Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Moreland Park Estate, Norfolk.
The crescent moon above was only fleetingly visible as the dark and rain-filled clouds scuttered heavily across the midnight sky, the storm they brought with them raging down onto the sandy beach below.
Occasional streaks of lightning forked down to the churning sea, briefly lighting up the night sky.
Julian leaned low over the mane of his stallion as he urged that powerful beast to gallop faster still through the churning sea-foam.
But they still weren’t fast enough to outrun the incoming tide as it crashed dramatically onto the mile-long stretch of beach that signified the western border of Julian’s estate.
Julian had lost his hat within minutes of leaving the stables and cantering down onto the dunes.
A hat that had been tossed up in the air and then carried out to sea on one of those fierce and relentless waves.
Within seconds, his dark hair had become soaking wet, and the rain was pelting against his face in stinging blows before cascading in a cold torrent to soak uncomfortably into his clothing.
Despite that discomfort, the wildness of the storm perfectly suited Julian’s mood.
Even if inwardly, he also cursed the reason for this turmoil of emotions.
Bloody secretaries.
He had no idea why he had thought this new one would be any different from the ones who’d come before. He had perhaps made that assumption because this person came with the personal recommendation of Julian’s friend Gabriel Lord, the Duke of St. Albans.
But it seemed, as that secretary had not arrived ‘by the end of the month,’ as St. Albans had informed Julian would be the case in the letter he had received from his friend two weeks ago, that even that forceful gentleman was incapable of ensuring a secretary would travel to Norfolk with the intention of taking up employment with Julian.
And why should he have thought it would be any different this time, when there had been a constant flow of such secretaries wafting through Moreland Park these past two years.
Wafting, because all of them had lasted only a matter of days or weeks once they realized he was that Julian Sotherby, the Duke of Moreland.
The same man everyone, both locally and in England’s capital, believed was responsible for killing his own wife.
Bloody Annabel.
When they met three years ago, the war with Napoleon was newly over, and, no longer needed to fight in Wellington’s army, Julian had returned to England.
To a country not untouched by the war, because so many young men had been killed during the years of warfare.
But it was a country, and a people, who represented the beauty of the England Julian had been fighting to protect.
Annabel had seemed especially so. She had been thirteen years younger than his own age of three and thirty, her golden hair and innocent beauty representing everything Julian had fought to protect. He had also believed his immediate attraction to her to be reciprocated.
Until the two of them were married, and Annabel, even on their wedding night, had spurned even the slightest of intimacies Julian attempted to initiate.
Because she had been so much younger than him, Julian had believed her to simply be nervous at the idea of a physical union. He had determined to be a patient and loving husband, believing only time and familiarity were needed to ease Annabella’s reservations.
Ha!
Time and familiarity had only seen the increased deterioration of their relationship. To a degree that, after only six months of that sterile marriage, they could barely stand to be in the same room together, let alone share a bed.
By their first anniversary, Julian knew that an annulment was the only answer to the intolerable situation he now found himself living in.
Annabel was willing to be neither companion nor lover, and as a result, Julian felt neither married nor unmarried.
Instead, he was caught in a torturous limbo between the two.
He had also been forced to accept that Annabel’s sole reason for marrying him had to be because of the Moreland name and fortune. The former was prestigious, the latter extensive, and Annabel obviously enjoyed both while doing nothing to fulfill her side of the marriage.
Julian felt not only used but also deeply foolish for ever having allowed himself to be blinded by Annabel’s beauty and an innocent warmth that was now sadly lacking.
It was not only a miserable existence but an unacceptable one.
One answer might have been for Julian to take a mistress, for both companionship and sexual release. But Julian had an aversion to doing so when his own father’s history of having numerous mistresses over the years had repeatedly belittled and hurt Julian’s mother.
Julian might have felt no hope for the continuation of his marriage as it was, but he had still not wanted to hurt Annabel. He simply saw no way forward with their marriage when she had made it clear she did not want anything to do with him.
Which was why he had suggested they separate and eventually bring a formal end to the marriage.
Annabel had refused to even discuss the subject. Repeatedly. Indeed, the two of them had argued about it again the morning Annabel disappeared, her last words as she left the house being that she intended to take a long walk, alone, along the beach.
She never returned from that walk, and after extensive searches, both near and far, Julian was eventually forced to accept that his wife must have somehow been swept away and drowned in the fierceness of the North Sea.
Much as Julian regretted the loss of any young life, he could not say he mourned the absence of Annabel’s presence.
After being everything that was agreeable during their very brief courtship, her words had been cutting and her manner disdainful toward him once they were married.
She had told Julian repeatedly that she neither loved nor desired him.
The coldness of her words and demeanor had succeeded in killing any love Julian might once have felt for her.
Consequently, her disappearance meant that he felt only relief at no longer having to suffer through Annabel’s silence or hurtful barbs.
But he very quickly realized, as the rumors began to circulate of his having possibly followed his wife to the beach that day and killed her before disposing of her body, that he should probably have made more of an effort to appear the grieving, rather than relieved, widower.
Friends like the Dukes of St. Albans and Hellsmere had stood by him, of course, believing his claim of innocence in the matter. But even they could not halt the flow of gossip which followed Julian wherever he went.
That speculation had become unbearable when he dared to set foot in London in the spring following Annabel’s disappearance. Within days of being bombarded by that relentless gossip, he had retreated back to Norfolk, and here he had remained ever since.
Alone.
And, if he were honest, lonely.
Which now brought him to the realization that the reason he was so angry at the non-appearance of his new secretary was because he had been looking forward to their company.
Even if it had only been for the few days it had taken his new employee to realize he was the duke suspected of murdering his wife.
Damn it, he didn’t need anyone!
Least of all a secretary who would no doubt judge and condemn him the moment they learned who he was.
With that resolution in mind, Julian pulled on the reins before urging Shadow to gallop across the sandy beach and traverse up the dunes, before then emerging onto the rough track at the back entrance to Moreland Park that led directly to the stables.
Once he reached the house, he would strip out of his wet clothing and enjoy the luxury of sitting in a hot bath to get warm.
Once he was refreshed and in dry clothing, he would then go downstairs to his library and indulge in the decanter of brandy sitting waiting, with a glass, on the table next to his chair beside the warmth of the fire.
There was certainly nothing and no one who might object if he should become slightly inebriated—
Julian barely had time to register the approach of the horses and carriage on the rutted track. The sound of the raging storm had muffled their presence, and Shadow, alarmed, now reared up on his powerful hind legs.
Unfortunately, the two horses pulling the carriage were equally as startled and also reared. The driver of the vehicle let out a warning shout before the front legs of the three equines fell back to earth at the same time.
The hooves of the nearest horse crashed down onto Shadow’s heaving side, dislodging Julian’s booted foot from the stirrup and knocking him off-balance.
Faced with releasing the reins and controlling his fall or being crushed beneath the hooves of the two still plunging horses attached to the carriage, Julian chose to let go.
His last thought before one of those churning hooves struck him a glancing blow on the side of his head as he fell was to wonder what on earth a carriage was doing traveling along this track that led only to Moreland Park, in the dark of the night, in the first place.
* * *
Georgiana had no time to gather her thoughts as she was jarred from lightly dozing on the comfortably upholstered bench seat of the St. Albans carriage to full wakefulness in a matter of seconds when the vehicle lurched to a sudden stop.
She was forced to grasp the leather hand strap to prevent herself from being thrown onto the floor.
There was the sound of several horses whinnying outside, accompanied by men shouting, no doubt the groom driving the carriage and the second groom seated beside him. Indications that Georgiana was not still asleep and had not dreamt the sounds of alarm.