Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) Read online

  Dark Hero

  Book One in the Reluctant Heroes Series

  By Lily Silver

  Copyright Lily Silver 2012

  Cover Design by John Stuttgen, Graphic Designer

  Thank you to the following people who helped make this book possible:

  To Daniel, my love, my best friend and my reclusive Dark Hero.

  Denise, Mary Grace and Christine for your patience and endurance in

  proofing the final manuscript.

  To Holly, Mary and Barb for reading a very rough draft of this book

  several years ago. These wonderful, intelligent women offered

  the first sparks of enthusiasm and encouraged

  my writing from the very beginning.

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Lily Silver

  “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;

  The most massive characters are seamed with scars.”

  Edwin Hubbell Chapin

  Chapter One

  The Fashionable Mayfair district, London, 1795

  The thumping scrape of unsteady boots on the stairs pierced the tranquil summer night.

  Startled awake, Elizabeth sat bolt upright in bed as the forbidden book hit the floor with an incriminating thud. The familiar gnawing grew in her belly. This time Mrs. Radcliffe’s deliciously horrid Gothic novel was not to blame. The heavy boots paused outside her door. Her eyes flew to the brass knob gilded by orange firelight as she waited breathlessly for it to turn. She watched the slight twist of the knob and heard the protective click.

  It was locked. She released her captive breath.

  As danger moved past her door with an unsteady gait, singing an old army ditty hopelessly out of tune, Elizabeth slipped from her bed to retrieve her treasure. She caressed the raised leather spine of the book, wishing she could disappear inside it. With fourteen years to her credit and quite sensible in all other matters, Elizabeth had lost her heart to her dark hero, a fantasy figure she created and nourished by devouring the Gothic tales her mother forbade.

  Oh, her gothic hero might be off-putting at first. Once the heroine understood him, she realized he was not such a bad sort after all, despite his tormented past and dark secrets. Hidden beneath that sinister exterior was a kind and lonely man, desperate for love and the right woman to understand him. More to the point, her dark hero could be depended upon to step in when his beloved was in a difficult patch. He always appeared just when the heroine needed . . .

  A cry of pain came from mama’s room, the cruel reality shattering her beloved daydream.

  The captain was home. He was drunk and in a nasty mood. That was about all that was dependable about her stepfather, Elizabeth thought, with no little resentment.

  Stuffing The Mysteries of Udolpho beneath her mattress, Elizabeth listened to the noise beyond her refuge. Papa always came home late, in his cups and belligerent toward any who dared cross his path. He bellowed threats at Mama, usually from the outside of her locked bedroom door. Tonight, something was different. Tonight, Mama was yelling back.

  Elizabeth tiptoed to the door, unlocked it and opened it a crack. “--I won’t allow it!” Her elegant mother, who never raised her voice for it was unladylike to do so, screamed at her stepfather. “Sheila stays—she’s Elizabeth’s grandmother, her only O’Flaherty kin.”

  “—and no kin of mine.” The captain interrupted. “We can’t waste money on servants we don’t need.” Something went crashing in Mama’s room to punctuate the captain’s words. “And the tutors go, Angela. We can’t afford them.” He insisted.

  “It is an investment, William.” Mother spoke in a calmer tone, attempting to appease the beast. “Elizabeth has every expectation of marrying well, bringing us affluent connections. Her father was a Viscount—“

  “Aye, an Irishman.” Her stepfather spat. “Hanged for treason.”

  A floorboard squeaked beneath her bare foot. Elizabeth paused, offering a silent prayer that the noise didn’t give her away as she lingered outside her mother’s open door.

  “No one knows, unless you intend to advertise it. When she makes her come out in society, she’ll be known as the grand-daughter of the Earl of Greystowe.”

  “And a grand good piece of shit that gets us, woman. Your high and mighty father hasn’t darkened our door for well over a year.”

  “He still provides our support. The future of the Wentworth line rests in his grandchildren.”

  “On Michael, my son, not that Irishman’s leavings you saddled me with.”

  It shouldn’t hurt anymore, but it did hurt, dreadfully. As the only father she knew, Elizabeth craved a few crumbs of affection from the captain. She was the flaw in their perfect English family, the Irish taint in the bloodlines. The captain never let her forget it.

  “Papa set up the trust to support my children, not your gambling habits!” Mother rallied in rare defiance to the tyrant who ruled their home. “Sheila O’Flaherty stays. I will not toss her to the streets like unwanted baggage.”

  “Damn it, woman, this is my house!”

  “No, it is mine! Papa bought it for me, not you. I could petition the courts for a divorce. With Papa’s connections it shouldn’t be any trouble. He’d still send the quarterly support to me while you would be out on the streets, begging like the other soldiers--umphh!”

  There was the terrible sound of fist against flesh that never failed to make Elizabeth cringe. Heeding her grandmother’s warning about not interfering when Captain and Mrs. Fletcher fought, Elizabeth took cover behind the heavy curtains framing the open hall windows.

