Page 8 of Taken By the Broken Duke
“Means you’re bloody rich,” Hall said.
“It derives from the Knights Templar. A group dedicated to the upholding of honor and virtue. That is the line I stem from and it is far greater than my mistakes or my father’s anger. Opening my house to these people may help to restore the name in their eyes… But I cannot yet bring myself to stand before them. To stand before their judgment.”
“Well, no one will recognize ye, that’s for sure. And none of the servants will say a word.”
“Thank you, Hall,” Horatio said, turning away from the mirror.
He drifted to the window which looked out over the eastern approach to the castle. The lake situated to the south of the castle was here forced through a narrow channel to form a moat, crossed by a stone bridge of multiple arches. An ancientgatehouse guarded the entrance at the far side and Horatio could glimpse lanterns hanging from the gatehouse and all along the bridge, to illuminate the path to the castle.
Soon, guests would be alighting their carriages at the gatehouse and walking along the bridge to the castle’s east entrance. They would be greeted by masked servants and ushered into the Great Hall where they would be served food and wine while an orchestra played.
A gallery surrounded the Great Hall high up by the roof. That would be where Horatio would retreat once he had walked among the guests for a time. Once the dancing commenced, he would take to his high, lonely hiding place and select his subjects for painting.
“Is everything in place in the Gallery?” Horatio asked distractedly.
“As planned, Your Grace. You may sit up there for hours, painting away,” Hall replied.
“The only part of this ridiculous charade that is worthwhile,” Horatio muttered, bitterly. “Observing those who have come to be observed, but not in secret. Seeing their frailty and their weaknesses. Seeing the humanity which they keep so carefully hidden from each other...” His lip curled. “It makes their company almost bearable.”
Horatio dismissed his butler and stripped off his masquerade clothes, hanging them carefully, the Stag placed on a shelf ina wardrobe until the hour of its use. With that, he walked the stone halls of Ravenscourt, untouched since his father’s day and largely unaltered since its time as a medieval fortress. Light crept in through narrow, leaded windows or it was contrived artificially by lamps and candles. The air was cool in the medieval gloom of stone walls, ceilings, and floors.
He emerged eventually into a stable yard, dismissing the stable lads who came to help him and saddling Thunder himself. The old warrior was nearing the end of his days but was still strong enough to carry his master for a walk every now and then. Horatio patted the stallion’s neck as he mounted, letting the horse find its own way out over the cobbles and through the stone arch to the walkway beyond. A small, bow-backed bridge crossed the moat, and a path beyond led into trees.
Amid the cool afternoon breeze, Horatio followed the path, edged in ferns and long grass, overarched by birch and maple. He was solemn, staring ahead and lost in thought. This was another of his rituals, alongside concealing his face behind a mask and painting his guests in secret from the Gallery. Before undertaking his annual duty to the family name, he rode out into the woods that had been allowed to cover the Ravenscourt estate.
The air smelled and tasted green. He could hear a woodpecker somewhere and the croak of ravens, the famous ravens that gave the castle its name. A rabbit emerged fifty yards ahead, paused with twitching ears for a moment before darting into the brushwood. A fox wove in and out of the undergrowth, well used to the sight of both rider and horse, unafraid. Horatio breathed deeply, realizing that he hadn’t fully relaxed since thepreparations for this year’s ball had begun. He felt his shoulders slump and breathing suddenly seemed easier.
Out here, he could momentarily forget the past. Forget his crime and that which had been done to him. Here, he was at one with the natural world. It brought him peace, though he did not believe there was another person in this country who shared his feelings. Those who considered themselves his peers saw nature as something to be conquered, tamed, and harnessed. They turned wild country into gardens, twisted out of all recognition. It disgusted him and he refused to maintain the gardens that had once belonged to Ravenscourt. Instead, nature ran rampant and that was good.
But he could not forget entirely the path that had led him to this spot. The path that had begun in his father’s study all those years ago when he had been stripped of title and wealth. TheHoratiothat had left Ravenscourt that day was already a different man. Afraid of the unknowns facing him and more alone than he had ever been.
The ride took him through the woods and as far as the tall hills that bordered Ravenscourt to the south. He reached a crossroads. In one direction, the path wove into the dark hills and onto the high moorland beyond. To the right, it would take him to Woolstone, his former home where he had borne the courtesy title Marquess Somerset. That house had been taken away by his father and sold. Horatio had bought it back when he inherited the Dukedom and it had remained empty ever since. He had not been able to bring himself to set foot there, haunted by the memory of the life that had been stripped away from him by cruel fate.
Thunder took the opposite direction without being prompted, the path which followed the line of hills before rejoining the main Uffingdon road and returning to Ravenscourt.
Hours had passed.
Horatio walked anonymously among his thronging guests. The brushstrokes of music could just be heard over the babble of conversation that filled the Great Hall. He glided through the crowd, observing the masks and noting those that he found particularly pleasing. He would identify those individuals later from the Gallery and capture them in paint.
His eyes trailed a silver wolf whose wearer bore a pelt woven with fine silver threads. A woman with midnight hair wore a raven disguise, the feathers gleaming like oil in her lustrous tresses. A tall man with golden hair, his mask the visage of a lion, stepped into his path. His sharp eyes, framed by the beast’s bared teeth, caught Horatio’s own.
“Well met, good sir. Have you by any chance caught a glimpse of our host?”
“Well met, indeed. I have not. At least, I do not think so. But how can one tell?”
Between the bared fangs, he saw the man consider this and then nod thoughtfully. “Baron Northover,” he offered, extending a hand encased in fine gloves.
“Viscount Shipton,” Horatio replied smoothly.
Northover furrowed his brows. “Forgive me, my lord, but that is not a name I am familiar with.”
“I am newly come to this county. My estates are in Cornwall.”
It was a fiction, one as fragile and deliberate as the thin glass of the champagne flute in the stranger’s spare hand. The only home he had ever known in Cornwall was the Ship Inn, previously owned by Dickens Hall before it had been consumed by fire.
Northover smiled, though his lips barely moved. “Ah, well, allow me to welcome you to the good county of Wiltshire then.”
Horatio seized the opening. “Do you by any chance know either the sight or sound of our host?”
