The Misfit Marquess Read Free

nodded in sad agreement. "Like the others we've found." He kicked at the grass with one booted foot. "This makes nineteen bodies." His voice, too, was little more than a whisper, out of respect for the dead, and because he was just a little afraid of the man who had awakened him in the predawn hours.
    They might as well have waited until clear morning's light, Talbot reflected, for the alarm that the asylum was burning had been raised too late to be of any help. All they could do now was recover bodies and keep the smoldering ruins from leaping back into active flame and setting the surrounding woods afire.
    Talbot wondered how it was that Lord Greyleigh had been awake at such a godforsaken hour, to have even spotted the fire ... but Greyleigh's household was a strange one, and odd hours were only in keeping. The master of Greyleigh did as he pleased, and apparently this night it had pleased him to remain awake and clothed all night long.
    Talbot Wallace knew what Mrs. Wallace would say to that, and her with a knowing look: "'Tis the devil who dances at night."
    Talbot cleared his throat and shook his head, as though to drive out such superstitious thinking. He scented the air, a grim mix of burnt wood and other things he did not like to think about. "Do you suppose every last one of 'em in the asylum perished?" he asked.
    The already grim set to Lord Greyleigh's mouth grew even more taut, and for a moment a dark shadow crossed his features. "What else is to be expected, given that half the inmates were no doubt strapped or chained to their beds?"
    Talbot nodded solemnly. 'They found the warder and the two night keepers, they're fairly certain. All three dead."
    Lord Greyleigh lifted his gaze to glance around, but if he sought for signs of life amongst the smoldering embers, he sought in vain.
    Talbot, too, glanced toward the ruined, still smoking remains of the building, and shuddered. The nearness of dawn did naught to relieve the pall that flame and misfortune had brought to the place, and in fact only lent a ghoulish gray shroud of melancholy. A half-dozen of Lord Greyleigh's servants mixed with as many townsfolk roamed over the property, searching for someone or something to rescue. They searched in silence, with no shouts to summon help or raise hopes.
    In half an hour the lanterns carried by the would-be rescuers would not be necessary, for dawn would light the scene, but for now the weave and bob of their light was the only sign of life among the ruins.
    Talbot turned back to the body at his feet: it was obvious from her simple homespun night rail and her unkempt hair that she had resided here, had been one of the "lucky" asylum patients who had not been constrained within her room. Poor thing, he thought, to have lived and died in such a place.
    "I wonder if there's anyone left alive to tell us the names of these poor souls," he murmured aloud, worrying his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. And who was to pay for the interments—the village council over which Talbot sat would be wanting to know that. There were so many dead, nineteen at least, so many to bury.
    Talbot looked to Lord Greyleigh, but declined to ask the most powerful and richest of Severn's Well's inhabitants to donate the funds for a mass funeral. It was not so much that Talbot feared the master of Greyleigh . . . well, truth be told, that was it. But unlike others, it was not Lord Greyleigh's physical appearance that troubled Talbot—although Greyleigh was the oddest-looking bird to have ever resided in Greyleigh Manor. The man's hair was so blond it was nearly white, and worn long and often in a queue, in the fashion of twenty and more years past, an odd style for a young man closer to twenty than thirty. At first glance one could be excused for thinking he powdered his hair, which no young buck of fashion did these days, but at second glance one discovered the pale color was all Greyleigh's own. Yet, if that warlock's mane were trimmed away,