Son of a rogue and a gypsy, Hero Fiennes Tiffin was a notorious rake until a shattering betrayal left him alone and embittered in the Welsh countryside. Desperation drives quiet schoolteacher Josephine Langford to ask Hero Fiennes Tiffin to help sav...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They called him the Devil Earl. Hushed voices whispered that he had seduced his grandfather's young wife, broken his grandfather's heart, and driven his own bride to her grave.
They said he could do anything.
Only the last claim interested Josephine Langford as her gaze followed the man racing his stallion down the valley as if all the fires of hell pursued him. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, the Gypsy Earl of Westgate, had finally come home, after four long years. Perhaps he would stay, but it was equally possible that he would be gone again tomorrow. Josephine must act quickly.
Yet she lingered a little longer, knowing that he would never see her in the cluster of trees from which she watched. He rode bareback, flaunting his wizardry with horses, dressed in black except for the scarlet scarf knotted around his throat. He was too far away for her to see his face. She wondered if he had changed, then decided that the real question was not if, but how much. Whatever the truth behind the violent events that had driven him away, it had to have been searing.
Would he remember her? Probably not. He'd only seen her a handful of times, and she had been a child then. Not only had he been Viscount Tregar, but he was four years older than she, and older children seldom paid much attention to younger ones.
The reverse was not true.
As she walked back to the village of Penreith, she reviewed her pleas and arguments. One way or another, she must persuade the Devil himself to help. No one else could make a difference.
Hero
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
For a few brief minutes, while his stallion blazed across the estate like a mad wind, Hero was able to lose himself in the exhilaration of pure speed. But reality closed in again when the ride ended and he returned to the house.
In his years abroad he had often dreamed of Westgate, torn between yearning and fear of what he would find there. The twenty-four hours since his return had proved that his fears had been justified. He'd been a fool to think that four years away could obliterate the past. Every room of the house, every acre of the valley, held memories. Some were happy ones, but they had been overlaid by more recent events, tainting what he had once loved. Perhaps, in the furious moments before he died, the old Earl had laid a curse on the valley so that his despised grandson would never again know happiness here.
