Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

J ulian summoned Rufus with a high whistle.

The horse approached out of the darkness with a jingle of harness and the muffled clop of hooves. Considering the height of the stallion for a moment, Julian proceeded to shift the weight of the woman he held onto one shoulder. Then with both hands free, he took the reins and put a foot into one stirrup. Careful to avoid touching Rufus with his bare hands, he hauled himself up, managing the slight weight of the damsel he had rescued with ease.

Julian was broad as well as tall with musculature developed on his chest and shoulders through years spent in manual labor on a farm amid the Cumbrian hills. Gently bringing the unconscious woman down to sit before him across the saddle, he steered Rufus towards home.

Carrying two, and on dark roads, no matter how well known those roads were, meant that Julian had to keep Rufus to a walk. It was an interminable time, following the southward road towards the village of Chigwell, until he came upon the track that would lead him into the forest itself.

A farm lay at the point where that track intersected with the Chigwell road and an awakened dog barked furiously at him from the doorway of a barn. Julian ignored it but the master of the farm must have been a light sleeper, for a light appeared in a window which subsequently opened. A grizzled, gray-bearded head appeared at the window and a voice laden with drink bellowed for quiet. Then bleary eyes saw Julian, half-illuminated by the candle the man held.

"God preserve us! It's the Ghoul!" he screamed.

The window slammed shut and the candle was extinguished. Moments later, the sound of a bolt being shot to lock the front door of the farmhouse came, along with other voices inside. The household was being raised, warned of the passing of the dreaded Ghoul. And now witnessed with a victim in hand. An unconscious woman slung across his saddle.

Julian smiled sadly at the absurdity of fear and gossip. When a man rejected society and chose to live alone, he was vilified. People assumed there must be something terribly wrong with him. In truth, they were right, but not content to wonder at the reasons for Julian's hermitage, they concocted reasons of their own.

The woman he held stirred at the commotion and her eyes fluttered open. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"My name is Julian Barrington," Julian replied in equal gentleness. "I am Lord of Theydon Mount."

"I do not know it," the woman murmured, softly, her head lolling as though she lacked the strength to hold it up.

Julian hoped this was the effect of being without breath or heartbeat for a period of time. Better that than the curse. Still, it would take her sooner or later. Would it not be better if it was over quickly? The image of his brother's agonized face swam up in his memory and he shuddered. He would not wish such a death on anyone.

"I am Duke of Windermere, though I now make my home here in the south of England," Julian continued, "rest easy, I am taking you to my house where you can recuperate. You threw yourself into the lake. Why?"

But his question was in vain. She succumbed to unconsciousness once more.

Julian felt his heart beat faster at the feel of her cheek against his chest. One hand held her around her shoulders, which felt as delicate as he imagined a bird would feel. Fine-boned and fragile. The other rested on her hip. He felt the curve of her body there, shapely and enticing femininity. It made his breath catch in his throat and he forced his mind elsewhere as a distraction.

The trees were around them now, engulfing them and blocking out the fleeting moonlight. They followed the track unerringly. He found himself wishing he knew the name of the unconscious woman and hoped that she would awake at least once more before succumbing to the curse.

Did she have a family? Or a husband. Boldly, he lifted her left hand, but there was no ring there.

He let her hand rest against the back of his own. That innocent touch, so trivial to most men and women, was a sensation of deep eroticism to Julian. Her skin was soft, smooth, and perfect. He wanted desperately to lift it to his lips, to press them against the back of her hand. To inhale her fragrance, just detectable despite her soaking in the lake. Instead, he let her hand fall and stared ahead into the darkness.

Presently, the track joined a wider way which rose, crisscrossing a wooded hill. At the hill's summit there loomed a tall, dark wall of stone. A few windows in that wall were lit with warm, flickering gold. It ended in a broken, uneven line of castellations, former battlements long neglected. Towers marked the corners and a tall, wooden door stood beneath an ancient arch.

Julian dismounted and pulled on a thick rope that hung beside the door. Inside, a bell began to ring, and presently the door was opened to reveal Crammond. The butler was tall and thin with iron-gray hair and a face from which all the flesh appeared to have been boiled away. He bowed his head to his master, momentarily hiding eyes sunken into dark caves and a straight mouth over a lantern jaw.

"I have a sick woman here, Crammond. I need gloves. Rufus needs stabled. At once!" Julian barked.

Crammond bowed his head again and produced a pair of black, leather gloves from a pocket inside his coat. Julian gladly put them on, silently thanking the ever-ready efficiency of his servant. Safely gloved, he lifted the woman down and carried her into the castle in his arms. Crammond disappeared through the front door, clucking his tongue at Rufus, and softly mumbling to the animal as he led him away to the stables.

