Chapter One
It had not occurred to Reverend Jonah Sinclair that traveling in the dark on a rain-soaked country road might lead him to his death.
Rather an oversight on his part. His formative years in Southwark’s alleyways had cultivated a healthy fear of the dangers that could greet him in the shadows. And presently, he was far from the relative safety of the known unknowns of South London.
Eleven hours of travel—nine by train, two by stifling coach, all amidst a downpour—had landed him in a place deserted by human civilization.
Somewhere in the rain and the dark and mists surrounding him was the Earl of Rochford’s estate, and his assignment for the next month. It had been no small feat to position himself for it. His hopes and expectations of what lay ahead were unfairly high.
First, he had to find the bloody place. An endeavor that would have been simple if the aristocrats who had engaged his services had remembered to send their carriage.
With his temper flaring, he trudged his way up the hill from the coaching stop to the lone public house in the village, identifiable by a withering wooden sign bearing the name The Saltcoat. As he strode inside, he avoided thinking about the damage the mud was inflicting upon his best suit.
Mustering the swagger that had helped him survive a host of awkward circumstances, Jonah walked past the sparse collection of patrons cataloguing his every movement and approached the narrow wooden bar.
“Good evening,” he began.
No one acknowledged the sound of his voice.
His simmering ire prevented him from softening his accent and his posture. “Would any of you be kind enough to point me in the direction of Ravenglass Hall?”
The men standing by him, along with the barman and barmaid, all turned away in an eerily synchronous movement.
As cold dismissals went, it was one of the frostiest he could recollect.
But he’d grown accustomed to setbacks and fending for himself.
Twenty years ago, he’d been robbed of everything he loved.
Two things had powered his survival: the determination to right the injustices served upon his family, and a healthy anger.
Harnessing the second in service of the first, Jonah marched out of the tavern, his vexation blinding him to any semblance of the direction where he headed. It did not take long to realize he was absolutely stranded, alone in a country wilderness.
In the disorienting shadows of the soaking evening, a seed of regret at his impulsivity sprouted. As he contemplated swallowing his pride and turning back to the tavern, a preternatural cry sounded on the moor.
The ground shook, heralding a beast rising out of the fog.
Jonah wouldn’t have dared called the creature a horse; that was far too earthly a comparison. It sped toward him as if it had escaped straight from the ninth circle of hell.
Unholy thoughts clouded his brain. Unholier curses tumbled from his lips. He was pleased to discover the passage of time and years of service in Her Majesty’s Church had not scrubbed them from his memory.
The shriek of the wind rose over the roar of approaching hooves. This was the exact reason Jonah avoided Gothic novels like vermin; he preferred interacting with the supernatural in the controlled boundaries of the King James Bible.
Through the sheets of rain, he spotted a slight figure mounted on top of the enormous steed. Was the rider attempting to bring the monster under control? Or did he urge it on, hoping he might flatten a weary traveler to the ground?
A shrill cry sounded from the rider. Was it a warning? An apology? A prayer?
“MOVE OUT OF THE BLEEDING WAY, YOU DAFT FOOL!”
With a screeching whinny, the beast reared up before him, a black wall of menacing horseflesh. As lightning flashed around them, Jonah braced his arms over his head and curled himself into a protective crouch, precisely as the hell-beast tossed its rider from the saddle.
A moment of raw stillness followed.
The rain relented, revealing where the rider lay motionless on the path.
Jonah staggered across the short distance toward the body. With a deep breath and a short prayer, he kneeled down to examine the fallen man.
The crash of two thick skulls meeting each other upended his balance. He slipped on the drenched ground, falling on top of the rider, who protested wildly by snarling in a manner more feral than a quayside cat. The body entwined with his was as scrappy and slim as one. He had to be a young lad.
“Get off of me!”
“I’m trying!” Jonah protested as they tussled in the mud. Muck worked its way beneath the collar he’d starched himself, to make a good impression for the toffs who’d forgotten him. The potential embarrassment he’d face if he ever arrived at his destination burned energy into his limbs.
An instinct he thought he’d long retired kicked in and he rolled, quickly pinning the rider’s shoulders by pressing his own weight into the lad’s chest.
And therein, he discovered a very distinct set of curves that most decidedly did not belong to a young man.
The body beneath him hissed.
Jonah scrambled away and staggered to his feet. With his last remaining ounce of sense, he extended his hand to the rider.
The woman he’d just groped in the darkness.
“My humblest apologies. Are you hurt?”
Ignoring his attempt at civility, she rose without touching him and hastily pulled her drenched scarf closer to her face.
In the darkness, he couldn’t distinguish any of her features, only a dark spark somewhere in the vicinity of her eyes.
An alluring scent of citrus permeated the space between them.
“You are lucky to be alive, you absolute lob.”
Her voice was gruff and a little breathless, but the insult didn’t sting him. He’d been called much worse.
“My sincere apologies. As you may have deciphered, I’m spectacularly lost,” Jonah confessed, hoping the rider might appreciate such honesty.
Her corresponding silence implied she did not.
With a swish of a cape, she swirled past him and gathered the horse’s reins. At the soothing brush of its master’s hand, the stallion quieted.
Jonah debated offering to help her mount, but by the time he untied his tongue, she was already swinging up into the saddle. Once seated, she paused as if she was evaluating him. Intensely. Impossible to tell in the dim light, but he sensed, rather than saw, she was quietly fuming.
He had a somewhat unhinged notion to ask her to take him with her wherever she was headed, so that neither of them would have to face the night alone.
“I regret any…inconvenience I may have caused you,” he said roughly. “If you’d be kind enough to help me get my bearings, I will trouble you no longer.”
A lifetime passed before she replied, “Where do you wish to go?”
“Ravenglass Hall. Do you know it?”
“Yes.”
“There was supposed to be a carriage to meet the coach,” he explained. “But it seems there was a misunderstanding with the directions I received from the estate steward.”
“What business have you with him?”
Cheeky of her to be so demanding of his private matters when she clearly had her own secrets to hide. He could not judge her for it. There were too many reasons why a woman might be dressed in such clothes and traveling in such haste by herself on a miserable night.
She was not the mystery he needed to solve. His own mission would fail if he remained stranded in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, lost and sopping and, now that he thought of it, starving.
“I’m Reverend Jonah Sinclair. The Bishop of London has sent me to tutor the Earl of Rochford’s ward.”
He couldn’t determine if the snort came from the horse or its rider, or if it was merely the gusts rising again as the rain pounded.
A hazy limb extended toward the village. “Return to the Saltcoat and follow the post road east for another mile.”
Glancing at the direction she pointed toward, he loosened a sigh of relief before turning back to thank her.
But she’d already vanished into the darkened lane.