The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1)

by P. J. Fox

  Isla left the paddock, treading the well-worn if not terribly well-maintained path down to what had once been apple orchards. They’d lain fallow for decades, and hadn’t been in anything that could remotely be called good heart since long before the earl was born. But apples still grew, and children still picked them. Isla tripped, almost falling into a rut.

  She had mixed feelings for her father. On the one hand, she was realistic enough to understand his perspective. On the other, she was mad at him for being so weak. But, she reasoned, perhaps he was doing the best he could given the limited capabilities at his command.

  Last night, lying alone in bed, the notion that Tristan Mountbatten was some sort of demon had seemed all too possible and, indeed, probable. Those eyes, those hands, that preternatural stillness as he watched the room move around him. The next morning, it had seemed ridiculous. Rowena, for all her complaints about the man, certainly hadn’t noticed anything untoward. She’d admitted, even, that he was handsome enough after his own fashion. What was wrong with her, Isla wondered, that she’d had such an immediate reaction to him? That she found him so repellent when no one else did?

  She’d thought, when she’d first been introduced to him, that if he’d touched her she’d scream. But, strangely, he hadn’t. Instead of bending down to kiss her hand, as was the current fashion among their class, the duke had merely nodded as if he were greeting a servant, or retainer. At the time, she’d been too relieved to be offended.

  A breeze blew through the stunted, gnarled apple trees and seemed to blow right through her. Shivering, she pulled her cloak closer about her shoulders and studied the clouds on the horizon. There was weather coming, unless she was mistaken. A farmer, and a farmer’s daughter, always knew how to read weather sign. So much depended on the whims of forces they could neither understand nor change.

  Somewhere, a raven croaked. The idea that Mountbatten was some sort of demon had once again begun to seem reasonable, in this stark and windswept landscape and with rain hanging in the air. Every time Isla closed her eyes, or paused in her labors for even a minute, she saw a vision of his hands. Not hands—claws. His obsidian-dark gaze came clearly in her mind’s eye, too, and equally unbidden, tongues of fire flickering in their depths.

  She shivered again. Isla knew, even if Rowena didn’t, why Mountbatten wanted to marry her. As lovely as Rowena was, Isla doubted that her sister’s charms entered into the equation at all. Whether he’d been married before or only kept the women locked up in his tower, the duke had an unsavory reputation when it came to matters of the heart. Or wallet, Isla thought with chagrin. The rumor was—and Isla had reason to believe the person who’d told her, one of her father’s oldest retainers—that Mountbatten had married each woman in turn and remained married for about six months before having her killed. In both cases, her death had been ruled a tragic accident. And then he’d inherited what was, in both cases, a sizeable tract of land.

  Mountbatten would marry Rowena, perhaps enjoy her charms—if he even liked women, which Isla was beginning to doubt—and then help her meet with the same kind of tragic, unforeseen accident as his previous wives. Who, Isla was sure, had also been both young and pretty.

  Isla sat down under one old, failing tree and wrapped her arms around her knees to keep warm. Low to the ground like this, hidden by the patchwork of frost heaves and ruts that covered the once-orchard, she was invisible to view. Isla wanted to be invisible right now, needed to be. She needed time to think, really think about the series of ideas that she’d allowed to form in her mind. About the plan that, even now, she was refusing to admit that she had.

  Rowena had always been going to marry Rudolph; at least in Rowena’s mind, and in Isla’s, too. As to what Isla herself was going to do with her life, she hadn’t put all that much thought into the idea. Her options were, and always had been, limited. She was no one’s dream of graceful, retiring femininity and few suitors had darkened her doors. No suitable suitors, anyway. She’d pretended indifference, but inside where no one could see her heart had ached. Isla was a woman like any other. She wanted, no, craved love. To be needed. To be the object of unquenchable and unconquerable passion and to feel that same passion in return. That men rejected her cut her to the quick; she covered her hurt with caustic observations and absorbed herself in her reading, and her work.

