The viscount led his horse down the beach and away from the boulders that concealed the mouth to his cave dwelling.

Above him, stars winked at him, and the moon was half-shadowed by passing clouds. It had been a long, hard day drenched in boredom, and he looked forward to his projected outing.

He had to visit with his friend, Parks, who was one of the few men alive who knew how things stood with him and was dedicated to clearing his name.

The facts as he knew them were self-evident. He had not caused Melony’s strange death, and therefore, someone else had. He also knew that someone had stolen his pendant and placed it in Melony’s hand. There was no other explanation. Who that someone could be was a complete mystery to him. Thus, he was at point non-plus.

Down the narrow stretch of pebbly beach, he led his horse past the overhanging cliffs of Bodmin to an incline whose winding path led to the moors above. He looked up before mounting his horse and his eyes narrowed. This was always the dangerous part of his excursions. He smiled to think how Epps had started the rumor about his ghost riding Midnight across the moors. The superstitious people of his village would believe such stuff and nonsense.

He put his horse into an extended trot and weaved around the boulders of the trail he knew so well. Smooth egg-shaped boulders lay ahead, partially obscuring his egress onto the moors.

All seemed at peace. A gentle sea breeze took the heather shoots and shifted their weight. Wildflowers mingled with salt air and gave off a pungent and not unpleasant aroma.

As quietly as he could, he urged his horse forward and sought out the satchel of grain that Epps had left him. He jumped nimbly down, secured it to his saddle, and no sooner remounted when Midnight began to snort and paw the earth.

The viscount frowned and looked about to discover a rider crossing the moors.

From her seat, he would have thought the rider a lad, but from the form, he knew it to be a woman riding astride, and what was worse, he absolutely knew she had seen him!

“Away, Midnight, away!” he whispered into his horse’s ears as he leaned onto his neck. However, Midnight sensed his master’s anxiety and reacted by rearing high, and in his frenzy, the stallion blew out air, hoofing at the sky all the while.

* * *

Ness had been on the verge of turning back for Penrod. Night had totally engulfed her and Shadow, and suddenly the moors had taken on a fanciful and utterly frightening hue.

Just at that moment, something caught her eye. She trotted her horse deeper into Bodmin Moors, and saw the form of a dark horse and rider. She stopped, her mouth open wide as the horse reared.

“What the deuce?” she gasped out loud.

Had she allowed her active imagination to run amok, she might have thought the sound she heard was a devil’s laughter. Instead, she didn’t allow herself to think. She held her horse in check, noting that whatever she had witnessed, Shadow had as well. Her mare’s ears flickered and she pawed the earth, then put up her head, tucked, and got ready to race away. Ness knew her knees trembled slightly against Shadow’s flanks, but she kept her mare in place through the agitated prancing.

The black and magnificent horse came down and he, with his rider, bolted straightaway. The rider’s black cape flapped wildly in the wind and suddenly both horse and rider were gone!

Ness looked into the dark night sky. Had she just seen the ghost of Montlaine? No. Impossible. She did not believe in such things. Besides that, her mare had reacted to the black horse. There could be no doubt that the horse had not been an apparition.

Home…head for home, she told herself. A warning flickered in her mind, telling her she was headed for trouble. A stronger voice had her by the heart and urged her to do something else entirely. Curiosity took control. True to herself, not the mores of a society which would be shocked to see her alone on the moors at night, she urged her horse forward and approximated the place where she had seen the two against the night sky and the bright stars.

Once she had arrived at that spot, she jumped off her horse and landed in a brush patch of greens and stone.

She looked for horse prints, but it was dark and she could find nothing in the earth.

Shadow nudged her shoulder and she jumped and said, “Don’t do that, love. You scared me half to death.” She took up the reins and moved past a cluster of gigantic granite rocks and discovered there a mazelike path that led sharply downward to the sea.

She hesitated. What are you doing, Ness?

Thus, contrary to good sense, Ness followed her instincts, which took her to lead her horse on foot, down the narrow pebbly path between rocks and low shrubbery.

