Any Wicked Thing Read online




  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - YORKSHIRE, JUNE 1808

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3 - YORKSHIRE, APRIL 1818

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2011 by Maggie Robinson.

  All rights reserved.

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  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / March 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rowe, Margaret.

  Any wicked thing / Margaret Rowe.—Heat trade paperback ed. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47868-4

  1. Family secrets—Fiction. 2. England—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O8729A84 2011

  813’.6—dc22

  2010042110

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my girls:

  Sarah, Jessie, Abby, Ely, Kris and Tiff

  Chapter 1

  YORKSHIRE, JUNE 1808

  He has not changed a bit. Except to become more handsome.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF FREDERICA WELLS

  “What is the point?” Sebastian Goddard, reluctant heir to the duchy of Roxbury, looked around the long gallery with disfavor after a particularly adept attacque du fer. Grim and grimy portraits of gentlemen who thankfully were not his ancestors glared down from the castle walls. Motes of dust swirled in weak shafts of light, stirred up as he fenced with his oldest friend, who seemed to be wearing a patched pair of pants that he’d cast off after a growth spurt at Eton. He spared his opponent nothing, and it took a bit for her to catch a breath to answer.

  “I rather think it’s at the end of your sword, Sebastian. That sharp thing.”

  “I didn’t say where; I said what, Freddie. Why would he buy this dump when there’s a reasonably good house at Roxbury Park?” He executed a perfect flying parry. Freddie overcompensated, slipped and landed on her well-padded bottom on the hard stone floor with a thump.

  He was a cur to engage her, but she had insisted on swordplay to start the day. An insistent Frederica Wells was, in his long-suffering experience, impossible to ignore. He was more than a foot taller and several stones heavier, a visitor to the finest salle d’armes in Great Britain and the continent, fit and fresh from his lengthy grand tour after a lackluster year at university. His father had sent him off with a private tutor in the hopes of civilizing him, but Sebastian had become crafty ditching the old bird. In fact, for the last four months Sebastian had been wholly on his own. Mr. Tetley had thrust a purse at him at the acropolis in Athens and washed his hands of him, preferring the duke’s wrath to one more day with his scapegrace son.

  Freddie had been stuck at home as all girls were, no doubt singing and painting and doing other useless things. Her fencing skills had improved some from the last time they went at it, but poor Freddie looked like she’d had two too many lemon tarts thrice daily. He recalled they were her favorite. Even at eighteen, she had not lost her baby fat. Her freckled face was red from exertion, but she grinned up at him like a cheerful pixie as he pulled her to her feet.

  She pushed a sweat-soaked brown braid behind her ear. “You know your father’s love of all things medieval. How could he resist? Didn’t he tell you all about it yesterday?”

  “If he did, I was not paying attention. You know how he bores me.” The pater had rambled on yesterday about some of the structure dating to the eleventh century, not that Sebastian cared. Gray rock was gray rock, and his mind had drifted to visions of boiling oil or molten lead being poured down through the machicolations on the old man. At twenty-one, Sebastian saw nothing but the duke’s disinterest in anything contemporary, including himself. His father had preferred to spend his time with his secretary and their dusty tomes and broken relics rather than his only son. The men traveled all over Europe outrunning Boney himself in their quest for medieval miscellany.

  “Well, the story of Goddard Castle is not boring in the least,” Freddie said, her eyes lighting.

  Blast. It seemed she had been bitten by the history bug as well. Goddard Castle indeed. The Archibald family crest and motto was stamped on virtually every flat surface. The castle was originally home to the Earls of Archibald, and had been called Archibald Castle until his father had the hubris to rename it after himself. “I suppose you’re going to give me a lecture now, aren’t you, brat?”

  “Your tutor gave a thorough report. I know you care nothing for history, so I won’t waste my time trying to enlighten you if he couldn’t,” Freddie said, taking no trouble to mask her superiority. “But we are at war with the French, so even a blockhead like you might see the fascination in this tale. But never mind. I’m sure you have plans for the morning. Seducing housemaids and whatnot.”

  She stomped off in the direction of the armory to return her foil. He followed, amused by the sway of her backside. His old breeches looked fairly good on her.

  “I know you’re dying to tell me,” he called aft
er her. “You never could keep your mouth shut for any length of time.”

  She turned like a clockwork gear, as he knew she would. “Go to the devil, Sebastian Goddard!”