  What use was she, really? To anyone? The bitter truth was that the only person who truly cared for Isla was Isla. No one would be brokenhearted to see her go; to see her die. Not like if Rowena left, abandoning Rudolph. Rudolph would mourn her for the rest of his life.

  Letting Rowena go to her doom, simply because Isla cherished some vague hope of some day being happy…was supremely selfish. And Isla had, she was forced to admit, lived a selfish life. She’d catered to her own tastes and interests, making herself the kind of child of which fathers despaired. Leaving Rowena to suffer. For all her pretense of being so hard-bitten and worldly, Isla had fought against the realities of her life just as hard as hard as Rowena was fighting now. Rowena, whose only crime was being lovely. Isla felt a sudden, intense stab of pain and drew a sharp intake of breath.

  The same raven, or maybe its mate, croaked again.

  Far away, the earl was sitting in his study, sipping at a cup of mulled wine and lying to himself. Perhaps in the company of the duke, perhaps alone. Hart was working up a sweat in the practice yard. Rowena was still sobbing, or had sobbed herself into an exhausted sleep. Isla knew all this without knowing it, she knew her family so well.

  She always had.

  By the time she stood, cold down to the marrow of her bones and aching in every joint from having sat unmoving for so long, Isla had made a decision.

  FIVE

  Isla sat at her seat on the bench, invisible as usual, waiting—needing—for dinner to be over. Now that her path was set, night couldn’t come fast enough.

  Her father was drinking heavily, more heavily than usual. Hart meanwhile was gazing at Mountbatten with open worship, as the two men discussed something to do with horses. Mountbatten wasn’t much older than Hart, in the great scheme of things, but Hart clearly regarded him as something more akin to a father or an uncle than a peer. Rowena wasn’t present; she’d absented herself from dinner in a fit of pique, or despair, and had demanded that food be sent to her in her room. Preferably sweets.

  If anyone remarked her absence, they gave no sign. Just as they gave no sign of noticing that His Grace the Duke of Darkling Reach was…different. Nobody mentioned his corpse-like pallor, or his hands. Mountbatten was second in power only to the king; even at the best of times, there was no suave means of drawing attention to the problem. But a lowly earl like Peregrine Cavendish wouldn’t dream of bringing down the king’s displeasure by insulting his own brother at table, a guest in his home.

  Moreover, there was simply no way for anyone, of any station, to observe that, my dear Sir, you appear to have claws. Isla was fairly certain that the duke could turn into a werewolf in front of them all and the earl’s only response would be to ask whether the wedding was still on. He’d either trained himself not to notice the duke’s peculiarities or convinced himself that they were of no import.

  Isla glanced over at the duke again and, indeed, she could hardly avoid doing so as he’d once again been seated directly across the table. He made a languid gesture, illustrating some point as he chatted with Hart, and his heavy signet ring winked in the firelight. She supposed it must bear his house crest, or perhaps his personal coat of arms; the light was too dim for her to get a good look. The stone in the center, some sort of ruby or garnet, perhaps, was the bright red of fresh blood.

  Dinner was the same interminable experience as the night before, only three times as long. The time dragged with each course: trout again, and boar. There wasn’t salmon this year; the salmon runs had been all but empty, for all that the weather had been chill and salmon notoriously preferred such conditions. Were Isla the sort of superstitious and ignorant peasant
as Rose, she might be tempted to believe the rumors that the drought and cold and other poor conditions were the duke’s doing. But, man or beast, Isla doubted that he—or any single entity—had the ability to control the weather. How could such a thing be possible?

  And if somehow it were all true, and the duke was indeed a powerful sorcerer in a land that eschewed sorcery as superstition and an insult against the true gods, then all the more reason to give him what he wanted, and soon, so he’d leave them alone.

