He didn’tneedher, he’d insisted to his empty heart. They already hadn’t spoken since their falling-out at Crowmere Castle a few years prior. Their romance simply wasn’t meant to be.
Once Daniel had gained his confidence and entered the social whirl, he’d been immediately surrounded by beautiful women. A viscount in want of an heir could have his pick of accomplished young ladies eager to be his bride. Grandmother had even earmarked one or two “healthy chits” whose bloodlines made them especially suited for the role of future viscountess.
None had captured Daniel’s heart. Nor were the young ladies attempting to. They didn’t wanthim. They wanted the title, the money, the prestige. After all, marital unions were business transactions. The young women fully expected him to be just as dispassionate in choosing the prettiest, wealthiest, most well-connected among them to become his wife. That was how the game was played.
Someday, he knew he would have to make such a selection. But not today. Right now, Daniel wasn’t looking for a wife. He was looking for a friend. One he should never have lost.
A fortnight away from London might be precisely what he needed.
He couldn’t bear to be gone for long—this city lived in his blood; in his very breath. But he could not pass up this chance to right a wrong. He had hurt the one person who saw him as himself. Who had known him and liked him long before he’d inherited a title.
Back when they were just an awkward lad and a pretty girl standing outside a ballroom.
Daniel’s shoulders hunched in shame. The only thing fourteen-year-old Rebecca had ever asked of him was a dance. Because his disapproving grandmother had been in earshot, he had scorned her shy advance with far more vehemence than was merited.
And when his grandmother stepped forward to coldly inform Rebecca in front of all and sundry that a penniless urchin like herself was overreaching her position by daring to speak to the heir presumptive of a viscountcy, a mortified Daniel had said nothing in Rebecca’s defense. At seventeen years of age, he had been desperate for his grandmother’s approval. For anyone’s.
Now he was old enough not to care. He hadn’t spoken to Lady Octavia since his father’s funeral, where she had berated Daniel’s unworthiness to ascend to the title in front of the entire family. The caricaturists had used his humiliation as fodder for weeks.
But they weren’t laughing now. He was exactly what—and who—he was supposed to be. An exemplary viscount. An eligible bachelor. A carefree rake-about-town.
Most nights, he missed just being Daniel.
Chapter 3
Just as the last hint of sunlight slithered past the horizon, the rocky, wind-lashed terrain of Cornwall came into view. Daniel straightened his spine. The chill was already seeping through the cracks in the buffeted carriage.
The driver gulped, his gaze uncertain. “Nightfall has arrived, milord. Shall I find a posting-house?”
Daniel shook his head, his skin tingling from the close proximity to Crowmere Castle. “No. Let’s keep going. We’re almost there.”
Even as he said the words, the monstrous castle rose from the darkness, its looming towers an even deeper black than the interminable night enshrouding them.
A familiar prickle danced across his clammy skin as the carriage rattled over the ancient bridge across the long-dry moat, and on through a massive iron gate. The castle looked darker than he remembered. Larger. More menacing.
Rebecca was somewhere inside those walls. He just had to find her.
He dashed from the carriage and up the slick stone steps toward the castle as torrents of rain spilled from the black, thunderous sky.
The horrendous downpour was not only a fitting welcome back to the castle grounds, but the only weather he ever recalled Crowmere Castle having. If the sun happened to shine over the sparse seaside village of Delmouth, the castle would still be buffeted by icy winds and cloaked in shadow.
Ignoring the sheet of rain cascading from the brim of his beaver hat, he reached for the brass doorknocker dangling from the maw of a stone lion.
The door swung open before his fingers even touched the knocker. Yet no one presented himself.
Daniel straightened his spine. No sense dallying. Time to head straight into the mouth of the beast.
Morris, the castle’s longtime butler, strode into the entryway just as Daniel slid his soaked top hat from his head.
No point in asking who had opened the door, given that the butler was only now arriving. Crowmere Castle never had answers. Only a surfeit of questions.
“Lord Stonebury.” The butler smiled. “Right on time. Your chamber has been readied.”
Daniel didn’t smile back. Nor did he know how he could be right on time, when he hadn’t sent word of his impending arrival because evenhehadn’t known for certain when he would arrive.
As the butler divested Daniel of his wet outer garments, a quartet of footmen emerged from a darkened corridor without being summoned and marched outside to the waiting carriage.
Daniel eyed the castle’s dark interior with apprehension. If the servants knew he was coming, why the devil couldn’t they light a sconce or two?
