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He would die in sonity That was better than the lot of scores of wretches in the cesspits of London, he told himself It was better than what his mother had endured, certainly

The library door opened, and Hoskins entered, bearing a letter He set it face down on the library table so that the seal was plainly evident

It was the Earl of Rawnsley’s seal

“Damn,” Dorian said He tore the letter open, scanned it, then handed it to Hoskins

“Now you see why I chose to be a nobody,” Dorian said

Hoskins had learned Dorian’s true identity only yesterday, at the same time he’d been informed of Dorian’s medical condition—and offered the opportunity to depart, if he wished But Hoskins had fought and been wounded at Waterloo After the horrors he’d experienced there, looking after a mere lunatic was child’s play

Moreover, to Dorian’s vast relief, Hoskins’s manner reallows humor that lifted Dorian’s spirits

“Is it the irascibility of age?” Hoskins asked entleman always like this?”

“He’s impossible,” Dorian said “Born that way, I suppose And quite convincing For most of my youth, I actually believed I was always the one at fault There is no dealing with hinore him That won’t be easy” He frowned at the letter

His reo’s , had visited Dartallops through the erated description of Dorian’s riding garb—or lack thereof—and passed on a lot of local gossip, norant speculation about the reclusive eccentric living at Radmore Manor

The earl’s letter ordered Dorian to appear—his hair properly shorn and his person decently attired—at a family council on the twelfth of May, and explain himself

If they wanted hiet him, Dorian silently vowed, and they would never take him away alive

“Did you wish to dictate a reply, sir?” Hoskins asked “Or shall we chuck it into the fire?”

“I’ll write eted as an accohteous wrath” Dorian smiled faintly “Then we’ll chuck it into the fire”

ON THE TWELFTH of May 1828, the Earl of Rawnsley and athered in Rawnsley Hall’s drawing room at the moment that a section of the ancestral roof above them chose to collapse In a matter of seconds, several tons of timber, stone, and miscellaneous decorative debris buried them and made Dorian Camoys—one of the very few family members not in attendance—the new Earl of Rawnsley

In a s room in a house in Wiltshire, Gwendolyn Adams read the weeks-old newspaper account several times before she was satisfied she had not overlooked any details

Then she turned her attention to the other three docu desk One was a letter written by the present earl’s recently deceased aunt According to it, her nephew had turned into a savage His hair hung down to his knees, and he galloped half-naked through the moors on a od

The second docurandson It gave Gwendolyn a very good idea why the heir had failed to attend the funeral

The third docurandfather’s obnoxious letter, and it made Gwendolyn smile for the first tieous proposal

Abonville’s mother had been a de Calish Camoys branch had sprouted centuries earlier—and thus Rawnsley’s very distant cousin Abonville was also the fiancé of Gwendolyn’s grander Viscountess Pembury

The pair had attended the Caht the duc’s assistance as nearest al matters must be attended to, and the present Lord Rawnsley had refused to assume his responsibilities

Accordingly, the duc and Genevieve had journeyed to Dartmoor There, they discovered that the new earl had fallen victim to a terminal brain disease

Gwendolyn’s smile faded Bertie Trent, her first cousin, had taken the news very hard At present, he was hiding in the stables, sobbing over an old letter, creased and faded past legibility, from his boyhood friend Cat Camoys

She iven her