The Veil of Night Read online

  * * *

  Color

  1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9-

  * * *

  Text Size

  10 -- 11 -- 12 -- 13 -- 14 -- 15 -- 16 -- 17 -- 18 -- 19 -- 20 -- 21 -- 22 -- 23 -- 24

  * * *

  * * *

  THE VEIL OF NIGHT

  By

  Lydia Joyce

  * * *

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Alone together

  The meeting of lips—the strange softness of skin, the exquisite heat, the alarming dampness that promised something more. Victoria had almost forgotten the bitter sweetness of it, the mingled hunger and completion that electrified every sense. Raeburn's lips hardened against her own, giving and taking at the same time. His arms wrapped around her, half lifting her from her feet. Someone moaned—and Victoria dazedly recognized her own voice. The coarseness of clothing was torture against her skin; it demanded release and the balm of another body against hers.

  Even as Raeburn's lips caressed her mouth and throat, even as he drew her ever harder against him—even then, she was alone. Alone as she had been for fifteen years. But now, for once, for just one night or even one hour, she didn't want to be alone anymore...

  Praise for The Veil of Night

  "The next great romance author has arrived, and her name is Lydia Joyce. The Veil of Night is a stunning debut from a young writer who possesses remarkable maturity and style. Every page is charged with sensual energy and confident grace. It is a gorgeous, complex, absolutely riveting novel. If there is only one new author you will try this year, it must be Lydia Joyce."

  —New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas

  "Intelligent. Passionate. Filled with dark secrets and illuminating love. This is what romance is about!"

  —Robin Schone

  "A powerful love story, compelling and beautifully written."

  —Alison Kent, author of The Bane Affair

  "The Veil of Night is a lush, erotic historical Gothic romance, with just the right dark and mysterious hero and a strong heroine who can match him. Anyone who has ached for the Gothics of the past shouldn't miss this book!"

  —Karen Harbaugh, author of Dark Enchantment

  * * *

  The Veil

  of

  Night

  Lydia Joyce

  A SIGNET ECLIPSE BOOK

  * * *

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto,

  Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books Indian Pvt Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi -110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,

  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2005

  Copyright © Lydia Joyce, 2005

  All rights reserved

  SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America-

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  I have years of backlogged gratitude to express and not enough space here to do more than start the job poorly, but this, at least, is a beginning.

  To my parents, Bill and Margaret, who suffered more than I did from all the rejections that came to their house while I was in college.

  To my brother, Stephen, who will never read one of my books and yet is convinced that I am the most brilliant writer to have ever lived by sheer virtue of being his sister.

  To my husband, who smothered his fears for the sake of my dream.

  To my invaluable critique partners, especially Bekke, Mica, Larissa, and Daria, without whom this book would have had a very different shape.

  To Serena Jones for being the first editor to ever believe and my agent Nancy Yost for supporting my career.

  And finally, to Megan Boyle of Mobile, Alabama, wherever she is now, for first introducing me to the genre.

  * * *

  Raeburn Court

  September 18, 1864

  My dearest Lady Victoria,

  While your missive pains me, I cannot see how it changes the situation. Your brother owes me certain sums; if he cannot pay, the law must take its due course. I regret any embarrassment such a circumstance might cause your family, but I can see only one clear path.

  However, if you would like to discuss the matter with me, I shall be expecting you at Raeburn on the 27th of this month. Perhaps we can find a less unpleasant alternative together.

  I am,

  Your faithful servant, &cetera,

  Byron Raeburn

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Graceless and sprawling, Raeburn Court was a pile of mottled limestone atop the bald hill. Lady Victoria Wakefield spied it while the coach was still some distance off, and she watched it steadily as they approached the park gate; after all, there was nothing else in the bleak landscape to catch her eye. As they drew near, the squat manor house grew only more blunt and ugly, its saw-toothed crenellations pierced by random, unbalanced spires stabbing the slate-gray sky.

  "A duke lives here?" Dyer's incredulous question echoed Victoria's thoughts.

  "Best place for him." Victoria didn't bother to disguise her causticity in front of her lady's maid. After two days of traveling, first from Bristol to Leeds by train and then another five hours by coach, she was seething.

  Her hands curled into fists at the thought of the peremptory letter tucked in her reticule, all but ordering her to Raeburn Court. She'd been sorely tempted to remain in the familiar surroundings of Rushworth Manor and let her brother Jack rot in debtors' prison, if it came to that. But the thought of the shame it would bring her family goaded her pride more than the duke's epistle had incited her anger. So she'd written ahead, packed a trunk, and driven to the Bristol train station, ignoring her mother's wails
of protest and feigned fainting spells.

