Katherine Langford is in London ready to make her debut to society when she discovers that the home next door is being rented by the "Murderous Marquess" Hayden Rowling. Always impulsive, Katy decides to sneak over and take a peek at the notorious M...
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I could feel the Devil's icy breath against the back of my neck...
An ill wind was blowing at Oakwylde Manor.
It came whipping across the moors and down the chimneys, poisoning every breath with its bitterness. It wrested the leaves from the trees with ruthless fingers, leaving them stark and bare. It stripped away every trace of summer until that brief season seemed nothing more than a dream.
Some claimed that if you stepped outside and tilted your head just so, you could even hear the distant tolling of the bell the wreckers had used to lure unsuspecting ships to their doom on the jagged rocks a century ago.
Others whispered that it was the same wind that had blown the night the master's first wife had taken her fatal fall, the same wind that had carried his agonized cry to their ears.
The servants once again took to locking themselves in their quarters as soon as dark fell. It was no longer a ghost they feared encountering in the gathering shadows, but a man. Although he spent his days barricaded in his study, their master would stalk the deserted corridors of the manor at all hours of the night, his savage countenance and burning eyes making him look somehow less than mortal.
Although no melodies, ghostly or otherwise, emanated from the music room after he sent his wife and daughter away, the maids still dreaded entering the chamber. None of them could shake off the eerie sensation that they were being watched. They would whirl around, their hearts in their throats, only to find themselves all alone with the portrait of the first Lady Oakleigh. One young girl swore that while she was dusting the piano, a choking cloud of jasmine had arisen from the keys, sending her staggering from the room, fighting to catch her breath. After a porcelain figurine went flying off the mantel, barely missing Ines's head, neither Sophia's pinches nor Mrs. Cavendish's threats of immediate dismissal could coax any of the terrified maids into returning to that room.
The footmen began to complain to Giles about icy pockets of cold lingering in certain corridors. They would rush back to warm themselves by the kitchen fire, chilled to the bone and wracked by uncontrollable shivers.
When Sophia reluctantly informed Hayden of the servants' growing fears, he suggested that she hire less superstitious servants. He no longer believed in ghosts. Just when he longed for their company the most, they had deserted him.
Although he'd sent Madelaine away nearly four months ago, he insisted that the maids keep a lamp burning in her chamber all through the night. He would easily open her door and expect to see her lying there, her cheeks flushed with sleep and Katy's doll nestled in her arms. But her bed was always cold and empty.
He would linger in the drawing room doorway in the wee hours of morning, hoping to hear the clinking of teacups, the echo of a high-pitched giggle, or a snatch of some ridiculous Scottish ditty. But all he heard was silence.
