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“Now, now.” He put his hands up in mock surrender. “I suppose that’s only fair. But come, jokes aside—you’re sharp enough to see a man of any sense would seek to entail Belmaine. As it stands, your father shall be the last Viscount St. Quinton to ever draw breath, devil take how many baby boys your husband gets on you.”

“Of course I know that, you beastly man!”

It was the eternal sore spot in her family, a wound separate from the very human grief of having lost Edmund, the brother and son. Had there been some ‘disreputable cousin,’ Sophie wouldn’t bear the mantle of responsibility. She would be freed from her parents’ expectations, as well as any objections they might have to her choices. Would be. If there were.

“But you’re wrong, about the entail,” she said, her forefinger running idly up and down the inside of her thumb. “There is no one. My family is different.”

“Is that a challenge?” Hansbury was back to leaning heavily on the railing, but he twisted his great torso toward her, squinting in the sun. “Because I must warn you, Miss St. Quinton, I’ve never been able to resist such a thing.”

“If it were”—her heart pulsed with stupid hope—“what would you do about it?”

“Why, I’d go straight to my old man, then to the Public Record Office, hunt the fellow down, and drag him by his neck to London to prove it to you.” He was studying her, or, at least she thought he was. He had screwed up his face into an awful, sun-blistered expression. “Probably not advisable, given an entail would rob you of your home, one day.”

“That’s not all it would do.” Sophie swallowed. She turned toward the door and squared her shoulders, adjusting the reticule strings on her wrist. The weight of the bag’s contents had worn deep lines in her skin. She tried to massage them away. “I do challenge you, Lord Hansbury. Let me know if you prove successful.”

She nodded to the footman standing inside, not waiting for him to fully open the door before she walked off without a backward glance.

twenty-seven

Meanwhile, in Hampshire

He was a few miles inland, but Rafe sensed the ocean’s nearness acutely. It revealed itself in the windswept, salty air, the flattening grassland, the thready cawing of gulls in the distance. His mount, a chestnut mare picked up at the last coaching inn, pricked her ears in the direction of the Tudor gatehouse ahead.

The monstrous grey design struck him much as it had the first time he’d laid eyes on it eight years earlier. Nothing marked it with the words Locks Heath Asylum, but then, why would it, when the families of its inhabitants paid so dearly for discretion? The place might’ve been a medieval monastery still, or a great country house. Only burning memories prevented Rafe from doubting he had arrived at the right location.

He dismounted a short distance from the arcing wooden doors. If there was still birdsong, it was drowned out by the wind boxing his ears. He scarcely heard his own footsteps in the dirt as he led the mare forward and clasped one of the iron door knockers.

His three raps sounded flat, the opposite of hollow, as if he were knocking on drought-hardened soil and expecting a reply. After long moments of silence, he rapped again. The fear that had taken up residence two days past flared to life in the back of his mind. Had his father beat him here?

Forty-odd miles into his journey, he’d stopped at an inn in Farnham to change horses and been delayed. There had been no mounts available, and so Rafe had been forced to give his horse—and himself—a few hours rest and a meal. They had been traveling in pelting rain, the cold, ground-splitting kind that seeped into one’s bones. The poor animal had been pitiful in its exhaustion.

It had seemed reasonable, then, that Chenoweth would have insisted on rest for his own team. That Rafe’s brief delay, which hadn’t amounted to more than three hours, would not have set him behind. But now, staring up at the mute turrets and their small, blank windows, doubt returned. The coach had been packed with a pistol. Chenoweth doubtless would have wanted to provide his animals with the best care, but he might have been forced to whip them onward. What if I’m too late? What if he’s inside, even now?

One of the doors groaned opened, and Rafe’s mare pedaled backward, jerking his right arm, which held the reins. A woman appeared on the other side of the door. Her face was youthful, with full cheeks and huge, dark eyes. The top of her mobcap-clad head scarcely reached the handle she gripped. When she spoke, her voice was mousy, and she ducked her chin.

“How might I help you, sir?”

The thought of his father standing where he did now, armed and furious against this small creature, crystallized all Rafe’s reasons for coming. “I am here to call on the proprietress, Mrs. Langworthy.” He hoped the delicate emphasis on his words would disarm the woman, who he presumed to be a nurse or servant. I know what this place is, he begged his demeanor to convey. I’ve no intention of harming you.

She eyed him warily, looking up and down his sodden form. He hadn’t stopped long enough during his journey to let his clothes fully dry by the fire. Even now, he felt the clammy dampness of his trousers against the backs of his knees, the sogginess of his neckcloth at his nape.

“Mr. Langworthy has recently passed, sir. The missus is in mourning, and answers to a new proprietor, besides.”

“That is, in large part, why I’ve come. I promise you, ma’am, I should not waste much of her time.”

Her expression did not alter.

Rafe took a fractional step forward. “Please. I would not be here, were it not of great importance.”

The woman swallowed and looked down. She wore an overlarge white apron atop a checkered dress, and the hem of both were soiled, as if she often trod on the excess fabric. “Might I have a card?”

“Of course.” He fumbled in his breast pocket.

She took the limp, white calling card, studying it for several seconds before clearing the way for his entrance. “If you would wait in the courtyard, sir. You may tie up your horse just there, and someone will see to it.”

Wait, indeed. Long, vexatious minutes passed. He felt boxed in, standing on the outskirts of the large courtyard. The sky, grey with fast-moving clouds, did nothing to make him feel less hemmed in, for everything in sight was the same stony shade.

Pavers lined the courtyard. Large block built up the walls around him, subtle changes in mortar indicating additions and renovations made over the course of four centuries. What might have once been a long gallery was now a block of cells for patients, many of the windows shuttered tightly and bolted from the outside. His mother had only confessed to being exceedingly lonely during her tenure here. She was afraid of men who bore even a fleeting resemblance to her husband—there was no wondering about the origins of that fear, and no real concern that her time at Locks Heath had worsened it. Besides having male proprietors, the asylum only took in female patients, and staffed female nurses, maids, and cooks. But her fear of the darkness …