Chapter Two

Ash sat alone within his study, the only inhabited room in his London home save the kitchens. He ate, drank, worked, read, and slept within these walls—his cocoon in a cavernous house stuffed full of macabre memories. Earlier, he’d declined to have his manservant, Kent, light the lamps. Tonight, he preferred shadow.

He always preferred shadow, truth be told.

May you rot in the darkness you have chosen...

He scowled. What the devil was wrong with darkness, anyway? Why this universal mania for light? He’d always been intrigued by the description of what came before the sun’s creation.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep...

Ah, he loved the sound of the deep. The deep was a place one could rest.

Formless, like broken crystal.

Empty, like the chambers of his heart. He rubbed his fingers against his chest.

Although plenty of evidence had mounted to the contrary, he did possess a functional version of the organ. Somewhere beneath his ribs, his heart swished like a sponge in seawater on a moonless night. The organ’s stubborn persistence was the only reason he remained afloat on the surface of the dark deep.

Alive, yes. But for what purpose?

He’d long suspected Purpose, with a capital P, did not exist.

And yet there was something, wasn’t there? A sense there was more. A sense kindled by having born witness to another’s love. A love that had been transformative, mysterious and grand.

Such an experience was not for him. Never for him. His home—his life—had always been engulfed by gloom. He had survived, but the gloom had taken his father’s reason, his mother’s maternal responsibility, and his wife’s life.

Yet, sometimes...sometimes...he could almost believe his life was being held in abeyance, as if he were a shade of the dead, and could be reanimated with the proper sacrifice. In those times, hope, in wraith form, flitted at the edge of his senses, a blessing and a curse.

Ash squeezed his eyes closed, gathering silence into his mind. Silence dulled thoughts’ sharp edges, lulling him to stillness, a vacant sort of peace.

Time passed while he remained suspended—an hour? Maybe more—until a commotion sounded outside his door.

“...in the study, I’ll wager.”

Hurtheven. He snorted. The man always appeared when least desired.

May you rot in the darkness you have chosen...

Right. Well, perhaps he could use a visit, desired or not.

“Your Grace.” Kent spoke to the Duke of Hurtheven with awe the manservant never quite mustered for Ash. Then again, he’d been the only servant who’d refused to settle elsewhere after the fire. “His Grace is not receiving.”

“Excellent,” Hurtheven replied. “Then we shall not be disturbed. And Kent?”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Ash never receives.”

“Quite so, Your Grace.”

The door flew open.

“Christ! A bat could not find his way in here.”

Struck by another voice, a voice he hadn’t heard in six long years, Ash stood so fast, he knocked over his chair.

“Chev!?” Ash gazed at his old ally in disbelief. Even Cheverley’s wife, though loyal, had given up hope the man was alive.

Hurtheven shushed. “Cheverley remains among the missing,” he said, giving a pointed look to the back of the servant still in the room. “Allow me to introduce Captain Smith, future occupant—we hope—of your uninhabited upper rooms. Captain Smith is the Admiralty’s man in charge of—” His sentence ended abruptly.

Kent lit the last sconce and then slipped from the room.

“What is it you are doing for the Admiralty, Smith?” Hurtheven asked.

“Nefarious deeds.” Chev stepped out from behind Hurtheven with a bitter exhale.

Ash’s long-absent companion, one-third of a secret society that dated back to their Eton days, had returned absent the lower portion of his arm.

His right arm.

“The Admiralty,” Chev said, “feels I can be of more use on land.”

Damnation! At least he was alive. “I do not understand.” Ash frowned. After six interminable years, Ash expected Cheverley to be anxious to see his once-beloved wife. “Why must you stay here? Does Pen know you have returned?”

Hurtheven answered. “The Admiralty knows, I know. And now you know.”

Chev’s gaze remained blank. “Hurtheven said your staff consists of a manservant and his wife.”

“A discreet manservant,” Hurtheven added. “Since Chev must remain missing—” Hurtheven exchanged a meaningful glance with Cheverley, “—for now, I thought your rooms could provide comfort and concealment.”

