You’re a dark soul, boy—cursed spawn of your mother…
“Bloody hell, you weren’t wrong about the place,” John said. “Beg pardon, sir, I meant no offense.”
The doors creaked and cold fingers circled Charles’s heart as a deep groan echoed through the air.
He stepped back as the doors swung inward, forming a gaping, toothless mouth.
Then a figure appeared in the doorway—a human form, blurred by the darkness.
Charles took an involuntary step back, but the figure followed, moving into the light. Then it solidified into the shape of a woman, of diminutive stature with iron-gray hair scraped into a neat bun. Her dress was an unremarkable shade of dark blue, and she wore a set of keys on a chain about her waist.
Her face bore the wrinkles of age, but though her skin was pale, a flush of rose adorned her cheeks, and her eyes, a pale shade of blue, twinkled beneath her brows.
“Viscount Penham…” She hesitated. “F-forgive me, I suppose I should call you Lord Devereaux now. I did not hear the carriage. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
Charles glanced at John and signed.
What does she mean,we?
“Who are you, ma’am?” John asked.
The woman glanced at Charles’s hands, then her face cracked into a smile.
“Bless me, Master Charles! Have I aged so much that you don’t recognize me?”
Charles stared at her then tilted his head to one side.
Mrs. Brougham?Surely this wizened creature couldn’t be the housekeeper?
Her eyes filled with understanding, mixed with a little judgment, and she nodded.
“I see your memory serves you well, Lord Devereaux, even if your gallantry doesn’t. The years have been kinder to you than me. But fifteen years is a long time to be absent from one’s home.”
Was it really fifteen years since he’d last set foot in the place, leaving for Oxford and vowing never to return until his father was cold in his grave?
It was a vow he’d kept. But, unlike most vows, it had been driven by hatred, not honor.
“We thought you might return when your father…” the housekeeper began, then she sighed and shook her head. “It matters not. What matters is that you’re home, to take up your rightful place as the earl.”
My rightful place…
He reached for his signet ring and ran his thumb over the stone, taking comfort from the feel of the sharp edges of the facets. The housekeeper lowered her gaze to his hands and smiled, her eyes filled with understanding.
“Please, come inside,” she said. “You must be tired from your journey, and your man…?” She raised her eyebrows and directed her gaze at John.
“Lord Devereaux’s valet, ma’am,” he said. “John Richards, at your service.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Richards,” she said, stepping aside. “Please, come inside, both of you, and I can arrange for some tea.”
Both of us?
Charles glanced at the valet who, by right, the housekeeper should have insisted use the back entrance. Or at least she would have, were his father still alive. Father was always a stickler for propriety—ordering and delivering punishments for the slightest transgression.
As if his body recalled his last transgression, the skin of Charles’s back itched. He crossed the floor of the hallway, illuminated by a beam of light from an upper-floor window, in which dust motes swirled in protest at their disturbance. His footsteps clicked on the marble floor as he approached the main staircase—an enormous flight of stairs that swept upward to a wall bearing a huge painting of the third earl, staring darkly at all comers, before dividing in two to ascend either side to the upper floor. A cold hand clawed at his stomach as he approached the stairs and his gaze landed on the lowest step, then moved along the floor to the third stone from the bottom. His chest constricted at the memory, the image that formed in his mind…
A pool of dark red, spreading across the floor, arms frozen like marble trapping his body, and…
…and two dark, lifeless eyes, staring into his soul, drawing him toward the mouth of hell…
