Yours Until Dawn Read Free Page B

eternal devotion.
    Promises she had no intention of keeping.
    Gabriel shoved himself off the bed. Damn that Wickersham woman! She had no right to taunt him so bitterly, yet smell so sweet. It was fortunate he had ordered Beckwith to send her away. As far as he was concerned, she need never trouble him again.

Chapter 2
    My dear Miss March,
    Despite my reputation, I can assure you that I’m not in the habit of striking up a clandestine correspondence with every lovely young woman who catches my fancy…
    A s Samantha groped her way down the curving staircase that descended into the heart of Fairchild Park the next morning, she almost felt as if she’d been struck blind. Not a single window of the mansion had been left unveiled. It was as if the house, as well as its master, had been cast into some dark realm of eternal night.
    A lone torchière burned at the foot of the stairs, casting just enough light for her to see that the fingertips she’d trailed down the banister were furred with dust. Grimacing, she brushed them off on her skirt. Given the drab gray of the kerseymere, she doubted anyone would notice.
    Despite the stifling gloom, it was impossible to completely cloak the legendary Fairchild wealth that had made the noble family the envy of the ton . Trying not to be intimidated by the centuries of privilege on display, Samantha stepped off the stairs and into the foyer. The house had long since been updated from the dark paneling and Tudor arches of its somber Jacobean roots. Shadows danced over the gleaming expanse of rose-veined Italian marble beneath her feet. Every graceful arch of molding and cornice, every papier-mâché relief scroll of flower or vase adorning the wainscoting, had been bronzed or gilded. Even the modest bed-chamber Mrs. Philpot had assigned Samantha possessed a stained-glass fanlight over the door and walls hung with silk damask.
    Beckwith had insisted that his master had once been “a prince among men.” Gazing about her at the overblown opulence, Samantha sniffed. Perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to claim such a title when one was raised in a palace.
    Determined to locate her new charge, she decided to employ one of the tools in his own arsenal. Cocking her head to the side, she grew very still and listened.
    She didn’t hear any crashing or shouting, but she did hear the musical clinking of dishes and glassware. A sound that grew distinctly less musical when an explosion of shattering glass was followed by a savage oath. Although Samantha winced, a triumphant smile touched her lips.
    Gathering her skirts, she sailed through the breakfast parlor where her interview had been conducted and out the opposite door, following the noise. As she strode through one deserted chamber after another, she was forced to veer around several signs of the earl’s passing. Her sturdy half-boots crunched over broken porcelain and splintered wood. As she paused to gently right a delicate Chippendale chair, the cracked china face of a Meissen figurine laughed up at her.
    The destruction wasn’t surprising given Gabriel’s penchant for charging recklessly through the house with no regard for his lack of sight.
    She passed beneath a graceful arch. The dining room’s lack of windows denied the cavernous chamber even a hint of daylight. If not for the branches of candles blazing at each end of the majestic table, Samantha might have feared she’d wandered into the family crypt.
    A pair of footmen in navy livery guarded the mahogany sideboard, standing at rigid attention beneath Beckwith’s watchful eye. None of them seemed to notice Samantha standing in the doorway. They were too preoccupied with scrutinizing every move their master made. As the earl’s elbow nudged a crystal goblet toward the edge of the table, Beckwith made a discreet signal. One of the footmen rushed forward, catching the teetering goblet before it could fall. Shards of china and glass littered the floor around the table, evidence of