Ash remembered to shut his mouth. “Concealment, yes.” His home had never provided comfort. “You may stay, of course.”

He preferred solitude. So much so he’d closed every room in the house. But this was Cheverley. Chev and Hurtheven remained his oldest, and only, allies. No one survived boarding school without allies, not even the son of a mad, murderous duke.

Or especially the son of a mad, murderous duke, as the unsubtle Hurtheven told the tale.

“If you become a restive host—” Hurtheven smiled, “—you can always seek comfort in Bianci’s arms.”

San subtlety point proven.

“Unfortunately,” Ash said, “the St. John’s Wood house will soon be vacant.”

“Finally thrown over, were you?” Hurtheven asked.

“Yes.” Finally?

“I am astonished she lasted, truth be told. Are you feeling—”

Ash raised his brows.

“Of course not.” Hurtheven clapped him on the shoulder. “I am parched, many thanks for asking. And Smith here would welcome a seat, I am sure.”

“Yes, of course.” Ash shook his head to clear the obvious haze. It wasn’t every night he found himself unceremoniously discarded by his mistress only to discover a long-dead friend very much alive. Alive...but hiding. “Please, take a seat.”

Ash retrieved scotch from his cabinet and poured three fingers. He handed the first to Hurtheven and the second to Chev.

The years had been less than kind to Cheverley, though the determined set of his friend’s chin remained familiar. As did that quality Cheverley possessed when he fixed Ash with his disturbing pale gaze—the one that made Ash feel his secrets were as obvious as his cravat.

“Heartily glad to have you here,” Ash said.

Chev nodded his thanks. Ash looked away from Chev’s tremor. Some things a man did not wish acknowledged, even by an old ally.

“So,” Hurtheven turned to Cheverley, “six years is a long time to cover. Where shall I begin?”

“Why don’t you abridge?” Chev suggested.

“Ashbey,” Hurtheven gestured toward Ash, “has been doing the utmost to fulfill his Eta Rho Zeta sobriquet.”

“Eta Rho Zeta.” Chev’s lip nearly lifted into a smile. The levity passed. “I haven’t heard that silly name in an eternity.”

“A secret society should always have a name,” Hurtheven replied. “Does it matter if we borrowed whimsy from the colonies when choosing ours?” Hurtheven toasted the sky. “With appreciation to my uncle, the traitorous Virginian.”

“I believe,” Ash said, “they call themselves Americans.”

“Never mind the usurpers.” Hurtheven drank again. “Let a meeting of the Olympians commence. “Hades.” He nodded to Ash. “Poseidon.” His gaze moved to Chev. “And—” he toasted himself, “—Zeus.”

“Aren’t we a little old for this?” Ash asked.

“Gods live forever,” Hurtheven answered.

Cheverley made a dismissive sound. “Someone should have informed the French.”

“You returned, did you not?” Hurtheven pointed out.

No subtlety at all.

Ash cleared his throat. “Che—Smith, I mean—how long do you expect to stay in London?”

“I am not sure.” Cheverly swirled the liquid in his glass. The circles under his eyes appeared to darken. “I’ve been tasked with a sordid affair.”

“Why not place it before the council?” Hurtheven asked. “As always, you may depend on our discretion.”

“You aren’t even here, are you?” Ash added.

“Right,” Chev answered with a curt nod. “The mess concerns Admiral Octavius Stone—”

“Recently deceased hero of the hour?” Hurtheven interrupted.

Chev cut him a look and started again. “Admiral Stone’s doctor has produced a codicil to his will, dictated, supposedly, on his death bed.”

“The report said he died in battle.”

“Actually, no. He died later.”

“Rather spoils the story of the dramatic death on deck.”

Chev grimaced. “It happened just as described, except he lingered for a gruesomely painful hour. Enough time to dictate a codicil to his will, leaving his legitimate family penniless and his mistress enriched.”

“Allow me to guess.” Hurtheven’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “The Admiralty, out of altruistic kindness, is concerned for the widow.”

Chev rubbed his head. “They are concerned, as you well know, with the public. Stone went so far as to request his bastard daughter be given his name.”

