People in these parts still talk about the ruination of Miss Sydney Eloise Windsor, a lovely professor's daughter from London.

Her downfall had been Wicked DeWilde's saving grace.

Some of the older villagers swore she was the spirit of a drowned Burgundian princess. They said she had been brought back to life by an ancient warlord whose ghost haunted the cove of St. Kilmerryn. The desolate knight had waited for centuries for this woman. On foggy nights his figure stood sentry on the cliffs, searching the sea for her lost ship.

Sydney looked nothing like a Burgundian princess. At least not until the warlord gave her the gold torque, which she only wore to bed, with nothing else, to seduce her husband.

Still, this was Cornwall, the land of maidens turned to stone on the moor for dancing on Sundays, the land of giants and the Secret Folk. Anything could happen here, and often it did.

People in these parts did like to talk over a furze fire, and DeWilde Manor with its unconventional master and mistress had provided plenty of fodder for that.

There was that great black dog who adored her ladyship for one thing, and the terrifying stories that poured from Lord DeWilde's pen. Not to mention the demon that her ladyship had ghost-layed in a burial cairn, and the duel his lordship had fought, over her honor, in his drawers.

With only an apple pie as a weapon.

It had all started with a shipwreck.

Sydney had been taking a nap when Jeremy had run the yacht onto the rocks. So, apparently, had Jeremy, or he would have been paying more attention. But the four passengers were wide-awake now, wondering if they were to be drowned or dashed to death on a spine of submerged rocks. Sydney thought of her family and how they would miss her.

She didn't have time to be afraid when they ran aground. She was too busy bailing water out of the yacht with a soup tureen. She could hear her friends, trapped somewhere above, shouting for help. Twilight had just fallen. A wave of icy water knocked her across the cabin. She fell into the wall and started to lose consciousness.

Her last impression was of a blue light flooding the cabin and the sense of a man's gauntleted hand lifting her to safety.

She never saw his face. Nor did the others when she thought to ask them about it. The light had disappeared by the time the yacht had washed ashore, and she decided she'd probably imagined the whole thing after all.

It had been a recipe for disaster, Sydney thought as she fished her soggy reticule from the wreckage: a full liquor cabinet and four young fools in a racing yacht blown off course by a squall into a treacherous crosscurrent on the Cornish coast. Her friends might be good fun, but they had a total disregard for common sense, and Sydney was never going to get in a situation like this again.

"Who put all these rocks here where I couldn't see 'em?" her friend Jeremy, Lord Westland, shouted.

Jeremy's young wife, Audrey, a trim blonde whose father owned the yacht, gave him a shove. "Freddie's lying in his cabin half-dead. Save him and stop that shouting like a woman."

Sydney shoved her dripping hair from her face. "He isn't half-dead. He's half-drunk. I tried to lift him, but he refuses to be budged. I left his head resting in the commode. At least he can get air."

"It's a wonder we weren't all killed," Audrey exclaimed, emptying water from the tiny heels of her fashionable silk shoes.

Her cousin Freddie popped up between the ruins of mast and auxiliary sails. "I say, did we beat His Grace?"

"Not only did we not beat him, Freddie, but we're shipwrecked," Jeremy said.

"Shipwrecked?" Freddie stared in disbelief at the ocean breakers crashing over the damaged wooden hull. "Well, blister me. I had no idea."

Sydney picked a path across the silk-tasseled cushions and splintered timber to take refuge on the rocky shore. "My father predicted something like this would happen."

"Well, if you knew we were going to be shipwrecked on the godforsaken coast of Cornwall, you should have warned us," Audrey said sourly.

Freddie wobbled up between the two women, a bottle of gin under each arm. "Exactly where on the godforsaken coast of Cornwall are we?"

"The locals call it Devil's Elbow," a deep voice said behind him.

"Devil's Elbow?" Jeremy scratched his head. "I don't suppose they have a decent supper room or hotel here."

"They do not," the deep voice said, openly amused this time.

"Who said that?" Sydney whispered.

"Maybe it was the devil," Freddie ventured. "After all, this is his elbow."

The foursome turned in unison, heads lifting to the bleak wall of diff that rose before them. Fog drifted in swatches across the cove. Dusky shadows distorted shapes and made everything look out of proportion.

The dog sitting on the shelf of overhanging rock, for example, looked like the mythical monster Cerberus guarding the gate to the underworld.

Audrey gasped and backed into her husband.

Her husband rubbed his eyes at the apparition, or whatever it was.