Julian walked unerringly through dimly lit hallways, past tapestries, and statues, relics of the antique family that had lived in this house for generations. Reaching the guest wing on the second floor, he nudged a door open with his boot and gently laid his burden down on a bed. He supposed a maid would have to strip her of her sodden garments and he reached for the bellpull beside the bed.

As he waited for the maid to arrive, he stood looking down at his charge. Her breasts rose and fell in sleep. By the light of a candle he lit, he could see that she had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Where her hair had begun to dry, he could see that it was burnished bronze in color. She looked like the statue of a goddess, crafted by a Renaissance master. She entranced him and his mind wandered along roads of fancy, trying to imagine who she was and how she had come to throw herself into the lake.

A timid tap at the door announced the maid and Julian stepped well back from the bed, giving the girl space to safely enter the room. She had fair hair and a round, wide-eyed face. Molly, her name was.

"Molly, this young lady fell into the lake. Find her some bedclothes and put her into them. These wet clothes should be removed as soon as possible. Have a fire laid and ensure the room is kept warm. Sit with her until she wakes up, then notify me immediately."

He was firm but not unkind, lacking the practice of dealing with people and conscious of how he could easily sound as if he were barking at those he spoke to. Combined with his dark hair and tendency to glower, he knew he could be an intimidating presence. It made him mindful of every interaction.

Molly curtsied and hurried from the room. Julian sighed. He could see the fear in her eyes, over and above the fear a young maid might have for a Duke who towered over her and had a tendency to shout. He wondered if even these servants, in his own home, called him the Ghoul. Or the Phantom. After all, they had all been hired to work in Theydon Mount when Julian acquired it. That had been five years before upon his ascension to the Dukedom and rejection of his family residence at Windermere. They were not connected to his family the way the staff at Windermere were, and had no prior loyalty.

Molly returned a few minutes later with an armful of cotton nightclothes.

"The young lady looks taller than me, Your Grace. But this will keep her warm at least and it is big on me."

Julian nodded curtly, leaving the room, and closing the door behind him. He strode away along the hallway, unconsciously pulling the gloves tighter onto his hands, meshing his fingers together. At the end of the hallway, he paused.

It had been his intention to go to the library. The previous owners of Theydon Mount had maintained a large library of esoteric volumes. Such knowledge had been his pursuit for most of his adult life. Ever since he realized that modern science could not explain neither his affliction, nor the malady that had rendered his father so sensitive to light. His father's library at Windermere was a treasure trove of archaic lore but he could not bring himself to cross the threshold.

Now, it was as though a chain held him tied to the young lady that he had rescued from the dark jaws of death. He looked back over his shoulder. The door to her room was visible only by the soft candlelight that seeped under the door.

Julian carried no candle and there were none in the hallway. He had not inherited his father's pathological fear of light but had grown used to seeing in the dark since childhood. Windermere Castle had been a dark place in which daylight was alien, for the most part. Now, his eyes found that door instantly. And the eyes of his imagination could not help but conjure the image of the beautiful young woman being undressed, stripped of her wet clothes.

Her skin would be the purest alabaster. Her breasts round and pert with proud nipples. A stomach flat and hips as soft, delicate curves. Molly was right, the lady was tall. Her legs would be shapely and lithe. Julian's fist thudded against the wood paneling of the hallway. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He could not touch her. Could never touch her. If she swore undying love and begged for his touch, cast aside her clothes, and stood before him as naked as Eve in the Garden of Eden, he still could do no more than look.

Forcing himself to take a step away from that door was like tearing at his skin. The constant drip of water from his clothes and hair to the floor helped to move him. He needed to change and dry himself.

The chain stretched and he took another step. Stretched further and then snapped.

With a growl deep in his throat, he took the stairs at the end of the hallway three at a time, flinging himself around a bend and then striding along the next hallway. The lack of servants he maintained meant he was blessedly alone in a house the size of Theydon Mount. At that moment, had any encountered him, they would have received short shrift. After another staircase and a further hallway, he came to the door of his quarters. Julian flung it wide and slammed it behind him. He was breathing as though he had run a mile carrying the young woman on his back.

He stripped and dried himself hurriedly, changing into fresh clothes. But respite eluded him. After half an hour pacing his room like a caged animal, he decided to try and distract himself in the library. It was attached to the suite of rooms that were his personal quarters, reached through splintered double doors that looked as though they had stood there since the Conquest.

Inside, the library glowered with reaching shadows. Pale moonlight reached in vain through high windows but failed to touch the floor. Julian picked up a stub of candle from a niche beside the door and struck it alight with flint and tinder kept beside it. Then he walked to a favored nook in which there was an armchair, a table with his current studies scattered across, and a decanter of brandy.

Opening a drawer, he took out a pipe and filled it before lighting it from the candle. Breathing deeply of its earthy smoke, he poured a measure of brandy and picked up the nearest book. His eyes skimmed the page but his mind was filled with the image of a naked, red-haired young woman.