Chapter One

The terrible night it all began

Ramthwaite Hall

Lake District, England

August 1764

"I am truly sorry, Your Grace."

Forbes Arthur William Kirksey, fourth Duke of Ramthwaite, stared at the physician who could not possibly be telling the truth. "You lie. The babe's cries were loud and strong. I heard them myself."

The grim man, standing there with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, resettled his footing. "Your son lives." He dropped his head and continued shifting back and forth as though searching for something on the floor. "It is Her Grace. I assure you everything possible was done." Avoiding eye contact, he offered a compassionate bow. "But again, Your Grace, I am terribly sorry."

"No," Forbes said with a low growl. Horrified rage swept through him with an all-consuming fury.

It could not be. Not his precious Maggie—his guiding light who possessed him heart and soul. He grabbed the doctor and shoved him back against the wall, repeatedly bouncing him off it, making the man's head hit harder each time. "I demand you retract it, you incompetent bastard. Immediately! My Maggie cannot be dead."

Edgar Bannerly, longtime butler at Ramthwaite Hall, pushed between them and broke the duke's hold. "Your Grace—"

Forbes backed away and bared his teeth at the old, lumbering servant who had kept him from ruination many times by quelling his flares of temper. "Did you not hear him, Bannerly? That monstrosity of a lie?"

The butler gave the physician a pointed look, then arched a brow at the front door before turning back to the duke. "I am sorry, Your Grace."

As the doctor bolted for the exit, Nettie Bannerly, housekeeper at Ramthwaite Hall and Edgar's wife, stepped forward. "We shall take care of everything, Your Grace," she said with unnerving quietness. The soft roundness of her plump face crinkled with motherly sadness. The Bannerlys had always taken care of him. Much better than his parents, who had rarely acknowledged his existence.

"Come to the library for a brandy, Your Grace." Mrs. Bannerly's kind eyes shimmered with unshed tears, forcing the ugly truth of the indescribable loss to shatter Forbes's heart even more. "It will help calm you."

"Nothing will calm me!" He tore out into the stormy night, blindly stumbling through the torrential rain while shaking his fists at the heavens. "How dare you!" he raged. "How dare you take her from me! Why would you take her when you know how badly I need her?"

The dark firmament answered with a show of lightning and a grumble of thunder, confirming what he had known all along. God neither listened nor gave a damn.

"How could you?" he roared, then dropped to his knees atop the old boards that sealed off the ancient, abandoned well once used for drawing water for the elaborate gardens his precious Maggie loved. A smartly designed cistern concealed in the center of the gardens had replaced the unreliable well soon after he and Maggie married and settled at Ramthwaite Hall.

He sagged forward and pounded on the rotting boards he had promised would be replaced before their firstborn, little Arthur, joined them on their walks around the grounds. "I am so sorry, my love," he sobbed. "I wish I had never foisted a second child upon you."

The wood beneath him gave way, pitching him downward into the inky blackness. Thick, waist-deep sludge broke his fall, angering him even more. God wouldn't even grant him the mercy of a broken neck so he could join his beloved wife in the hereafter.

"Damn you!" he shouted upward, his bellow echoing through the dank hole. Finding handholds and toeholds in the slimy stones that formed the sides of the old well, he started climbing. Halfway up, some of the wedged rocks pulled free, sending him tumbling back to the bottom of the pit and stoning him for his efforts. Sitting in the muck, he snorted a bitter laugh.

"So, it's to be a slow death, then, is it? Whatever you wish, Lord. Long as I get to join my Maggie." The children would be fine, taken care of and raised by the servants, just like he had been.

A light flickered overhead. He looked up, expecting lightning, but spotted the golden glow of a lantern held above the hole.

"Mind the rope, Your Grace," Bannerly called out. A moment later, something heavy splashed into the muck beside him. "Tie it 'round your waist. Nettie and I shall secure it to the post and then help pull you as you climb."

Blessed old fools. Their devotion to him would kill them someday. Forbes pushed up to his feet. "Tie it off and stand back. The sides are giving in with all the rain, and I will not have the two of you harmed trying to save me. In fact, leave me down here. I want to be with Maggie. Get yourselves inside before you catch your death. See to the children and leave me to die in peace."

"Her Grace would wish for you to take care of her babies," Mrs. Bannerly shouted down into the well. "How will you explain your abandonment of them when she greets you in heaven?"

Forbes swiped a hand down his face and sank back against the slimy wall. "Damned old woman." The housekeeper had always known how to encourage him as a child, and the years had only honed her skills. "Then do as I said," he shouted up at her. "Tie it off and stand back. I will not have you harmed." He dropped his head to his chest, then a ragged sob shook free of him. "I have lost enough this night."

He reached into the cold, muddy water, found the rope, and secured it around his waist.