Freddie took a drink, gaping like a carp.

"Oh, dear," Sydney said, hiccoughing loudly.

The dog wagged its tail and began to bark.

"Look," Audrey whispered, "there's a house on the cliff. The dog must belong there."

A brooding granite Georgian mansion with corner turrets sat on the cliff edge in lonely grandeur. Gaslight glowed behind the leaded windows, creating an aura of seclusion and mystery.

"Civilization," Freddie said, sighing in relief.

"That," the deep voice said dryly, "is a matter of opinion."

The tall form of a man detached itself from an unseen path carved into the cliff. He wore an unbuttoned black overcoat with narrow trousers and polished boots, and he moved with power and purpose. His lean face tightened in amusement as he came close enough to examine the four survivors.

Sydney suppressed the urge to stare at him and marvel over his athletic build. They were going to need a strong man to repair the yacht. The fact that he was as handsome as sin was completely irrelevant. She was betrothed to another man, and she had no business noticing such things as a square jaw and compelling gray eyes and shoulders of granite.

"What good luck that you've found us, sir," she said energetically. "Our yacht is—"

"—ruined." He strode around her, poking his ebony cane at a brass chandelier that glinted like a mermaid's offering in a tidal pool. " Ruined beyond the slightest hope of redemption."

"Does that mean we're out of the race?" Freddie said, lowering his bottle.

Jeremy blinked, suddenly sober. "Do you mean she can't be fixed?"

"Not by me," the stranger said. His gaze cut back to Sydney, lingering for several seconds on her pale face before it dropped to the bloodstains that had blossomed on her wet skirts.

A wave crested on the shattered hull and threw cold spume into the air. The sea sounded suddenly calm and rhythmic, as if by ruining the yacht some unseen spirit had been appeased.

"Where is that blood coming from?" the man demanded in a voice one could hardly ignore.

"I banged my knee up a bit when we ran aground," she said meekly, responding to his masterful tone.

Audrey looked at her in concern. "Sydney doesn't weigh a shilling. She flew across the cabin when we ran aground, but she's too well-mannered to complain."

"Or too drunk," Freddie said.

The stranger came up to Sydney, gently lifting her skirts up to her knee. Sydney knew she ought to protest this impropriety, but no sound came out of her throat. Audrey was watching her in horror. But all Sydney could think was, Oh! His touch is making me tingle all over, and what luck I'm wearing my new stockings.

Sydney realized mat she wasn't behaving like a young woman betrothed to a duke should behave. She rarely did behave in a proper manner, which made it all the more a mystery why Peter wanted to marry her in the first place.

She knew why she had wanted to marry him. Her fiance was young, wealthy, and as charming as a prince when he chose to be. He brought Sydney's ancient aunt little presents. He took her sisters on outings, but lately she'd been disturbed by the way his eye lingered when he spotted a pretty shopgirl, and she would have to be a total idiot not to have noticed the long, meaningful look he'd exchanged with Lady Penelope Davenport at last month's Mayfair dinner party.

Sydney realized she wasn't sophisticated. Her father had recently retired from the university. She and her three sisters now lived with their parents in Chelsea, comfortable but certainly not well-off. Sydney knew she didn't have much experience with the opposite sex. She had definitely been swept off her feet by the Duke of Esterfield. But what girl wouldn't have been, especially when she would probably have ended up as a governess otherwise?

Still, even a girl who had no worldly experience, so to speak, sensed certain things, and although Sydney had never breathed a word of this aloud, she wasn't totally persuaded that Peter loved her with his whole heart, or that she even loved him at all.

The yacht race, away from Peter, had given her time to reconsider their engagement. It was actually a relief to escape him because lately he was always finding fault with things she said or did, and his friends weren't much better. They were thoughtless, fickle, and amusing, but Sydney wasn't thinking of marrying them so their flaws were really neither here nor there.

"Does this hurt?" the stranger asked, his deep voice jarring her thoughts. He pressed his thumb into the back of her knee.

She sighed. "No. It feels wonderful."

"Sydney!" Audrey said, scandalized.

The man smiled faintly. "And this?"

"Oh," Sydney cried, flinching as he fingered her kneecap. But the deep pain soon dulled in contrast to the warmth she felt when his fingers slid down her stockinged calf, and he seemed to know what he was doing even if Sydney had relinquished complete control of the situation.

He had strong, competent hands and the devil's own eyes, full of humor and self-confidence. Sydney sighed again.

