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“Mr. Penhurst! How nice that we should run into you!” Prudence said, speaking louder than usual, so that she might be heard over the roaring of the wind. “We were just out for our walk, and I said to Phoebe, we simply must look in on Mr. Penhurst.”
If Mr. Penhurst saw anything unusual in the two girls’ strolling about on such a ferocious day, he was too well-bred to say so, but he did not appear pleased to see them. He looked anxiously over his shoulder, as if torn between inviting them in, which, apparently, he did not want to do, and leaving them to the mercy of the elements, which would hardly mark him as a gentleman.
Although his face brightened at the arrival of Phoebe, who had hurried to join them, he nonetheless appeared troubled as he glanced around. Seen against the backdrop of his ancestral home, and stricken by some sort of nervous energy, he seemed more of a Penhurst, but Prudence still found him sadly lacking. The gathering clouds muted the brilliance of his blond hair, yet he could hardly be called mysterious, and he was obviously uncomfortable in his surroundings.
While she listened absently to the young people’s chatter, Prudence brooded. When it became clear, from his peculiar manner, that young Penhurst was not going to invite them inside, she suspected that she would have to think of some way to politely force him to do so. She was just on the point of manufacturing a swollen ankle when the decision was taken away from them all.
Thunder had been growing in the distance, so at first no one took note of a low rumbling, and the sky had become so dark as to make seeing any great distance an impossibility. But suddenly a great flash of lightning lit the area as bright as day, illuminating a coach and four that appeared over the rise in the drive.
Prudence was immediately struck by the funereal aspect of the scene. It seemed apocalyptic: the black horses, their hooves pounding in their headlong race toward the abbey, and the shiny, midnight-colored carriage, with its driver wrapped so well against the weather as to be completely unrecognizable.
She sucked in a breath, trying to absorb the majesty of the vision as the animals rushed forward against a bleak, stormtossed sky, the wind whipping and howling around them like a banshee.
This was the stuff of her dreams, and Prudence was suddenly filled with a sort of wild exhilaration that she had never known before, her blood pumping fresh and fast within her veins. Never in her quiet, sensible existence, or even in the silent splendor of her own imagination, had Prudence known such a moment, and she felt giddy with the force of it.
She was aware of Mr. Penhurst pulling Phoebe back, closer to the steps, but she remained where she was, thrilled by the thunder and clatter of the magnificent vehicle’s approach. It rolled to a halt but a few feet from where the three of them stood watching, and with breathless excitement, Prudence recognized the Ravenscar coat of arms, gleaming in the shadowy light.
Then the door was thrown open, and a man stepped out. Tall and lean and swathed in a dark cloak, he looked like some phantom from hell, and Prudence saw Phoebe inch closer to her neighbor. The Honorable James Penhurst had paled considerably himself, and his interesting reaction made Prudence eye the new arrival more closely.
The wind whipped hair as black as night away from his rather gaunt face, and his mouth curled in a sardonic smile as he spoke in a deep—and oddly disturbing—voice. “Well, James, have you no welcome for your brother?”
Young Penhurst’s soft reply barely reached her ears above the roar of the oncoming storm, but she caught one word, a bitterly whispered “Ravenscar.”
With a start of surprise, Prudence stared openly at the mysterious earl she had so often conjured in her imaginings. He was tall, far taller than she had first thought, and dark. His raven hair was a little longer than fashion dictated, and if it had ever been combed into a dandy’s perfect coiffure, the effect was lost to the gusting air.
He had a high forehead, a hawklike nose, and strangely slanted brows that gave him a devilish look, heightened by the inch-long scar under one of his steel gray eyes. His very masculine mouth curled contemptuously as he eyed his brother, and Prudence heard Phoebe draw a sharp breath of dismay. In all fairness, Prudence acknowledged that to some, Ravenscar’s face might appear too harsh; to others, he might even look menacing.
To Prudence, he was the handsomest man she had ever seen.
The earl of Ravenscar not only was a fitting custodian for the abbey, he surpassed even her wildest dreams. He appeared to be the embodiment of the elemental forces around them, his features as mysterious and stony as Wolfinger itself.
