DORIAN CAMOYS STOOD, trapped, in his own library.
Less than a fortnight had passed since the duc d’Abonville had turned up at the door.
Now the Frenchman was back—with a special license and a female he insisted Dorian marry forthwith.
Dorian could have dealt with the Frenchman and his ludicrous command easily enough. Unfortunately, along with Lady Pembury and the girl Dorian had not yet met and knew better than to consider meeting, Abonville had also brought his future grandson, Bertie Trent.
And Bertie had got it into his head that he would stand as his friend’s groomsman.
When Bertie got something into his head, it was next to impossible to get it out. This was because Bertie Trent was one of the stupidest men who’d ever lived. This, Dorian had long ago recognized, was the reason Bertie was the only friend he’d ever had—and one whose childlike feelings Dorian couldn’t bear to hurt.
It was impossible to rage at Abonville properly while trying not to distress Bertie, who was so thrilled about his best friend marrying his favorite female cousin.
“It’s only Gwen,” Bertie was saying, misconstruing the issues, as usual. “She ain’t half bad, for a girl. Not like Jess—but I shouldn’t wish m’sister on anybody, especially you, even though you’d be m’brother then, because I can’t think of anything worse than a fellow having to listen to her the live-long day. Not but what Dain can manage her—but he’s bigger than you, and even so, I daresay he’s got his hands full. Still, they’re already shackled, so you’re safe from her, and Gwen ain’t like her at all. When Abonville told us you was wanting to get married, and he was thinking Gwen would suit, I said—”
“Bertie, I wasn’t wanting to get married,” Dorian broke in. “It is a ridiculous mistake.”
“I have made no mistake,” said Abonville. He stood before the door, his distinguished countenance stern, his arms folded over his chest. “You gave your word, cousin. You said you recognized your duty, and you would marry if I could find a girl willing to have you.”
“It doesn’t matter what I said—if I did say it,” Dorian said tightly. “I had a headache when you came, and had taken laudanum. I was not in my senses at the time.”
“You were fully rational.”
“I could not have been!” Dorian snapped. “I should never have agreed to such a thing if I had. I’m not a damned ox. I shan’t spend my last months breeding!”
That was a mistake. Bertie’s round blue eyes began to fill. “It’s all right, Cat,” he said. “I’ll stick by you, like you always stuck by me. But you must have promised, or Abonville wouldn’t have said you did, and talked to Gwen. And she’ll be awful disappointed—not but what she’ll get over it, not being the moping sort. But only think how we could be cousins, and if you was to make a brat, I could be godfather, you know.”
Dorian bent a malignant glare upon the accursed duc. This was his doing. He’d filled Bertie’s head with the kinds of ideas he was sure to set his childish heart on: standing as groomsman for his dying friend, becoming Dorian’s cousin, then godfather to imaginary children.
And poor Bertie, his heart bursting with good intentions, would never understand why it was impossible. He would never comprehend why Dorian needed to die alone.
“I’ll stick by you,” he’d said—and Bertie would. If Dorian wouldn’t wed his cousin, Bertie would stay. Either way, Dorian wouldn’t stand a chance. They would never let him die in peace.
Once Dorian was no longer capable of thinking for himself, Bertie—or Abonville or the wife—would call in experts to deal with the madman.
And Dorian knew where that would lead: he would die as his mother had, caged like an animal . . . unless he killed himself first.
But he would not be hurried to his grave. He still had time, and he meant to enjoy it, to relish his sanity and strength for every precious moment they remained.
He told himself to calm down. He was not trapped. It only seemed that way, with loyal, dim-witted Bertie on one side, prating of godchildren, and Abonville on the other, blocking the door.
Dorian was not yet weak and helpless, as his mother had been. He’d find a way out of this so long as he kept a cool head.
HALF AN HOUR later, Dorian was galloping along the narrow track that led to Hagsmire. He was laughing, because the ruse had worked.
It had been easy enough to feign a sudden attack of remorse. Given years of practice with his grandfather, Dorian had no trouble appearing penitent, and grateful for Abonville’s efforts. And so, when Dorian requested a few minutes to compose himself before meeting his bride, the two guests had exited the library.
