by Eloisa James
“That’s your Parisian wig,” Alaric said. “If this was December, it would be a cinder.” He went over and picked it up, patting it into shape the way one might pat a small fluffy dog.
“Do you really think I give a damn?” his brother demanded, the words grinding from somewhere deep in his chest.
“No,” Alaric said, placing the wig on the mantelpiece. He sat down beside North, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry Diana couldn’t see the man you are.” He hesitated. “Do you think she had already given her affections elsewhere?”
“No. I asked her as much a couple of days ago. Flatly asked her in the drawing room, when I was trying to imagine our married life.”
“She may have lied,” Alaric said, trying to decide whether it was worse to have one’s fiancée in love with someone else, or simply be in the grip of such disgust that she’d ruin her prospects of a good marriage to get away.
“There were times when our eyes would meet and I could have sworn she was beginning to be fond of me. That I could win her, given time. I told myself she was frightened by all the fuss around the Wildes.”
“Because of my books?” Alaric asked, his heart sinking.
“It’s not just you,” North said wearily. “It’s all of us. The whole family. Every damn thing we do is watched and imitated, appears in the gossip columns the next day if we’re in London. Those prints …”
“I am sorry about them.”
“There are prints sold of me, as well as of the duke and duchess. The house. Leonidas, being kicked out of Eton, matched to another of you in the same situation. Betsy.”
“Betsy! She’s only sixteen.”
“She’s beautiful,” North said. “Father managed to have an etching of Horatius struggling in the swamp destroyed, but only after it sold several thousand copies.”
That was so distasteful that Alaric bit back a curse.
North returned to the subject at hand. “The evening I asked Diana to marry me, she kissed me,” he said, sounding like a man in a dream. “I thought I would never be so happy again. But when I saw her the next day, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I kissed her earlier today, and now she’s gone.”
He came to his feet. “I have to go after her.”
“Do you think you can make a difference?” Alaric asked.
“She’ll be ruined. I can’t permit her to be ruined. I’ll let it be known that I broke the betrothal.”
“Are you leaving for London now?” And, at North’s nod, “Would you like me to accompany you?”
North shook his head. He was expressionless, his eyes like dark glass with violet smudges under them. “I must make certain that she’s safe.”
“It wasn’t a mistake to have loved her,” Alaric said, walking him to the door.
“Better to have loved and lost?” North said, biting off his words. “Bull. I feel as if I was fool enough to walk in the high grass, and now that I’ve been bitten by a snake, I can hardly complain.”
He strode away. Returning to the ledgers, Alaric realized that his brother had left his Parisian wig behind on the mantelpiece, a little worse for wear.
North had been gone for a half hour at most, when the door to the library opened again, and his father entered.
“It seems Miss Belgrave may not have left by herself,” the duke said, without introduction.
Alaric put down his pencil and came to his feet. “I assumed her maid had left with her.”
“Her maid has been given a soporific and put to bed. The poor woman is convinced that Diana’s mother will blame her. No, I am told that Miss Ffynche departed with Miss Belgrave, though I can scarcely believe that both of my sons would lose their fiancées in a single day.”
Images reeled through Alaric’s mind: the way Willa smiled at him. The way her head fell backward when he …
No. Willa did not leave him.
“It could be that Miss Belgrave begged for Willa’s assistance in her flight, but in that case, Willa would have explained it to me first.”
“Yours was not a true betrothal,” his father said, his eyes intent on Alaric.
“Not immediately,” Alaric said. “But as you saw last night, it is entirely real now.”
His father’s eyes lightened. “I did assume as much.” Then he frowned. “Prudence Larkin just informed me that Willa had decided to break her betrothal.”
“She is lying.” Dread surged through him. “Where is Willa?”
“She is not in her bedchamber, nor can Prism find her anywhere in the house or gardens.” The duke opened the heavy oak door and Alaric lunged for the staircase.
When Alaric pounded on Prudence’s bedchamber door, a voice called, “I am not prepared for visitors.”
