Prologue
Hawksatter, England
July 1725
Run! I can’t stay here another moment.
Leonora Harris picked up the heavy skirts of her wedding gown and darted out the back door of Kenway Manor. A few servants still toiled outside in the gardens at the late hour but she doubted any of them would act as the bearer of bad news and alert her husband or his father, the master of the manor, of her escape. Mist clung to the ground, rain drizzled and dark gray clouds billowed close to the full moon. She fled down a narrow cobblestone path, reached the driveway and hurried to the end of the cul-de-sac. A dirt path led into the woods of the Kenway Estate.
Air burned through her lungs. Tears stung her eyes. Crickets chirped and owls hooted but fell silent as she ran past. Thunder cracked in the distance and the moon shone through the thick canopy of trees in shafts of light.
Desperate to find her way back to her father, Judge Alvin Harris, she would somehow convince him to annul her marriage to Lucas Kenway, the heir to the Hawksatter Barony.
The Gurrudale Forest thickened all around her, the trail beneath her feet gone. Tree branches swiped her face. Prickly bushes snagged the heavy flounce of her dress and ripped off strips of fabric. Gnarled tree roots lifted off the ground and tripped her twice.
Hurry. I must hurry.
Leonora picked herself up off the ground for a third time, wiped away tears and streaked dirt across her face with her hand. Her low-heeled buckle shoes pinched her toes and twigs clung to the thick tresses of her braid. She didn’t care. She couldn’t afford to care. Thunder echoed again and lightning split the sky, so bright it penetrated the canopy. Rain poured and bent down the leaves. She stumbled to a stop, spun in circles and could barely see.
“I’m lost.”
The realization struck her hard. The driveway at Kenway Manor led to the road to town, to her family, but she ran off into the woods like a ninnyhammer. She couldn’t reach her father’s home through the Gurrudale Forest. Only a fool would try.
“I can’t go home and shame Papa.” The forest swallowed her softly spoken words. A sob clogged her throat but she pushed it down. “I have to go back.” She promised to honor and obey Lucas at the church, and she couldn’t break the solemn vow on her wedding night.
Leonora cringed. Though she knew what to expect in the marriage bed—she’d accidently caught the stable boy and a maid twisted together in the barn, and watched them for longer than was proper—she wanted to give herself to someone she loved. Or someone she liked, at the very least.
Covered in dirt and grass, the warm summer rain soaked her clothes and hair. Leonora turned back the way she came and stepped over the lifted roots with care. Lucas would probably hit her when she returned and take her to bed even if she’d caught a cold or fever from the rain.
“My home is your home,” Lucas told her after their wedding reception at the manor. “Go wherever you like, but leave the master suite be. That is Lord Kenway’s chamber.”
Leonora did as he bade and happened upon a heated discussion between Lucas and the second Baron Hawksatter in the study. She pressed her ear to the door to listen in and tumbled to the floor as Lucas opened the door. Her husband yelled at her, ordered her to her bedchamber, his face a mask of anger and shock. Blatant fury radiated around his father and his dead set eyes chilled her to the bone. Instead of obeying the order, she fled out a backdoor.
“And now I’m lost, alone in an unfamiliar wood in a storm.”
Tears cascaded down her face again. She felt as though she traveled in circles. All the trees looked alike and the wind howled through the interlocking branches like a pack of wolves. Thunder shook the earth. Birds, deer and other forest creatures likely took shelter and she needed to do the same.
She trudged deeper into the woods. Down a hill and up another, her legs burned and ached from the strain. The rain pounded harder as the trees thinned out around a small clearing. Nighttime flowers, ferns and thick shrubs surrounded the base of an earthen mound. Rocks and boulders pierced the elaborate weave of moss and brambles that blanketed it. Lightning flashed and a wide gap in the rough mound wall snagged her gaze. Thick vines blocked the passageway but she ripped away the greenery and hurried inside the mouth of a dark tunnel.
Leonora breathed deep to catch her breath. The bedrock stabbed her back as she leaned against it and pebbles crunched under her feet. A strange blue light glowed from the depths of the tunnel. The wind and rain pelted the open gap and she edged farther along the wall.
Her heart pounded so hard it probably bruised her ribcage. She turned her back on the weather and followed the mystical light. The steep, narrow passageway twisted down into the belly of the earth and opened into a cavernous chamber. Stalactites hung from the high ceiling like hazardous pikes, the jagged stone walls shimmered with minerals and several grottos led deeper into the earth. A strange, circular mass of bluish-white smoke spun clockwise near the far wall. The mystical light radiated through the smoke. She tried to turn around and head back to the surface but a strong wind whipped around her and forced her closer to the swirling mass.
Fear clutched her heart. Curiosity burned in her soul. Her feet stumbled over the rough ground and the wind gentled into a soft breeze once she stood a mere arm’s length from the vortex. Leonora reached out to stroke the blue and white smoke, lost in a trance, and a gust of air pushed her forward. She tried to leap back but the smoke swirled faster and engulfed her. Darkness surrounded her, her vision winked in and out, and she fell into oblivion.
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