"We are ready, Your Grace," Bannerly shouted over a clap of thunder. "Nettie shall hold the lantern steady to light your way."

"Get back from the edges, I say," Forbes ordered them again, as more of the wall pried loose and joined him at the bottom of the well. He squinted up into the rain, noting that the glow of the lantern did not move as he had commanded. He would bet his best horse that Bannerly stood just as close to the edge as Mrs. Bannerly. "Stubborn as the day is long." All he could do was get out as quickly as possible, get them away from the pit, and then give them a severe scolding.

Hand over fist and wedging the toes of his boots into the shifting stones, he slowly made his way to the surface, where Bannerly grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out. Fuming about their complete disregard for their own safety, he rose and turned on the butler. "Did I not tell you and Mrs. Bannerly to stay back from the edge?"

Just as Bannerly opened his mouth to answer, his wife shrieked and disappeared. The flickering glow from the lantern went with her, dousing them in darkness.

"Nettie!" Bannerly lunged into the blackness before Forbes could stop him.

Lightning shattered the sky with blinding tendrils of fury, revealing that Forbes now stood alone. The unholy night had swallowed both the butler and the housekeeper. "Bannerly! Hold fast! I shall get you both to safety." With the rope still tight around his waist, he surged forward, forging into the stormy darkness where the mouth of the well should be. After a summer of endless rains, the Ramthwaite grounds had become a muddy bog.

But the well wasn't there. How could he have missed it? He dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward while stretching out his arms to find the elusive pit, moving as fast as he dared. While he needed to save them quickly, he did not need to tumble in on top of them and cause them even more injury than they might have already incurred. "I am coming! Hold fast!" Nothing but thunder and the harsh splash of the rain sluicing into the surrounding mud answered. "God, let them be all right," he prayed through clenched teeth while crawling faster. "Have you not taken enough from me this accursed night?"

The rope around his waist went taut. That could not be. He had missed the pit again. Impossible. He could not have been off by that much. Scrabbling backward, frantically feeling the ground, the merest tendril of hope flickered within him as the quagmire sloped the slightest bit. There. He had to be close.

"Your Grace!"

He twisted around and squinted through the dark deluge, searching for the source of the shout. Light flickered through the sheets of water drenching the land. A lantern. He pushed himself to his feet and bellowed, "Here! Bring that light here!"

Jordson, the footman, cowering against the driving rain, came into view. "Your Grace, are you hurt?"

"Help me find the old well. The sides collapsed and took the Bannerlys down after they pulled me free of it."

The footman stared at him as if he had turned into a horrifying specter.

Forbes grabbed the lantern, then shook the lad. "Help me find that damn well. What the devil is wrong with you?"

Jordson pointed a shaking finger to their right. "The well is gone, Your Grace. Look. There be the old iron pipe what once pumped the water when it had any."

Forbes staggered into the shallow dip with the rusted pipe jutting up from its edge. He held the lantern higher and slowly turned in a circle. "No. Oh, God, no. Do not do this to me. Not to them!" He dropped to his knees and started clawing at the mud and rocks. "Help me!" he bellowed to the footman. "We must get to them."

Jordson didn't move. Just stood there. Staring.

"Help me, damn you!" Forbes shot to his feet, dragged the lad to the center of the dip filling with water, and forced him to his knees. "Dig, you fool, dig!"

The footman scraped at the muddy rocks for a while, then sat back on his heels. "Your Grace," he said. "They are with God now."

Forbes shoved the lad, then grabbed his wrists and yanked his hands back to the ground. "God does not need them like I do. They are not gone. Dig, damn you. Dig!"

The footman, the weak light of the lantern revealing his grim scowl, scooped at the muck, slinging handfuls of it to one side. One by one, the other footmen, the stable master, his lads, and the gamekeeper appeared, all bearing lanterns and pained expressions that told Forbes he teetered on the brink of madness.

"We must save them," he sobbed, pounding the rocky slime with both fists. "They were the only parents I ever had. They loved me, and I loved them." And yet, as was the way of things, he had never told them just how much they meant to him—how much he needed them in his life. And now it was too late.

He reared up and shook his bleeding fists at the heavens, roaring, "I hate you, God! How dare you turn your back on Ramthwaite Hall and foist all this pain upon me. Never again will your coffers get a single coin from me. You cursed this land to bring forth nothing but sorrow. I hope you are bloody well happy, because I am not Job, and will never darken the doors of your church ever again. In fact, I will raze Ramthwaite Chapel before this night ends!"

A frenzy of lightning exploded across the sky. The massive old oak closest to the well burst into a shower of sparks, then split in two with a deafening boom. Flames engulfed its sprawling branches, sizzling and popping in the rain. Every servant fell to their knees, praying for their duke and release from the curse he had just called down upon Ramthwaite Hall.