He pushed the door open. Prudence was seated with her feet in a large pan of water. As he entered, followed by the duke, she shrieked and drew her gown over her bare ankles. Its hem fell into the water.
“Alaric!” she squealed. And then, “Your Grace!” She jumped up without stepping from the basin. “Please forgive me for not being in proper attire to greet you.”
Alaric looked down at her feet. The hem of her dress was not only wet, but caked in mud. “Why are you soaking your feet?” he asked—and at the same moment he knew the answer to his own question. He could smell the answer. “What have you done with Sweetpea?”
Prudence’s expression sweetened. “You mean Miss Ffynche’s darling little pet? I have no idea where it is.”
“Stop lying,” Alaric barked. “I am not imagining that stench. More pertinent, where is Willa?”
“Miss Ffynche left with Miss Belgrave,” she chirped, blithely ignoring a roar that would have had many young women in frightened tears. “As for the disagreeable odor, I encountered an animal akin to Miss Ffynche’s pet in the garden. Her darling would never be so mischievous as to foul my shoes.”
“Sweetpea is a North American species,” Alaric stated. “You did not encounter another of her kind in the garden.”
“Lord Roland left on a fast horse following Miss Belgrave,” the duke said, fixing Prudence with a ducal glare. “The veracity of your statements will shortly become clear.”
Alaric turned to his father. “Send for the sheriff.”
“Why?” Prudence squawked.
“To arrest you on suspicion of causing Miss Ffynche bodily harm.”
The duke nodded and left.
“Why would you say such a thing?” Prudence cried. “She left, she left with Miss Belgrave.” Stubborn hostility shone from her eyes. “She doesn’t love you, Alaric. She doesn’t deserve you. Not the way I do.” She ended on a pleased note, as if her argument was sufficient to make him stop questioning Willa’s disappearance.
Alaric took another step toward her, clenching his fists to ensure he didn’t reach out and shake her. “You don’t know what it means to love, Prudence.”
“I suppose you do?” she retorted, growing a little shrill. “I know—we all know—that you are bedding that trollop. Is that love? No! Lust will consign you to the everlasting fires of hell!”
Despite himself, Alaric’s hands seized her bony shoulders. He restrained himself from shaking her, just looked into her pale eyes and said, “Prudence, listen to me.”
“I could listen to you every moment of my life,” she said. But her expression was wary. She was caught in the lion’s trap and she knew it. Under all that treacly nonsense was a shrewdly evil, calculating brain. Perhaps not a sane brain, but a shrewd one.
“I am going to marry Willa. Only Willa. I will never marry you, under any circumstances. If you have caused harm to my future wife, I will see that justice is served; you will live out the rest of your life in the darkest, dankest prison in all the kingdom. Now tell me where she is.”
“I didn’t kill her!” Prudence cried, trying to wrench free of his grasp.
He let go and she stepped backward, tipping over the basin. Water ran across the floor and Sweetpea’s distinctive odor filled the room.
/> “That varmint befouled me.” Her voice was a hiss, like steam escaping a teakettle.
“Where is Willa?” Alaric demanded. His heart was beating a sickening cadence.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Prudence said, rearranging her skirts to cover her bare feet.
“Where did you see her last?”
“Outside, in the rose garden. I would never do away with her; such a thing would be morally wrong. I left her in the hands of God.”
“You have just admitted that Willa didn’t leave with Diana,” Alaric pointed out.
Prudence hunched up a shoulder until it nearly brushed her ear and gave him a coy, sideways glance. “I thought perhaps you would see more clearly if she wasn’t at your side every moment, tempting you to sin.”
“If you left Willa in the rose garden, she would have returned to the castle by now.”
“Must you go after her?” Then, after a glance at his face, “Perhaps she’s twisted her ankle.”
“Did you injure her?”
