Chapter 1
Whispers flew around the Blackfen tavern like sparks from a blacksmith’s forge, folks leaning in close over their ale mugs.
The coach flew like a thing gone mad, every jolt slamming Verity’s spine against the seat’s back. Its wheels skidded upon the treacherous glaze that coated every rut and hollow, slewing from side to side in a manner that set her heart pounding against her ribs.
The world outside the coach window was a blur of gray sky and swirling flakes. Snow had buried the world until even the hedgerows were gone and she could no longer tell where the road ended and the wilderness began.
She sat alone upon the narrow bench, the empty space around her seeming to whisper that she was the only soul foolish enough to flee toward the north in winter. For a moment, she thought about how bravery felt very close to foolishness, especially when one had nothing left to lose.
Her gloved fingers clutched the frayed leather strap overhead with desperate strength, knuckles aching as another violent lurch threatened to pitch her to the floor. The coach rocked and groaned, springs creaking in protest.
She had wanted for speed, knowing the mail coaches stopped for no one and nothing, but now she wondered if the haste would be the death of her.
Which would be her second death, because Abigail Pike had died in Somerset. She was Verity Hale now. The name felt strange upon her tongue, like a garment borrowed from another woman’s wardrobe.
The vicar’s daughter who had believed in love and honor and the gentle promises of a curate’s smile was gone.
In her place sat this pale, determined creature bound for Blackfen Castle and the position of paid companion to the Dowager Countess Blackfen, Lady Honoria Northwood.
A lady of gentle birth but fading mind, the advertisement had said.
It was not the life Verity had once envisioned, of a modest parsonage and children’s laughter and the quiet respect of a country parish, but it was her life now. It was distance from the whispers that had followed her like a foul odor. It was survival.
She heard the coach guard’s horn, sharp and brassy even through glass and wind. The coach shuddered as it slowed. When she wiped a circle in the frost-clouded pane, a small inn emerged from the blur.
Verity pressed her face to the frost-laced window, wiping a clear circle with her sleeve. Through the swirling flakes she beheld Blackfen village, barely more than a collection of stone cottages huddled together against the vast emptiness. She had arrived.
In front of her rose the inn, its sign creaking upon icy chains.
She also spied a large smithy and a chapel from the time of the Dissolution.
Across the green, the village shop windows glowed gold, the only warm thing she had seen in days, and she found herself leaning toward that light like a moth.
She heard the guard unlocking the mail trunk at the rear. The carriage shook as he descended, his boots crunching through the snow crust while he rushed toward the shop with the leather mailbag slung over his shoulder.
Verity pushed open the door and looked down at the iron steps glazed with ice. Her half boots skidded on the first step, slick and unforgiving.
“Drat this weather,” she muttered, gathering her skirts higher than any lady ought, and jumping the remaining distance. She landed upon the icy roadway, feet skidding dangerously before she caught herself on the door frame with a gasp.
The coachman glared at her. He was red-faced beneath his layers of scarves. “Be quick about it, miss. We’ll not be standing here all day over a trunk.”
Verity straightened her bonnet with trembling fingers. “Pray assist me, sir.”
Ostlers appeared from the stables in a flurry of activity, leading out fresh horses. The coachman grumbled something about not being paid to wait on southern lasses and their blasted baggage, turning his attention impatiently back toward the fresh team of horses.
Panic flared hot in Verity’s breast. The mail coaches were merciless. They waited for no one. Knowing the carriage would depart any moment, she raced forward and scrambled up the ladder at the rear, gloved fingers clawing at the frozen ropes that secured her small travel trunk.
It was everything she owned now. Some serviceable gowns in sturdy wool and muslin.
A few precious volumes from her father’s library, their pages rich with wisdom and comfort.
And tucked carefully in a velvet pouch, a couple of pieces of jewelry.
Nothing fancy, just worthless Pinchbeck pieces that mimicked gold and pearls, but they had been her mother’s and held sentimental value beyond measure.
The ropes refused to yield. Verity ripped off her gloves with her teeth when she proved unsuccessful, stuffing them into her coat pocket and attacking the knots with numb fingers that swiftly turned scarlet in the biting air.
