Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

October 1813 Marwicktow, North Carolina

A terrorized scream rent the air.

Jerking the reins to his leather-coated chest, Simon felt his heart stutter to a stop. Everything froze. He told himself to move, to leap from the wagon seat, but he could not rip his eyes from the scene.

The cabin, built with his own hands, stood with rain-darkened logs. Mud and drenched grass covered the yard, as chickens puttered to shelter beneath the porch and brown-yellow leaves tore from stripping branches—

A second scream sent him hurling from the wagon. He ran with the rain in his face, already groping for the knife in his boot, as his mind denied the wails he'd heard twice.

A snake had frightened little Mercy. Perhaps even young John.

But his wife would not scream.

Not Ruth. Never Ruth.

Teeth ground, he lunged into the front door, wood splintering as it crashed open. His blood drained. No.

Like a smeared, ghastly painting, she slumped to the floor in the corner of the cabin. Half unclothed. Hair in the fists of the long-haired man towering over her—

A shadow lunged at Simon from behind the door. He hit the ground, knife thudding to the floor, but he fingered to retrieve it as a bony fist smacked his jaw. Pain flared. Mercy. John. He seized the knife, rammed his forehead into the face bearing down on him, and plunged the weapon.

The blade struck the man's neck. Blood sputtered.

Shoving the figure off him, Simon rolled, sprang to his feet, faced the corner with his arms spread.

The long-haired beast held Ruth before him, as if a shield. His eyes were crazed with fear. "Listen, sir—Mr. Fancourt—"

Ruth's eyes were shut. Her head draped over his arm. Limp.

"This is not as brutal as you would imagine. I swear upon everything holy that I—"

"Unhand her."

"It was not me. It was my acquaintance." The beast nodded to the floor, to the blood seeping into the packed dirt. "I followed him…tried to restrain him. You must believe me, for I—"

In one abrupt movement, he slung Ruth forward, darted for a window, threw himself through the greased paper and wooden slats.

Simon dove after him. He landed outside the cabin on his stomach, cool mud smearing his face, as he scrambled back up and bounded after the running figure. Emotions raged through him. They boiled to the tip of his sanity, burst into flames of insanity. Ruth. He ran harder, up the mountainside. Mercy. John. His children. Where were his children?

Trees towered around them, as the mountain grew steeper. The air tasted musty, moist, like everything rotting and dying and cold. He itched to throw his bone-handled knife into the beast's back. For the second time today, he could kill. God forgive him, but he wanted to kill again.

The man hit the ground with a screech, as if his boots had skidded under wet leaves. He clawed at dirt, roots, anything, but rolled down the mountain anyway.

Simon stopped the fall with his own boot, then kicked the varmint onto his back. "Move and I'll kill you."

"It was not me. I did not soil her." With brown, greasy hair strung into the damp leaves, the man blinked up at Simon, a cough rattling through him. His cheeks were thin, forehead veiny. Dark stubble shaded his jaw, but despite the hungry—perhaps sickly—complexion, his voice gave him away.

He was from England. Berkshire, if Simon rightly detected the accent.

And educated.

Well.

Trembling fury coursed through Simon, as he snagged the man's filthy cravat in his fist. He jerked him to his feet, knife pressed to his throat. "Who are you?"

"Neale." He coughed. "Friedrich Neale…please, I beg of you, please do not—"

"Where are the children?"

"What children—"

Simon bashed him into a tree. "Where?"

"Do not know." Half sob, half cough, the words sputtered. The man sagged in Simon's grasp, eyes shut, face draining as white as a moon in the dead of night.

Simon shoved the knife back into his boot. He threw the man over his shoulder, skidded back down the hill, and hurried his load for the stone root cellar. He threw the man inside and fumbled with the lock.

"John!" The slashing rain muffled his bellow. He darted for the barn. The doors moaned when he flung them open, and his panic ascended as he surveyed the stalls, the empty straw piles, the quiet ox and mule. "Mercy!"

Above him, something creaked. Then an ashen face peered down at Simon from the hay loft. "Sir?"

"John." Simon scaled the ladder, relief coaxing back a wave of sickness, as he scrambled through the straw and grasped the shoulders of his seven-year-old son. "Your sister."

"Asleep." John nodded to where four-year-old Mercy curled in the hay. His brown eyes were round and stricken. As if he'd seen too much. As if all the innocence, all the tranquility of fishing in mountain streams and shucking corn and chasing chickens in the yard had all been stripped away in one horrifying nightmare.

