I didn't reach the door. I had only gone a few paces before the sensation was upon me once again with a violent, almost punishing force that brought beads of icy sweat to my forehead and made my fingers clutch at the paneled walls in an effort to stay upright. I tried to fight it back, but failed. This time the high-pitched ringing rose deafeningly in my ears, and I spiraled downward into darkness. It seemed an eternity before the storm passed, leaving me standing alone in the silent hallway, my hands shaking in anticipation. A footfall sounded in the main passage behind me, and I spun round, my skirts sweeping the polished floor. Richard de Mornay halted his approach when he was still several feet away, and I waited for his reaction.

It was shockingly bold behavior, for me to come calling on him like this, and I wasn't sure why I had done it. Perhaps it was because my uncle and aunt had gone down to Salisbury, and I had grown wild in my unaccustomed freedom. Or perhaps it was because of what Richard himself had said to me that day at the market, about my not seeming a coward. I had read the laughing challenge in his eyes that day, and I saw it again now as he took a step forward into the light, gallantly bowing his head.

'Welcome to Crofton Hall,' said Richard de Mornay.

Twenty-three

He advanced on me with a gracious smile. 'So you are not a coward, after all,' he said, and I fancied his tone was faintly pleased. 'You would face the devil on his own footing.'

He looked less like the devil this day. In place of his usual black clothing he wore a fine hanging coat of pale dove-gray, and his plain cravat spilled over a yellow silk waistcoat that was tied to his body with a wide sash. I was pleased to see that he did not follow the foppish fashion of London gentlemen. His gray breeches were not loose and beribboned; they fit smoothly over his muscled thighs and disappeared into the high practical boots of a countryman. No high-heeled shoes with buckles and bows for the lord of Exbury manor.

I smoothed my hands over my own plain skirt and faced him bravely. 'I am but accepting the invitation of a gentleman, my lord,' I corrected him smoothly, 'to have the loan of some of his books.'

' "Tis well for you I am a gentleman'—his eyes laughed back at me—'for you do take a risk in coming thus unchaperoned. No doubt my servants are at this moment fainting from the impropriety of it.' I smiled, recalling the expression on the face of the man who had opened the door to me, and his stammering discomposure as he'd left me to find his master. A sudden thought struck me, and I glanced up, sobering.

'They will not tell?' I said quickly. 'That is, my uncle ...'

'... shall never hear of your adventure,' Richard de Mornay finished the sentence for me. 'My servants may be Puritan in their morals, but they are a loyal lot. Your uncle is not at home, I take it.'

I shook my head. 'He has gone down to Salisbury, with Aunt Caroline.'

'Has he, now?' I thought his eyes hardened for a moment, but it was a fleeting impression and soon forgotten. 'Well, then you need not hurry your visit,' he decided. 'Would you like to see the library first, or view the house as a whole?'

That was a simple question to resolve. 'The library, please.'

'As you wish.' He inclined his head, not surprised. 'Follow me, if you will.'

He led me along the dark passage and out into a cloistered walk that gave onto a tranquil courtyard, cool and green and peaceful. No flowers bloomed here save a handful of tender blossoms that trailed lovingly across a flat square of white stone set into the turf.

'My mother's grave,' Richard said, when I asked him what it was. 'Being Catholic, she was refused burial in the churchyard.'

I frowned thoughtfully. 'Is that why you do not attend the services yourself?'

'I had rather pay the fines and pray according to my conscience,' he replied. 'I could not hold with any church that would so judge a pious woman.'

He pushed open a heavy, creaking door and led me into another passage, where the air was heavy with the glorious scent of leather. I had often dreamed of rooms filled with nothing but books, but I had never actually seen one, and so the first sight of Richard de Mornay's library left me momentarily speechless.

'These are all yours?' I asked in wonder, my eyes raking row upon row of the handsomely bound volumes, and he laughed at the unbridled envy on my face.

'Ay. One day I will build a larger room for them, but for now this must suffice. You may borrow whatever you like.'

It would have taken me a month to read all the titles. I stepped forward and quickly selected a small, fat book from one of the lower shelves. 'May I borrow this one?' I asked him.

'Shakespeare?' He checked my choice, raising one eyebrow curiously. 'Take it, if you will. That is the Second Folio, and contains a curious verse by Milton, the old sinner, in the form of an epitaph.'

I brushed my fingers across the book's cover lightly, reverently. 'My father spoke highly of Milton's poetry,' I said, 'though he did not applaud his politics.'

'He is an odious man,' Richard agreed, 'but a brave poet. He has just finished an epic on the fall of man, I am told, but cannot find the wherewithal to see it printed.'

Since the Restoration the once fiery Milton had fallen from favor, and the man who had penned such venomous defenses of the killing of kings now lived in blind and bitter solitude. I, for one, did not mourn his downfall. Fanaticism such as his had always frightened me.

My selection made, we left the library and skirted the courtyard once more, entering the main part of the house through a different door this time. I followed my host down a long gallery, where the dark portraits stared down at me from their vantage points on the paneled walls. All the eyes held disapproval. All the eyes, that is, but the pair belonging to a defiant young man in the last portrait but one.