by Julia London
Mr. Davies extended his bony hand and snatched the coin. “Good luck, Miss Fairchild,” he’d said, chuckling in a manner that sent a shiver down Greer’s spine.
Naturally, Mr. Percy persuaded her to continue on and to hire a private coach. Greer was rather reluctant to do so, given her dwindling funds, but Mr. Percy thought it absolutely necessary for traveling so deeply into Wales, which, naturally, he convinced her she must do. “There was something left of your father’s estate, Miss Fairchild, just as you’ve hoped! Of course you must go on! But it is a hard journey, and in the privacy of a hired coach, I should think there would be less speculation as to who you are.”
That was his very polite way of reminding her there was a way to avoid scandal. Still, she debated it—she had just enough money to go back to London, or, with a little luck, to claim her inheritance. At the time, she believed Mr. Percy was right. She had come a long way and she might as well finish her journey. So against her better judgment, her sense of propriety, and every blessed thing she had learned at Aunt Cassandra’s knee, Greer set out with Mr. Percy in the direction of Llanmair.
In a private coach.
That she had hired.
It wasn’t until they were far from any village or sign of civilization that Mr. Percy confessed that the prince of Powys was none other than his wretched uncle, the man who had ruined him.
“You can’t mean it!” Greer had cried, shocked.
“You shouldn’t be surprised, really,” he’d said cavalierly. “The man wields considerable influence in these parts. How else could he have…?” His voice trailed off, and with a sidelong glance at Greer, he clenched his jaw and shifted his gaze out the window.
“I beg your pardon—how could he have what?”
“I cannot say, Miss Fairchild. You are too…too pure to hear of the vile nature of that man.”
Greer had snorted at that. As she was traveling into Wales with a man who was not her husband or otherwise related to her, she rather thought goodness was no longer a consideration. “I have made my decision and I am quite determined, sir. You must tell me what you know of this man, for now he has my inheritance as well as yours.”
“Yes, of course, you must stand up for what is rightfully yours,” he’d agreed instantly. “You are to be commended for your bravery, Miss Fairchild.”
She wasn’t the least bit brave, she was desperate. “Then please do tell me what I must know.”
With a sigh, he’d looked at the broad palms of his hand. “In addition to seizing my lands, the details of which you are well aware, the blackguard also compromised the daughter of a solicitor in Rhayader, and then steadfastly refused to do the honorable thing by her.”
Greer blinked; Mr. Percy suddenly surged forward, put his hand on her knee, and said low, “But that was not the worst of it. Soon after his refusal, the young woman went missing. The entire county looked for her high and low…but she was nowhere to be found.”
“Oh dear God,” Greer exclaimed, her mind racing with all the horrible things that could befall a woman in a land as remote as Wales.
“But then, by some miracle, in the middle of a vast forest comprising thousands of acres, he found her.” He leaned back, removed his hand from her knee. “She was dead, of course. Broken neck.”
“Oh God, no!”
“He alone led the authorities to her body, miles from Llanmair.”
“How tragic!”
But Mr. Percy narrowed his gaze and suddenly surged forward again. “I think you do not fully take my meaning, Miss Fairchild. Twenty-five thousand acres of virgin land and forest surround Llanmair. It is impossible to traverse them all. Yet somehow, he managed to find her in a very remote ravine.”
His implication sank in, and Greer blinked. “You mean…murder?” she whispered.
Mr. Percy shrugged and sat back again. “There are many who believe it is so. There is no end to the man’s depravity.”
Now, several days later, as Greer looked out the coach’s window at that huge foreboding castle and the three mysterious men, a shiver ran down her spine. Suddenly, she needed to be near Mr. Percy and opened the coach door and stepped out just as she caught sight of a rider coming toward them. Mr. Percy saw him, too, for he instantly turned and held up a hand. “Stay in the coach, Miss Fairchild!”
But Greer did not move—she was transfixed by the approaching rider.
