Duty and Desire by Pamela Aidan

Author:Pamela Aidan [Aidan, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
Published: 2010-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

As the drivers pulled the teams to a halt at the base of the hill from which the Knights maintained their reputed vigil over the countryside, Darcy dismounted and handed the bay to a stable boy who had appeared rather suddenly from behind a less sinister outcropping. Evidently, the party had been preceded to the site by a number of Sayre’s servants. Now visible to one side was a sledge from which refreshments for the guests had been unloaded and a cheery fire prepared against their arrival. As he watched the occupants of the sleigh disembark, Darcy could not determine whether Miss Avery or Sayre was the most affected by Trenholme’s recital. Once coaxed out of the conveyance, Miss Avery made obvious her wish to stay close to her brother by clinging to his arm. Manning, just as clearly, desired her elsewhere and finally sent her over to the fire with an order to “drink something hot and try to stop behaving like a little fool.” Sayre made straight for the fire as soon as he descended, demanding a flask of whiskey be produced immediately. No sooner was the flask in his hand than he availed himself of a prodigious gulp, all the while regarding the stones with a baleful eye.

Those who had not been privy to Trenholme’s story strolled toward the path that led up to the circle of weathered, lichen-covered stones on ground swept almost clean of snow by the wind. “Come, Sayre, are you not joining us?” Trenholme called from among the other guests, displaying a glee in his brother’s fearful loss of composure that Darcy found, under the circumstances, not only distasteful but disturbing. “P’rhaps we shall catch a whisper or two!”

“Go to the Devil,” Sayre shouted back and turned away from the stones and his brother’s laughing countenance.

As troubling as his hosts’ behavior appeared, Darcy was disinclined to indulge in further speculation upon it. The suspicion that had arisen in his mind concerning Trenholme’s purpose during his tale was dismissed as unworthy and evidence of his own disordered thoughts rather than nefarious intent on the part of the teller. Sayre and his brother had engaged in a certain rivalry as far back as Eton, he reasoned, and it most likely extended to the cradle. That in the intervening years its animosity had increased was not to be marveled at, although the turn it appeared to have taken was a curious one. Darcy would not have credited that either brother was of a superstitious nature beyond that of any man addicted to the gaming table. At least, when it came to stories of ghosts and their curses, he would have derided the notion, save it was undeniable that Sayre had been profoundly affected. Even as Darcy looked on, His Lordship downed another gulp from the flask, his nose shining a distinctive pink against an unnaturally pale visage.

Turning away to join those on the stroll, Darcy began up the short, steep hill. At the head of the party, Trenholme acted as guide.

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