"Are you a physician?" Jeremy asked, frowning at this peculiar turn of events.

"No." The stranger lowered her skirts, straightening to regard the shipwreck with a resigned look. "I suppose I shall have to offer you lodging. This woman should have a doctor look at her knee. It's deeply gashed and that swelling is only going to get worse."

"I am Jeremy, Lord Westland," Jeremy said, prompted by a poke from Audrey. "This is my wife Audrey."

"Freddie Matheson," Freddie said, stomping his sodden shoes to get warm.

The stranger looked at Sydney. "And you are—"

"Sydney. Sydney—" She hiccoughed, her other hand flying to her mouth.

"Sydney Hiccough." He raised his eyebrow. "What an unusual name. I don't think I'm liable to forget it."

Sydney shivered as a gust of cold air chased across the cove. "It's Windsor, actually. Your name, sir?"

"I know who you are," Jeremy said suddenly, pointing his index finger up at the man's face. "You're Lord DeWilde. We shared Henley's opera box last summer."

Freddie gasped. "One of the DeWilde brothers?"

"The literary DeWildes?" Sydney asked, so impressed that for a moment she forgot she was freezing to death and had just allowed a man to peep under her skirts. "One of the three brothers famous for writing tales of the Wondrous and Terrible?"

Freddie gaped up at him. "Why, I stayed up all night reading Confessions of a Scottish Corpse. Nearly scared myself to death."

"My personal favorite was A Ghost Chats from the Grave," Sydney said warmly. "Oh, golly, this is an honor, Lord DeWilde."

Only Audrey remained unimpressed, studying the dark stranger in cynical silence.

Sydney nudged the woman, annoyed at Audrey's lack of enthusiasm. "Audrey, I know for a fact that you couldn't sleep an entire week after reading The Elixir of Death. Isn't that a fact, Audrey?"

Audrey blinked. "Yes. It's a fact. But I'm wondering which DeWilde brother—"

The rest of her sentence was lost in a sudden clamor of bells ringing across the cove from the parish church. The deafening sound reverberated against the cliffs. It throbbed to a painful pitch in the air.

The dog on the rocks above them threw back its head and let loose an unholy howl in protest.

"Ye gods." Freddie groaned in pain. "Bells."

"Hell's bells," DeWilde said, clapping his hands over his ears.

Sydney raised her voice to a shout. "What do they mean? Are we being invaded by the French navy?"

DeWilde took her hand to guide her over the rocks and shipwreck debris. Almost as an afterthought, he looked back to motion the others to follow. "The bells were meant to warn you," he said as he drew her into a relatively quiet crevice in the cliff.

"Warn us?" Sydney said, shoving a strand of dripping hair from her face. She wished she had a comb. Imagine looking like a drowned mouse when you were rescued by a man like Lord DeWilde. "Warn us against what?"

He stared at her in amused concentration for several seconds. He seemed to be contemplating his answer.

She smiled to show she wasn't intimidated, which of course she was. She was spellbound, drawn to the magnetism of his dark gray eyes. His gaze bespoke a depth of experience and a self-control she could only envy. Sydney was sure her own emotions were written all over her face. She could never hide her secrets from anybody, but then again, she didn't have any secrets to hide.

"The cove looks harmless, but it is not," he said, his voice low with mischief. "There is a treacherous cross-current in the channel. It doesn't take much to run aground. A strong wind, a miscalculation—"

"Or four foxed idiots in a yacht," Sydney said ruefully.

He laughed. The low vibration of his voice did amazing things to Sydney's system. The sexual resonance gave her the shivers and made her feel as though she'd just drunk three glasses of brandy in a row.

"The villagers would tell you that the ghost of the Blue Knight lured you here," DeWilde said. "Well, perhaps he did. The bells were meant to warn you away, but it's too late now."

Too late. He turned. His words echoed in Sydney's mind as she limped after his tall figure onto the cliffside path. She couldn't say why, but she understood he was talking about something more than the shipwreck. He was every bit as intriguing as his novels, as those tales of the Wondrous and Terrible, and if she was sensible, she would have closed this book before she was drawn in any deeper.

She should have taken his warning to heart. She should have resisted. She definitely should not be clambering after him in the shadows with this delicious sense of adventure, wondering how the chapter would end.