She could hear the breaking surf, and feel the salt air. It was wonderful, but then, all at once, the boulders became fewer and more spread apart. She found herself staring at a narrow stretch of sandy beach, much of which lay beneath the overhanging cliffs of Bodmin Heights.

Stop now, Ness. You are headed for trouble. Was that nagging voice going to follow her through life? Didn’t it know who she was?

She saw horse droppings and they had been recently made.

Anticipation filled her with excitement. It was as though everything that made her who she was had brought her to this moment in time.

* * *

The viscount was in a fury of irritation. He stalled his horse in the makeshift habitat and gave him more hay to munch on before he hurried out to discern how far the unknown rider had followed him.

Damn, but he could hear the rider’s horse as it snorted against the salt spray of the crashing breakers.

What a prodigious female this was to be sure. What was she doing out at this hour of night and why would she follow him? Who could she be?

He could only hope that she would not discover the mouth of the cave. Its natural concealment was such that it was not readily visible.

He backed away and used a rock formation as cover while the lady led her horse along the natural trail. As she passed by him, he got a glimpse of her profile in the partial moonlight, and thought surely the shadow and lights had played tricks with his vision. No maid, so young, so fair, could be on such a dangerous lark at this hour!

Only beach and rocks lay ahead. The cliffs curved at the end of the beach and stretched out into deep water. He watched her hesitate before she turned around and looked upwards. She was, he realized, trying to analyze and find an explanation for what she had seen. He smiled to himself and then realized this lovely was not about to let it go. She would not believe she had seen an apparition.

Eerie shadows from the rock formations were everywhere. Those same huge jutting rocks created nooks and crevices. Would she begin to examine their secrets? Was she so foolish?

* * *

Ness forgot her brother and cousin in her complete need to discover the truth of what she had seen. Forgotten was Sheila and Lady Penrod’s awaiting dinner as she concentrated on finding the answer to her question. Where had the rider and horse gone?

Shrubbery brushed up against her and she pushed it away.

Right before her eyes was the mouth of a cave.

Its forbidding blackness held her frozen in place. It was both unwelcoming and threatening, making it ineffably irresistible to her.

She drew in a breath, bolstered herself, wished for a lantern, and promptly rubbed shoulders with a container of matches right at the mouth of the cave. She lit it, wrinkled her nose at the odor, and held it up high.

Within, she found Midnight munching his hay, though he was still saddled and there was a bit of sweat glistening on the horse’s neck.

She went to him immediately. Her mare cautiously rubbed her nose against the stallion’s, and Ness laughed. She hooked her reins around her mare’s stirrup so that she would be inhibited to go far, and smiled again to find the stallion did not mind Shadow eating from his large hay pile.

A wooden bucket of water sat nearby. What the devil?

She turned and found deeper in the cave, a straw bed, several books, and many artifacts indicating a male boarder was in residence.

“Humble, but I call it home.” The voice was deep, self-assured, and slightly sardonic.

Ness whirled around. It was the Viscount of Montlaine. She would know him anywhere. Right out of his portrait. Oh, but the artist had depicted him so completely and precisely.

Here was the libertine and suspected murderer. What should she say? Her kind nature came to her rescue and restored her voice. “I…I am so sorry. Truly. I know I have stumbled upon something you have been at pains to keep hidden, but when I saw what rumor has called a ghost, I could not credit it. You see, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

He snorted and there was a glint of anger in his dark, beautiful, amber lit eyes. “You didn’t stumble, my girl, you came looking. What I should like to know is, why?”

“I told you. I don’t believe in ghosts and I and my cousin and brother with Miss Sheila had just left Montlaine. I saw your portrait and…you and Midnight there…well…”

“Ah, so you don’t believe in ghosts? What then did you think you would find?”

“An explanation. The truth.” She didn’t mean to sound so profound, but it was all she could say beneath his penetrating eyes.

His satanic brow moved. “So, you left your brother, cousin, and Miss Sheila to come sleuthing without regard for your safety?”

She heard the disbelief and contempt in his voice and put up her chin. “Am I in danger from you? Is that what you mean to imply?”

