Chapter 1

Seth stared down at the burning staircase. He knew that he didn't have long. Flames licked the wood and wreathed the banisters. It seemed impossible, but the longer he waited, the worse it would become. The girl was wrapped in his coat, held against his chest with her legs wrapped around his waist. He held her with both arms and whispered to her as she cried for her father. Coughing from the acrid smoke, he took his first step. The riser creaked but held. Second step. Held. Third step. The wood cracked beneath his heel and only lightning reactions saved him from falling backwards. Had he done so, he had no doubt the entire staircase would have collapsed under his weight and both he and the child he was trying to save would have been lost. Seth charged, flinging aside caution, courage flaring brighter than the flames that reached over him and across the ceiling. His charge was accompanied by a deafening crash as the tortured, scorched wood reached the limits of its strength. He kept his eyes on the dark opening in the flames at the foot of the stairs.

Down there was a flagstone floor and the door that led out into the blessedly cool night air. He almost reached it. At the third step from the bottom, the wood gave way beneath his foot, snaring it. He toppled forward, and seizing the child about the waist, he hurled her away from him as he fell. If he became trapped in the burning staircase, at least she would have a chance. His hands broke his fall, smacking against solid stone. The girl tumbled ahead of him, looking back with wide, terrified eyes. She froze and he realized she was too terrified to save herself, even with salvation just a few feet away.

"Go! Run!" he tried to shout, but all that came out was a croak, followed by a choking, wracking cough as smoke invaded his lungs.

She did not move. Seth pushed himself up, feeling the flames at work on his legs where they lay against the burning stairs. He swatted at them as he tried to get to his feet.

"Isadora!" came a man's voice from outside.

"Papa!" the girl screamed, turning towards the door.

Seth looked up to see a stocky man with a shock of fair hair that matched the girl's, hurtling in through the open door of the house. He caught a glimpse of someone outside hurling a bucket of water towards the house. The villagers of Twyford had rallied to put out the fire that was consuming the Lodge. The fair-haired man scooped up his daughter and ran from the place. At that moment, something unbearably heavy landed on Seth's back. The breath rushed from his body and he was flattened to the ground. The stone floor had been heated by the fire and it seared the palms of his hands. Seth lifted them away but could not lift his head enough to remove his right temple and cheek from the searing touch of the stone. The smell of burning flesh filled his nose, terrified in the knowledge that it was his own. Looking up, he saw the doorway ringed in flames and the man outside, holding his daughter. He was looking back, meeting Seth's eyes but not venturing into the house a second time.

"Help me!" Seth screamed until the smoke choked him.

The doorway disappeared as, with a crash of timber, a section of roof fell in. Even if he were able to lift the beam that pinned him, there was no way out of the burning house.

Seth screamed. He clawed his way awake, kicking at the bedclothes. Then the freezing air of the room hit him, his breath fogging in front of his face. Not the searing heat of a burning house. He stared blindly into the dark, the dream still alive inside his head. Ten years on and it felt as real as though it had only just happened. Moonlight spilled into his bedchamber through the open curtains. Frost was gathering at the corners of the window panes. He took deep lungfuls of air, feeling the sweat cooling on his naked body. He always slept naked, liking the feel of cool sheets against the scarring that banded his back. Now the chill air of the unheated room served to dampen the flames of the nightmare. Seth ran a shaking hand through his auburn hair, now dark with sweat. The nightmare was not a fabrication. Not a concoction of his mind distilled from childhood fears. It was a memory. The memory of an act of bravery by a fifteen-year-old who was heir to a Dukedom. An act that had gone unrecognized when he had been left to die by the father of the girl he saved.

Seth swung his legs from the bed, casting aside the bedclothes. He stood and walked to the wardrobe, taking out a shirt and a pair of breeches. The cold did not bother him. He welcomed it. No fire was ever lit in the castle, not in any room that he occupied. There were no carpets, only cold, hard stone. No wall hangings to soften the stark lines of the walls either. Centuries-old tapestries had been stripped when he inherited Bellmore Castle. Anything that would provide fuel to a fire. The clock on the mantle chimed two. No more sleep would come to him that night. Not after a visitation of his recurring nightmare.

Before leaving his bedchamber, he picked up the leather mask that covered the right side of his face, securing it in place with ties that went around his head. It was plain, black leather, covering his face from forehead to jawline. Then he walked through the interconnected rooms that made up his personal quarters in the castle, occupying the entirety of the top floor of the north wing. No lamps were needed to find his way through the maze of rooms and passages to the library. There, and only there, would he light an encased lamp, in order to provide the light to read by. The remainder of the evening would be spent in this way, his mind occupied by the words of his favorite authors, distracted and soothed.

As he neared the library, he heard a noise. It was furtive and small. The kind of noise made by someone or something that did not wish to be observed. A mouse or rat, he thought. Or one of the many ghosts that haunted Bellmore Castle, according to folklore. It wouldn't have been the first time that he had witnessed unexplained occurrences in the castle. Then he saw the light from under the library door. It shone briefly, as though someone had approached the door carrying a lantern. Then it faded. Seth felt anger rise within him. The servants were permitted the use of lanterns to perform their duties at night but none should have been abroad at this hour. He strode to the doors of the library and flung them wide. The Black Library of Bellmore was notorious for its collection of volumes on the subject of the occult and supernatural. His grandfather had been an avid collector. It had fed into the legends of the Bellmore Curse, leading local people to believe that the Ashbourne's of Bellmore were devil worshippers.

