Chapter1
Wind lashed at her face,its dagger-sharp pain spasming through her flesh. The night was black as Hades, and as she hurtled down the steep descent at breakneck speed—buffeted and bounced by the nightmare fury of the bumps and jolts—the darkness was horribly disorienting.
Terror gripped every fiber of her being.
The noise—an unholy cacophony of clanging and whooshing—roared in her ears, resonating with unseen fire and ice . . . as if Hephaestus and all his legions of underworld blacksmiths were forging a special hell to trap her—
Arianna, Lady Saybrook, awoke with a scream about to tear from her throat. She choked it down and lay very still in the velvety quiet of the room, willing her heart to stop pounding like a steel cudgel against her ribs.
A bad dream.They were coming more often.
She looked over at her husband, praying her distress hadn’t woken him.
Again.
A rush of guilt prickled through her limbs at the thought.I should be stronger than this,she told herself. And yet . . .
Saybrook stirred and shifted, but to her relief, the glimmer of moonglow from the windows showed that his eyes were closed, his chiseled features softened in peaceful repose. For a long moment, Arianna stared at his face, framed by the unruly tangle of dark hair curling against the rumpled pillow, and then slipped free of the sheets and crept out of the bedchamber.
She moved noiselessly over the night-chilled corridor floor and ducked into her study, quelling a shiver as she went to stand by the bank of diamond-paned glass overlooking the back garden of their Berkeley Square townhouse. The last lushness of summer was already wilting. Colors were fading, leaves were falling, and soon the season’s life would give way to autumn . . . and then the bare bones of winter.
A prickling of gooseflesh rose on her arms. Arianna chafed her palms over the light cotton of her nightrail, trying to dispel the feeling of despair. Of late, it seemed wrapped around her like a shroud, tightening, tightening—
The heat of Saybrook’s body suddenly tingled down her spine as he came up behind her and placed his hands on her hips. “Another nightmare?”
“Just thinking about the upcoming book,” she lied, “and trying to decide on which artist to choose for the illustrations.” Her longtime project of researching the culinary history ofTheobroma cacao—or chocolate—and editing the recipes and diaries of Saybrook’s Spanish grandmother had recently attracted the attention of a prominent London bookseller, who had made a proposal to publish it, complete with botanical engravings. The offer should have pleased her immensely, and yet she felt nothing but a niggling sense of malaise.
“A big decision,” he murmured. “But both women are very talented. You can’t go wrong.”
Arianna nodded, not daring to look around and see the flicker of worry in his eyes. She hated what she was doing to him.
“Come back to bed,” he said, pulling her closer and touching a kiss to the nape of her neck.
Slipping free, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I will shortly. I’m just going to go downstairs and brew a cup of chocolate.”
Chapter2
“How is she?”After flashing a smile of thanks at the butler who had announced her, Sophia Kirtland entered the earl’s library later that morning and made herself at home in one of the leather armchairs by the hearth. A fire was lit, the red-gold coals crackling with a mellow cheer as the flames danced up from the grate.
“Unchanged,” answered Saybrook. He put down his pen and leaned back from his desk. “I confess, I am hard-pressed to know what to do next.”
Sophia nodded in sympathy. She had known the earl for some years through their mutual scientific interests, and despite a fraught beginning, she and Arianna had become the closest of friends—and partners in more than a few dangerous intrigues. “Does Baz have no further suggestions?”
Basil Henning, a crusty former military surgeon who had served with Saybrook during the Peninsular War, was also part of their close-knit circle of friends, as was the earl’s great-aunt Constantina, the dowager Marchioness of Sterling.
“His latest counsel is that time will heal.” A muscle twitched as Saybrook’s jaw tightened. “And as he loathes platitudes even more than I do, it’s a sign that he, too, is baffled.”
“It’s as if the life has gone out of her,” said Sophia softly.
Saybrook bowed his head, wreathing his face in shadows.
“Merciful heavens—forgive me. I didn’t mean . . .” Sophia gave him an anguished look. “What a horribly insensitive thing to say.”
He closed his eyes for an instant. “But no less true.”
Arianna had suffered an unfortunate trauma in her youth that had apparently left her incapable of conceiving a child. But this past summer, much to the couple’s surprised delight, she had found herself pregnant . . .
Only to suffer a miscarriage.