He was thundering toward them at a dangerous speed. His greatcoat billowed out behind him like the wings of an enormous bird and he leaned tightly over the neck of a large black steed that sent up thick clods of earth from his hooves. It seemed almost as if the man didn’t see them standing there, as if he intended to ride right through them. Greer cried out, darting behind Mr. Percy just as the rider reined to a hard stop, causing the horse to rear. The steed’s enormous legs churned the air as he came down, and the man reined the horse again, hard to the right, away from the other horses.
With a tight hold on the agitated horse, he glared at them all, and as Greer stepped out from behind Mr. Percy, he turned his glacial green eyes to her.
She’d never felt such a shiver in all her life.
The rider was older than she, perhaps by ten years or more. A scar traversed one side of his face, from the corner of his eye to the middle of his cheek, disappearing into the shadow of his beard. His jaw was clenched tightly shut, and beneath his hat, she glimpsed the distinctive black hair of the Welsh with a bit of gray at the temples. He was not a handsome man and not even the least bit agreeable—in fact, he looked quite fierce.
And angry.
Mr. Percy instantly stepped in front of Greer and spoke in Welsh. Whatever he said, the man spurred his horse forward a few steps so that he could look at Greer again with those frightfully cold green eyes.
At the same moment, a fat raindrop hit the top of Greer’s bonnet, startling her. It was followed by another, and then several more, and she impulsively said to the man, from whom she had not been able to take her gaze, “If you please, we should like to pass. We mean to reach—”
Mr. Percy clamped down on her forearm and spoke in Welsh, and again the man did not respond, but looked at Greer.
“I beg your pardon,” she whispered to Mr. Percy, “but I think we should explain who we are.”
“What do you think I have been attempting to do this last quarter of an hour?” he responded curtly under his breath. “If you will just allow me—”
“But it is beginning to rain,” Greer said, noting the hint of despair in her own voice, and looked at the man in black again. “I don’t mean to be untoward, sir, but I fear we shall be caught in the rain.”
The man said nothing. Greer was getting wetter by the moment and stepped forward. “We have important business with the earl of Radnor…the, ah…the prince…so please do kindly allow us to pass.”
Once again, her plea was met with cold silence. Greer glanced anxiously at Mr. Percy. “Do you think he understands me?” she whispered.
“Oh…I am quite certain that he does,” Mr. Percy said assuredly.
If the man did or did not, he refused to make any indication, and her fear began to melt into anger at his rudeness. She lifted her chin as she stared at his rugged face, her eyes steady on his.
He surprised her by saying something in Welsh to the three men who stood between them. He then reined his horse about and rode off just as quickly as he’d arrived.
“What did he say?” Greer asked, surprised by his abrupt departure.
Mr. Percy sighed and gestured for her to step into the carriage. “He gave us leave to pass,” he muttered, and taking her arm firmly, handed her up to the coach. He glanced up at the driver. “Carry on,” he barked, and followed Greer inside.
When the coach began to move, Greer wearily brushed rainwater from her cloak and said, “His lordship may very well be a murderer, but I intend to let him know how unbearably rude his man is.”
Mr. Percy sighed irritably. “Miss Fairchild, that unbearably rud
e man was the prince of Powys!”
Oh dear God.
Two
T he three horsemen escorted the coach the remainder of the short drive to the castle gates. Once the coach passed through, it came to a halt in a courtyard large enough to host more than a dozen carriages at once.
Llanmair was an enormous structure, a palace more than a castle, its size deceptive from a distance. The boughs of ancient trees reached across a large round of lawn. It was an incongruous sight. After traveling through the wild forests, Greer had expected peasants and barnyard animals, not a civilized setting. But as she climbed down from the coach, she looked up and noticed birds’ nests on various nooks and crannies in the castle’s walls. In those nests were enormous birds. Some were black, others were red, some of them preened while others rested, and some of them simply watched.