He laughed ruefully. “You might very well be, if all they say about me is true.”

She heard a tinge of bitterness in his voice and immediately sympathized.

“People talk, very often unfairly. An opinion turns into a fact and a fact into a nightmare. I always prefer to make up my own mind with a proven truth, Viscount.”

“So tell me, are my cousins already entertaining in my home?”

“They believe you dead,” she answered.

“And how quickly they have put off their mourning clothes,” he answered sarcastically.

She wasn’t ready to answer this, so instead asked, “Why do you stay here? Why not leave the country? You could then establish yourself elsewhere…in exile for now, until you prove your innocence.”

He looked angry as he turned and paced.

She said, “I have offended you with my blunt speaking. I am sorry for it, as it is obvious you find your situation…embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” He rounded on her irritably. “My pretty little sleuth, you have no notion of what you say. I am suspected of witchcraft most vile…of creating a coven of twelve girls, of deflowering them, and using them in orgies. I am suspected of causing the death of one in particular. The villagers, who many of whom my family and I have seen through times of need, called me Lucifer…the demon of lechery!”

“And still you remain, existing in this cave, which tells me a great deal. Had you been guilty, you would not now be explaining yourself to me. You would have put me to death so that I could not divulge your secret.”

He said nothing for a moment and she hurried on to ask, “To what end, Viscount? Why do you remain here…to what end?”

“I remain here because I want to clear my name, for the sake of Montlaine, for the sake of my young sister, Mary.”

“I surmised that,” Ness said, and was incongruously pleased to see the hint of a smile touch his eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked with a shake of his head.

“I am the Lady Vanessa of the House of Grey. I am here at Penrod with my cousin and brother…”

“And you have had the misfortune of following me,” he interrupted her.

She inclined her head. “If you think so. However, the question now remains, what do you propose to do…about me?” Ness was all too aware of the fact that he had stood in her way, blocking the exit during their entire discourse. She knew he must be a desperate man and as such, he might not think it unreasonable to keep her a prisoner here and thus, protect himself.

“What to do? You say your brother and cousin are with you at Penrod. Will not Lady Penrod soon send them off to find you?”

“She won’t have to. I was riding with them when I told them a lie and said I had dropped my scarf and would catch up. I was curious about you, about the moors, about the fact that they hadn’t found your body.”

“Which could have been taken with the tide,” he scoffed.

“Indeed, but, as I said, at some point they will secure Sheila and one of them will return to find me if I don’t hurry and intercept them.”

She started to move past him. He stopped her with a touch. Ridiculously, she felt a tingling sensation run up her spine. His touch was like magic. His closeness made her dizzy.

“You are at my mercy, you know,” he whispered. “All actions have consequences.”

“I am not at your mercy. Rather, you are at mine, however, you have naught to fear from me. I don’t think you Lucifer, and I certainly don’t think you a murderer.”

“Don’t you now?” he asked, and had her shoulders in his hands. “I have too much at stake, little sleuth, to let you go sauntering out of here with the best jest ever to go around a tea party. Montlaine hiding in a cave. Oh no, my dear.”

She looked up into his smoldering eyes and said softly, “I would never do such a thing. You don’t know me, so you shall have to take my word for it. I must hurry now. I honestly don’t want you to be found and if my brother sets up a cry…you could be.”

“Haven’t you heard that the demon Montlaine would do anything he deemed useful? It would be useful to keep you hidden until I can clear my name.”

“I have heard that and do not believe it. I have also heard that you wish to clear your name and that, Viscount, I do believe.”

He dropped his hands. “You had better go. Your brother will be worried.”

“I shall keep your secret, my lord,” she said softly.

He laughed harshly. “A promise extracted from a woman is a meaningless bauble.”

She frowned. “I mean to prove you wrong, my lord.” She hurriedly took up her mare’s reins and turned to find him staring after her. “Goodnight, my lord…do rest easy, you have nothing to fear from me.”

She left the cave and hurried up the path, mounted Shadow and rode as fast as common sense allowed over unfamiliar terrain. She would have to make up an excuse. Ah, she would say she got lost and turned around on the moors.