  What her trip could possibly accomplish, she didn't know. In moments of dark reflection—and there had been plenty of time for reflection on the trip to Raeburn Court—she feared she was chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. Still, there was the faint possibility that she could persuade the duke to see reason. She tried to reconcile the possibility with what she knew of him. Rumor held him to be a man in love with darkness, an enigma, a pariah not because of the acts he committed but because of the conventions he failed to keep. Victoria shivered. Though she knew the Wakefields could weather the shame of Jack's insolvency, the thought of the inescapable whispers and knowing smiles that would follow them for years drove her onward. She had paid too much for respectability to have it taken away by her brother.

  They reached the porter's lodge in silence. It looked even more derelict than the manor house, with missing shutters and ivy growing wild across the windows. Only a thin line of smoke curling toward the sky showed it to be inhabited. The coach jolted to a stop, and the guard opened the door, offering his arm to the ladies as they descended. He did not ask what luggage was theirs; the two of them had been alone in the coach since a farmer and his wife got out at Raeburn Court's manor village half a mile before. The guard swung the brassbound trunk and valise down from the roof, accepted Dyer's tip, and hopped lightly onto the coach again without a word.

  As the coach rattled away, Dyer gasped sharply, and Victoria turned to see a bent-backed, wizened old man sticking his head out of the front door of the porter's lodge.

  "Lady Victoria?" he demanded, rheumy eyes wavering from one woman to the other.

  Victoria allowed herself a small smile at his uncertainty. Her carriage dress was made of fine black taffeta, but the unforgiving severity of its cut and its lack of ornamentation made it difficult to distinguish from the plain attire of an abigail. Her wardrobe had been marked by unrelieved austerity for fifteen years now, first from an excess of puerile anguish, then from self-abhorrence, and now partly from habit and partly from the intangible security such a uniform offered.

  "Yes?" she said, solving his dilemma.

  The porter fixed his gaze on her, blinking myopically. "His grace is expecting thoo at the house, my lady. Gregory shall fetch thy bags when he comes this evening."

  "And how are we to get there?" Victoria raised an eyebrow and gestured pointedly at the half-mile drive stretching up the hill.

  The porter laughed at her, a wheezing, reedy sound that shook his spare frame and ended in a wracking cough. Taken aback, Victoria could only stare as he tried to regain enough breath to speak. Still trembling with macabre mirth, he crowed, "Thoo'il walk!" and ducked back inside the lodge, slamming the door in their faces. Victoria heard the thud of the bar dropping into place, echoed in the sound of distant thunder rumbling in the limestone hills.

  Victoria exchanged a silent look of amazement with Dyer. Then, with nothing else to do, she picked up her skirts and began the long trudge up the hill to the gray hulk of Raeburn Court. She glanced back once to make sure the stout abigail was keeping pace and saw the crooked, scuttling figure of the porter lugging their baggage into the lodge.

  Thunder rumbled again, closer. A fat drop of rain fell squarely on her nose as a gust of wind caught the cage of her crinoline and sent it swaying wildly against the back of her legs, shoving her up the drive. She caught her balance, then steadied her bonnet with one hand and lengthened her stride in an effort to reach the hall before the storm broke.

  Dyer puffed sturdily at her side, striving to make her short, thick legs match Victoria's long steps. Another drop splatted against Victoria's cheek, then another soaked through the fabric of her wrap and the gown beneath to wet her shoulder. She pressed her mouth in a thin line of displeasure, wishing fifty hells on the arrogant duke. Her carriage dress would undoubtedly be ruined, adding destruction of property to his growing list of sins.

  Despite herself, she smiled at the absurdity of that thought.

  They reached the door just as a peal of thunder shook the ground and the sky let loose, releasing a torrent of water over them. Victoria didn't pause to knock. She jerked the iron latch down and threw her shoulder against the battered door, half stumbling inside as it opened. Dyer staggered in past her, mopping her streaming hair from her eyes.

  A great gust of wind wrenched the door from Victoria's grasp and flung it wide, and a sheet of water blew in to drench them. Dyer squeaked helplessly and lurched out of the way.

  Biting back her brother's favorite oath, Victoria seized the door and wrestled it closed. She leaned against it for a second to suppress the traitorous thrill that tickled her belly and knotted in her lungs. She tried, as she always did, to be properly disgusted by the weather—for it truly was foul, she told herself sternly—but there was something in the madness of the wind and rain that caught at some dark corner of her soul and sent it spiraling wildly away from her.

