Any Wicked Thing

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 

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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2011 by Maggie Robinson.

 

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PRINTING HISTORY
Heat trade paperback edition / March 2011

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Rowe, Margaret.

Any wicked thing / Margaret Rowe.—Heat trade paperback ed. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-47868-4

1. Family secrets—Fiction. 2. England—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3618.O8729A84 2011

813'.6—dc22

2010042110

 

 

“W
hat is the point?” Sebastian Goddard, reluctant heir to the duchy of Roxbury, looked around the long gallery with disfavor after a particularly adept
attacque du fer
. Grim and grimy portraits of gentlemen who thankfully were not his ancestors glared down from the castle walls. Motes of dust swirled in weak shafts of light, stirred up as he fenced with his oldest friend, who seemed to be wearing a patched pair of pants that he'd cast off after a growth spurt at Eton. He spared his opponent nothing, and it took a bit for her to catch a breath to answer.

“I rather think it's at the end of your sword, Sebastian. That sharp thing.”

“I didn't say where; I said what, Freddie. Why would he buy this dump when there's a reasonably good house at Roxbury Park?” He executed a perfect flying parry. Freddie overcompensated, slipped and landed on her well-padded bottom on the hard stone floor with a thump.

He was a cur to engage her, but she had insisted on swordplay to start the day. An insistent Frederica Wells was, in his long-suffering experience, impossible to ignore. He was more than a foot taller and several stones heavier, a visitor to the finest
salle d'armes
in Great Britain and the continent, fit and fresh from his lengthy grand tour after a lackluster year at university. His father had sent him off with a private tutor in the hopes of civilizing him, but Sebastian had become crafty ditching the old bird. In fact, for the last four months Sebastian had been wholly on his own. Mr. Tetley had thrust a purse at him at the acropolis in Athens and washed his hands of him, preferring the duke's wrath to one more day with his scapegrace son.

Freddie had been stuck at home as all girls were, no doubt singing and painting and doing other useless things. Her fencing skills had improved some from the last time they went at it, but poor Freddie looked like she'd had two too many lemon tarts thrice daily. He recalled they were her favorite. Even at eighteen, she had not lost her baby fat. Her freckled face was red from exertion, but she grinned up at him like a cheerful pixie as he pulled her to her feet.

She pushed a sweat-soaked brown braid behind her ear. “You know your father's love of all things medieval. How could he resist? Didn't he tell you all about it yesterday?”

“If he did, I was not paying attention. You know how he bores me.” The pater had rambled on yesterday about some of the structure dating to the eleventh century, not that Sebastian cared. Gray rock was gray rock, and his mind had drifted to visions of boiling oil or molten lead being poured down through the machicolations on the old man. At twenty-one, Sebastian saw nothing but the duke's disinterest in anything contemporary, including himself. His father had preferred to spend his time with his secretary and their dusty tomes and broken relics rather than his only son. The men traveled all over Europe outrunning Boney himself in their quest for medieval miscellany.

“Well, the story of Goddard Castle is not boring in the least,” Freddie said, her eyes lighting.

Blast.
It seemed she had been bitten by the history bug as well.
Goddard Castle
indeed. The Archibald family crest and motto was stamped on virtually every flat surface. The castle was originally home to the Earls of Archibald, and had been called Archibald Castle until his father had the hubris to rename it after himself. “I suppose you're going to give me a lecture now, aren't you, brat?”

“Your tutor gave a thorough report. I know you care nothing for history, so I won't waste my time trying to enlighten you if he couldn't,” Freddie said, taking no trouble to mask her superiority. “But we are at war with the French, so even a blockhead like you might see the fascination in this tale. But never mind. I'm sure you have plans for the morning. Seducing housemaids and whatnot.”

She stomped off in the direction of the armory to return her foil. He followed, amused by the sway of her backside. His old breeches looked fairly good on her.

“I know you're dying to tell me,” he called after her. “You never could keep your mouth shut for any length of time.”

She turned like a clockwork gear, as he knew she would. “Go to the devil, Sebastian Goddard!”

“Already there, Freddie.” He smiled at her, hoping she wouldn't decide to raise her weapon and run him through. He leaned against a leaded window, praying it would hold his weight.

Her blue-gray eyes narrowed. “You have not changed one bit.”

“Au contraire. The past two years abroad have been very educational.”

“I'll bet. Not that I would ever know. You never wrote.”

“I'm sure I did a time or two.” But most of the things he'd seen and done could not be divulged to a young lady in a letter. He supposed Freddie qualified as a young lady. From the way her chest heaved, it seemed she had grown breasts. “But you're right about the war. It was difficult to find accommodations that Corsican upstart hadn't mucked with.”

“Your father was worried.”

Sebastian rather doubted that, but held his tongue. He really was too old to be rebelling and railing against the pater. He'd turn into a cliché if he wasn't careful.

“Yet here I am, not a hair on my head harmed.” Sebastian fluffed some up. He was rather proud of his hair. It was dark, thick and curly. Women loved to run their fingers through it, and he loved letting them.

“He's very glad you're home.”

“This isn't home, Freddie, and never will be.” Sebastian thought the castle, whatever it was called, was the gloomiest place he'd ever seen. Parts of Yorkshire were indeed beautiful, but no one could ever claim Goddard Castle was. It rose on its motte from a bare landscape like a set of blind giant's blocks. Even in its prime, Sebastian was sure it had been ugly. There was no sense of symmetry, and more than half the structure lay in ruins, even after more than a year of his father's occupation.