Page 5 of Wolfhaven

This man, however…she wasn’t beholden to him. Her resolve wavered.

Suddenly, a large hand manacled her wrist. His eyelids shot open, and he dragged her close with terrifying strength.

“Marina?” he rasped.

Abruptly, it dawned on Evaine that she was alone, in a forest, with a strange man, miles from anyone who could help her if he chose to commit violence. Any remaining qualms disappeared in a burst of fear that tore through her. She jerked away hard enough to land on her rear, scrambled to her feet, and ran as fast as she could back to the cottage.

Chapter 3

Gareth

Marina was dead.

Yet when he had touched her, she felt like living flesh. Warm. Real.

Alive.

Gareth shook his aching head, trying to clear it. His vision doubled, and trying to focus only made his head hurt more. Had he been unconscious for a few minutes, or hours?

A flash of red darted away down the trail. Not a ghost, then. But Marina was dead, and it was his fault…

Nearby, his horse stomped the ground. Someone had tied it to a tree branch. Gareth loosened the knot and tossed the reins over the animal’s neck. He was about to try to put his foot in the stirrup when the sight of an overturned basket stopped him cold.

Not a ghost. A real person. But what was a woman doing on his ancestral hunting grounds?

Cogswell had mentioned an old woman and her granddaughter living in the hunting lodge. Gareth had thought he meant a child. Perhaps the woman he’d glimpsed was a child and he’d simply misjudged her age, given his concussed state.

He scowled. Wolfhaven was no place for her to be, whomever she was.

Wincing, he bent to retrieve the basket and discovered a tattered book lying nearby, A Guide to Foraging in Yorkshire. A girl might entertain herself with a book on foraging and collecting useless horse chestnuts. Or throwing them at passers-by. He flipped to a page on mushrooms and sighed.

“I don’t have time for this, Marina,” he muttered. Since arriving yesterday, he had fallen into the odd habit of talking to his father’s ward as if she were still here to listen. Perhaps she was. He’d certainly felt her restless spirit last night as he tossed and turned in his musty bed, in the slamming of a loose shutter on a gust of wind, in the creak of wood as the temperature fell overnight.

He tied the basket to his saddle and pulled himself onto the horse’s back, grimacing. Gareth had come this direction with a purpose. Despite his aching head, he was not going to allow a woman in a red cloak to deter him from visiting Marina’s grave.

He was forced to maintain a plodding pace on his way to the family’s burial plot, which was situated on a rise just beyond the decrepit apple orchard. Once upon a time, his sire had used the apples to lure deer from the trees for easy shooting. The previous Lord Lucan had never played fair. Always had to win, whatever the game. Even against a weaker opponent.

Especially against a weaker opponent.

The horse tried to veer off in search of apples that had fallen to the ground, but Gareth guided his mount past the orchard and up the hill. By the time he arrived at the top, he was clinging to the pommel and breathing hard. His knees buckled when his feet hit the ground. His head ached fiercely, but he managed to stay upright.

That little brat would pay for striking him with a chestnut.

A swell of nausea caused him to brace his hand against the stone of an ornate mausoleum. He let the wave bring up his breakfast and a good bit of bile, too. The disgusting mess splattered all over the marble façade.

“That’s enough of a family reunion for today, Father.” He pushed away from the edifice and feeling markedly improved, sought out a much smaller grave several feet away. The weathered headstone depicted a lamb and a dove. Inscribed upon it were the words, Marina Corbett, September 21, 1869 – January 17, 1885. A gentle soul gone before her time.

Gareth crouched to brush away the dirt that had accumulated there. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a single rose with a short stem that had been trimmed of any thorns and placed it on the ground near the headstone, thinking of the last time he had seen this gentle soul alive—wild-eyed with grief and fury, backlit by the flames that would consume her slender body along with the entire north wing of Wolfhaven.

“I am sorry I couldn’t make things right.” He sighed heavily. “I never should have left you here. I still would have married you despite losing the child.”

He hadn’t loved her in the romantic sense, but he had cared for his foster sister. Marina had been his father’s ward for eight years by that point, entrusted to the duke’s care by an old family friend—a trust the previous duke violated in every sense of the word.

Arriving home from university for the Christmas holiday during that bitterly cold December of 1884, Gareth had been shocked and appalled to discover his sire forcing himself upon his ward. This behavior had been going on for some time. Marina tearfully confided that she was expecting a child by the duke. Gareth had done the only thing he could think of to salvage a terrible situation and proposed marriage on the spot. His father had been enraged, but Gareth threatened that if he opposed the reading of the banns in church, he would expose what the duke had done.

For three Sundays in a row, the banns were read out in church. The duke seethed but kept his mouth shut. But with his studies resuming after Twelfth Night, Gareth was forced to return to university alone. He couldn’t take his bride with him. Women were not permitted into the dormitories at Oxbridge. His father had cut off his allowance in retaliation. Without it, Gareth had no way to provide for Marina until they were married.

One last Sunday stood between them and safety.