Prologue

PROLOGUE

J ulian laid his un-gloved hands on the windowsill. The moonlight spilling through the glass made the pale skin appear even whiter. Like the hands of an alabaster statue. Inhuman .

He frowned, remembering his brother's words from days before, after his return from long months at sea.

"There are no such things as curses, Jule. I have traveled the world and I have seen a lot of strange things. But never have I seen an actual, real-life curse. Not once."

Dark hair falling across a pale forehead. The aquiline nose that was common to the male line of the Barrington family. Bright blue eyes, alive with intelligence and humor. Julian could recall his brother's face as he had spoken those words. Spoken to the terrified little boy who believed himself cursed, never to be able to touch another human being. Samuel had taken the gloves and pressed Julian's bare hands to his cheeks. Nothing had happened. Julian had waited for the curse to strike Samuel down. Instead, his brother only smiled at him, that familiar roguish grin that always heralded adventure.

"Father told me that I was cursed," Julian had said in a small, wondering voice, "why did he tell me that?"

Samuel had frowned, looking out of the window with a troubled expression.

"Father is… not a well man. You know that. He never has been for as long as I have known him. I think it preys on him, weighs him down. And it makes him think strange thoughts. You must not judge him for it, Jule. He does not mean it."

Julian had not dared to walk about the halls of Windermere Castle without his gloves. The first victim of the curse, according to his father, had been Julian's mother, who had died giving birth to him. Died from the first touch of her infant son's hands.

There had been others.

Rather than risk the ire of his father, Julian had continued to wear the black, leather gloves that he had worn since he was a small child. But alone, here in his turret room, high above the castle and isolated from its other residents, none could be touched by him or by the curse.

Could Samuel have been correct? Was the curse no more than the rambling notions of an unsound mind? Julian wished he could believe it. But then he had touched his brother and nothing had befallen him.

A wail rising from somewhere below in the castle turned Julian's insides to ice. He jumped from the window seat, indecisive. He was not permitted to leave his high tower room during the night.

But then the wail came again.

It was his father and it was the sound of a man being torn by grief. Julian's heart pounded in his chest. Samuel, his older brother, the heir to the Dukedom of Windermere had defied the curse. Julian prayed that the curse had not taken its revenge.

Not wanting to know the source of that keening grief but unable to stay away, Julian crept to the door of his bedchamber. His father had left strict instructions that the door be locked and the servants followed these orders without question. But Samuel had scoffed, taking away the key when he left Julian hours before.

Feeling a sense of liberty, Julian turned the handle and opened the door. It creaked, frighteningly loud.

He peered out and down the benighted spiral stair that would lead him to the rest of the castle. He knew its steps well enough that he could traverse them with his eyes closed. The deep gloom of night was no bar to him.

With the nimbleness of a mountain goat, he skipped down the smooth, stone steps. Bare feet felt for the depressions in the middle of each step, worn over time. They stepped over the step whose mortar had worn away and which wobbled precariously when any weight was applied. Then he was standing on the long patterned rug that covered the floor of the hallway at the bottom of the staircase. It was a deep blue, but in the dark, it might as well have been black.

At his next step, his small foot struck something hard and cool, sending a small glass bottle skittering across the floor. Startled, he bent to pick it up, squinting at the faded label in the dim light. "Monk… monkey…shoo," he tried to read. The rest had been smudged away, leaving the word incomplete. Confused, he frowned, wondering what it could mean. But then the wail came again, louder this time, and Julian quickly set the bottle down.

He scurried along the carpet to the end of the hallway where another, broader staircase led down further. He flitted along hallways, drawing nearer to the sound of the wailing. The haunting sound certainly was coming from his father.

Finally, he came to a halt. A long hallway stretched before him, seeming longer than it did by the light of day. Not that the light of day was ever allowed to intrude into the rooms and passageways of Theydon Mount Castle. Halfway along that hallway, Julian knew, was his brother's room. The door was open and a cluster of servants stood around it. Their faces were creased with concern and anguish. Some of them held candles in holders, carefully shielding the light with their hands lest it spill into the room beyond.

Licking his lips, Julian crept along the hallway. He steered clear of the servants, sticking to the wall of the hallway until he stood opposite the doorway.

"My son! My only dear son!" Harold Barrington's cracked and broken voice cried out.

The words stabbed at Julian, second son of the Barrington family. He stamped firmly on the pain, knowing it to be his lot.

His birth had removed his mother from the world, and now… his touch had removed his brother.

The servants saw the nine-year-old boy, pale and ghostlike, standing near them. Without a word, they parted until Julian had a clear view of the room beyond.

Harold Barrington was thin and pale, his wraithlike pallor even more pronounced than his son. He was fully dressed, his phobia of daylight rendering him a creature of the night. His hair was white and hung to his shoulders. His fingers were the fleshless talons of a skeleton. His eyes were red-rimmed, emphasizing the colorless irises. Harold Barrington was the denizen of Barrow, long buried and hidden from the clean, bright light of the sun.

But it was the form over which Harold Barrington wept that captured Julian's eye and held it.

Samuel Barrington lay atop his bedclothes, fully dressed and with wide-staring eyes. His face was contorted into a grimace of agony and there was no sign of breath from his lips. No movement of his chest, no blinking of his eyes.