A nightmare Simon should have stopped. He should have been here. He should have foreseen that something—

"Stay with your sister. Do not come down until I come for you."

"But Mama." John latched on to his sleeve. Something he had not done in years. Just as he had ceased to call Simon Papa, or sit on his lap, in the decision he was more man than boy.

The terror in his grasp now cut Simon to the heart. He murmured, "Stay here," before he bounded back down the ladder, shut his children inside the barn, and sloshed his way to the cabin.

Before he even stepped onto the porch, his gut clenched with white-hot agony.

God, spare my wife.

Hollyvale Estate West London, England

This was far too much to bear.

Georgina Whitmore slipped behind a Greek-style pillar, willing the heat to cease throbbing at her face. If someone did not stop Mamma—and quickly—there would be no telling the scandal and ruination that would occur.

Other guests strolled by, their shoes squeaking on the chalky ballroom floors, soft chatters a hum in her ear. Were they already whispering?

Oh, what was she saying?

They had been whispering for years. This evening would make little difference, even if she did stop Mamma from falling into Colonel Middleton's arms.

Drawing in a breath of composure, Georgina plastered on a smile and emerged from her hiding place. She drifted back through the crowded ballroom, squeezed past gentlemen who attempted to gain her eye, and sidled next to Mamma on the west wall.

The plush ottoman was large—so large, in fact, that a woman of slender stature could have easily shared with a gentleman without discomfort.

Mamma, however, could have occupied the entire surface herself. With her plump figure and near-bursting bodice, it was a positive disgrace to expect an unwed gentleman to squeeze next to her.

Let alone lean toward him with every amusement that entered her mind.

Let alone nearly drip ratafia onto his coat with every laugh.

"Mamma, I do hate to interrupt you from such pleasant company." She curtsied to Colonel Middleton with an apologetic look. "But I do require a private audience with you for a moment, if I may be so bold."

"La, what a silly girl you are. Was I not telling you just the thing, Colonel dear?"

"Er—yes." The colonel's face burst the shade of his red uniform. "Indeed, she is most silly. But most entrancing too. A family attribute, I conclude."

Georgina should have been surprised.

But she was not.

In the little time it had taken Georgina to gather the courage to intervene, Mamma had beguiled a man she had only just met. Perhaps made a fool of herself. Perhaps behaved unseemly.

But beguiled him nonetheless.

He was infatuated.

"What was it you wished to tell me, dear?" Mamma sipped at her goblet. "I daresay, whatever you wish to say might certainly be spoken in front of my good friend the colonel."

Without warning, tears moistened her eyes. "Never mind, Mamma. It can wait, I am certain. Excuse me." With pressure building in her chest, she nodded to the colonel and hurried back through the ballroom.

The orchestra burst into a reel. The formation of dancers sprang into motion, and bright lights from the chandeliers glared with harshness.

Without meaning to, she glanced at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Rain splatters beaded the glass, blurring the distance between herself and quietness.

Truly, it would be most craven to run.

But she needed the chance to breathe.

Gathering her dress in a gloved hand, she spared one more cautious look to the crowd. No one seemed to notice. If she disappeared now, she would likely be unmissed for the time it would take her to slip out of doors.

The pressure lessened as she glided from the ornate ballroom and swept into a quiet hall. She found the front door, and as the butler had apparently been needed elsewhere in the chaos of the ball, she slipped outside without cloak or assistance.

White pillars framed the oval-shaped porch, and the melodic pitter-patter of rain soothed the last of her frayed nerves. She must not let Mamma bother her so. She must gain a stronger grip upon her emotions—all of them.

Besides, Mamma would be gone again soon enough.

She always was.

"That was quite heroic."

Georgina jumped, whirled to the entrance door.

Alexander Oswald shut it behind him, his silk cravat frilled beneath his pointed chin. Auburn hair waved across his forehead, and his blue frock coat, gold buttons, and white pantaloons all lent his lean figure a hint of youthful superiority and power.

Power he possessed without the clothes, she imagined.

Indeed, he embodied the word—just as his home, here at Hollyvale Estate, so much embodied wealth and magnificence.

"You offer no response?"

Her mind shifted back to his statement. "I cannot imagine what you found heroic, sir."