Rylan Anthony DeWilde, Baron DeWilde of Harthurst, strode ahead of the struggling group, whistling in a carefree fashion. He didn't usually whistle after shipwrecks. But then again, shipwrecks usually didn't wash beautiful young brunettes with soulful brown eyes to his shore. No one he'd ever rescued before had made such a powerful impression. Small, sweet, a lovely girl.

Miss Sydney Hiccough would have to stay in his house until her knee felt better. Knees were tricky joints. They took a long time to heal, and relapses were common. She'd need looking after. In bed.

He whistled louder.

His dog brushed against his long legs, begging for a run across the moor. Rylan knelt and took the hound's ugly face in his hands.

"Listen to me, you spoiled beast. No frightening off that young lady back there like the last female who was brave enough to come visiting. I rather fancy Miss Sydney Hiccough."

The dog stared at him in plaintive silence.

"All right," Rylan said. "Frighten the others if you must. But be gentle with the lady."

The dog bounded off like a rocket toward the dark expanse of moorland that stretched beyond the cliffs.

Rylan straightened. His angular face amused, he watched the four unsteady figures weave their way toward him. He shook his head as his gaze lit on the woman. There was something soft and uncomplicated about her. She had an openness that could be used as a weapon or a weakness. It would depend on the man she gave herself to.

Rylan knew without doubt he was that man.

He smiled to himself, watching her eyes widen as she looked up at him, whatever she'd been saying to her friends forgotten. She might know it, too. She didn't bother hiding what she felt. For no reason at all, Rylan felt more hopeful then he had in a long, long time.

Audrey and Jeremy were supporting Sydney on either side, depriving Rylan of the chance to offer his help. She was such a slight thing, he could have carried her up the cliff without taking a breath. In fact, it was a wonderful idea—a stroke of genius—and quite the gentlemanly thing to do.

He turned, strode right up to Sydney with his cane under his arm, and swept her up off the sand. Audrey couldn't manage a single word; she elbowed her husband in the side, and Freddie just stood there, looking half-hopeful, as if DeWilde would offer to carry him, too.

"Honestly, this isn't necessary," Sydney said, not quite able to hide a grin.

"But you are hurt, and I don't want you to fall. The path is steep."

He reached the top of the cliff long before the others. His footsteps were certain and he knew this path, walking it alone for inspiration when his work wasn't going well. Still, in all his months here, he'd never imagined anything quite as wonderful as the woman who weighed practically nothing in his arms.

"I shall set you down here," he said.

"Do you know something, Lord DeWilde?"

Rylan stared down into her face. "I know many, many things, Miss Windsor." However, at the moment, he couldn't recall a single one of them.

Sydney smiled. "It has always been my secret wish to meet you."

It was unexpected, the power of her honesty, her innocence, and the way he reacted. She might as well have reached into his chest and torn out his heart. He was hers from that moment on, and, naturally, being an arrogant DeWilde, he didn't doubt the favor would be reciprocated.

He kissed her lightly, lingeringly, on the mouth before he set her down on the sandy grass. Sydney just stared at him, speechless, but not for one instant was he sorry for what he'd done. If he was sorry about anything, it was only that her three friends had finally reached the top of the path, and he couldn't kiss her again.

He glanced over his shoulder at the somber Georgian mansion, thinking of the privacy it afforded. He'd lived there for thirteen months now. Thirteen months to reassess the unsatisfying course he'd charted for his life. Thirteen months of penance for losing his temper and almost killing another man, who clearly deserved to be killed, but not at Rylan's hand.

Time enough to brood over a new book and search his soul, to realize he didn't need constant excitement or dangerous women to make him happy. Pursuing pleasure alone had never appealed to him, but somewhere there had to be a balance between boredom and self-destruction.

He'd chosen this isolated Cornish parish for his self-exile because it suited his purposes to research superstitious lore. Some of the legends he'd begun to investigate predated pagan times. There was magic here, if one believed in it, which he didn't.

The villagers claimed that no outlander was washed ashore by accident. Ghosts, they said, lured the seafarers onto the rocks. St. Kilmerryn was said to be haunted by an ancient knight who grieved for a lost princess.

The church bells might have sounded too late to warn the woman.

But Rylan thought she had come just in time for him.

"It's too late for what?" Freddie kept asking Sydney after Rylan gently deposited her on the path to his house. "And did he say something about a ghost?"

The effects of the alcohol they'd so freely imbibed was wearing off. The chilly sea air cut through their wet clothing. The high spirits of an hour ago were rapidly deflating. She felt like belting Freddie for the sheer hell of it, which wasn't at all like Sydney, and she couldn't stop thinking about that kiss, which had probably meant nothing at all to DeWilde, but she certainly wasn't liable to forget it.