Greer was instantly reminded of a line from Macbeth: “The raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan….”
A shiver ran down her spine as two footmen, dressed in black livery, appeared in the main doors to the castle and hurried forward to the carriage. Behind them, another man, dressed in the black and gray uniform of a butler, walked toward them. When he reached them, he bowed low and said, “Bonjour.”
“Bonjour,” Greer said politely, but Percy responded in Welsh.
The butler answered in kind, and Percy, nodding to whatever he said, offered his arm to Greer. “We are to be shown inside.”
A small finger of fear warned her against it—she was uncomfortable in her inability to understand the language, and was walking into the home of a murderer where predatory birds nested—but Percy squeezed her hand reassuringly and persuaded her once more.
Stepping into the castle was almost like stepping into another century. It seemed medieval—the interior was dark and close, the stone walls damp. They passed through a small entry into a large foyer, where a stunning array of swords and armor was displayed on the walls—an entire ancient regiment might have been outfitted from those walls. There were also several banners and standards bearing Welsh words and the symbol of a flying red dragon that Greer vaguely recollected from her childhood, and an enormous mirror to reflect what little light there was.
The butler continued on, as did Greer and Percy, down a dark corridor, through one of the turrets, and yet another corridor lined with dark paintings and more accoutrements of war.
At the end of that long corridor, the butler opened a pair of oak doors and said something in Welsh.
Percy led her through.
The room might have been quite grand had it been properly furnished. It was painted a warm shade of yellow, the draperies were made of floral chintz, and the ceiling was painted with a scene of someone being lifted up to heaven on the wings of angels. At the far end of the large room was a small grouping of overstuffed furniture situated around a carved marble hearth that stood at least six feet tall. That was all. There were no other chairs, no console, no commodes, and no great pieces of art.
Greer tilted her head back to look at the ceiling while Percy spoke briefly with the butler. When the butler had quit the room, Percy joined her looking up at the ceiling. “Sir Thomas Lawrence is the artist,” he said, and walked to a window and looked out. “He has painted several of the portraits within these walls.”
Sir Thomas Lawrence! He was a famous British artist, and the name delighted Greer. She was a great admirer of fine works of art, and with her bonnet dangling from her hand she turned in a circle twice, examining the intricate details of the painting. It was magnificent, far more impressive than anything she’d seen in London.
When she lowered her gaze, she walked to where Percy stood and looked down, exclaiming with delight at the gardens laid out below her. Even though dusk was descending, she could see how extensive they were—row upon row of shrubbery, expertly shaped into circles and arcs and figure eights, and surrounding stands of roses, arbors, and elaborate fountains throughout. The foliage was planted down a gentle slope that ended at the forest’s edge, an enchanting and stark contrast to the cold entrance to Llanmair. “I’ve rarely seen such beauty,” Greer said, awed.
“The prince is quite well known for his gardens,” Percy said. “Rather remarkable, isn’t it, given his nature?”
Indeed, it was hard to understand how a thief and murderer could take such care with a garden. She rather expected him to spend his time torturing small animals and frightening children.
Percy must have sensed her apprehension because he turned a smile to her and said, “You mustn’t worry, Miss Fairchild. Upon my honor, I will protect you—he can do you no harm, I assure you.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully, not relishing a meeting with the ogre of Powys under any circumstance, and putting aside the question of how, exactly, Percy would stop a determined ogre from anything. “But the sooner we demand that he return to us what is rightfully ours, the sooner we may quit this place,” she added.
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. He glanced out the window, then abruptly put his back to the vista. “If I may,” he said, taking her hand in his. He averted his eyes for a moment, then turned a very tender gaze on her. “If I may be so bold, Miss Fairchild. I have given our rather unique situation some thought, and I would like you to know that I—”
The door suddenly swung open with such force that Percy started, dropping Greer’s hand and stepping away from her as the ogre swept into the room, still wearing his riding cloak and flanked by two enormous wolfhounds. His face was dark; his black hair with the hint of gray swept back and to his shoulders. He strode into the room with an almost indiscernible limp, halting in the middle, his legs braced apart. He glared coldly at the two of them with a pair of vivid green eyes that slanted slightly and said something softly in Welsh. The two hounds instantly moved and simultaneously sat on either side of him.
