Chapter One
'Sorcery is a vile practice. The work of the Devil. And we shall not rest until those devil-worshipping practitioners who reside in society are driven to repent—or driven out of our fair city of London.'
- Grant Martin, Chief of the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee
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London, 1894
* * *
"Come now, my lady, it's not safe."
Miss Ianthe Martin pressed the delicate handkerchief to her nose as she looked around the cell. Steel bars cut the gloom, delivering stark stripes across the stone floors. A shadow curled up beneath the barred windows, light striking the plain buff breeches covering his knees, and the bare soles of his feet. Large feet with carefully delineated toes. She stared at them, as her vision slowly adjusted to the gloom, remembering the feel of those bare feet against hers, once, shockingly long ago.
The prisoner looked up slowly, through the dark curtain of brown hair that surrounded his face. Dangerous, topaz eyes the color of molten gold watched her coldly, beneath harshly slanted brows. They flickered to her right, as if taking in the attendant who escorted her, then back again. Like a cat lashing its tail.
Secured, yes. Chained and beaten down. But instinct stirred, a smoky hot shiver low in her stomach. The long-subdued, primal part of her recognized danger when she saw it. "How long has he been kept in such solitary confines?"
"Ma'am." The attendant coughed reproachfully. No doubt he thought this completely beyond the pale.
Ianthe took a step closer as the attendant cleared his throat. His silence rattled her temper. "Damn you, how long?"
"Three months in solitary, ma'am."
And another nine before that, locked in with the writhing sprawl of humanity in the other corridors. New Bethlem Hospital—or Bedlam to most—had more than earned its reputation. Home to the criminally insane, the mad, and the Devilish Lord Rathbourne. The press had named him all three.
"Rathbourne?" One hesitant step into the cell. "Do you know who I am?"
There was a pentagram carved into the stone floors. New, from the look of the chisel marks. No doubt inspired by her father's work, and his precious committee. Though the Order of the Dawn Star that she belonged to served its Queen and country, there were always citizens superstitious enough, or too foolish, to understand what sorcery was.
"Rathbourne?" She hesitated, then added, "Lucien?"
Blast it. She'd hoped to find a sign of the man she'd once known. She could see more of him now; those stark cheekbones delineated even more clearly from the straitened circumstances, and the harsh, almost-black beard that lined his jaw. No sign of the elegant man who'd once melted her seventeen-year-old heart... and then ripped it out of her chest with barely a smile.
She hadn't even known his name the night she laid with him.
Not that he had any inkling of the reason for her dislike of him. That long-ago Equinox, she'd been masked, like all of the participants. Just a young woman—a girl truly—wanting to know more about the hot lick of power within her... and finding herself in perhaps deeper waters than she'd anticipated.
Rathbourne's affliction and subsequent incarceration had stripped all of the gilt off him, and cut him down to little more than taut muscle, furious eyes, and simmering animal fury. A chained beast, the shackles pinning him to the pale, limestone walls. Even one around his throat, as if even chained they'd still feared him.
As they should have. Rathbourne was a dangerous man.
The hand holding the handkerchief lowered. There was no sign of recognition in his eyes. No sign of the lucidity she'd hoped to see. Her last hopes dashed. A flicker of cold disappointment burned in her throat. What the devil was she going to do now?
Firstly, she had to get him out of this squalor.
"Are you aware that this man is a peer of the realm?" Ianthe turned on her heel and pinned the attendant with her best glare.
"His lordship is dangerous. Mad as hatters. Tried to choke a man with his own chain. Kept on about the shadows, how they were coming to get him..."
Ianthe's gaze flickered. The shadows didn't shift here. That didn't mean they couldn't. She knew better than that. The gleaming emerald around her throat threw off a splash of vibrant green against the bare walls as the sun caught it. Rathbourne flinched, as though the light hurt his eyes. No doubt the visiting cell they stood in was far different to the merciless pit they called solitary.
"You will remove him immediately and see him washed. New clothes. And shoes." Those bare feet bothered her.
The attendant opened his mouth.
"Don't argue," she said coldly, "or I shall see you dismissed."