"It's too late for what?" Freddie said again, huddling against her.

"It's too late for tea," Sydney said crossly. Her knee ached. Her head pounded, and she was still perplexed by Audrey's cryptic response to the fascinating man who strode ahead of them, and by her own response to him. She was tingling all over.

"Why were you so rude to him, Audrey?" she asked. "It's a great honor to be rescued by a DeWilde."

Audrey snorted. "If one ignores the fact that he examined your knee in public and carted you up the cliff like a captive."

"Tea?" Freddie sniffed. "I should hope not. I want something much stronger."

"Wait here a moment," DeWilde called over his shoulder. "I need to make sure the other hounds aren't running loose. We weren't expecting visitors."

"No wonder," Freddie said, frowning up at the atmospheric Georgian manor house that seemed to have been spawned from the rocks forming its foundation.

The estate was edged with thorn-laden brambles and Cornish elms that the wind had twisted into weird shapes. A loose shutter banged in the wind. A hound howled. The gables and leaded windows gave the house a gothic appearance.

"Egads," Jeremy said. "I'm not surprised he comes up with those warped stories, living in a creaking old tomb like this."

"Does it have a laboratory in the cellar, do you reckon?" Freddie whispered.

"If it does," Sydney said, "I shall ask his lordship to grow you a brain and have it immediately implanted inside the hollow cavity of your head."

"Hush," Audrey said. "He's coming."

Lord DeWilde hurried down the overgrown path toward them. "It's all right now," he said. "The infamous Danger Hounds are secured in their kennel."

"The Danger Hounds," Sydney murmured. "Goodness, not the very dogs that hunted down Squire Elliot in Sinner from the Netherworld? Not the bloodthirsty dogs who did their master's evil bidding?"

"What evil bidding?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know," Sydney said. "I was too frightened to read that part."

Freddie looked around the grounds. "We're not going to get ate, are we?"

DeWilde raised his brow. "Not by me."

An hour later they were comfortably ensconced before a cheerful fire in a large gaslit drawing room. The middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs. Chynoweth, served hot tea and scones with clotted cream.

Sydney sat on a black silk sofa, her second cup of laudanum-laced tea in her lap. Lord DeWilde had sent for a physician. He must have suspected she was in pain even though she tried to cover it.

"I expect Peter is halfway to the Lizard by now," Jeremy said, slouched on the sofa in his rumpled suit with his cravat twisted to one side.

Freddie reached for another scone. The hound, planted in the middle of the carpet, growled in warning. Freddie drew his hand back to his lap. "Peter will fetch us, won't he, Sydney?"

Sydney was staring across the room at Lord DeWilde. His dark hair was brushed back onto his shoulders. He seemed to be looking into the fire. But every now and then, Sydney caught him studying her with an intensity that made her toes curl. Which, of course, she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been sneaking peeps at him and wondering why he'd kissed her in the first place and why she had read so much into what was probably an impulsive gesture on his part.

Handsome man, she thought with a sigh. The laudanum had begun to take effect. Brilliant writer. Why does he live alone in this broody old house? Does he have a wife? Her thoughts were blurred. She started to close her eyes only to open them wide and look directly into his gaze. Awareness jolted through her like an arrow.

He gave her a slow personal smile. No one else in the room noticed it, thankfully, but it set Sydney's nerve endings on fire. She wriggled back against the sofa.

And sent her teacup frying to the floor.

"Oh, goodness."

"It's all right," DeWilde said, not quite suppressing a grin.

Sydney leaned down to get the cup, feeling a blush creep up her neck. "I hope our shipwreck hasn't disturbed Lady DeWilde," she said impulsively.

Conversation stopped. Lord DeWilde's head lifted from the hearth. Audrey shot her an annoyed look. Sydney, after all, was not really one of them. She was a professor's daughter, practically of the working class. Trust her to put her foot in her mouth.

"Alas, there is no Lady DeWilde," Rylan said, looking more amused than saddened by this announcement.

Sydney felt rather stupid, but she felt relieved too. "Well, I—"

Freddie's voice interrupted her, undoubtedly saving her from saying something even more socially unforgivable. "I said, 'Do you think Peter will come and fetch us?1"

All of a sudden Sydney looked down and saw that the dog had settled itself at her feet. "Well, hello," she said softly. "You're not really a big beast, are you?"

