Free Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark by Donna Lea Simpson Page B

glorious,” Lady Anne said. She strode toward it with single-minded intensity, picking up her skirts and climbing the last few feet of the rise with surprising hardiness, a brisk, chilly wind lifting the bent plumage on her hat.
    He was taken aback for a moment, stunned and unmoving. Then he followed, catching up to her with three long steps. “You like it?” he asked, matching her pace.
    “It’s stunning! Beyond description. May I draw it?”
    “Of course.”
    She stopped, and he bumped into her, but she seemed unperturbed. “From here,” she said. She stared for a long moment. “Yes. From right here.”
    He looked at Darkefell Castle over her shoulder. “There,” he said, pointing to the dark tower, a dry-moated, crenellated castle keep, “is the original section, the keep. It was built by Baron Geoffrey Destaun, my ancestor, from whom Staunby eventually took its name, which was kindly given back to us when a later ancestor was graced with the earldom.”
    She glanced over her shoulder at him. “A castle keep? Darkefell, how romantic!”
    She had seemed so pragmatic, but he was delighted to find her otherwise. “Destaun was a follower of Edward of Woodstock until they had a falling-out, it was said, over a game of chance.”
    “Edward… the Black Prince,” Lady Anne said, looking back toward the castle. “But… what do you mean, ‘a game of chance’?”
    “First,” he said, holding up a quelling hand, “Edward was never, during his life, called the Black Prince. Anyway, he and Destaun gambled on a backgammon game, though I don’t believe it was called that then, and quarreled. My later ancestors claimed the argument concerned something more noble, such as Edward’s treatment of those over whom he had control—he was a cruel man—but from what I have been able to ascertain, it was that one simple game and Edward’s charge that the baron cheated him.”
    “Really.” She examined the castle and began to walk again, asking as she went, “So the castle keep is from those days, but what about the rest?”
    It was a novelty, someone asking him about his family history, so he spoke while they walked, examining his home with fresh eyes. “The keep was to protect Geoffrey Destaun and his family. Or families. He had many children, not all of them with his wife.”
    “He was that kind of fellow, was he?”
    He ignored her comment and pointed to the long wall to the left that merged into the ascending hill beyond the castle. “That is the ruined part of the castle from the earliest time. The wall joins with the keep and was part of the fortification. The dry moat—at one time it was a fully functioning moat fed by spring water—has been mostly filled in over the years with earth. Within the walls were the laundry yard, the butchery, the buttery, the milk shed, even the vegetable gardens, everything necessary to keep the family and servants fed during long sieges.”
    “Did your ancestors indulge in many quarrels with their neighbors?”
    “Oh yes, they were a hot tempered, irritable lot.” Grimly, Darkefell thought of his own problems of late and muttered, “Time changes nothing, it seems.”
    She glanced over at him. “I noticed this morning in the breakfast room that Mr. Hiram Grover, who so thoughtfully brought my bags up to Ivy Lodge, ignored your arrival. It must mean you two have nothing of which to speak—either that, or there is some barrier to conversation between you.”
    Sharp and sharper, he thought. Lady Anne was a noticing female, of all types the most inconvenient to have staying at Darkefell Castle right then. He had deep reasons not only to despise Grover, but also to dislike the man’s friendship with his mother. “You’re correct in thinking he and I have never gotten on,” he said, keeping his tone light. “I corrupted his son when we were of an age in school, and I fear the man has never forgiven me.”
    “I think you are deflecting my curiosity, Lord