  When she turned, still gasping from her precipitate flight up the drive, she was startled to discover a plump, elderly woman hardly two yards from her.

  "Pardon me," Victoria said with as much dignity as she could muster, knowing the pointlessness of the attempt even as she made it.

  "Lady Victoria, I presume?" the woman said, her face folding into a thousand creases as she peered at Victoria in the light of the candle she held up.

  Is everyone in this cursed backwater blind? Victoria wondered as the woman squinted at her, a touch of amusement returning. "Indeed."

  Her cool confirmation was greeted with a toothless grin and a flood of friendly confidence. "His grace wasn't expecting thoo so soon, not afore Gregory comes back tonight with the carriage. How did you two come here?" The servant tutted reprovingly and took their rain-heavy wraps. "You must have walked, to be so wet. Imagine such a thing! Two ladies, walking in this weather—"

  Victoria forced a smile. "I assure you, madam, that it was no decision of ours. That porter—" She stopped, struggling to find a civil way to frame her response.

  The woman just shook her head and clucked her tongue. "The ninny. Silas will play his little games, I fear. Keep thissen right here, love, and I shall be back in a moment." She waddled away with the candle, still tsking and sighing to herself.

  Victoria took the opportunity to survey the room. The vast, unlit chamber stretched before her—the manor's original great hall, no doubt—its deep shadows scarcely pierced by the gray light filtering through the filthy mullioned windows, which trembled in their frames as another peal of thunder cracked overhead. Ancient, moldering tapestries flapped like living things in the steady draft flowing through the room, and enormous cobwebs fluttered against the black rafters in the dim recesses of the ceiling.

  "What a place, your ladyship! Gives me the cold clammies, it does," Dyer whispered loudly, craning to peer about the room.

  Victoria shrugged off the chill that prickled the back of her neck and replied as sensibly as she could manage. "It's only an old run-down pile of stone. You needn't worry yourself so."

  "Of course, your ladyship," Dyer murmured, but she hardly seemed reassured.

  Victoria didn't blame her. There was certainly something unsettling about the place.

  Victoria saw the candle flame bobbing in the darkness of the corridor long before she could make out the round form of the returning servant.

  "There," the old woman said, beaming pleasantly, her homely, cheerful face a bizarre contrast to their surroundings. "If thoo'il follow me, his grace is waiting in the Teak Parlor."

  Wordlessly, the women obeyed, Dyer following so closely behind her mistress that she kept bumping into Victoria's skirt. The servant led them back through the corridor she'd emerged from, then up a harrow staircase, through a series of rooms, and along a maze of hallways, chattering all the while. "It's so grand to have a young lord in the house again—not that his grace wasn't grand, of course not, I mean the old duke, of course—but it just isn't the same, is it? Mind the fourth step; 'tis loose.
And such a pleasant air he has about hissen, and all, so regal and reserved, not at all like—" She interrupted herself with a surprisingly girlish titter. "But we mustn't speak ill of the dead. Not that his grace—I mean, the new one—isn't as hot-blooded as a young man should be. Certainly not. He'll be having house parties here, too, right enough, as soon as the hall's less of a shambles. The decline! I never thought I'd live to see the day! Well, thoo knows how those reformers are—Corn Laws, Rotten Boroughs, Reform Bills—what's next, I ask thee?"

  She stopped and turned around abruptly, fixing 'Victoria with such a fierce glare that Victoria blinked and replayed the words in her mind, trying to find a coherent reply. But the old servant turned away again before she could answer, resuming her babble as she led the way down a wide, marble-floored corridor.

  Momentarily suspended in bemusement at her surroundings, Victoria's anger returned in full force. How dare the duke summon her like a lackey to his tumbledown manor, to be insulted by one servant and accosted by another? She'd give him a piece of her mind—

  Or rather she wouldn't, she told herself hopelessly. If she couldn't keep a civil tongue in her head, no matter the provocation, she might as well not have come at all.

  "Here 'tis," the old woman said finally, stopping at a door. "The Teak Parlor." She opened the door, stepping aside to let the women through.

  Victoria entered first. Though her eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the hallway, the duke was no more than a dark shape in a chair before the fireplace, a vague silhouette against the sultry glow of the coals in the grate. She heard a rustle of skirts and felt a nervous brush against her arm as Dyer crowded in behind her.