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of hell are after them across the moor.” He spat. “She’s a demon, that horse.” He glanced back at Joshua. “Yet with her ladyship, Shadow is as gentle as any lamb with its shepherd.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, my lord. I talk too much.”
    A faint smile lifted Joshua’s lips. “No. You remind me of old Bartholomew, who taught me to ride in my youth.”
    Botter grinned, a few of his black teeth visible. “Bartholomew Eyers? He was my mother’s brother. Could explain it.”
    Joshua’s smile widened. “It could. All right, Botter. I’m home now. No need to worry.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Six sharp, now.”
    “Yessir.”
    Joshua liked the way the man tipped his hat, then brushed the neck of his horse. A good man, he thought as he turned and strode toward the house.
    Arundale Hall. Its foundations had been laid in the time of William the Conqueror and given to a Norman warrior. That warrior had married a Saxon woman and his children had held the manor for three centuries.
    Joshua stopped and ran his fingers over one of the blocks of stone left from the old castle. The history of Arundale fascinated him. His family had come to the hall lately, only two hundred years earlier, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Her reign and his family’s rise had coincided, the first Arundale raised from a common merchant to a peer in only one generation, made an earl by the queen. It had been the long-cherished dream of the first Arundale to own the land associated with the title given to him. How could he have known it would lead to a legacy of terror and blood?
    The possession of Arundale Hall had been cemented by Gervase Arundale’s marriage to Anne DeFalk, the last descendent of the Norman warrior. Two long lines of history collided here and Joshua wondered if they would end with Gerry, the male descendent who would inherit the entailed land if he and Perry remained childless.
    When had the curse begun? The records showed that the myth of the Beast of Arundale had begun as a story told during the Norman possession of the land. Many had called the first DeFalk a wolf, saying he slew his enemies with long claws and sharp teeth rather than a sword.
    Such stories might have been dismissed but for one thing. It had continued with every passing generation. The curse had been something brought to England from the distant French shores and passed on to him and his brother.
    Joshua yanked his hand away from the stone. Better to stop his line entirely than let the curse continue.
    That was his thought as the front door opened and Elizabeth stepped out to welcome him.
    No other woman, in England or anywhere else, could hold him the way she did. At eighteen she’d been pretty, with soft brown hair and sympathetic brown eyes. Now she was a grown woman with the grace that may come with age. Her hair was still long, but up in a severe hairstyle he’d seen on women in London and disliked on his wife. She wore a simple dress, no fancy gown. Her face had grown thinner over the years and he noted that her dress fitted her loosely, almost enveloped her. He didn’t like her pale complexion or tightly gripped fingers.
    He wanted her to run down the stairs and fling herself into his arms. For a moment he thought he noted a longing, a desperate desire in her steady gaze, but it flickered and died away instantly. But what had he expected? He’d abandoned her with the burden he himself had barely been able to carry alone.
    A flurry of feminine ribbons and petticoats attacked him.
    “Joshua, you’re home,” a woman cried and he almost stumbled from the force of her welcome.
    “Melinda,” he said sedately and removed her arms. She’d always embarrassed him as a gauche boy and it seemed that hadn’t changed.
    He immediately noted that Melinda’s clothes were much more fashionable and newer than his wife’s. His eyes narrowed. His cousin’s outfit had cost quite a bit and, by the smell of her, she skimped on nothing