  “Divorce me? We’ll see about that.” Her stepfather marched past the curtains, pulling her mother along with his fist wrapped in her long, dark hair. Mama had no choice but to follow him as his grip on her hair was solid. And Mama’s rare show of bravado had wilted.

  Elizabeth cautiously peered out from the thick hangings. Fletcher stood behind her mother at the top of the stairs. “Useless bitch, you can’t divorce me if you’re dead.” In a quick action, he shoved her down the stairs.

  “Mama!” Elizabeth ran down the hallway that didn’t seem hal
f as long before.

  It was too late. Mama was lying still at the bottom of the stairs.

  Before she could go to her mother, large hands seized her and slammed her hard against the wall. Elizabeth stiffened and clenched her jaw, determined to put on a bold face and not betray her fear before her enemy, as her grandmother O’Flaherty had taught her. Granny Sheila was right, if you cried and whimpered before him, it gave him pleasure. If you held your ground and refused to show your pain, he lost interest and sought weaker prey. Elizabeth eyed him with defiance even as her eyes stung and her throat tightened from terror.

  “Spying on me again, eh?”

  “You pushed her—I saw it.” Elizabeth accused, determined not to succumb to tears.

  “You saw nothing.” A flurry of slaps assaulted her face. “You hear me—nothing!”

  Captain Fletcher held her by the throat as he talked in that quiet, calculated voice. “Your Mother tripped and fell down the stairs.” His hot, sour breath assaulted her nose as he leaned close. “She gets woozy sometimes, what with all the Laudanum she indulges in.

  “Mama doesn’t take Laudanum.”

  “But that’s what you’re going to tell the constable. Tell him you awoke to a noise and found your Mama at the bottom of the stairs. Wait twenty minutes after I leave, then summon the constable. Ask him to send the runners to my club to notify me that there was an accident--”

  “I’ll tell them I saw you push her.”

  His grip tightened, squeezing slowly about Elizabeth’s neck, cutting off her air. “Who would believe the daughter of a traitor over a loyal servant of his majesties regiment? No one, I tell you, no one! Talk and they’ll hang you at Tyburn; both you and your crazy old granny. I’ll tell them she’s a witch. I’ll tell them she made you murder your mother.”

  Elizabeth crumpled at his words. She was growing lightheaded. She nodded.

  At last, he released his grip about her throat. “Go ahead. Tell them girl. We’ll just see who ends up hanging at the end of a rope.”

  Time dissolved. Elizabeth was sitting at the foot of the stairs, hugging herself in an effort to recover her wits. Her mother’s body was lying before her. The captain left her to clean up his mess. Her limbs were quaking so she feared they would never be still. Mama was dead. Murdered by her husband. And now Elizabeth must lie to the authorities, lest she and her dear grandmother pay the price for Captain Fletcher’s sins.

  “Mama--I’m sorry.” She choked out the words as she sat staring at the crumpled body of her mother, a raven haired china doll with empty blue eyes that gazed up, seeing nothing. Blood pooled from behind Mama’s head. As she studied her mother’s corpse, the air was suddenly sucked out of Elizabeth’s lungs. She whimpered. Her body would not be satisfied with that weak noise. The sound transformed into a deep, guttural cry that cut through her soul like shards of glass. As Elizabeth sat alone on the stairs harsh sobs rocked her wilted frame.

  A hand gripping her shoulder sent screams through her as she released the pent up horror.

  “My poor lass.” It was Granny Sheila’s gnarled hand. Granny Sheila was Elizabeth’s paternal grandmother. The thin, frail form surrounded her and drew her close.

  “He killed her. I saw it. He pushed her.” Elizabeth sobbed against the sagging bosom and hunched shoulders that had given her comfort throughout her life. She told her grandmother O’Flaherty what had taken place, and of her stepfather’s looming threat.

  “Best do as he says for now, child.” The old woman cautioned. “He’ll not go unpunished, I promise. For now, we must bide our time while we’re in the enemy’s camp.”

  “I’ll send Lucy out to the constable.”

  “Lucy left this evening.” Granny Sheila informed her. “Susan went with her.”

  Elizabeth clung to her grandmother and silently absorbed the knowledge. She knew why the newest maids resigned their post, like so many others before them. Papa frightened them with his drunken tirades and unlike the family they served, the hired help had the option to leave this house. Aside from Granny Sheila, only Cook, a stout woman in her fifties, had remained over the years. Cook slept in the cellar off the kitchen and kept a cleaver ever at the ready in case thieves broke in during the night, or so she told the children. Elizabeth knew better.

  “Kenny can go for the constable.” Sheila whispered. She soothed the hair from Elizabeth’s wet face in that old, familiar way. Kenny was a chore boy, an orphan who had nowhere to go, save the workhouse so he stayed, ignoring the madness behind his attic door.

  Old Sheila rose to go rouse the boy. Kenny left and returned with the constable. Elizabeth reported exactly what her stepfather told her to and that was it. They accepted the lie without question. Mama’s body had been moved upstairs to be prepared for burial.

