Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Courting Miss Vallois
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
SOPHIA JAMES lives in Chelsea Bay on Auckland, New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband, who is an artist, and her three children. She spends her morning teaching adults English at the local Migrant School and writes in the afternoon. Sophia has a degree in English and History from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed reading Georgette Heyer with her twin sister at her grandmother’s house.
I’d like to dedicate this book to three wonderful women in my life: Pat Rendall, for her insight into the world of darkness; my mother, Jewell Kivell, for enthusiastically reading the first draft; and Linda Fildew, my fantastic editor, for her patience and belief in all of my books.
Chapter One
Maldon, England—January 1826
The darkness was pulling him down even as he fought to escape it, his eyes widening to catch a tiny tendril of light, the flare of it making him shout out, wanting it, the last colour before complete blackness enveloped him…
‘Sir, sir. Wake up. It’s a dream you are having.’
The voice came from somewhere close and Lord Taris Wellingham slipped from sleep and returned to the warmth of the carriage travelling south to London with a jolt. A face blurred before him, but in the dusk he could not tell whether the woman was young or old. Her voice was soft, almost musical, the lisp on the letter V denoting perhaps a genteel upbringing in the north?
With care he turned away, fingers stiff against the silver ball on top of his ebony cane and all his defences raised.
‘I would ask for your forgiveness for my lapse in manners, madam.’
The small laugh surprised him. ‘Oh. You do indeed have it, sir.’
This time there was decided humour in her tone, and something more hidden. He wished he was able to see the hue of her eyes or the shade of her hair, but any form of colour had long since gone, leached now even in full sunlight and replaced by the grey sludge of silhouette.
A netherworld. His world. And the ability to hide his disability was all the dignity left to him.
Taking a breath he held it, seeking in silence a path to follow. He pretended to read the watch on the chain at his waist, hating such deceit, but in company it was what he had been reduced to—a man on the edge of his world and in danger of falling off.
‘Another hour and a half to reach our destination, I should imagine.’ The woman’s guess was like a gift for it gave him a timeframe, something to hang any suggestion of their whereabouts upon.
‘Unless the weather worsens.’ Outside he could hear a keening wind and the temperature had dropped sharply, even in the space of the moments he had been asleep. Tilting his head, he listened to the sound of the wheels beneath them and determined the snow to have deepened too.
Unexpectedly tension filled his body. Something was wrong. The whirr of the wheel on the right side was off, unbalanced, scraping against steel.
He shook away the concern and cursed his oversensitive hearing, deeming it far better to concentrate on other things. There were four other people in the carriage, he had counted them as they got in, this woman the only one on his side. One of the gentlemen was asleep, his snores soft through the night, and the other was speaking to an older woman about household tasks and the hiring of servants. His mother, perhaps, for there was a tone in his voice suggesting affection.
The wheel was worsening, the sound underlined by a tremor in the chassis. He felt it easily in the vibration where his palm lay open against the window. No longer able to ignore danger, Taris lifted his cane and banged hard on the roof.
But it was too late! The vehicle lurched to the right as the axle snapped, the scream of the driver eerie in the darkness, the splintering of wood, the quick crunch of the door on his side against earth, the rolling shock of impact as people tumbled over and over. When his head was thrown against metal, a sharp pain followed.
And then silence.
Bodies were everywhere, the groans of the older woman taking precedence, the sobs of her son muted and fearful. The other two occupants made no noise at all and Taris’s hands reached over.
The woman beside him still breathed—he could feel the warmth of air against his fingers—whilst the previously snoring gentleman had neither pulse nor breath, his neck arched at a strange angle.
Inky blackness now covered everything, the lamps gone and the moon tonight a slice of nothing.
His world! Easier than daylight. Throwing down his cane, he stood.
Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke could barely believe what had happened. Her head ached and her top lip was cut inside.
An accident. A terrible accident. The realisation made her shake and she clamped her mouth shut to try to hide the noise as her