She could not lose this trunk. It was her past bound in battered leather, her fragile bridge to whatever future awaited at Blackfen Castle.
A heavy sigh sounded behind her. The gruff coachman had taken pity on her at last.
“Down with ye, lass,” he bellowed, climbing up next to her. His calloused hands yanked at the ropes, lifting her small trunk free. “Catch!”
Verity barely reached the ground before he heaved it over the side. She watched in dismay as it flew down at her, bracing herself and catching it with both arms outstretched.
The impact slammed into her embrace with bruising force, but she held fast as it threatened to slip out of her hands, heaving it upwards, and staggering backward into the snow.
Before she could utter a word of thanks, the coach departed in a flurry of snow and harness jingles, disappearing down the road while fresh flakes filled the air where it had been.
She stood alone in the village street, the trunk clutched desperately to her chest. Her arms trembled violently from the effort, her breath coming in shaky puffs that crystallized instantly in the frigid air.
Then, the crying began. Snowflakes settled upon her lashes and melted into tears that traced paths down her cheeks. Slowly, carefully, she lowered the trunk to the ground. The tears came stronger, warm and unstoppable, leaking with all the emotions she felt.
There was relief that she had arrived. Exhaustion from the endless days of jolting travel and gnawing fear.
Grief for the life she had lost, the name she had buried.
She wept without sound, shoulders shaking beneath her cloak, until the cold forced her to straighten and wipe her face with a trembling hand.
Security lay ahead now, if she could only reach the castle. The letter had been clear in its instructions. The earl’s man would meet her outside the shop at the appointed hour.
Verity drew a steadying breath, the cold air knife-sharp in her lungs, and hefted the trunk once more. Embracing it vertically against her body like a shield, she trudged across the green, each step a battle as her inadequate half boots sank deep into snow that reached mid-calf.
The thin leather offered no protection against the biting cold that clawed its way through to her toes. Already she could feel her feet beginning to grow numb, and she worried about the painful swelling that would follow if she did not soon find warmth.
The village was eerily quiet, most of its inhabitants driven indoors by the storm. Verity’s cloak snapped about her legs, and she bowed her head against the stinging flakes that needled her face.
Her mind wandered as she walked, drifting back to warmer days in Somerset when winter meant only a brisk nip in the air and the cheerful crackle of a parlor fire. How far she had fallen from those gentle certainties.
As she approached the village shop, a knot of villagers caught her eye.
They stood in a somber cluster near the edge of the green, staring down at something upon the ground with expressions of mingled horror and grim resignation.
Curiosity overrode her discomfort, and Verity altered her path slightly, drawing near enough to see what held their attention.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Blood. Bright, arterial crimson splashed across the pristine snow like paint flung from a mad artist’s brush. It was already frozen into dark, crystalline patterns.
Strange prints led away from the blood, what appeared to be the tracks of some beast. Huge paw marks, each one deep enough to swallow her hand.
The sight sent ice crawling up her spine. With each print came deep claw marks that gouged the frozen earth. The villagers muttered in low, uneasy voices that carried snatches on the wind.
“Did ye hear the wolves howling last night? Like souls dragged down to hell itself.”
“‘Tis the work of the devil, mark my words.”
“Warn the children to stay close. No one ventures near the forest after dark.”
Verity came to a halt, the trunk suddenly forgotten in her arms. Wolves? In England? The words echoed absurdly in her mind, as impossible as tales of faeries dancing in moonlit glades.
She had read of such creatures in her father’s books, fierce predators with glowing eyes and ravenous jaws, but they had been eradicated from the British Isles centuries ago. Hunted to extinction by king and commoner alike.
But the blood was real enough, vivid against the white, and the paw prints were unmistakable. Too large for any dog, even the massive hounds kept by northern lords.
Had she somehow slipped through time itself during the interminable coach journey?
The talk of howling sounded like something from novels, not rational conversation in a modern English village.
Yet the villagers spoke with the grim certainty of those who had seen too much, their faces etched with fear that went bone-deep.
A large man detached himself from the crowd and approached her, his steps crunching through the snow.