Prologue
They were at it again, yelling, screaming, tearing each other to shreds.
Marcus couldn’t stand it.He wrenched open the door and raced across the lawn, heading for somewhere, anywhere.He didn’t care, as long as he was far enough away not to hear his parents arguing—yet again.
They were unbearable—one minute slinging the most vicious insults at each other, the next falling into each others’ arms, cooing soft endearments and making passionate love.
Until the next time.
If only he’d been allowed to go and stay with a friend for the school holidays, like his brother Nash.But Marcus was the heir, and his father wanted him here to learn how to be a proper earl and to oversee the management of the various estates—not to manage them himself, of course, but learning how to keep a stern, supervisory eye on those they employed to do the work.
He wouldn’t have minded so much if that had happened, but he’d come home to find his parents in one of their periodical reconciliations, if you could call it that.It was feast or famine with his parents—screaming jealous arguments or passionate love-making—there seemed to be no middle ground.
It didn’t matter which to him—both made him sick to his stomach.If that’s what love was, you could keep it.
Normally Marcus would have headed for the stables and taken his horse, Jetta, out for a long, cleansing gallop, but Jetta had thrown a shoe the day before, and was being taken to the blacksmith.There were other horses in the stables, but even though he was fourteen, the grooms wouldn’t let him ride one of his father’s precious hunters, not without his father’s permission, and Marcus didn’t want to ask.He didn’t want to talk to his father at all.
His second favorite place to retreat was the maze in the garden with hedges high enough to conceal him.Taking himself to the center and sitting down on the bench in the middle with a book, and breathing in the sharp, clean fragrance of the yew hedges that enclosed him always made him feel calmer.Somehow cleaner inside.But the hedging had to be trimmed regularly and today the maze was filled with gardeners busily clipping away.No peace to be found there.
So he made for the forest that bordered the estate.The neighboring estate was called Ferndale, and it —and the forest—belonged to their neighbor, Lord Blaxland, who neglected his land shamefully.He was what they called an absentee landlord, a gambler, Marcus had heard, who lived in London and was almost never home.Marcus hardly ever went there but he wanted—needed—to be alone, and wherever he went on his father’s estate, there would be people wanting to talk to him, asking questions, happily chatting.
He couldn’t chat happily at the best of times, and at times like these, when he was full of anger and frustration, he could barely even talk.
The forest was a tangled, wild place, but it was cool, shady, and peaceful.The only sound was the twittering of birds and the soughing of the breeze sifting through the leaves.The air was fragrant with the scent of fresh greenery and the moist, rich earth beneath the soft carpet of leaves.He breathed it in deeply and felt his heartbeat and his breathing slowing, settling, calming.
Even though his newly trained landowner’s eye could see the neglect, the tangle of blackberries and vines, the weeds choking off new growth, the need for pruning and thinning, he had to admit the forest was beautiful in its wildness.
Thoughts of his parents intruded: he thrust them aside.He wasn’t going to think about them, not here.This would be his own special place to escape to.None of his father’s employees would venture onto Blaxland land, and nobody would think to look for him here.
Several faint pathways meandered through the undergrowth, made by animals, he presumed.He followed one, pushing aside fronds of bracken and other weeds.Thorns caught on his clothing.His father’s valet would scold him, but Marcus didn’t care.
A crashing sound ahead made him look up from his contemplation of the path.Something, some creature was coming toward him, pushing through the undergrowth in a rush.He tensed.
A little girl burst out of a clump of greenery, then stumbled to a halt, panting as she stared at him out of wide blue eyes.She was small, maybe eight or nine, and dressed in a shabby, ill-fitting dress.Her hair was a tangle of silvery blond elf-locks surrounding a face that was dirty and tear-streaked.A gypsy child perhaps?Though that coloring was unusual in gypsies.For a moment they simply stared at each other.
“You have to help me.”She was distraught, still gasping for breath.The words burst forth in a pelter.“She’s going to die and then her babies will too and I can’t bear it.Will you come?You have to come!Please?”She swiped at her tears with a grubby paw, leaving her face even dirtier.
Marcus nodded.“Of course.Who is going to die?”
She gave him a wary look.“My friend.”She grabbed his arm and pulled him back the way she’d come.
Bemused, Marcus let himself be towed through the forest.If her friend was badly hurt, it might be better to go back home and get help—adult help.But until he knew the situation, he couldn’t know what was needed.And Father would be furious if Marcus pulled workers away from their duties for the sake of a gypsy child.
“She’s there.”The child pointed.“I tried to get her out but I couldn’t open it.She’s trying to chew her leg off—see?It must hurt terribly but she’s desperate.She’s got babies to feed.”
Marcus stared, shocked.The little girl’s ‘friend’ was a vixen caught in a trap.She was snarling and growling and was indeed, he saw, disturbed, trying to gnaw off her own leg in order to escape.The leg was bloody and raw.
He looked around and selected a sturdy piece of fallen branch.
The little girl grabbed his arm.“What are you going to do with that?You’re not going to kill her, are you?I won’t let you!”
“No, I’m going to try to pry open the trap with it.”He moved cautiously forward.
The vixen turned to face him, snarling.Murmuring what he hoped were soothing sounds he approached.Her savagery worsened.
“It’s all right, Russet, he’s going to help you,” the little girl crooned.
The vixen bared her teeth at Marcus.They looked very sharp.He pulled off his jacket and wound it around his hand and arm, then eased closer.