"Your attempt to sacrifice yourself to an unpleasant situation, for the sake of your mother and her victim, was very virtuous. I am sorry it did not work."

She supposed she should find offense in his blatancy. Indeed, although she had danced with him more than once over several seasons, he was still as much a stranger to her as Colonel Middleton was to Mamma.

But the condescension, though spoken without compassion, was accompanied by such a strong look of attention that…well, she could not be angry.

Despite herself, a smile leaked forth. "Everyone so gracefully skirts about the obvious, sir, that I find your candidness rather refreshing."

"I always say what is upon my mind."

"A dangerous custom."

"Only if handled without skill." He walked to one of the white-painted pillars, leaned back against it with his arms over his chest. Rain misted his face. He was not handsome exactly, for his eyes were small and his pale cheeks thin, but the intensity of his self-assuredness was undeniably charming.

She shook herself free of such thoughts. She was no more attracted to Alexander Oswald than she was any of the other gentlemen who had purred over her since coming out. No one had ever garnered true interest. No one had come close to affecting her heart.

Except one.

And he had disappeared.

"You are not the only one whispered of, I dare to say, Miss Whitmore." With moisture glistening his face, he pushed off the pillar and stepped closer. His head cocked. "Pray, exactly how old are you?"

"You can hardly expect me to own to it." No older than him, for certain.

"You are seven and twenty, yet unpersuaded into matrimony, and beautiful enough to make it a puzzlement." The corner of his lips lifted. "Care to enlighten me on why?"

She wished she knew why herself.

Or perhaps she did.

Of course she did.

"Excuse me," she said, "but I fear I must return to my cousin. I believe she slipped away to the retiring room, but is likely quite finished and looking for me everywhere—"

"Miss Whitmore." He caught her elbow before she made it to the door.

Her brows rose at the brazenness of his touch. "Sir?"

He reached around her, opened the door, and quirked a small grin. "I fear it only safe to warn you that I feel both challenged and intrigued. I am inclined to discover your secrets."

Secrets. Her heart pulsed at the word. He spoke it with arrogance and flirtatious jest, but he was wrong in every point.

For she had only one secret.

And no one would ever find out.

The corner was empty.

Weakness drained through him, as he wiped water from his eyes and entered the suffocating cabin. He stepped over the body.

Then he turned toward the quilted curtain. The one Ruth had sewn together with her own hands and he had hung before their bed in a rustic attempt at privacy.

He ripped it open now.

He found her just where he'd known—draped across the bed, bed linens pulled over her torn dress, eyes closed but lips moving, as if in prayer.

"Ruth." The name gutted out of him. He leaned over her, hands easing about her face, crawling up her cheeks, brushing across her hairline. "Ruth."

"The ch…children?"

"They are unharmed."

"You?"

"Unharmed." He had so many questions. Too many questions. He had not the courage to ask any of them.

"Hold me, Simon." Threadbare voice. Her hand grasped his dripping coat. "Hurry."

Hurry. As if they hadn't much time. As if it was almost over, but it wasn't. Ruth was strong. The strongest woman he'd ever known. Dear God, please. The prayer surged. With arms that ached, he reached beneath her, pressed her limp form against him, and settled atop the bed with her on his lap.

Only then did he see the pillow.

Blood.

Her blood.

Please. He pulled her closer to his face. "Ruth." Into her hair, against her throbbing temple. "Ruth, forgive me."

"Not your fault, Simon."

"I should have been here."

"No."

"I should have realized before—"

"You could not have known." Warm, faint, her breath faltered against his neck. "Give me…your hand."

He stroked it across her cheek, but she grasped it, pulled it to her chest, where his fingers memorized each painful rise and fall. Tears blurred her face. The plain, soft-looking features. The bark-colored hair. The determined chin. The work-worn brow. Don't take her from me, God. I need her. Please.

"These." She squeezed his hand, the trace of a smile in her voice. "Made for pretty things…Simon. Promise?"

He tried to follow. "What?"

"Pictures…promise me you will use them for pictures…not…" Her mouth gaped. Each breath left harsher and lower. "Not hurting…because of…today…Simon…" Her head lolled away from him. Her lips stilled. The hand clasping his went cold and slack.

"Ruth, no." He jarred her body, seized her chin. "Ruth!" Bile rose in waves he tried to swallow. A wretched noise broke from deep in his throat. God, no. Please no.

But the prayer was too late to make any difference.

His wife was dead.