Those eyes made Greer shiver for a second time today.
He did not, however, spare Greer a glance, but spoke Welsh to Percy in a deep, low voice. Greer had the impression that he never raised his voice because there was no need—she believed he could send long tentacles of fear into a person’s heart by speaking with the utmost calm.
Whatever he said, it caused Mr. Percy to color slightly. Mr. Percy held out his hand to Greer, which she took, for lack of certainty what else to do. “May I present Miss Greer Fairchild,” he said.
Greer reflexively sank into a curtsy.
The man eyed her boldly, his icy gaze sweeping over the top of her head, down her body to the tips of her boots, and back up again.
She couldn’t move, as transfixed by him as he was curious about her. His presence seemed too large for the room somehow, too much man for so delicate a space. It occurred to her that she was looking at one who wielded such power that no one dared to question him, and her knees began to feel a little weak at the thought of having to ask him for her inheritance.
But she had to ask. She couldn’t succumb to cowardice now, not in the eleventh hour. She desperately wanted to be done with this ugly business as soon as possible so that she might flee this wretched place and never look back. With a vision of her being safely inside the coach she’d hired and being whisked away, she forced herself to speak. “Your highness,” she said.
He raised a brow. He gave the distinct impression that he did not speak a word that wasn’t carefully chosen. “I am an earl, Miss Fairchild. Not a king.”
Greer didn’t know which startled her more—the perfectly spoken English or the way his eyes seemed to bore right through her. “M-my lord,” she said. “Please do forgive our intrusion…but it was necessary that we come all this way.”
He nodded curtly and turned away—much like a cat would turn away from some trifling bit of prey—and strode to a console with that slight limp in his gait. He poured a whiskey from one of several crystal decanters there, then glanced at Percy from the corner of his eye. “Whiskey?”
“Please,” Percy said. Radnor—Powys—whatever h
is name, gestured lamely to the contents of the console and moved away, leaving Percy to serve himself.
How ill-mannered! What was the point of such abominable behavior, other than to humiliate Percy?
But the man was looking at Greer now, his eyes brashly raking over her body as he tossed the whiskey down his throat. “You are Welsh,” he said as he put the tot aside.
She hardly knew if it was a question or an observation. “I am.” She clasped her hands anxiously behind her back. “My parents were Welsh but resided in the English village of Bredwardine. Vaughan was their name.”
“Then how have you come to be known by the very English name of Fairchild?”
She was reminded of the suffering Percy was forced to endure at this man’s hands merely because he was half English. “My mother died when I was very young, my lord. My father, Yorath Vaughan, had no wish to raise a daughter alone, so he consented to allow my mother’s half sister, Lady Bingley, to take me in. She lived in England, and when my father died, Lord Bingley gave me his surname of Fairchild.”
The prince nodded thoughtfully as he brazenly studied her figure, his gaze lingering on her décolletage as he scratched behind the ears of one of the hounds. “And what business,” he asked in that soft, cold voice, “have you with me?”
Greer could not say what happened to her at that moment—perhaps it was nothing more than the overwhelming exhaustion that had been building in her for so many days, or perhaps it was the way he spoke to her, as if she had no right to seek him out at all. Whatever happened, it vanquished her fear, forced aside the fatigue and frustration, and filled her with weary indignation. “My business is very simple,” she said, her voice calmer and stronger than she had expected. “You have what is rightfully mine.”
He seemed to almost smile, but Percy quickly said something in Welsh. The ogre did not look at Percy, but kept his gaze on Greer, his darkly stoic expression working to goad her into a fury greater than all of his alleged crimes stacked together.