Gossip was a level of hell Ash avoided, but even he had heard of Admiral Stone and his love affair with an exceptionally alluring actress-turned-countess and one-time muse of the nation’s most celebrated portrait artist. By all reports, the admiral had been devoted to his mistress and their child.

“From a distance,” Ash said, “what the Admiralty deems an embarrassment appears to be quite just.”

“His wife would be penniless but for what she brought to the marriage. His wife, Ash.” Chev’s voice vibrated with uncharacteristic anger. “The woman he swore to honor and protect.”

Ash caught Hurtheven’s eye, and heard Hurtheven’s thoughts as if he had spoken them aloud. Cheverley should be less concerned with the admiral’s wife and more concerned with his own.

When they’d been young and foolish, Ash and Hurtheven had helped Cheverley elope—a dramatic affair involving a stolen carriage hurtling over dark roads toward Scotland. But the elopement had happened a lifetime ago. Ash’s gaze traveled back to Cheverley. Neither he nor Hurtheven knew what Chev had experienced these past six years.

Ash expected Chev had a reason for not rushing home, and it was not his place to inquire.

“I’ve been to visit Lady Stone,” Chev said.

“Is she as frigid and cold as everyone says?” Hurtheven sounded hopeful.

Chev glanced up, startled. “I would not call her cold, though she’s grown more reserved over the years.”

“You know her then?” Ash asked.

“Does that not compromise your identity?” Hurtheven added.

“I did not think she would remember me. And she did not.” Chev rubbed his forehead. “Not by name, anyway. She asked if we met. I told her I was a young officer on Stone’s ship.”

“Were you?” Ash asked.

Chev nodded. “My first Atlantic crossing happened to be the fateful voyage that brought Stone to meet his wife. Stone cast himself as the hero in a dramatic rescue, and they wed in haste.”

“Much like yourself,” Hurtheven murmured.

Chev’s annoyed glance melted as he acknowledged the truth.

“I had forgotten,” Cheverley’s voice grew distant.

“Forgotten what?” Ash asked.

“I’d forgotten how taken I’d been by Lady Stone. She possesses an otherworldly quality—an expressive, almost angelic, face. Had I not been wed, even I would have been tempted to offer my protection.”

Ash blinked, leaning forward as if catching a scent. He had never heard that tone from Chev. Not for anyone else but Pen.

“Just the opposite of the countess,” Hurtheven observed, “who is so eager to please, every excited word drips with invitation.”

“Lady Stone has an altogether different kind of allure,” Chev said. “A guileless grace, as if she could make a broken man whole just by standing by his side.” Chev sighed. “It’s damn seductive—unintentionally so. We were all half in love.”

If Chev, whose wife gazed at him in adoration, had been so affected, what must this woman be like?

A broken man made whole. Ash could hardly imagine receiving such a woman’s favor.

Something covetous slid, serpent-like, through the recesses of Ash’s mind. Hope’s wraith danced past his gaze. A feminine silhouette. A sweet sigh. Delicious, trusting softness. Proffered lips, tasting of Lethe’s elixir.

“I’d like to meet her.” Ash’s declaration surprised him as much as anyone else.

Chev glanced up sharply.

“You?” Hurtheven asked.

Ash arched a brow. “Is it so odd?”

“Well,” Hurtheven blinked, “yes. Geniality is not generally part of your character.”

Ash could hardly argue there.

Chev set down his drink. “The answer is no.”

“No?” No was not a word Ash heard often.

In this case, it shoved him in the chest, thrusting him back in his place—the unwilling, lonely lord of the underworld. But the covetous reptile hissed, lifting its head and turning its yellowed crescent eyes toward the phantom image of Lady Stone.

“She’s not for you.” Chev’s sigh softened his tone. “Lady Stone is embroiled in scandal enough as it is.”

Ash looked away. “Of course, she is not for me.” He was Hades. Hell was his home. He shrugged. “Far be it from me to taint her angelic wings.”

But the serpent’s fangs dripped with venom just the same. Venom strong enough to subdue any prey.