Prologue
From the Journal of Viscount Langdon
It was not an easy thing to be born the son of the Earl of Claybourne—the Devil Earl, as those of influence referred to him in whispers. My mother worked diligently to redeem his unsavory reputation in order to ensure he and his children were accepted by those who mattered. But few could forget, or were willing to overlook, the fact that he’d once killed a man.
I found it difficult to reconcile that facet of his past, as I knew him to be a kind and protective father. Although he taught me things that few sons of noblemen knew. How to secretly pull a card from the bottom of a deck. How to deftly pick a pocket. How to accurately measure a man’s worth.
But of most import, he taught me to wholly embrace and enjoy my passions.
I was six years of age the first time he took me on a journey via the railway. I fell instantly in love with the motions of the coach, the speed. I marveledat how this machine could unite the world, equalize the masses, and quickly take me on adventures. I could spend the day at the seaside and be back home in time for dinner. I could travel places with hardly any bother at all.
And I did. Often. Whenever I had the chance.
Then on a dark and stormy June night, in the year of our Lord 1878, the railway that I loved taught me that, with no warning whatsoever, life could drastically change between one heartbeat and the next.
Chapter 1
Off the Cornish Coast
April 1879
While the howling wind tore around him and the rain lashed at his upturned face, he staggered to the edge of the cliff, braced himself against nature’s wrath, and hurled the empty whisky bottle into the blackened abyss that contained monstrous waves thrashing against the rocky, sandy shore.
His harsh laughter was carried out to sea as his black greatcoat whipped around his calves, and he wondered why he’d even bothered to wear it. The brutal rain had drenched him. The wind threatened to shove him right over the edge. But he stood his ground.
And trembled.
Just as he’d trembled uncontrollably that fateful night when his world changed completely. There had been a storm then as well, as harsh and unforgiving as the one he faced now on his tiny, secluded isle. Where he came to escape the horrific memories.
Only they refused to leave him in peace. Theybattered him as vehemently and with as much fury as the tempest that surrounded him. And if he couldn’t escape them, he could at least teach himself to ignore them, to send them into the darkest recesses of his mind where they might lose the power to plague him.
Consequently, he stood there stoically and refused to allow them victory, to force him into scurrying back to the residence where a warm fire and another bottle of scotch waited. Where he could hide from the unfortunate truth that he’d gone mad.
Stark raving mad.
Oh, he did a bang-up job of giving the appearance of being the same as those who surrounded him. Moving among theton, as he had in the before time, with a lackadaisical confidence, an easy smile, and a bold laugh. He flirted with the ladies, danced with them, even charmed them. Many were hopeful of becoming wife to the Earl of Claybourne’s heir, of bearing him children. None knew he was no longer worthy of inheriting his father’s title, of carrying his own courtesy one.
However, he thought his family was beginning to suspect the truth.
In a few days, he would see them and pretend that he was again as he’d once been.
They’d pretend as well. Pretend to believe him when he told them that he came to this island to study the stars. That he required the isolation and solitude in order to devote himself to his new passion for the sky—since he’d abandoned his passion for the railway.
As soon as the Season had concluded the previous August, while everyone else had departed for their country estates, he’d come here—where a small stone castle had withstood the rigors of time and, with diligent devotion and his own hands, had become once again inhabitable. He had no companionship, no one with whom to break the monotony. No one visited him without an invitation—and he issued no invitations.
And if there were nights when the loneliness devoured him, he would endure it. He would do whatever was required to protect his secret. For the sake of his family. He would do nothing to bring his parents shame when it had taken so long for them to be accepted by their peers. He would not undo all their efforts to belong by revealing the truth that he no longer did.
But of late, the loneliness was worse than ever. Insatiable. Strengthening. Like the tempest, until it possessed the power to destroy all in its wake. To destroy him.
Yet what he yearned for most desperately at the moment was not within reach: the warmth of a woman’s soft body, the flowery fragrance of a woman’s flesh, the gentle lullaby of a woman’s sighs, the sweet taste of a woman’s lips. Still, dropping his head back and glaring at the black and fathomless star-hidden sky, he bellowed, “A woman! A woman! My kingdom for a woman!”
Lightning flashed with such brilliance, turning night into day, he had to avert his gaze, look away... look down.
And that was when he sawher.
Lying face down and motionless on the beach,bare arms outstretched as though she’d been reaching for salvation, but fallen short, waves ebbing and flowing around her, trying to lure her back into the dangerous depths. With naked legs clearly visible, appearing to be absent her frock, she was unmoving, her moonbeam hair—like tendrils of seaweed—spread Medusa-like over and around her. Had the Fates answered his cry? Or was his drunken and demented mind even more lost than he’d surmised, conjuring an apparition that appeared real enough to steal his breath?
Blackness swooped back in to conceal her. She’d been detectible for only a second, maybe two. Surely it had been a sea creature of some sort, a dolphin or an infant whale, washed upon the shore, and he’d seen only what he wanted to see: a mermaid, a siren, Neptune’s daughter. What he was suddenly desperate to find: someone to ease the wretched ache of loneliness that had taken up residence in his soul.