Samuel Barrington, Julian's elder brother, was dead.

Another man stood at Samuel's bedside, also in his nightclothes. He had dark hair and a lean face with a hawk-like nose and deep-set eyes. Julian knew who he was, a friend of Samuel and a physician. That lean face was tight with grief and resolve. He was drawing a sheet up to cover Samuel's face but Harold was resisting him.

"Your Grace… Samuel is gone. There is nothing more to be done but to give him some dignity," murmured the doctor.

"To hell with your dignity, Hakesmere! To hell with it! He is my son!" Harold cried out.

" Was your son, Your Grace…" Doctor Hakesmere began tentatively.

"Get out!" Harold raged, "Begone from my house. You were my son's friend, not mine!"

As he spoke, he pointed to the door, and that drew his eyes to Julian who had crept forward. Julian blinked back tears of disbelief and self-recrimination. Why could he not have resisted Samuel's removal of his gloves? Why couldn't he have run from his brother to keep him safe from his hideous curse? It was only when his father's eyes fell upon him that Julian remembered that he was not wearing his gloves. They were in his garret room atop the windowsill.

"You!" Harold hissed, finger trembling.

Doctor Hakesmere looked towards the newcomer with a frown. When he saw Julian, a look of compassion stole across his face. He started around the bed towards Julian but Harold was faster. He leaped to his feet and strode towards Julian, still pointing.

"Where are your gloves, boy!" he demanded.

"Samuel took them off," Julian whispered without thinking, "they are in my room."

Harold stopped, mouth falling open and eyes blazing with malevolence.

"Samuel removed them? You touched him with your bare hands?"

"Your Grace, what is this nonsense about gloves…" Doctor Hakesmere began.

"It is the curse of the Barrington's as embodied by the devil you see before you! It is due to him that my darling wife was taken from me. And now he has taken my son!"

Doctor Hakesmere directed a questioning look at Harold.

"I understood that your wife died in childbirth? One can hardly blame…"

Harold darted forward and seized Julian by the arms. His claw-like fingers pinched painfully and he propelled Julian from the room.

"He is dead because of you! The heir to Windermere, the son who would do so much honor to the Barrington name. The paragon of gentlemen. Dead! I have told you before. I have warned you! This is deliberate insubordination. Why did you do it?!"

"Your Grace! I must protest! This child…" Doctor Hakesmere followed Harold and Julian from the room but neither of the two surviving Barrington's looked at him.

Julian found his full attention held by his father's wide, staring eyes. Spittle had collected at the corners of his mouth and the whites of his eyes were visible all the way around. Julian felt the stone of the wall suddenly pressing into his back. Beside him was a window. His father reached for the metal latch and wrenched it open. Cold air immediately leached into the hallway, making the candle lights flicker. Harold's mad eyes darted to the window, then back to Julian.

"I will be rid of you once and for all," he breathed, and shoved Julian by the shoulder towards the cold black rectangle that let out into the night.

A maid suddenly cried out as the breeze made the flame of her candle waver, briefly touching her hand. She dropped it and the carpet immediately caught light. The sudden flare of light made Harold scream, throwing up both hands across his face. Doctor Hakesmere darted forward and seized Julian, hauling him away down the hallway.

"Best get you out of your father's sight, young man, until he has calmed some," Hakesmere said in a firm but gentle tone.

Julian allowed himself to be guided away but kept his arms firmly crossed and hands tucked under his arms. He would not risk any further deaths.

Eventually, he risked a glance over his shoulder. The servants were frantically trying to stamp out the fire while Harold Barrington, Duke of Windermere and father to Samuel and Julian, cowered against the wall, arms covering his head, trying to block out the agonizing light.

Then the doctor ushered him around a corner of the hallway and into a room. It was quiet and dark, the air cool. Julian was guided to a chaise longue where he sat staring at the oakwood floor.

"What happened to my brother?" Julian asked plaintively.

His voice wavered and tears blurred his vision. Fear gripped him. Fear that the doctor would confirm his father's view. Would confirm the curse and condemn Julian to a lonely life.

"I do not know. He was struck down without warning. From the look on his face, I would say that it was a problem with his heart," Hakesmere said. "Samuel and I traveled much of the world together and I have seen him defy death on more than one occasion. But we are all mortal and susceptible to disease."

Julian shook his head. He had wanted the physician to tell him that Samuel had died of some natural cause. But he could not. The answer was clear to Julian. After all, his father was an expert on matters arcane and occult.

The library from which Julian was forbidden, but had sneaked into in the dead of night, was a place of dark books and relics. Harold Barrington knew of curses and he had warned Julian what would happen to anyone that Julian touched with his bare hands. He scrubbed the tears from his eyes, hardening his heart against the grief. Carefully, he stepped away from the doctor, who watched him with a face alive with concern. Julian shook his head.

"It is the curse."

The doctor snorted. "There is no such thing, boy."

Julian shook his head wordlessly, seeing the truth, even if this man of science could not. The answer was simple, clear to his immature mind. He was cursed. Tainted. And must be kept away from people. He turned and ran from the room.