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recommended by him. He could hardly wait to find out if this Kate possessed the requisite skill for the courtesan’s trade. If not, and she proved awkward, why, generous soul that he was, he was perfectly willing to serve as her tutor until the Coast Guard chaps arrived to take their prisoners into custody.
    Of course, he still believed Caleb had placed the girl with him to act as their little spy, but given her overindulgence in drink, the smugglers had chosen a poor secret agent. She would soon find the vice a considerable impediment to stealth.
    Hopefully, she had sobered up a bit by now, having been left to her own devices for about half an hour.
    As he climbed the stairs, bewitching moonlight streamed through the tall, pointed Gothic window and flooded the soaring vault of the cold stone stairwell with its silver glow.
    As he reached the landing, blue shadows from the window mullions crisscrossed his rugged countenance like the war paint of his most ancient Celtic ancestors.
    He paused at the window, habitually scanning for trouble. From his tower stronghold, he had an excellent view of the surrounding territory. He could see the distant lanterns of the smugglers’ carriages heading back down to the village, tiny orange spheres inching down the road.
    At closer range, the windows of the gatehouse, where his men remained on duty, gave off a cheerful glow.
    Before he turned away, his lingering gaze took in the frigid beauty of the winter night. The castle grounds had become an ice kingdom, dark but sparkling in the moonlight; hoarfrost coated the frozen garden statues and topiaries like diamond dust. No doubt, it would melt by morning, and all would be cold and bleak and gray again.
    As his slow, warm breath fogged the glass before him, his hard-eyed reflection looked back at him, transparent as a ghost.
    His thoughts wandered, the situation back in London gnawing at him, especially concerning their missing agent.
    Rohan did not know Drake personally—only the team leaders were allowed to communicate with each other, a structure that helped to secure their covert web as a whole. The Order now believed that Drake was being held by one of the Promethean Council’s most powerful members, James Falkirk, and his ever-present bodyguard and assistant, the one-eyed killer known as Talon.
    He wondered if any progress had been made to locate Drake since he had left London, but just then, Rohan felt a draft waft behind him. It raised the hairs on his nape.
    Instantly, he whipped around, his heart pounding—but there was no sign of the Gray Lady, no sighting of any vengeful apparition. He had only seen her once in his life, as a youngster, after all.
    He could feel … something. But, no. There was only darkness, empty air, and the guilt of all the previous dukes in his barbaric lineage.
    The Kilburn Curse.
    His belligerent posture eased, but the odd, eerie tingle still ran down his arms. He shook it off with a gruff snort and, mocking himself, went on his way, marching up the rest of the stairs with a scowl.
    Absurdity. A grown man, an educated man, a peer of the realm, spooked by his own bloody house! Good God, he was a top assassin for one of the deadliest organizations in the world, taken from his boyhood like a Spartan to be turned into the fiercest of warriors.
    And so he was. It was in his blood. The Warrington line had always produced the most gifted killers.
    That was precisely the problem.
    Hundreds of years ago, a medieval ancestor, a typical vainglorious Warrington knight, had incurred the wrath of a Promethean sorcerer, Valerian the Alchemist, who had laid the curse on his line.
    “Ye mighty warriors, be ye doomed to kill that which ye love.”
    Ever since, every few generations, Warrington dukes had exhibited an unfortunate tendency toward killing their wives—mostly by accident, but occasionally on purpose.
    This was their doom, allegedly.
    Local lore claimed that his forefathers’ cherished victims still roamed