DeWilde smiled. "You've made a friend, Miss Windsor. Consider yourself honored. That hound would rather bite off someone's head than behave."

"I like animals," Sydney said.

And that animals liked her didn't surprise Rylan. She'd had that same effect on him. He'd probably run and fetch a stick if she asked him.

"That dog is a demon," Freddie whispered. "And you never did answer my question about Peter."

Sydney tore her attention away from DeWilde's face. He made her feel so self-conscious. "Peter?" she said, trying to rebalance her empty saucer on her good knee.

"Peter, the Duke of Esterfield," Audrey said sharply. "Peter, your beloved and betrothed, your One and Only. You do remember him, Sydney?"

"Gadzooks," Freddie said. "Do you think a spar thwacked her on the skull?"

Sydney noticed something flicker in DeWilde's eyes. A cold glitter of regret or disdain, she didn't know, but it told her he didn't approve of her engagement.

"Of course I remember Peter," she said in a crisp voice. "And, yes, he'll probably fetch us." She bit her lip, and added, "If he thinks of it, that is. He isn't exactly known for his charitable instincts. We have a better chance of being rescued by my father. Papa will probably swim here to rescue me."

Silence fell over the small group. DeWilde pretended to poke at the fire. Sydney knew he was pretending because the fire was perfectly fine as it was. He was pretending just so he wouldn't have to look at her again. She stared, rapt, at his brooding profile and thought again of his eyes and the wonderful stories he wrote that frightened and uplifted her at the same time.

Mrs. Chynoweth came in to clear away the dishes. She brought in Lord DeWilde's outercoat and cane, her voice low with concern. "Must you go out again tonight, my lord? Samhain is almost here, and there are dangerous wicked spirits in…"

Sydney lost the end of the sentence. She was eavesdropping and couldn't very well ask the woman what sort of wickedness Lord DeWilde might encounter. Where was he going this late at night anyway?

It seemed to be a regular ritual. The hound was already at the door, whining to get out.

"Where's he off to at this hour?" Freddie whispered in her ear.

"No doubt he's a practicing necromancer," Sydney said dryly.

DeWilde turned at the door, pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. Shadows hid his expression from Sydney. Yet she knew he was looking straight at her. "I have business on the moor and won't be back until after dawn. Mrs. Chynoweth will see you to your rooms. And Miss Windsor, don't be alarmed if the physician arrives late tonight. He has a long ride to reach us. I do not think your injury is serious, but one must be careful. If you wish to write a letter to your papa, I will have it posted in the morning."

Then he was gone, leaving Sydney staring at the door with a strange compulsion to follow after him and the realization that her life was about to be changed forever.

The worst part was, she couldn't wait to learn how.

Rylan galloped across the bleak moonlit moor. He cantered around the circle of standing stones, the black dog running at his side.

If he could ride off his anger, he would have to keep going until the sun rose and he rode to the lonely cliffs of Lizard Point.

The Duke of Esterfield.

He bellowed a string of curses into the air.

The beautiful woman he coveted belonged to one of the biggest swines in all of England. Charming on the outside, Peter was one of the most amoral and unprincipled men Rylan had ever met. Yet most people did not see Peter's dark side. They were besotted by his wealth and boyish charisma.

He could see why Peter had fallen in love with Sydney, defying convention to marry a woman beneath his class. Sydney was in a class of her own, and wasn't black attracted to white, the perverse to the pure?

Oh, Rylan knew plenty about Sydney's betrothed. He'd avoided any personal association with Peter, though, aside from almost killing Peter's cousin in a duel.

It hadn't exactly made them best friends.

What nasty secrets Rylan knew about Peter had come from researching a private club of noblemen that had recently sprung up in London and was rumored to be based on the Hellfire clubs of the previous century. Not that there were any Black Masses or murders, but there was a lot of drinking and seducing of young women and the lewd behavior that Prince Albert bemoaned.

Rylan felt sick at the thought of Sydney falling into the hands of a man who would defile her innocence.

He slowed his horse, and his anger simmered down into resolve. The matter was settled. She wasn't leaving his house. He didn't know yet how he'd keep her, but he'd figure it out. A man didn't write tales of the Wondrous and Terrible without having a devious mind, and Rylan's plot twists left his readers biting their nails to the quick.

He came to the base of a hill where a bonfire blazed and cloaked figures danced in a circle, chanting into the night.