The exhilaration that had been gripping Prudence since she had first noted the coach’s approach soared now to a new level. For the first time in her life, she felt as if her legs might fail her. Words did. Instead of seeking an invitation into the abbey, she simply stared, along with her sister and young Penhurst, at the man before them, while the coach rattled away.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself, James?” Ravenscar asked, in a chilling tone that sent a shiver up Prudence’s spine. When Penhurst did not answer, the earl laughed coldly. “Well, you will, I expect. I wish to speak to you inside. Now. Alone,” he added, his gaze flitting to the girls and dismissing them with obvious uninterest.
Instead of bristling at the rude slight, Prudence felt her awe of the man redouble. Oh, my! He was a worthy heir to the title, as arrogant and wicked as the cursed line’s reputation. She gazed at him in open admiration, while Phoebe shrunk back against his brother, just as if the earl might suddenly swoop down and swallow her whole.
Young Penhurst, finally moved to action, cleared his throat. “Ravenscar,” he said haltingly. “I would like you to meet two of our neighbors, the sisters Lancaster. Their cottage—”
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Ravenscar said, without even looking at them. “Now, if you will excuse us, I have business that I must attend to with my brother—in private.”
Whatever protests young Penhurst might have made at this peremptory order were drowned out by a huge clap of thunder that shook the air with deafening intensity. With a soft shriek, Phoebe abandoned Penhurst for her sister, grabbing at Prudence’s cloak and pulling her toward home.
“But could we not—” Prudence began, finally jolted from her dazed admiration of the earl.
“Sebastian, I hardly think—” Penhurst started to argue at the same moment.
Ignoring their feeble entreaties, Ravenscar strode up the stone stairs that fronted the abbey and called for his brother. With one last look of apology, mixed in with a healthy dose of anxiety, young Penhurst turned to follow his brother, leaving the two sisters to stand in the driveway, their wraps whipping frantically about them while the first heavy drops of rain finally appeared.
Knowing when to quit the game, Prudence did not linger, but glanced up at the opening skies and shouted to her sister. “Run!” she yelled and, grasping hands, they rushed for the path in a headlong race against the oncoming deluge.
Unfortunately, they did not win, and by the time they reached the cottage, they were soaked to the skin and shivering, their clothes spattered with mud and their spirits dampened.
“What a horrid man!” Phoebe moaned for the millionth time as she wrung out her stockings and hung them up to dry in front of the fire. “Rude, ghastly creature! I can well understand why Mr. Penhurst does not wish to see him. Why, he looked as evil as…” Obviously, having seen nothing as scary as Ravenscar in all her sheltered sixteen years, Phoebe was at a loss for words. Finally, she gave up and conceded that even the abbey itself was not half so frightful as its owner.
Prudence listened absently to Phoebe’s complaints as she finished with her own toilet. She had hung out her wet clothes and changed into a warm gown, but she refused the hot soup that Cook was pushing upon them. She was too eager to get back to her desk and begin writing.
For, despite the failure of her scheme to enter Wolfinger, Prudence had been rewarded with new inspiration—Ravenscar himself. To her, he was not frightening or gruesome, but thrilling and alluring beyond anything she had ever known. After meeting him, she knew just how her villain would look and act, and she could not wait to put him to paper.
Her pulse leaping with excitement, Prudence sat down to pattern him after the Devil Earl’s descendant.
Chapter Three (#ulink_af4dc9b6-242b-519c-ab86-8a812a31d8de)
“Well, you have cut quite a swath, have you not?” Sebastian asked, in that cool, detached tone of his, and James cringed.
The earl had barely taken the time to remove his greatcoat and nod to the housekeeper before dragging James after him into the library with that imperious gaze of his. As long as James could remember, his brother had dictated to him in that cold manner, and, lately, he felt he had stomached quite enough of it.
“Please interrupt me, if I fail to include all your exploits in my recitation,” Sebastian said, in a sarcastic tone that set James’s blood to boiling. “Let’s see…You were turned out of Oxford Then, instead of coming home to Yorkshire to inform me of this turn of events, you went to London and fell in with companions I can only describe as creatures of the lowest sort. You spent several weeks wenching and drinking and gaming in the worst of hells, losing all your money, totting up bills of every imaginable variety, and finally handing your vowels to the basest of moneylenders, thereby compounding your problems tenfold.”