  Isla sipped her wine, grimacing at the taste. She wondered if people would think she was being self-serving; that maybe her supposed concern for her sister was an act and her high-minded motivations extended no further than seducing a rich man into her bed. She hoped not. This was the last thing she wanted in the world—if she was even capable of securing it. Which was a big if; she was slender, and her features were regular enough, but she was no man’s ideal of feminine beauty. And she had, she’d been informed, a terrible tendency to open her mouth and express opinions. Often in direct contradiction to those of the men in the room. Which, as Apple had rightly informed her, would never endear her to anyone. You must never appear smarter than a man, Apple had counseled her. Men like to think themselves brilliant; never contradict them, even when you know them to be wrong.

  Isla had balked at such—to her—ridiculous advice. Then they’re brittle, had been her caustic reply. No one with such an ill-formed ego had the power to attract her in the first place. Isla wanted a man strong enough in his sense of self, and confident enough in his own knowledge and experience, to thrive on the challenge of, well, being challenged.

  She caught the duke’s eye for a second, and felt like he looked right through her. And then the moment was over and Hart was talking animatedly about some horse he’d seen at a fair.

  Isla spent a lot of time alone with her thoughts. Hart was smart enough, but not of what could charitably be termed a philosophical bent. Rowena, bless her childish heart, was dumb as a post. Isla certainly couldn’t talk to their father, and that left the servants. Their manor was isolated, and she saw very few people her own age. Rudolph’s sister was intelligent enough, and Isla liked her—considered her a friend, even—but much as they’d like to see more of each other both had responsibilities that prevented them from traveling.

  Which was, Isla supposed, partly why she imagined herself to be a match for this duke. She had, after all, been lord of this manor in all but name for nigh on three winters and not bungled the task too badly. Indeed, she’d done a fair job of things. A fairer job than her father. Her self-assurance was the only thing preventing her from going crazy with fear. And disgust. That, and the fact that nothing seemed quite real. Since the duke had first ridden up on his enormous black destrier, eighteen hands if it was a foot, she’d felt like she’d been living in a dream. He’d swung himself down from the saddle, landing in the mud without seeming to notice, and tossed the reins arrogantly to a stable hand.

  She thought about poor Rowena, curled up in a ball on her bedspread. Unusually for her, she’d been wearing the same gown when Isla returned that she had when Isla had left. That, more than anything, had served as confirmation of Rowena’s despair. Isla had dressed herself for dinner; keeping no maidservants, the girls helped each other. Rowena had refused to budge, wailing into her pillow about how her life was over and where was Rudolph.

  Isla had stripped down to her plain linen chemise, shivering in the cold, and then switched the simple pair of sleeves she’d worn for work with a longer, more elaborate pair that extended below her fingertips. This pair, too, was made of white linen but she’d added a line of embroidery using some thread that had been dyed a sun-kissed yellow with goldenrod. If she squinted, it looked almost like thread of gold. Well, not really, but a girl could dream.

  Her dress was something she’d also made herself, a slim-fitting tunic with gussets at the hips to allow freedom of movement. The neckline was square and, if not low, then not precisely modest. The bodice had short cap sleeves, from which the sleeves proper extended. The color was another of Isla’s special creations, a maroon that did something pleasant for her coloring. Finally, she tied a low belt around her waist. The cord, which sat on her almost nonexistent hips, was more decorative than anything else. Her plaited hair was wrapped around her head in a simple but artful style. She possessed no jewelry or other ornament. Her mother had possessed a large jewel chest, the contents of which her father had long ago pawned to cover his debts.

  And then, with a final word to Rowena, she’d gone downstairs.

  The nearby fire smelled of peat and dung and hickory. In the finer manors, she’d heard that the fires were sometimes scented with sweet-smelling woods and essential oils to add ambiance. Even were the earl interested in such—what he considered to be—utter frivolities, they weren’t affordable.

  Isla was sure that the duke’s home boasted every comfort, decent wine and decent food and scented fires and eiderdown quilts and lamps that didn’t smoke and who knew what else, but she’d cheerfully go the rest of her life without seeing such things if doing so meant finding a man who cared for her and being happy. And if doing so meant that Rowena could be happy. Isla wasn’t so disingenuous as to pretend that she didn’t like nice things, or that the thought of wealth somehow offended her; the degenerating effects of wealth was a middle class pretension. She wasn’t, however, laboring under the belief that wealth alone brought happiness. From the little she’d seen, quite the opposite.

