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Prologue

Devon, England

June, 1820

THE DEVIL WAS partial to Dartmoor

In 1638, he rode a stor bolt, and carried off a boy who’d been dozing during the service

This was h, Satan appeared in disguise as an enor across the moors

His attachment to the area surprised no one, for Dartmoor could not have been better fashioned to suit satanic natures

Storms lashed the rocky uplands, which looales Heavy daes in i off communication and travel for days

Then there were the bogs, filling the hollows and crevices of the highlands, shrinking and swelling with changing weather and season

Narrow tracks of fir terrain, yet even the paths could be perilous At night, or in a h for the unwary traveler to lose his way and—if he were especially unlucky—slip into a pulsing e

Some believed Dartmoor’s mires were the Devil’s own traps, devised to suck their victiht down to Hell, Aminta Camoys told her son

It enty-year-old Dorian Camoys’s first visit to Dartmoor and the first time he’d seen his mother since Christmas

“Most considerate of the Archfiend,” he replied as he walked with her to the edge of the narrow track “After slow suffocation by quicksand, the unfortunate sinner will find Hell’s tor to his sensibilities”

She pointed to a suspiciously verdant patch in the bleak wastes below “Soer one half a e”

The afternoon had been bright and hen they’d first ridden out, but a chill hirled about the out their wispy white predecessors and blanketing the moorland in shadows

“Thank you for the directions, Mother,” Dorian said “But I do believe I can find my own route to Hell”

“I collect you’ve found it” She glanced at hihed “Like mother, like son”

He was like her, in more ways than many would suspect

Although at six feet tall he was by far the larger, the physical resemblance was inescapable While fully masculine—and puffy and pale at present, thanks to ently as his studies—his was the same exotically sculpted countenance

At the moment, one would never suspect that she, too, was addicted to sins of the flesh He was the only one, apart from her lovers, who did know Dorian was her sole confidante

My azed at her

Like hi even that small concession to propriety She’d taken off her bonnet as soon as they’d ridden out of sight of the house Thick raven hair like his, thoughwind And when she turned to hi yellow stare met his

Because of those odd-colored eyes and their disconcerting stare—and because he kept to himself and hissed at anyone who came too close—the boys at Eton had nicknamed him Cat The nickname had followed him to Oxford

“You’d better take care,” she said “If your grandfather finds out so is to blame for your pallor, you’ll see all your carefully laid plans swept into the hteous wrath”

“I’ve exercised considerable ingenuity to make certain he doesn’t find out,” Dorian said “You may be sure I shall make a deceptively healthy appearance at Christh the new year After which I shall watch him scrutinize—for doubtless the hundredth ti for an excuse to yank me out of university But he won’t find his excuse, no ree—with honors—at the end of next Easter tered to reward me with a year’s trip abroad, as he’s done for the others”

“And you won’t return,” she said Shemoors

“I’ll never be free of him if I do If I don’t find work abroad, I’ll be tied to his purse strings until the day he dies”

That prospect was intolerable

His grandfather, the Earl of Rawnsley, was a despot

Dorian’s father, Edward, was the youngest of the earl’s four sons, all of who, lived at Rawnsley Hall in Gloucestershire, where His Lordship could control their every waking o away on short visits and spend ti the Season, and the boys eventually went away to school; but Rawnsley Hall was their home—or prison—and its master ruled them absolutely Always, wherever they were, they must behave and think as he told them to

They did it because they had no choice Not only did he control all the Camoys money, but he was utterly ruthless The smallest hint of rebellion was promptly crushed—and the earl had no scruples about how he did it

When, for instance, whippings, lectures, and threats of eternal damnation proved ineffective with Dorian, Lord Rawnsley turned his vexation upon the incorrigible boy’s parents That had worked Dorian could not stand by and watch his parents punished and humiliated for his faults

Consequently, though he’d been born quick-te to keep his feelings and opinions to himself

His outward behavior strictly regulated, all he had to call his oas his ood one That, too, he’d inherited fro renowned for intellectual acuity

Since Dorian had perfored to send hied, likewise, to finance the year abroad

Dorian would have one year on the Continent to look for work He was sure he’d survive, and he wasn’t concerned about living in poverty at first He would move up in the world eventually All he had to do was concentrate as he did with his studiesand keep his sensual weaknesses under stricter control

The thought of his weaknesses drew his loves and was playing with her rings

Gad, but she loved trinkets—and fashionable gowns, and Societyand

her roues

He wondered why she’d come to Dartmoor She’d been born and reared here, yet it hardly suited her nature She was ossip and ad about her

He’d expected to find her bored frantic Instead, she see He supposed her recent illness accounted for the apparent tranquillity All the sa hen the doctor proposed a change of air, she’d asked to come here, of all places She’d been quite adamant about it, Father said