Sebastian paused long enough to pin him with a piercing gray stare, and James had to resist the urge to squirm. “Am I giving a fair account?”
“Yes, sir,” James muttered through gritted teeth. Why did his brother always seem so deadly and yet so controlled? It was wholly unfair. He had gone to London with the hopes of acquiring a dash and sophistication that would put him on a footing with Sebastian. Instead…
“And then, rather than notify me of these new doings, since I might well be expected to foot the bills for your wild extravagances and your gambling losses, you turn tail and run to hide out here in Cornwall—” Sebastian’s hard gaze bored into him, while James swallowed thickly, for he had never meant to “—like a coward.”
The accusation made James’s temper snap. “I am not a coward!” he shouted. “I came here to think, to decide what to do! I only expected to stay a day or two before…” he finished lamely.
“Before what, James? I am curious to see just how you planned to extricate yourself from this mess,” Sebastian said, and James realized that his arrogant brother was not so composed as he seemed. A muscle in the earl’s cheek jumped, giving away his anger.
Swamped with remorse at the enormity of mistakes so grave as to make Sebastian’s legendary control slip, James hung his head. “I…I thought I might…join the army—”
“Without a commission?”
James glanced away. “Or the navy.”
“Without a sponsor?”
James cleared his throat. “I thought it would be best to start over, try and make my own way…”
“In His Majesty’s forces?” Sebastian’s infamous slanted brows rose swiftly. “Do you really think you are up to it, whelp?” he asked with barely suppressed fury. “And just how did you intend to settle the bills from your old life on a soldier’s pay?” The question hung in the air, unanswerable, until Sebastian spoke again.
“Although you have never evidenced the slightest interest in such matters, I might as well inform you right now that I am not so wealthy that I can pay your debts without taking a loss. The army, good God!” Sebastian’s contempt was palpable. “And I suppose I have the little blond creature to thank for your reprieve?”
James leapt to his feet. “Now, just wait a minute, Sebastian-”
“Have you got a bastard between her legs, that I must pay her off, too, or—”
Such slander against his sweet, innocent Phoebe was the straw that finally broke his back, and James felt a lifetime of small resentments toward his titled brother gather and coalesce, until he was filled with an indignant rage that he had never known before. His inbred caution, so recently eroded by London, and his innate respect for his sibling, flew to the winds as James threw himself at his elder.
Although Sebastian, not James, had been the recipient of many a boxing lesson at Gentleman Jackson’s rooms, the attack caught the more experienced man off guard, and James managed to bloody his brother’s lip. They were sprawled across the desk, both of them a little stunned by the encounter, when the housekeeper entered, gasping loudly at the sight of the two of them brawling like schoolboys.
“Sirs! My lord, pardon me!” she babbled, rattling a tray as if she were in danger of dropping it. James did not doubt that Sebastian could placate Mrs. Worth, but he did not wait around to see it. Sliding to his feet, he rushed past the startled woman, into the hallway and through the front door, into a raging storm that seemed as naught compared to his own turbulent emotions.
Prudence was so engrossed in her work that she did not hear either the approach of a carriage or the arrival of a visitor. Only the urgency in Phoebe’s voice forced her attention away from her writing and into the present.
“Prudence! Prudence, do hurry. Mrs. Bates is here, and she looks nigh to bursting.” With a sigh of annoyance, Prudence turned toward her sister and knew an urge to hide. Her book was coming along so well now that she was loath to interrupt it for the dubious honor of Mrs. Bates’s company. Perhaps it was not too late to pretend that she was out or resting?
Prudence looked hopefully at Phoebe, but her sister knew her too well; apparently Phoebe was already guessing at her thoughts and would have none of them. Folding her arms across her bosom in an implacable pose, Phoebe shook her head, sending her golden curls bobbing about her face.
“No doubt Mrs. Bates has already heard of your bold foray to the abbey yesterday and is planning to give you a scold. And I refuse to take responsibility for what was all your doing, Prudence!”
With another sigh of regret for the novel that she must abandon, however briefly, Prudence put her pen aside and stood. Phoebe was right, of course. It would be unfair to expect her sister to suffer the brunt of Mrs. Bates’s displeasure. Although Prudence did not spare a moment’s worry over the upcoming reprimand, nonetheless, she hoped that the visit would be quickly concluded.