  “Already there, Freddie.” He smiled at her, hoping she wouldn’t decide to raise her weapon and run him through. He leaned against a leaded window, praying it would hold his weight.

  Her blue-gray eyes narrowed. “You have not changed one bit.”

  “Au contraire. The past two years abroad have been very educational.”

  “I’ll bet. Not that I would ever know. You never wrote.”

  “I’m sure I did a time or two.” But most of the things he’d seen and done could not be divulged to a young lady in a letter. He supposed Freddie qualified as a young lady. From the way her chest heaved, it seemed she had grown breasts. “But you’re right about the war. It was difficult to find accommodations that Corsican upstart hadn’t mucked with.”

  “Your father was worried.”

  Sebastian rather doubted that, but held his tongue. He really was too old to be rebelling and railing against the pater. He’d turn into a cliché if he wasn’t careful.

  “Yet here I am, not a hair on my head harmed.” Sebastian fluffed some up. He was rather proud of his hair. It was dark, thick and curly. Women loved to run their fingers through it, and he loved letting them.

  “He’s very glad you’re home.”

  “This isn’t home, Freddie, and never will be.” Sebastian thought the castle, whatever it was called, was the gloomiest place he’d ever seen. Parts of Yorkshire were indeed beautiful, but no one could ever claim Goddard Castle was. It rose on its motte from a bare landscape like a set of blind giant’s blocks. Even in its prime, Sebastian was sure it had been ugly. There was no sense of symmetry, and more than half the structure lay in ruins, even after more than a year of his father’s occupation.

  Sebastian wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve and gazed out. He counted two twisted trees and three oozy black patches in the brutal sweep of land beyond the fallen curtain wall from this vantage point alone. Thank heavens his father had filled in the moat, or he’d be tempted to drown himself. He did not know how he was going to survive this visit with his father without resorting to drink, drugs or murder. Fortunately, he’d come prepared.

  He sighed. “Go on. I know you’re salivating to tell me about the castle. You’re bristling like a terrier after a rat.”

  “Hello, rat,” she said, suddenly sunny again. She slid to the floor opposite, propping the blade up against the stone wall, and crossed her ankles. No, she was not a young lady yet.

  “I’ll skip ahead through the centuries, although the Archibalds played a large role in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.”

  Sebastian looked at her blankly. He was no pilgrim.

  “You know, the uprising over Henry the Eighth dissolving the monasteries. No? No matter. Anyway, the Archibalds have always been a prominent Catholic family in this part of the world. Some say that’s why the last Earl of Archibald sided with the French, but I think he was just in it for the money. He ran the largest spy ring in Britain!”

  Sebastian perked up. Money was always of interest to him. There was never enough of it, especially when his father kept spending his on ruined castles.

  “What did he do with his blood money? He obviously didn’t use it to repair this place.”

  “No one knows. But for years, all sorts of traitors walked these halls making their evil plans,” Freddie said with enthusiasm.

  “And dodged the falling timbers,” Sebastian replied. “Bloody dangerous work, spying for the Earl of Archibald.”

  Freddie laughed. “We’ve found no bodies. But people do say the castle is haunted.”

  “Utter rubbish. What became of the treasonous earl?”

  “He was stripped of his title and lands for colluding with the French, and threw himself off the roof, plummeting to his death into the slimy water surrounding the keep to avoid the hangman’s noose,” she said with a dramatic flourish.

  “Bloodthirsty wench.” While Sebastian had been traveling, his father had paid the Crown what Sebastian considered to be a fortune for the property and renamed it. Who had been madder—old King George, the Earl of Archibald or Phillip Goddard, seventh Duke of Roxbury? It was a near thing, one Sebastian was glad he wouldn’t have to judge. He was not particularly impartial.

  “So that’s the recent history of Goddard Castle. And now your family has a chance to add to it.”

  “I won’t be here long enough. As soon as this damned house party is over, I’m leaving.” His father was in alt about refurbishing the castle, but as far as Sebastian was concerned, the place was still a death trap.

  “Your father is tremendously excited, you know,” Freddie said, interrupting his brooding. “He and my father have been closeted in the library for weeks making plans. There’s to be a fancy dress ball tonight. What will you wear, Sebastian?”

  “Evening clothes, I expect. Dressing in disguise is for children on All Hallows’ Eve.”