  Elizabeth sat alone on the bottom stair. It was quiet, deadly quiet. Pink streams illuminated the fan window above the front door. Papa was home, in his study, snoring loudly. Sleep came easy for someone who lacked a conscience. Elizabeth nibbled her lower lip and stared at the red stain on the parquet flooring in front of her bare feet. She’d scrubbed and scrubbed after Mama’s body was taken upstairs, to no avail. The wood remained stained.

  She looked at her hands in the red light of dawn. A sob broke the awful silence.

  If only Kieran were here, Elizabeth thought, clinging childishly to the hope that had been extinguished years ago. He’d know what to do. He’d take care of everything.

  Kieran was her elder brother. He disappeared mysteriously before she was born. She grew up imagining him as her savior. Her hero. Elizabeth often imagined how different her life would be if Kieran were here. He’d been born in Ireland years before their father died and Mama had moved back to London after marrying Captain Fletcher. Kieran was her elder by nine years. He’d be a man now—able to march in and confront the captain, able to take her away from the Captain and his cruel ways forever.

  Ah, but it wouldn’t answer to cling to childish fantasies any longer. Kieran was dead, just like her parents. She was an orphan now. Kieran couldn’t save her. No one could.

  *******

  Two nights later, Sheila O’Flaherty crept silently down the servant’s stairs to make a quick reckoning of the house before she went about her work. It wouldn’t do to have Captain Fletcher catch her creeping about the Mayfair townhouse in the night with a knife in her hand.

  Alas, her investigation showed that the captain was out for the evening, gambling and drinking, no doubt, on the eve before his wife’s burial. Sheila glided out to the kitchen garden to collect rose petals and rosemary under the waxing moon. The cool June earth felt good beneath her bare feet. The warm breeze caressed her loosened white hair like a patient lover.

  Stuffing the herbs into her apron pocket, she entered the house and moved silently into the parlor. Elizabeth was asleep in the chair next to the open coffin, keeping watch over the dead in the Irish way as Sheila instructed. The blood of chieftains and Druids flowed through Elizabeth’s veins, and one day she would take her rightful place as seer and priestess of Clan O’Flaherty. Sheila took great care to raise her granddaughter to be strong and brave like her Celtic ancestors, not weak like her English mother.

  Sheila made the sign to ward off the evil eye. It wasn’t right to think ill of the dead, but Elizabeth’s mother had the mettle of jelly. The silly woman could have petitioned the courts after her first husband died in order to keep the castle and land for their son, Kieran. Angela Wentworth O’Flaherty was English, after all, and the daughter of an earl. It would have been no trouble for her to swear fealty to the crown and promise to raise her son as a loyal English subject. The English would have liked replacing the rebel father with a son loyal to the crown.

  Alas, the woman simply wilted and waited for another man to rescue her.

  And so, the beautiful widow had fallen prey to the devious Captain Fletcher. She succumbed to his oily lies with no more sense than a goose being fattened for Sunday dinner. Angela had eno
ugh loyalty after remarrying, bless her, to insist Sheila have a place in the Fletcher household as the nanny. Sheila didn’t resent being relegated to the role of servant in her daughter-in-law’s new household. Nine year old Kieran and the babe Angela carried were O’Flahertys. They would need someone to teach them the ways of their Celtic ancestors during their exile in London. And who better to train the wee ones then the household nanny?

  A bitter ache rose in her chest. Poor little Kieran, lost forever.

  As the eldest grandson of Lord Greystowe, Kieran would have inherited the title of earl and the Wentworth fortunes. T’was little wonder the lad went missing after the newly married Captain and Mrs. Fletcher arrived in London. Fletcher claimed he’d lost his stepson in the crowds on the wharf and made a show of looking for the boy for weeks afterward.

  Sheila knew better. The lad was dead. There could be no other explanation. He’d been efficiently removed to make room for the captain’s child to become the legal heir. Sheila couldn’t prove it, and Angela, the boy’s mother, refused to believe it.

  Careful not to awaken her grandchild, Sheila reached into the casket and cut away a raven tendril from Angela’s corpse. She hid the pouch she’d prepared beneath Angela’s skirts.

  Once back in her attic room, Sheila placed the dark lock of Angela’s hair next to her son Shawn’s length of burnished copper she had set out on the table. Reverently, she removed a curly red lock from its yellowed tissue wrapping; a snippet of Kieran’s hair she’d saved from his first haircut. With moisture glazing her eyes, she pressed the soft tendril to her lips, saying a final goodbye to her eldest grandchild. She began plaiting the three tendrils together; father, mother and son into a tight braid. She used Elizabeth’s silk hair ribbon to secure the plait and to bind the living with the dead in the quest for justice.

  Placing a pinch of saltpeter in the bowl of burning herbs, the old woman chanted her curse as the flames shot up; “Angela Wentworth-O’Flaherty-Fletcher, may your soul never rest, may your grave lack peace, until justice is accomplished, until the wrongs done to my family are avenged. You kept silent as a grave, unwilling to speak for those without a voice, your own children. You denied them justice through cowardice; let justice be denied your murdered soul.”