“And just look at you, with ink all over your face!” Phoebe chided, dabbing at Prudence with a handkerchief. “You have been chewing on your pen again,” she said accusingly. “And you know how Mrs. Bates feels about your writing. You really should wash your hands, too.”
“Nonsense,” Prudence said briskly. “If Mrs. Bates wishes to see me, she will see me as I am, ink and all.” Patting the small cap that covered her hair, she headed toward the hall, barely registering Phoebe’s sigh behind her.
Mrs. Bates did seem extremely agitated, Prudence noticed at once. The matron was red-faced, and her bosom heaved as she gasped for breath. Although the day was not particularly warm, she fanned herself rapidly, making Prudence wonder how anyone could work herself up over something so trifling as a small social indiscretion.
“My dear girls! Oh, my dear girls!” Mrs. Bates said, in a high voice that revealed the degree of her disturbance. Prudence eyed the matron with new interest, for she could not believe that her simple walk to the abbey could have caused such a stir.
“I fear that I have bad news. Ill tidings. Oh, that this should occur here, right in our own small, comfortable corner of the world! It is too dreadful, my dears. My dear girls…”
Instantly, Prudence recognized that real distress was mixed in with the titillation evident in Mrs. Bates’s voice. Obviously, some misfortune had occurred, but the depth of the tragedy had not dampened the woman’s enthusiasm for gossip.
“What is it?” Phoebe asked, leaning forward anxiously in her seat.
“Oh, poor, dear Phoebe, that I must be the one to tell you…” Mrs. Bates lifted a handkerchief to the corner of her eye in a theatrical gesture.
Prudence’s patience had run its course. “Mrs. Bates, your manner is upsetting Phoebe. Perhaps you had better tell us your news right now.”
The older woman shot Prudence a quelling glance, which had no effect upon her. Apparently realizing that she could not drag out the dramatic moment any longer, Mrs. Bates heaved a great sigh. “Well,” she said. “It is young Penhurst.”
Phoebe gasped and clutched at her throat. “What?”
Gazing worriedly at her sister, Prudence prodded their guest to explain further. “Well?”
Mrs. Bates, in no hurry to give up her news, dabbed at her eyes again, prolonging the silence until Prudence felt a bizarre urge to strike the woman. Something of her thoughts must have shown upon her face, for Mrs. Bates suddenly scowled at her and spoke.
“He is gone,” she said.
“Gone?”
“Last night. I had it from my maid, who got it from the cook, who is a cousin to Mrs. Worth, the housekeeper up there,” Mrs. Bates said. She glanced out the window at Wolfinger and shuddered before leaning forward in conspiratorial pose.
“She saw the whole thing, mind you. The earl came sweeping in like a fiend upon the wings of the storm. He had but entered the ghastly old place when the two of them started fighting, battling like demons! Then Ravenscar chased his brother outside.” Mrs. Bates paused significantly, her mouth set tightly in disapproval, her eyes wide. “And only he came back.”
The words held a grim finality that made Phoebe gasp in horror. Hearing the distress in her voice, Prudence rose and went to Phoebe’s side, taking the younger girl’s hand. “What are you saying?” Prudence asked Mrs. Bates sternly. “That young Penhurst was lost in the storm? That he ran off?”
“I am saying,” Mrs. Bates replied, in a clear voice intended to put Prudence in her place, “that the Ravenscar blood runs true. Just as the old Devil Earl was murdered by his own wife, so the evil doings continue up at that monstrous place.”
The matron eyed Prudence smugly, as if determined to overset the older girl as she had young Phoebe. “I am saying,” she continued, “that the earl of Ravenscar killed his brother on the cliffs last night and tossed the body into the sea.”
Phoebe fell back against the chair in a faint, and Prudence frantically snatched their guest’s fan in an effort to bring her back to awareness.
“There now, ma’am, I hope you are well pleased with the results of your gossip,” Prudence said as she tried to rouse her sister.
“Well!” Mrs. Bates huffed and puffed as if she were a swelling toad. “I cannot help it if the gel is not strong enough to withstand ill news, and I cannot like your rude speech, either. One can easily tell that you have not had the benefit of a guiding hand, Miss Prudence Lancaster!”