  SIX

  Her heart pounded in her chest as she approached him. Her hands shook, and her throat felt as dry as straw. She didn’t think she’d ever been so scared, or felt so unsure of herself. Even now, the question repeated itself in a never-ending loop in her mind: what was she doing?

  He stood with his back to her, staring out at the night. The moon was almost half full, and weak silver light outlined the sweep of his cloak. Only the curve of his shoulder was visible; his head, and the rest of him, was all lost beneath the black wool. And it was black, she thought, although the darkness made it difficult to tell. Her world had been reduced to monochrome: gradations of shadow, of which Tristan Mountbatten was by far the darkest.

  She hadn’t had a chance to speak with him before now. The women had been dismissed en masse almost immediately after a lackluster cheese plate was served. Popping a last withered grape into her mouth, Isla had fought back both her anxiety and her disappointment. She wanted to get this nightmare over with. Instead, she’d retreated to the gallery and almost sewed two of her fingers together while she’d poked her needle listlessly into the linen in her hoop and listened with half an ear to an endless stream of gossip that meant nothing.

  And then finally, finally, the hour had grown late enough for her to excuse herself without suspicion. Or, at least, not much. Some teasing; Isla was well known for being a bit dull. She never participated in any of the flirtations, or even outright assignations that the other girls did; either with their guests of the moment, or the sons of higher ranking retainers like their steward. Not because ice ran in her veins, but because there was no one available. At least, no one Isla cared to kiss—let alone bed. She wondered briefly if she’d die a virgin. Or, indeed, if she’d come to wish she had.

  Enzie Hall was underpopulated at the best of times and no one crossed her path as she walked the darkened corridors, searching for the duke. Her slippers sounded loud on the glazed tile, the only sound save for the occasional laugh or shout from somewhere down below. Red and blue, they’d been installed during better times and represented the height of a now bygone fashion.

  She found no one, though, except the occasional serving girl and her beau. Rose, who sometimes helped out in the kitchens, giggled from the depths of a shadowed corner as she told one of the stable hands—with no great conviction—to keep his hands to himself.

  Listening at the iron-banded door to her father’s study had proved that her quarry wasn’t there. Not because she didn’t hear him tal
king but because of the subject matter: Hart and her father were talking about the king, and not in the manner that one would do in front of a complete stranger and the king’s brother to boot. Mountbatten hadn’t been in either of the libraries or in the small hall and, when she’d steeled herself to visit his room, he hadn’t been there either. The pair of retainers who’d been left to guard his door, a couple of slab-featured thugs from the North, hadn’t been surprised to see a woman presenting herself and had, indeed, seemed highly amused. Grasping the nature of their assumption, Isla had been both offended and repelled. The notion that she—oh! It was too much.

  She’d found him at last on the broad gallery that overlooked the incoming road and the world beyond.

  Unlike the women’s gallery, which overlooked the great hall, this intimidating space was entirely out of doors and quite cold. A series of thick, ungainly columns separated by curving arches gave the illusion of a protected space. Mountbatten stood framed in one of these arches. She wondered, briefly, what he was doing up here. If pressed, Isla couldn’t have said what impulse had brought her to investigate a part of the manor that was so seldom visited. And certainly not used for anything. They were at the edge of Enzie Hall’s current functional orbit; beyond this point, mice ran in the walls and the floors were beginning to cave in.

  And yet…she’d known where he’d be. When she’d stopped looking in all the so-called obvious places and, putting logic aside, consulted her own gut, she’d known. And here she was. And here he was. She also knew, somehow, that Mountbatten was aware of her presence behind him and had been since she’d quitted the narrow landing at the top of the stairs and stepped out onto the flagstones. She wished she’d thought to bring her cloak; the wind cut her cruelly, and the fact that she couldn’t stop shivering made her feel vulnerable.