The Wild One

  ~~~~

  Juliet, still alone in the great hall, gazed about her in disbelief and wonder. She — raised in the woods of Maine, grown to maturity in Boston's comparative rusticity — had never seen, nor been able to imagine, anything quite like this room in her life. Stone staircases spiraled off to her right and left, presumably leading up to the massive turrets she'd seen from outside. An ancient tapestry depicting a hunting scene covered an entire wall. Huge mullioned windows rose from floor to ceiling, black against the night and reflecting the twinkling flames of a chandelier suspended above her head and containing what had to be at least a hundred candles. Such grandeur. Such waste! She made a half-turn. Notches in the stone wall held suits of medieval armor, the slitted visors ominous, the space between each suit hung with heraldic shields, battle axes, and other primitive weapons of war.

  To think that Charles had grown up here ... had touched these same stones and strode beneath these very windows, had stood, perhaps hundreds of times, in this exact spot....

  A feeling of awe gripped her, building and building until everything she'd experienced these past twelve months — indeed, these past few hours — was swallowed up by the sudden, giddy relief that she and Charlotte were finally here, safe at last, in this home that had been Charles's. Here, in this strange castle, in this strange land, Juliet had found familiarity. A little bit of Charles. She could almost picture his spirit looking down on them from somewhere above, smiling and finally at peace, content that his new family would never again want for anything. The image alone pulled at her heartstrings, made her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. Not since his death had Charles felt so very close....

  Her lower lip was threatening to tremble again. Catching it between her teeth, Juliet peeled back Charlotte's blankets and lifted the baby high above her head so that she could see this magnificent home in which her father had been born, in which he had lived.

  "Look, Charlotte!" Juliet held the baby close and pointed it at one of the suits of armor. "I'll bet your papa played with that thing when he was just a little boy!"

  Charlotte, however, was more fascinated by the glittering chandelier above her head. Juliet, half-laughing, half-weeping, touched her nose to her daughter's and swung her high. Charlotte squealed with delight, kicking both legs now and punching at the air. Oh, Charles ... are you here? Are you here with me and your daughter?

  Caught up as she was in a giddy sense of closeness to her beloved, of relief at finally reaching her destination, Juliet didn't hear the distant footfalls. The steady, relentless beat of shoes against stone.

  Suddenly a door opened and she froze, the laughter dying in her throat, the baby still high over her head.

  Slowly, she lowered her daughter and held her protectively close to her breast.

  Thirty feet away he stood, tall and elegant in a frock of black velvet, a ruby winking from the folds of his lacy cravat, his breeches molded to long, muscled thighs that tapered to silk-clad calves and shoes from which diamonds winked in each polished silver buckle. His eyes were dark and smoldering. His hair was as black as the night outside. His nose was narrow, his jaw set, his cheekbones planed, stark, severe. His was a hard face. An uncompromising face. He looked at Juliet with that ruthless black stare, looked at her muddy, blood-drenched skirts, and without batting an eye, gave a bow, coming up with an elegant sweep of his arm that made the lace at his wrist dance in the resultant breeze.

  "I am Lucien, Duke of Blackheath. Gareth tells me you knew Charles." The obsidian gaze flickered briefly to the baby. "Intimately."

  Juliet, taken aback, dipped in what curtsy she could manage with Charlotte in her arms. Then she raised her chin and, with more courage than she felt, met that chilling black gaze. "Yes. We were supposed to have married."

  He indicated the door through which he had come. "Then won't you join me in the library? I am sure we have much to discuss."

  His voice was smooth, rich, cultured. The words gave away no emotion, no hint whatsoever of his temper, thoughts, or feelings. They were also, Juliet realized, not a question but an order.

  Warning bells went off inside her head.

  "Yes, of course," she murmured, and, painfully aware of her shocking, disheveled state, walked with as much dignity as she could muster toward the door.

  And as she moved through the great corridors, liveried servants standing stiffly at attention with eyes staring straight ahead as though bloodstained young women were quite an ordinary sight at Blackheath Castle, a single, urgent phrase kept repeating itself over and over in her mind:

  Don't die, Lord Gareth. Please don't die. I think I'm going to need you.