Witchcraft. Demons. Supernatural wonders. He had set out to prove that there was no such thing as magic. Yet the heathen rituals he had witnessed here in no way resembled the cruel tendencies of human nature.

He slid off his horse and moved into the shadows of the hill where he could watch the pagan ceremony.

Rylan was really beginning to believe there was no real magic to be found. Only the fantasies and imaginings and wishful thinking of deluded people. He'd traveled the world over searching for proof, for inspiration. The closest he'd come to magic was the sight of Sydney Windsor washed up in his cove and spilling her tea on his carpet

He leaned against a boulder and stared up into the undulating flames before he opened his saddlebag. It held a meat pie, pen and paper, a pistol. He had to smile. The weapon had been packed by his housekeeper, who was concerned that a Samhain spirit would possess her master's soul. Or that the villagers might rough him up if they caught him observing their secret practices.

He wasn't worried about his life being threatened at all. He'd won a wrestling match against the three strongest men in the village his first week here. Hell, he'd barely exerted himself. And since then he'd not only commanded respect but made some new friends.

Mrs. Chynoweth kept warning him that the strange goings-on after midnight on the moor were another matter. She said even the gentlest souls were subject to bewitchment. And how did anyone know it wasn't Lady Tregarron or Squire Pendarvis dancing about for the devil under those silk hoods?

Rylan wasn't worried about supernatural things either. Interested, yes, for research purposes.

He was more worried about how to break the news to Sydney that she wasn't going to be the Duchess of Esterfield after all. He hoped she didn't have her heart set on living in a big manor house or on attending royal functions.

If he could ensnare her with magic, he'd do it in a second. For now, though, he'd have to fall back on the age-old spell of male-female attraction.

Fortunately, he thought with a grin of pure arrogance, there appeared to be more than enough of that between them. Sydney hadn't taken her beautiful eyes off him all evening, and if they had been alone, he would have satisfied her curiosity in more ways than one.

"What kind of business could DeWilde have on the moor?" Freddie wondered aloud.

"Perhaps he's going to dance naked with a coven of witches," Sydney said irritably. "The man is a writer. Who are we to question where he finds inspiration?"

Jeremy stood from the sofa and stretched. "As long as he didn't use us for his research. Anyone else for bed?"

Audrey looked across the room. "Miss Hiccough is. She can barely keep her eyes open. Go on up, Sydney. We'll wait here until the doctor arrives."

"Just in case it's Dr. Frankenstein," Freddie said, throwing his arms up to limp around the sofa with a hideous grin. "In case he wants to perform a nasty operation on our hapless Miss Windsor while she lies, drugged and helpless, in the body snatcher's bed."

Sydney didn't argue. She was too drowsy to tell them they were behaving like proper idiots. They'd just argue back that it was time she started behaving like an aristocrat and not a social mushroom, seeing that she would become a duchess in two short months.

"A duchess," she said to herself as she limped from the room. "Can you believe I'm going to be a duchess?"

Mrs. Chynoweth appeared out of the shadows, mumbling under her breath. "You could believe anything, miss, after living with Lord DeWilde for over a year."

The doctor came and went, having examined Sydney's knee under the eagle-eyed supervision of Audrey and Mrs. Chynoweth. Sydney slept, strangely relaxed in the unsettled atmosphere.

The doctor told Audrey at the door, "She's to stay off it for a week. Apply liniments of deer grease twice a day. Dulse tea will improve her circulation. It's good for constipation, too."

"I am sure Sydney will appreciate that very much," Audrey said in a tart voice. "Are you sure she can't walk?"

"No weight on that leg for at least two days," he said. "She'll be feeling the pain of it in the morning."

"Two days," Audrey murmured. "It will be too late then. Oh, poor Sydney. There's no hope to save her, it would seem."

As soon as the doctor left, Audrey hurried back downstairs where Jeremy and Freddie were helping themselves to liberal amounts of his lordship's port and sausage pies.

Freddie sprawled across the sofa with a bottle balanced between his bare feet. Jeremy was examining the bag of Celtic runes he had found on the card table.

Freddie yawned in boredom. "What does his lordship do for proper entertainment? This ain't rustication. It's embalmment. This place is as lively as a crypt."

Audrey swept into the center of the room, bristling with agitation. "The doctor just left. We have a genuine crisis on our hands."

"Has Sydney gone fatal on us?" Freddie asked in alarm.

Jeremy's mouth dropped open. "Good God. I didn't know a knee injury could turn deadly. Well, not that quick anyway. What are we going to tell Peter?"

