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“What’s happened?” asked Daniel, a rising tide of panic in his voice.
“I’ll explain in the carriage,” answered Sir Malcolm.
“But I rode Jupiter here,” said Daniel. “Can’t I ride him home?”
“We’ll have a groom return him,” said India’s mother.
“Come,” said his mother softly.
Daniel gave India a wobbly smile and joined his mother and Sir Malcolm without another word of protest.
After their carriage departed, India’s mother turned to her. “Your father wishes to speak with you.”
“What’s happened, Mother?” asked India, truly anxious now.
“The duke will explain.”
“Tell me now, please.” Forewarned was forearmed. “Did I do something wrong?”
She searched her mind for a transgression. Had she left a book out of place in his library? She was so careful, so very careful to leave everything exactly as she’d found it.
“It’s nothing about you. It’s about the Duke of Ravenwood.”
She hurried to keep up with her mother as she marched up the front steps. “What has happened? Tell me, please.”
“Scandal.”
Her mother set her lips and would say no more, no matter how India pleaded.
One word only: scandal.
How could scandal touch Daniel’s perfect family? He had a noble, even-tempered father, a doting mother, and a younger brother who worshipped him. India had always wished they could be her family.
The Duke of Ravenwood was a little absent-minded at times, but he’d encouraged her interest in antiquities and had promised to bring her back a pile of books from France.
“Compose yourself, my girl. You look a hoyden,” her mother said with a disapproving frown, stopping outside of the duke’s study.
India wiped her cheeks with her sleeves and smoothed her plaits as best she could.
Her mother laid a hand on her shoulder and steered her into the study.
Her father was slumped in a chair near the hearth.
She’d learned to swiftly gauge his moods. The bottle of brandy on the table next to him was only half gone. Good. He might still be in the jocular and expansive frame of mind. Singing bawdy songs and recounting hunting stories while the stag’s head mounted on the wall stared down with blank, unseeing eyes.
In this mood he might raise a glass to her and toast her betrothal to Ravenwood’s heir.
It was to be a financially advantageous match for her father.
She’d overheard the servants whispering about gambling debts and she’d noticed that when her father returned from his trips to London he drank even more.
She approached his chair warily, poised to run if she’d miscalculated his mood. She glanced back at her mother, who stood watching from the doorway, her pale violet eyes as blank as the eyes of the dead stag.
“Do you know what this is?” the duke snarled, holding up a piece of faded parchment.
Fear bloomed like graveyard roses in her mind, dark and filled with the scent of decaying things. She made herself as small as possible, imagining that she was a small woodland creature, too small for a mighty hunter to notice.
“No, Father. I don’t.” She kept her voice soft, her words brief. Anything could spark his rage.
