taking.
The road was lonely and the moon, obscured by scudding clouds, rendered the landscape inky black.
So far from London and so close to the looming expanse of Epping Forest, there was always the possibility of highwaymen. Such men took advantage of the traffic on roads leading into and out of the capital with the proximity of dense woodland into which they could disappear.
Beneath her cloak, which hooded her and covered her dress down to the ground, she clutched at her leather satchel withboth hands. With each step she took along the road, that bag threatened to clink, betraying its metallic contents.
This was the dowry that had been realized by her father for the marriage to the Earl of Handbridge that had seemed certain. Certain until a friend of Lord Kenneth Lowe of Handbridge had committed an act that left Ester’s reputation in tatters.
Her mind shied away from the memory of that night. Of Simon Thompson, Viscount Kingsley’s handsome smile morphing into a leer. His hands suddenly insistent, touching her in a way that only a husband should. The memory sent a shudder through her that had nothing to do with the wind that whispered under the hood of her cloak to stir her long, golden-red hair.
She pushed the memory away, striding along the road briskly, attempting to outdistance it. Only her sister knew that she was out of doors on this night. Helen was maintaining the illusion for their parent’s sake that Ester was in her room, suffering a touch of mal de tete. Her dearest Helen—and the reason Ester was walking this dark road, skirting the trackless forest. To protect her sister and ensure she could secure for herself a fine match, a husband who would do her honor. That would not happen if Viscount Kingsley made good on his threats.
Her fist tightened on the edges of her cloak. In a pocket she had sown inside the cloak, she carried a knife. It was a simple tool, acquired from an ironmonger in London, with a sharp point and equally dangerous edge. Its hilt was bound with leather and it had a guard of simple iron, to protect the hand of the wielder according to the ironmonger. He had been curious as to why alady should wish to purchase such a brutally simple implement. It wasn’t a kitchen knife or a piece of cutlery. It was a dagger and it had one function. Ester did not know if she could use it for that purpose. But as Viscount Kingsley’s sneering face loomed in her mind, anger was sparked within her. It almost overwhelmed the fear. He had no right to her body and no right to her family’s wealth. Could she stab him on this lonely road? With even the moon blinded to the deed by the clouds.
Ahead, a brief appearance of that silent witness illuminated a body of water. It was a lake, bounded by the road on one side and the dark mass of Epping Forest on the other. The road was elevated above the water, looking down a gentle slope to a fringe of weeping willows that draped their long fingers into the mirrored surface.
Ester’s breath came quicker now, her pulse increasing. She was close now. Somewhere down there was a jetty and an old boathouse, long abandoned and neglected. She kept walking, searching the dark shoreline for the spot of the rendezvous. A chill ran down her spine. Perhaps she was at the wrong place. Perhaps the directions, given to her in Viscount Kingsley’s letter, had been misinterpreted. She could spend all night searching for the boathouse and he would think that she had refused his demands. What then for Helen and the rest of her family? What then when Viscount Kingsley spread the news of the scandal?
There was some relief when she saw the dark, square shape of a building a few hundred yards ahead. A long structure stretched out from it into the water, the jetty. And at the end of that jetty, the unmistakable shape of a man.
Ester swallowed, forcing herself to continue walking. Clouds veiled the moon once more and the man was swallowed up by the greater darkness of the lake before him. Her steps sounded loud to her, surely loud enough to carry to that silent sentinel. Would it be Kingsley himself? Or an underling there to carry out his master’s orders.
Finally, she reached a set of stone steps that had been set into the earth bank. She began to descend, the boathouse now directly opposite her. When she reached the bottom, she almost screamed when a figure stepped out from around the corner of the building. Her hands tightened on the dagger in its secret pocket and she came to a halt.
“You would be Miss Ester Fairchild?” said the man in a cultured voice.
Cultured, but not the voice of the Viscount Kingsley. That voice she would never forget. It haunted her nightmares.
“Yes, who are you?” she said.
“My name is not important. I am here on the orders of his lordship, the Viscount of Kingsley,” the man stated, coldly.
An underling then.
“And there, I trust you hide the promissory note for your father’s bank?” the man asked, pointing to her hands.
Ester clutched the satchel of coins tighter. That money had been taken out by her father from his bank in Chester to be paid as her dowry. When Kenneth had terminated their engagement, the money had remained in her father’s study. Long ago, he had entrusted the combination to his formidable, cast iron safe to Ester, his eldest daughter and most trusted confidante. Ester blinked back tears as she remembered the look in his eyes as he had locked that money away again. He did not blame her, not openly, but his eyes were damning. Even if he believed that she had not willingly compromised herself with the Viscount Kingsley.
“No,” she said, quietly.
“No?” the man queried.