So had he—out the window, through the garden, then down to the stables at a run.
He knew they wouldn’t pursue him to Hagsmire. Even his own groom wouldn’t venture onto the tortuous path this day, with storm clouds roiling overhead.
But he and Isis had waited out Dartmoor storms before. There was plenty of time to find the cracked heap of granite where they’d sheltered so many times previously, while Dorian beat back the inner demons urging him toward the old habits, the illusory surcease of wine and women.
Even if they searched, his unwanted guests would never find him, and they would give up awaiting his return long before he gave in. He had not yielded to his private demons or to his grandfather, and he would not yield to an overbearing French nobleman obsessed with genealogy.
There would be no more submitting to Duty. The new Earl of Rawnsley would be dead in a few months, and that would be the end of the curst Camoys line. And if Abonville didn’t like it, let him uproot one of the French sprigs and plant him here, and make the poor sod marry Bertie’s cousin.
Because the only way she would marry Dorian Camoys, he assured himself, would be by coming into Hagsmire with the entire bridal party and the preacher, and even then someone would have to pin the groom down with a boulder. Because he would dive into a bottomless pit of quicksand before he would take any woman into his life now and let her watch him disintegrate into a mindless animal.
Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.
Or so Dorian thought at first, until he noticed that the rumble didn’t pause, as thunder would, but went on steadily, and steadily grew louder. And the louder and nearer it came, the less it sounded like thunder and the more it sounded like . . . hoofbeats.
He glanced back, then quickly ahead again.
He told himself the recent confrontation had agitated him more than he’d suspected, and what he believed he’d just seen was a trick of his degenerating brain.
The ignorant rustics, who believed pixies dwelt all over Dartmoor, had named Hagsmire for the witches they also believed haunted the area. During mists and storms, they mounted ghostly steeds and chased their victims into the mire.
The hoofbeats grew louder.
The thing was gaining on him.
He glanced back, his heart pounding, his nerves tingling.
Though he assured himself it couldn’t be there, his eyes told him it was: a demonic-looking female riding an enormous bay. A tangled mane of fiery red hair flew wildly about her face. She rode boldly astride, a pale cloak streaming out behind her, her skirts hiked up to her knees, shamelessly displaying her ghostly white limbs.
Though it was only a moment’s glance, the brief distraction proved fatal, for in the next instant, Isis swerved too sharply into a turning.
Dorian reacted a heartbeat too late, and the mare skidded over the crumbling track edge and down the slippery incline—toward the quagmire waiting below.
THE PALE MARE managed to scramble back from the edge of the murky pit, but she threw off her master in the process.
Gwendolyn leapt down from her mount, collected the rope she’d brought, and climbed down the incline to the edge of the bog.
Several feet from where she stood, the Earl of Rawnsley was thrashin
g in a pit of grey muck. In the few minutes it had taken her to reach the bog, he’d slid toward its heart, and his efforts to struggle for footing where there wasn’t any only sucked him in deeper.
Still, the muck had climbed only as far as his hips, and an assessing glance told Gwendolyn that this patch of mire was relatively narrow in circumference.
Even while she was studying her surroundings, she was moving toward the mare, making reassuring sounds. She was aware of Rawnsley cursing furiously, in between shouting at her to go away, but she disregarded that.
“Try to keep as still as possible,” she told him calmly. “We’ll have you out in a minute.”
“Get away from here!” he shouted. “Leave my horse alone, you bedamned witch! Run, Isis! Home!”
But Gwendolyn was stroking under the mare’s mane, and the creature was quieting, despite her master’s shouts and curses. She stood docilely while Gwendolyn unbuckled the stirrup strap, removed the stirrup iron, and rebuckled the strap. She looped one end of the rope through the strap and knotted it. Then she led the mare closer to the bog.
Rawnsley had stopped cursing, and he was not thrashing about so much as before. She did not know whether he’d come to his senses or was simply exhausted. She could see, though, that he’d sunk past his waist. Swiftly she tied a loop at the free end of the rope.