Prologue
14th May, 1802
"Enter."
Jacob Barrington pushed open his father's study door with more than a little trepidation. The room was a forbidden one, although he sometimes stole inside for fun, snapping his father's quills and emptying his ink. A rebellion against the inevitable.
Even at fourteen, he knew there was only one possible reason he had been called to this study. He had been punished for no shortage of sins over the years. Most he had deserved—he had stolen his brother's precious poetry book and dropped it in the pond, he frequently stole food from the kitchens, and he took considerable delight in causing mayhem.
The thing he did not deserve was his father's unrelenting, blazing hatred. He received that, anyway.
As always, his father was sitting behind his desk. It was an old desk, made of rather fine mahogany, with papers piled high. Jacob had once rifled through them when he had broken into the study through the window, but he had found nothing interesting. Nothing that warranted his father being locked up in this room for so many hours every day, avoiding everyone in the house except Cecil. Jacob's perfect older brother.
He took his time advancing into the room. A carriage clock ticked ominously on the mantel and a fire burned in the hearth despite the heat of the day. The room was swelteringly hot, although there wasn't so much as a bead of sweat on his father's pale, iron face.
Demons were used to the heat. When Jacob was little, he'd fantasised about his father being an instrument of evil, sent from Hell to terrorise everyone except Cecil. As a child, that had been his favourite explanation for his father's bouts of cruelty and violence.
Now he was older, he knew better. His father was just a man who fed on pain, and Jacob's was his favourite flavour.
He stopped just before the desk. His father's grey eyes narrowed.
"You called for me, sir," Jacob said stiffly.
"That was five minutes ago."
"I came as soon as I received your summons." Jacob paused long enough for the insult to sink in. "Sir."
His father's lip curled. "Your insolence has no bounds, I see. I presume it was you who entered this office while I was in London?"
Jacob didn't break his stare. Not yet, but soon, he would be old enough to fend his father off, and he counted the days. "That was me, sir."
"As I supposed." His father took one of the broken quills and twirled it in his fingers. "Cecil informs me you have not attended your lessons this week."
Jacob clenched his fists. He had never understood why Cecil, superior only in his bookishness and age, was so revered while he was so reviled. In his father's eyes, Cecil could do no wrong. Cecil was the heir, the golden boy, the apple of his father's eye. Jacob, as soon as he had come into the world with his mop of dark, unruly hair and deep brown eyes, had been deemed a disappointment.
It had not taken him long to learn that, if he wanted anything for himself, he would have to take it. His mother had never shown him any interest and the servants, scared of his father, had ignored him. Cecil only paid him attention to tease or lecture him.
Or, apparently, to tattle to their father.
"He told me I was not required to attend," Jacob said stiffly. He, unlike Cecil, had never been bookish, but that did not mean he didn't enjoy his lessons. At least his tutor treated him with a modicum of respect—a rarity in this house.
"So," his father said in a deceptively quiet voice, "when faced with your shortcomings, you would choose to blame your brother."
Jacob's back stiffened. "It's the truth."
"What would you know of the truth, boy? You were born a lie." Eyes glinting with an anger Jacob had never fully understood, his father planted both fists on his desk and pushed himself to his feet. "It would have been better if you had never been born at all."
Jacob could smell sherry on his father's breath, but the words still ricocheted deep inside him, lodging in his chest like broken glass. He had long known that his father would have preferred him not to exist, but he had never understood why.
His father's thin, cruel mouth puckered in distaste. "Turn around," he ordered coldly. "Take off your shirt."
Briefly, Jacob considered rebelling. He was almost as tall as his father, though nowhere near as wide. It was likely he could have put up a small fight, but in the end his father would win. And then he would be that much angrier.
His father's eyes narrowed into grey, endless slits. They reminded Jacob of the time he had shorn slivers off the lead drainpipes with his pocket knife. Just as sharp. Just as poisonous.
He turned, shrugging out of his waistcoat and tugging his shirt over his head. His breath came too fast and his chest was tight. Afraid, even though he would never have confessed to fear, his muscles bunched in anticipation of the pain.
"You are a disgrace," his father said without inflection as he brought the cane down hard. Pain lashed, a visceral, unsteady thing that filled his veins with fire. His free hand curled into a fist as he fought not to cry out.
"Father," he began. "I—"
"Do not call me father." For the first time, rage coloured his voice. The cane swished again and lightning flared across Jacob's back. Despite the lip caught between his teeth, he made a mewling sound of agony. "You're a coward," his father continued, tone biting, the words falling almost as hard as the cane's metal tip. "And you are unworthy of the name of Barrington."
A different kind of hurt settled in Jacob's chest—not the sting of pain, or the aching sensation of being beaten, but something colder that wrapped around his heart with frosty fingers and ate away the last of his desire to belong. He had known for a long time that they would never accept him, but this beating was the final straw, and his desire for acceptance was the camel's back.
If they would refuse to love him, he would not love them. If they thought he was bad, he would be worse; if he was to be hated, he would give them something to hate.
And he would make them all regret every day he carried the name Barrington.