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When Sloane and her maid, Milly, had weaved their horses through the thick woods on the northwest side of the hexagonal castle two days ago, scrutinizing the ancient ruddy tan stones, she’d known instantly this would be her best chance at getting into Wolfbridge unseen. The six sides of the structure were punctuated at each juncture with tall circular towers jutting into the sky, and they cloistered this side of the castle in darkness.
The castle had held a formidable seat of power once upon a time. Still so, if all the rumors she’d uncovered about the man living here were true.
She swallowed a deep breath and looked upward. The thickness of the vines tangling their way up the side of this wall was perfect. Combined with the house party the duke was throwing moving all attention for his guests to the front and south side gardens, the timing could not be better.
She could get up and into the castle. And then she could ruin the man.
The Duke of Wolfbridge—the Wolf Duke, a lone beast that was a cold and merciless scourge upon this earth—needed to pay for his sins and she was the one that would make him do so.
Shrugging off her short dark spencer jacket and tugging off the glove from her right hand, she bundled them together and set them on the ground, tucking them in between a fat root and the castle stone so they would be hidden were anyone to stroll by. She shoved the cap sleeves of her black dress high onto her shoulders. She couldn’t afford to have the fabric cramping her movements if she was to do this as quickly as she hoped.
Adjusting the fine muslin of her dress between her legs, Sloane frowned. Breeches would have been preferable for climbing—as she would always steal her brothers’ breeches when they were young—but she had no access to male clothing at the coaching inn where she’d left Milly. The dark dress, though not a full ball gown, would suffice if someone happened by her and inquired about her presence at Wolfbridge. She could easily claim she’d just arrived for the house party, a distant relative of the duke’s. It would allow her enough margin of time to get to her horse tied beyond the tree line before the duke could verify she was an unknown.
The strains of the string ensemble playing outside from a balcony above the gardens floated into the warmth of the night air. For how cool the summer had been, steamy air had rushed the land in the last two days. With one last quick glance about her, Sloane set the toes of her boots onto the vines. Her hands searching through the leaves, she found trunk after trunk, quickly scaling up the side of the castle.
First level.
Only two more to go.
As she stretched up high with her right hand, her left hand slipped. Her muscles coiling, her right fingers snatched hard onto the nearest vine, the tips of her boots digging into the toeholds she’d found.
She stopped for one moment, her cheek resting on the cool green leaves as she stared at her left hand, shaking it.
She’d kept her left glove on but now regretted it. The leather was starting to slip with the night dew on the leaves.
Or was it her strength that failed her? As much as she’d tried to deny it, her left arm had never been as strong as it once was since the fire.
Damn her weak limb.
She flipped her head, setting her left cheek onto the leaves. She looked up, finding her line again in the shadows of the moon. She had to do this. Had to make it up there. She’d been planning this for too long for it to slip away because of a slippery glove.
A grimace set onto her lips and she clamped her left fingers hard around the vine they’d just slipped from.
Up. Only up.
Right toes solid. Arm up. Left toes solid. Arm up. Up. Up.
She was almost there. The vines were getting thin, but she was almost there. Two more hand clasps and she could wedge her foot onto the sill of the window.
She reached up with her right hand, stretching to her full length, lifting on the toes of her right foot. Risky, but she had to make it to the next vine.
The tingle started, sudden. Sudden and paralyzing, flooding her left arm.
Her left hand lost all feeling.
She grasped with her right. A clump of leaves.
Only leaves.
Their thin stems plucked—one tiny break after another—from the vine.
She slipped backward before she even knew what was happening.
Into the air.
The warm summer breeze cocooned her, almost comforting her as she fell.
Down.