  Freddie’s brows knit. “Spoilsport. I bet you a shilling you will not recognize me.”

  “I haven’t a shilling to spare, brat. Travel is ruinously expensive, you know.”

  Freddie scrambled up and joined him at the window. The view did not seem to trouble her, but she must be used to it after living here for a while. “Was it very wonderful?”

  Sebastian noted the wistfulness in her voice. He wasn’t about to tell her all the “wonderful” things he’d seen and done—her definition of wonderful would doubtless differ from his.

  “It was all right. A pity I had to miss Paris and Parisian ladies, but I made do. You know I thought about enlisting so I could conquer France sooner.”

  Freddie nodded. “Uncle Phillip was quite upset when he received that letter.”

  “So upset he dictated his letter to your father to write for him. I don’t believe I’d even recognize His Grace’s handwriting.” Poor Wells must have had fits translating his father’s rage to paper.

  “An heir to a dukedom can’t risk getting shot at.”

  “Why ever not? It’s not as though the Dukes of Roxbury have ever amounted to much. I daresay the Archibalds on the wall over there are more useful, except for the last one.”

  “You have obligations. Responsibilities.”

  Sebastian snorted. “Like my father? If he turned up in the House of Lords, not a soul would recognize him. He hasn’t been to Roxbury Park in ages. The place is going to rack and ruin. I stopped there before I came north.” And discovered his father had bought himself a castle.

  “Oh, dear. I didn’t know.”

  He and Freddie had run wild at Roxbury Park, at least until his mother died. After that, he was mostly farmed out to relatives, or spent holidays at school with masters who were paid extra to watch him. He’d had a lonely childhood, but then, so had Freddie. She had no mother at all to remember, and a father who jumped at the sound of his father’s command and left her behind when he carried the duke’s valises from one antiquarian auction to the next.

  “So don’t lecture me. You haven’t the first idea of what’s what in this world.”

  Freddie punched his arm with a fist. “Next you will tell me I’m ‘just’ a girl. You are the same insufferable, conceited ass you always were.”

  “And you love me for it, brat.” Sebastian stepped backward, expecting another blow, but Freddie was still as a stone, her fists clenched, her face crimson. “Steady. You know I’m only teasing you. Come, let’s put our weapons away, swords and tongues both. I believe I have housemaids to corrupt, do I not? Do you have any recommendations amongst the staff?”

  This time she aimed higher, but Sebastian pivoted and protected his jaw. “Have pity, Freddie. My face is my fortune. How am I to marry an heiress if you maim me? She’ll have to be filthy rich to cover all my debts and the pater’s besides.”

  “I feel sorry for the poor wretch already. You’ll make a miserable husba
nd.”

  “I agree, and have no intention of becoming one anytime soon. Good Lord, you don’t suppose the old boy’s invited prospective brides here for me, do you? Perhaps I will have to wear a disguise after all. I can go as a hunchback. A leper.”

  Freddie walked across the gallery to pick up her foil. “I can tell them you’re disgusting, if that will help keep them at bay.”

  “Capital! Mention all my vices. Make some up when you run out.”

  She looked at him with scorn, then set off down the hall. “I won’t need to dissemble. You’ve given me plenty to work with.”

  “Freddie, Freddie. Such a shrew you are. And I thank you for it.”

  They entered the armory, a vast space newly filled with deadly and deteriorating weaponry. Standing on tiptoe, she tried unsuccessfully to return the sword to its bracket.

  “Here, brat, I’ll do it. I take it you’ve stopped growing.”

  “Only vertically. There seems to be no limit to the horizontal,” she muttered.

  “You’ll find some man who likes you as you are. As long as you don’t talk.” And with that parting shot, he found it prudent to jog away from her and run through the warren of corridors and stairwells to his room. There was not a thing to do up here but wait for the masquerade party to commence tonight. Sebastian had met some of the guests over breakfast—not a soul was younger than fifty. A few more were arriving today, but no doubt they would be equally ancient. The duke had the clever idea of housing most of them in the dungeons. Sebastian really couldn’t distinguish the dungeons’ condition from the bedchambers’—everything was primitive. Sebastian’s own room was as spare as a monk’s cell, although he had noted his father’s to be filled with all the trappings of comfort. A massive gilt bed. Tapestries hanging on the walls. Carpets. And chairs whose upholstery was not fraying. Quite a difference from the rest of the dwelling.