Ignoring her, Prudence laid her palm against Phoebe’s cold cheek. “Phoebe! Wake up, darling!” She was rewarded by the flicker of her sister’s long yellow lashes.
“Oh! Prudence, say it isn’t so! Mr. Penhurst…”
“No doubt it is not so,” Prudence assured her sister. “I suspect that Mr. Penhurst has simply gone to cool off for a while, and shall soon return.”
“Humph!” Mrs. Bates made a noise that resembled nothing so much as a porcine snort. “And what do you know of it, Prudence, I might ask?”
Prudence was surprised to find herself more than mildly annoyed with the matron. Not given to fits of temper, she quelled her irritation and gazed at the woman calmly. “I am sure that the earl of Ravenscar is not quite so dull-witted as to murder his brother in front of the housekeeper and then hurry out into a raging storm to scramble along the slippery cliffs in an effort to toss him off.”
Mrs. Bates frowned and sniffed. “Wits have nothing to do with it, miss. It is the bad blood of the Ravenscars, running true.” She sent a swift, sour glance toward Phoebe. “For your information, young Penhurst had but recently been sent down from Oxford and was deeply in debt, which, no doubt, precipitated the argument.”
Phoebe moaned softly, but Prudence ignored it, turning instead to face their guest in a pensive pose. “But killing the boy would not solve anything. It makes no sense,” she argued. Pausing momentarily in consideration, she added firmly, “I simply do not believe it.”
“It is not supposed to make sense, gel! It is—” Mrs. Bates hesitated before rushing on. “Passion—plain and simple!”
Prudence blinked at the bold speech, Phoebe made a strangled sound, and even Mrs. Bates looked as if she thought she might have said too much. With a gravelly noise, she lifted her bulk from the chair.
“Well, I have lingered long enough. I must be about,” she said. Waving away Prudence’s gesture of help, she headed toward the door that Mary hastened to open for her. She stopped on the threshold, however, to catch her breath and to have the final say in the matter.
“Mark my words, Ravenscar will not get away with it,” she said, brandishing a lacy handkerchief. “The days of the Devil Earl are past. When the boy’s body washes up, as it must eventually, he’ll pay for his crimes. And it will be a payment long overdue.”
With that Gothic pronouncement, the matron took her leave in a swish of dark skirts, leaving Prudence to stare after her, still clutching the borrowed fan. “Well,” she said, half to herself, “Mrs. Bates must be in a hurry to spread the story throughout the parish. It is not every day that she has such a juicy bit of gossip.”
A soft sound from Phoebe made Prudence pat her sister’s hand in a comforting gesture. “There, there,” she whispered, although she was inclined to believe that her tenderhearted sister was reacting to the news with an excessive display of distress.
It seemed to Prudence as if the day were destined to be a disaster. First, she had been forced to listen to Mrs. Bates, and then she had spent precious hours caring for Phoebe, who was taking Mr. Penhurst’s disappearance more grievously than Prudence thought warranted. And now, when she was finally fully immersed in her work, Mary was harrying her again.
With a sigh, Prudence laid down her pen and turned away from her writing desk, where her new villain was wreaking havoc among her pages of foolscap. “Yes, what is it, Mary?” she asked.
The young maid’s eyes were as wide as saucers, reminding Prudence instantly of one of her put-upon heroines. In fact, Mary looked as if she had seen a specter herself and could hardly bear to describe it, for her mouth trembled and she stumbled over her words.
“That…that…Oh, miss, he is here. At the door…in the parlor…wanting to see Miss Phoebe,” Mary said, wringing her sturdy hands in front of her and peering over her shoulder, for all the world as if the devil himself were behind her.
“Well, whoever it is, simply tell him that Miss Phoebe is unwell. I put her to bed, and I do not think she should be disturbed,” Prudence answered. She would have turned back to her work, were it not for the alarm evidenced on the maid’s plain features.
“Oh, but, miss, he will not take no for answer, and I… Come, miss, you talk to him, for I cannot bear to!” she wailed.
Mary had all her attention now. “Who the dickens is it?” Prudence asked, intrigued.