“Certainly not,” Prudence said, her voice taking on a peevish tone. “She was in the rose garden with that animal of hers. We had … words and look what happened.” Her eyes flashed with rage. “That dreadful little creature lifted its tail and—and urinated on me! On my feet!”
“Sweetpea must have felt threatened.”
“I should have broken its neck,” Prudence said with venom. “Miss Ffynche chased after that animal when it ran away.”
Alaric looked at her, a hard look with menace behind it.
“I kicked it,” Prudence said sulkily. “After which, I left Miss Ffynche in the rose garden, searching for her filthy animal.”
Alaric had no reason to believe a single word she said, but he might as well search the rose garden. “Do not leave this room,” he ordered.
“How could I?” Prudence demanded, dropping back into her chair and slipping her feet into the water. “I reek, thanks to that horrid animal!”
In the hallway, Alaric stopped a footman and instructed him to stand outside Prudence’s door and not allow her to stir from the room. Then he ran downstairs and out of the castle to the rose garden.
It was deserted. The house-party guests were in their bedchambers, engaged in lengthy preparations for the evening meal.
Significantly, the garden smelled just as it should, though the scent of roses seemed sickening to him now. If Sweetpea had sprayed Prudence here, the smell would linger.
Prudence had lied.
As he moved between the beds, trying to decide where to look next, he suddenly noticed that the door leading out to Lindow Moss was ajar.
Throughout the chaotic years of his childhood and youth, almost no rules had been in force for him and his siblings. One rule, however, was inviolable: the door leading to the Moss was to remain securely closed at all times for the safety of the duke’s children.
That hadn’t stopped them from exploring the bog, but they always, always closed the door behind them. Now, as he stared at the half-open door, he felt a deep uneasiness.
Surely Willa wouldn’t have followed Sweetpea down the path into the bog.
If she had stayed on the path, she was almost certainly safe. They would find her. If she had ventured into Lindow Moss, she was in peril, and there was no time to waste. It only took a second to make up his mind: He pushed the door fully open and surveyed the undulating peat sea.
Before it claimed Horatius, the Moss had simply existed, a part of his world. Now it seemed animate … malevolent.
Planks rocked slightly under his feet as he walked, his eyes searching in every direction for any sign of Willa. If Prudence had pushed her from the path into the bog after Sweetpea’s defensive volley, the planks would smell, but the only odor was the stink of peat.
Willa would never leave the path on her own. His heart thudded a dark rhythm in his chest as the wooden path zigzagged, following sturdy ground.
Then he caught it. It was just a whiff, traveling on a faint breeze. He stopped and turned in a circle, trying to identify the direction of the odor. The castle was almost out of sight, a spot on the horizon with the sun sinking above it.
He’d lost the odor entirely, so he strode on, willing another breeze to come. Some moments later he caught another whiff and then the smell grew ever more pungent until he spotted a small black-and-white animal on the edge of the path.
Alaric’s heart bounded. He crouched down and Sweetpea ran straight to him and launched herself into his hands. She stank to high heaven, but she was alive and evidently unhurt. Her paws were muddy, so she must have ventured off the plank but been smart enough to get herself back on and wait for help.
She had been lucky not to have been discovered by a hawk. Thinking of that, Alaric tucked her into his pocket.
Willa was lost in Lindow Moss. He was certain now. The truth of it clawed at his chest. Could Prudence have struck her on the head? Dragged her body into the bog? He refused to lose another person to this infernal place.
They had never found Horatius’s body; the bog hole where his horse was mired fed a swift running river under the Moss. Sometimes bodies reemerged, but most didn’t, trapped below the surface and never seen again.
He turned again, even more slowly, and peered across the bog.
Fifty yards from where he stood, a straw hat was floating in the water.
For one sickening moment, he pictured Willa still wearing the hat, her face—all of her—beneath the surface of the Moss.
Agony wrenched his gut before logic overruled his imagination: Willa was not under the hat. She had fled into the bog, doubtless in the face of some threat of Prudence’s.
Alaric stepped off the plank.