It formed a dome at the center of the castle, a piece of classical architecture reminiscent of Rome or Greece in the middle of a sprawling medieval castle. A window at the apex of that dome allowed cold moonlight to spill to the stone floor. A figure was crossing that circle of white light as Seth entered the room. It was cloaked and hooded. In one hand, it held a lantern high. In the other, it held something in a bundle. It whirled as Seth entered, face shadowed by the hood. Seth grinned, baring teeth, as he marched towards it. He was unarmed but blessed with height and breadth of shoulder. He had compensated for the years spent convalescing from his burns by ensuring his body was as strong as it could be.

"I commend you on your courage. Few will risk the curse of Bellmore to venture anywhere near the castle, let alone enter it. To do so for the purpose of stealing is quite the feat of courage," Seth muttered.

The figure tensed as though to take flight.

"Do not bother running. I am not alone, you see," Seth added.

He whistled, long and high. For a moment, only silence answered him. Then came the sound of paws against stone and two large hounds appeared in the doorway behind Seth. Their shoulders were level with his waist and, at the sight of the stranger, their hackles rose. Heads lowered and ears flattened. Twin growls rumbled from the animals as they took up positions on either side of their master.

"Would you match your speed against theirs?" Seth asked.

"I would not."

It was a man's voice coming from the hood. His shoulders slumped and he reached up to push back the hood. Seth frowned, looking upon a ruddy, square face with unruly fair hair, almost pure white in the moonlight. There was something familiar about that face. A moment later, it came to him. He pointed at the man.

"Take him!" he snarled.

The two hounds leaped to obey. They were at a dead run in two strides, teeth bared.

"Mercy! For my daughter's sake! You saved her once!" the man yelled, holding up his hands, dropping the bundle he carried.

"Hold!" Seth barked.

As if his voice were a leash about their necks, the two dogs skidded to a halt. They were mere feet away from the burglar and regarded him with unblinking eyes and lips peeled back from teeth. As far as they were concerned, the hunt had merely been postponed.

"I recognize you. You left me to die once upon a time. After I risked my life to save your child," Seth snarled.

"I… I am sorry. I was a coward. Her mother died in childbirth. I am all she has in the world. I couldn't bring myself to risk my life to save you."

"And by your cowardice, you set the course of my life for me. The life of a hermit, excluded by society, feared. Regarded as a monster." Seth spat.

He reached up to untie the leather cords securing the mask in place. He stepped forward into the moonlight as he took the mask away. The man recoiled at the sight of his face.

"Not a reaction I relish every time I enter a room," Seth murmured, "and you have the audacity to claim the title of gentleman. A Baron, no less."

"I do, and I bear the shame of my actions, but I do not regret them. My courage would have been a far greater sin than cowardice had it resulted in my death. My Isadora would have been orphaned."

Seth felt his anger within him, as ferocious as the flames that had tried to consume him. He found himself clenching his fists, wanting to strike the man who had left him to die and now returned to steal. He crouched and picked up the cloth-wrapped bundle. It was a book, ancient and priceless. A bible with illuminated parchment pages that had been handed down through generations of the Ashbourne family.

"Rescued from the fall of Jerusalem by Geoffrey Ashbourne, an ancestor of mine and a Captain of the Knights Templar," Seth said, "said to have been blessed by the first pope. Priceless."

"They say you are a heathen. A barbarian. Something so precious should be protected by the church!"

Seth threw back his head and laughed. "Heathen? Aye, I am no lover of the Church and no friend of God. He has been no friend to me. But do not pretend that this is a crusade for you, George Fairfax. You are a burglar, not a Templar."

Fairfax looked away and Seth grinned wolfishly.

"I was desperate. Everyone knows of the Templar Bible and its worth. I was offered a king's ransom by… by someone for it."

"Desperate? Do the estates of Henlade not provide for you and your daughter, Baron?" Seth asked.

"We are reduced to a cottage in the village, rented from a local farmer. We do not even have the means of rebuilding the last of my family's estate, the Twyford Lodge that burned down…"

Seth held up a hand. "Yes, I remember that night well, though it was a decade ago."

Fairfax drew himself up proudly. "I do what I do for my daughter. I will face my punishment as a man. As a Fairfax. We have fallen upon challenging times, but my family has as proud a heritage as yours."

"Punishment? For stealing from a Duke? You would be transported and your daughter with you. Or else she would end up a ward of the shire, in a workhouse."

He saw the tremor in Fairfax's lips. The glimmer of a tear in his eye. Seth knew that this had been a last, desperate roll of the dice. He knew about desperation. It had been the desperation of a dying man that had given him the strength to lift the beam and crawl from the burning house. No matter his fearsome appearance and reputation, Seth found that he could not bring himself to raise the hue and cry. To see Fairfax clapped in irons and his daughter effectively orphaned. She would be the same age now as he had been when he had saved her life.

"I will decide your punishment. Not the magistrate. You are on my land and I claim the right to justice," Seth said, "ten years ago, I paid dearly for the life of your daughter. I claim it now. When she has reached her majority and been introduced to society, I will claim her as my wife."