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revealing a view that caused her to gasp in surprise. The stark moorland gave way, at the top of the hill, to a thick, dark woodland. Though black and looming, as sinister as all she had seen during the journey from the town, the woodland nevertheless appeared incongruous after so much emptiness. The copse of trees seemed to spring magically straight out of the granite moor.
    Verity knew in her heart that hidden among that grim-looking forest was her destination: Pendurgan.
    â€œAh, we are almost there,” Lord Harkness said, startling Verity while she peered curiously out the window. “That is Pendurgan just ahead. My home.”
    As the carriage reached the crest of the hill, they entered a lush knoll encompassed by trees—chestnuttrees, if she was not mistaken. Imagine that. Chestnut trees thriving in all that granite. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to protect—or hide?—the house.
    And then she saw it. It did not look so much like a house as like a small, ancient castle. Squat and gray, its thick, embattled walls were pierced in only two places by high, narrow, slit windows. The rest, seemed to be unbroken, unadorned, unimpeachable granite. The structure appeared to rise up from the very stone beneath its feet.
    Dear Lord. It was the sort of place one entered and never left, sinister and malevolent. The thick walls would close upon one like a prison.
    The carriage drove through an arched gateway in the thick outer wall into a large inner courtyard. Though less imposing than the outside—at least there were windows, lots of windows—it still appeared a harsh, unwelcoming, rough-looking building.
    The carriage came to a halt, and the ginger-haired footman swung open the door on her side and pulled down the step. Verity warily took his hand and climbed down. The rain fell hard upon the gravel drive, and she clutched her cloak close about her as she stood beside the carriage, uncertain what to do.
    â€œBring her trunk round to the great hall, Tomas,” Lord Harkness said to the footman in a loud, sharp voice. “Jago, take the coach round back to the kitchen and unload the rest. Then get these horses out of the rain.”
    He turned quickly to Verity, grabbed her upper arm, and tugged her in the direction of a set of huge wooden doors. It was the first time he’d touched her,and she flinched slightly at the roughness of it. Not from fear, for she knew it had more to do with getting them both out of the rain than with any sort of brutality. There was something else, though, that caused her to flinch, caused her skin beneath his fingers to prickle and flush. She could not name what it was, but it frightened her as much as anything else that had happened this day.
    Lord Harkness gave a sort of growl and stopped in his tracks. Tightening the hold on her arm, he turned her to face him. “Dammit,” he snapped, “let us get one thing straight. While you are at Pendurgan, Mrs…. what was it? Russell? Mrs. Russell?”
    â€œNo!”
    The word was uttered before she could check it. But after all that had happened this day, the name was anathema to her.
    Lord Harkness glared at Verity through the curtain of rain that poured off the brim of his hat. A deep scowl beetled his brow as though he wanted to snap her head off for speaking at all.
    â€œNo,” she repeated. She could hardly breathe from the effort of speaking even that single word. She wanted to say more, to explain about the name, but the very thought of speaking to this dark stranger who’d brought her to this forbidding place was liable to set her whole body to trembling once again.
    â€œVerity Osborne,” was all she could manage.
    â€œYou can call yourself anything you bloody well like,” he said in an angry tone. “Anything, so long as we can get the hell out of this rain.”
    â€œVerity Osborne,” she repeated, relieved at the more controlled tone she’d managed.