"Sydney is perfectly fine." She paused for effect. Then she looked around, lowering her voice. "Our host is another matter. He isn't what you think. Or whom."

Freddie bunked. "He isn't a DeWilde?"

"He is a DeWilde," Audrey said, glancing uneasily at the door. "But there are three brothers—Valentine, Geoffrey, and Rylan. Valentine and Geoffrey are invited everywhere, but Rylan, well, the name Rylan DeWilde is synonymous with scandal. The man does just as he pleases."

Jeremy tossed the runes on the table. "As long as he's a DeWilde, I don't see what all the drama is about."

Audrey compressed her lips. Sometimes she couldn't believe what a clot he was. "He almost killed Peter's cousin Edgar in a duel last year over a shopgirl who claimed she was carrying Edgar's bastard."

Freddie burped. "Is that all? I thought you were going to tell us DeWilde was a vampire."

"The whole affair was hushed up by Peter's family," Audrey said. "Nobody really knows how Rylan got involved, or why. Rumor has it that the shopgirl's unborn child was a DeWilde."

"Do you think I should get one of them pedicures?" Freddie asked, examining his toes.

Audrey sighed. "Of course, rumor also has it that the same child was sired by Peter."

"I thought Peter's cousin fathered the creature," Freddie said in confusion.

Jeremy snorted. "I'd like to meet this shopgirl. Imagine getting impregnated by three men at once."

"I can't imagine getting impregnated at all," Freddie said.

"Peter was Edgar's second in the duel," Audrey said quietly. "He hates Rylan."

"Well, we won't sit them together at the supper table, or ask them to dance with each other," Freddie said.

"Are you both as thick as a brick?" Audrey said. "Don't you understand what this means?"

The two men glanced at each other, then said, "No," in unison.

"If Peter won't stay in the same room with DeWilde," she said slowly, "he's not going to be delighted that his fiancee and three best friends are having a cozy holiday in Cornwall together. Is he?"

Jeremy and Freddie exchanged alarmed looks. Peter was not only the social link that connected them to the upper, upper crust, he was the purse that paid the way.

"I see what you mean," Jeremy said grimly. "We do owe Peter our loyalty."

"Not to mention several thousand pounds," Freddie said.

Audrey turned from the fire. "Therefore, being Peter's dearest friends, we must leave the house of his enemy."

Freddie sat bolt upright. "In the middle of the night?"

"Where will we find a carriage?" Jeremy asked.

"Well walk," Audrey said resolutely.

"Walk?" Freddie gazed in horror at his pampered white feet. "Across a moor? And to where, I ask."

"To the village," Audrey said. 'This is Cornwall, you dolt, not darkest Africa."

"Is there a difference?" Freddie asked.

A door slammed somewhere behind them, echoing through the house. Jeremy nibbed his haggard face. "Does Sydney know any of this? Does she know that Peter was carrying on with a shopgirl?"

Audrey glanced away. "No. She doesn't know about him and Lady Penelope either."

"That's still going on?" Freddie said in shock. "God."

"Yes," Audrey whispered. "And we're not going to breathe a word of it to our little Sleeping Beauty upstairs, or she'll break off the engagement and end up marrying someone awful like a clerk or a retired sailor. Then Peter will end up marrying someone deadly dull, and we'll be cut off like poor relatives."

Jeremy looked bewildered. "What do we do, then?"

"We rescue her." Audrey tossed Freddie his socks. "We spirit her as far away from DeWilde as we dare. One night in his house, and she'll be ruined whether he lays a hand on her or not."

Rylan held the hound by the scruff of the neck. Master and dog stood together in the unlit hall, eavesdroppers in their own home.

"Stay," Rylan said, his voice low and gruff. "You might have a chance to indulge your killer instincts later, but not yet."

He ducked his tall frame under the stairs as the three conspirators in the drawing room tiptoed out into the hall.

Rylan would have been amused by their idiotic antics if he weren't so furious. He'd be delighted to show them the door, but he'd be damned if he was going to allow them to abduct a half-drugged and inexperienced young woman.

They weren't going to take Sydney back to the man who was more of a monster inside than the tortured characters Rylan and his brothers had created.

He was just going to have to protect her. He hadn't realized how urgent a problem it was until he'd overheard the conversation in the drawing room.

Ruining Miss Windsor's reputation wouldn't just clear the field for him to capture her. It would probably save her from making the biggest mistake of her life.