She had left the hat as a sign for him, clever girl. Now that he was actually in the bog, his pulse steadied. Willa may have been fleeing from Prudence, but she was cool-headed. She would never run blindly.
She had dropped her hat to give him a starting point, and she trusted him to understand what she would do next. There was no question but that she would run toward the peat cutter’s hut visible in the distance.
Bending over, he spied the imprint of a small heel. Breath exploded out of his lungs. Thank God, her shoes had heels; it would make it easier to track her.
He kept going, examining every tuft of moss or grass carefully. At some point Willa stopped running and began moving more deliberately, which made it harder to follow her, as her feet struck the bog with less force. Paradoxically, her caution put her in greater danger: bog walkers should always keep one foot in the air.
Several times he found she’d had to retrace her steps, looking for solid ground. He followed the faint traces of her footprints. At one point, he came upon a scrap of white lace snagged on a gorse twig. When he found another, and then a third, he knew she’d deliberately planted the scraps to guide him.
The lace trail was heartening, but ice still ran through his veins. It would be so easy for Willa to make a fatal mistake.
She started along a bright ribbon of sedge grass. Following it, he followed her. The deep part of his soul knew that he would follow her anywhere. For all the days of his life, the blades of grass that bent under her foot would bend under his as well.
She kept going, turning and twisting on her way to the hut. He was having more and more trouble following her path; the light was fading and he kept losing her trail.
All the same, hope was pounding through him now. The low walls of the peat cutter’s hut were coming closer and closer.
Five minutes later he reached the moss-covered door. He thrust it open without knocking.
The hut was deserted.
Chapter Thirty-two
Alaric’s heart sank as he looked around the small dark room. There was a pallet to the side, so he knelt and shaped the rough blankets into a nest. He plucked Sweetpea from his pocket and put her in it.
She looked up at him, eyes bright.
“I’ll be back,” he promised. “I’ll be back for you, Swe
etpea.”
She made a churring sound and curled up, her tail flopping over her nose. Alaric shut the door behind him, stepping into the darkening landscape.
Somehow he’d missed her. He’d made a mistake. He refused to imagine that he missed her because she had fallen into the bog, sunk without a trace.
Not Willa. Not his Willa. She was no Horatius, impaired by alcohol and trying to save his horse like a great, crusading ass.
All the same, panic raged through his veins, accompanied by fury at the filthy bog that had taken Horatius and put Willa in danger.
As he searched the horizon, looking for any sign of her, two lapwings flew over the peat in a mating dance, circling and falling back again, whirling up into the dark blue sky.
When they were boys, he and his brothers had been forbidden to enter Lindow Moss—so naturally, he, Horatius, Parth, and North treated it like their personal playground. He knew this land. Yet he hadn’t gone near Lindow Moss since Horatius’s death.
As his eyes followed the swooping flight of the lapwings, he realized that Horatius wouldn’t approve. As the eldest son and future Duke of Lindow, Horatius had claimed the bog as his own.
He would have scorned Alaric for pretending it didn’t exist. For shunning the place. No one loved tales of their ancestor, the first Lindow to conquer the bog, more than Horatius.
Abruptly, the words of a Meskwaki wise man came back to Alaric: “We love the land that is ours. We are part of the land. If we fear it, it will swallow us.”
He had spent eight months living with native peoples in the Americas, hunting with them, dancing with them, eating with them. He had learned from them that blades of grass have a language of their own.
But at that moment Alaric grasped that the more important lesson was that this was his land. He was one of the Wildes of Lindow Moss. This land was his family’s, and had been for centuries. His land would talk to him. But not if he deemed it a violent entity aiming to murder the woman he loved.
Taking another deep breath, he let the perfume of peat and wildflowers sink into his skin. His land. His bog. His moss.
Calm flowed into his veins and he moved slowly back into the bog, retracing his steps. Almost immediately he saw where he had gone astray. He had turned north, heading directly for the peat cutter’s hut at the same moment Willa had turned south.