CHAPTER ONE

“Come on out, now, no need to be shy.”

Gideon stretched his hand as far as he could while using the other to try to inch himself forward, but it was no use – he wasn’t going to fit in the hollowed-out tree trunk that lay across the path of the ruins before him. 

The dog at the other end whimpered and shrunk away from him, still shivering. Gideon sighed as he let his arm go limp, wishing he had an enticing piece of food on him to draw the dog out, for alas, the dog found him as unremarkable as everyone else did.

“I promise if you come with me, I will take you to the kitchen, and the Cook will give you all of the scrap meat you’d like. I cannot say it will be particularly well-prepared, but you do not have high standards, do you now?”

The dog — either a pup or a small breed — Gideon couldn’t tell from where he was, tilted its head to the side, one ear flopping over as though he was listening to him and considering his words. 

“I cannot leave you out here but I am becoming rather chilled,” Gideon said, holding his hand out again, palm up, and the dog leaned its head forward, sniffing. “There we go—”

“What are you doing?”

Gideon jumped, the voice startling him, causing him to hit his head on the top of the log. 

“Damn it,” he said, lifting a hand to the sore spot as the dog whimpered and drew away from him once more. 

Gideon shuffled backward, squinting up to see the figure towering over him in front of the now-setting sun, arms crossed over her chest as her cloak billowed in the cold wind behind her. 

He knew that shape. It was one of his sister’s friends — her closest friend, if he was correct, and the one he tried the hardest to avoid.

“Lady Madeline?” he said, trying to contain his groan as he rubbed his head. “You startled me.”

“Clearly,” she said, looking around. “I almost passed by you, but I must admit that my curiosity as to why a future duke was on his belly, his bottom in the air as he crawled into a log in the middle of the forest was just too overwhelming to continue on without learning more. Please, you must explain.”

“So that you can tell this story to our friends for your amusement?” he snorted. “I think not.”

“I shall be telling it one way or another, so you might as well provide me with your side of things.”

“Fine,” he said, opening his mouth to explain his dilemma, but just as he did, a whine resounded.

“What was that?” Lady Madeline asked, looking from one side to the other, her silky dark hair that had fallen out of most of its pins floating around her face.

“That,” Gideon said with exasperation, “is what I am trying to save.”

She arched an eyebrow but instead of demanding more information or retreating at the idea of a wild animal as most women would, she rounded the other side of the log, crouching down without care that her knee was resting on the damp ground before standing with the puppy in her arms, its dirty and matted fur spoiling her cloak and gown underneath. 

“Is this who you were trying so hard to catch?” she asked as she nuzzled her face against the dog’s fur.

“Yes,” Gideon said, unable to mask his annoyance as he stood, brushing dirt and dried leaves off his breeches. “Two people being here clearly made it much easier to convince the pup to come out.”

“Or maybe he just likes me better,” Madeline said with a grin before lifting the puppy in front of her to inspect him. “Who is he?”

“I am not sure,” Gideon said, lifting his hands to the side. “I was walking around the ruins and heard a noise so I came to investigate. That’s when I found him.”

“Poor thing,” she said. “My best guess is that he is a couple of months old, which means he is old enough to have left his mama but I wouldn’t say he could survive long on his own.”

“I doubt it,” Gideon agreed, stepping toward Lady Madeline and the dog. She was his sister’s closest friend and had spent a great deal of time at Castleton, and yet, he didn’t know her very well. She was so forward and apt to say the most unlikely comments that he always avoided her if he could, for she put him on edge. 

He reached out a hand and hesitantly ran it down the dog’s back, surprised when the puppy leaned into his touch with a whimper. 

Lady Madeline looked up at him in surprise, and a tremble ran down Gideon’s spine at her proximity. A tremble from… uneasiness? He never knew what to expect from this woman – and he did not like surprises.

“Maybe he doesn’t mind you so much after all,” she said with a laugh as the puppy licked his hand. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

“Seeing to my lands,” he said guardedly, uncertain why he needed to have an excuse to wander his own property. 

“You weren’t searching for treasure?” she asked with a sly smile over the dog’s head. 

“Would it matter if I was?” he asked defensively. “I have every right to do so.”

“Steady there, I was just asking,” she said with what seemed to be a roll of her eyes. “Do you take everything so seriously?”

“Everything that matters,” he said, watching her black cloak swirl in the wind. “We should be getting back. The sun is lowering.”

“What about the dog?” she asked, lifting the bundle in her arms, and he crooked his fingers toward her. 

“I’ll take him.”

She stepped backward so that they were both out of reach, fixing him with a hard stare. “Where are you going to take him?”

“To the stables,” he said, becoming annoyed now. “Where would you think I would take him?”

She bit her lip, her normally stoic façade loosening its grip, allowing him to see a different side of her. 

“He’s so small and has been out here all alone,” she said. “Do you not think he should come to the house?”

Gideon took a breath, lifting a hand in the air. “He chose to come to you, so I suppose you can do with him what you’d like.”

She was already shaking her head. “I cannot have a dog.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I am not one to make much commitment to anything. I cannot keep a dog when I do not know where I might be living in a short time.”

Gideon cocked his head to the side as he stared at the two of them. “He doesn’t seem to understand that.”

Nor did Gideon, but he wasn’t about to ask questions. Madeline looked down at the dog, a moment of vulnerability crossing over her face before she shoved the dog toward him. “Here,” she said. “Take him. He’s yours.”

Gideon softened, seeing how much this had affected her.

“I’ll take him to the stables, but only to be cleaned up, and then he can come inside,” he said. “We shall see what my mother thinks of him.”

“Of course,” Lady Madeline said, giving a curt nod. “I should be going.”

“I will walk you back,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“I shouldn’t,” she said. “But I am anyway.”

And with that, she strode off, fast enough to make him aware that she would prefer he did not follow.

She was a mystery that one. But one mystery that wasn’t up to him to solve. 

* * *

Try as he might to concentrate on anything other than Lady Madeline, she was still on Gideon’s mind when Cassandra found him in his study a few hours later, the dog at his feet, curled up on a pillow that had previously been perched upon one of the parlor sofas. He hoped his mother wouldn’t note its absence, or, if she did, she would forgive him. She was currently upstairs visiting with his father and had yet to notice the dog. 

“Oh, there he is!” 

Gideon looked up at his sister’s voice, surprised that she was so excited to see him, but when she ran in to crouch beside the dog, he realized that she wasn’t talking to him at all. She reached down to let the puppy lick her face. 

“Where is your baby?” Gideon asked, more curious than perturbed. Since the young lad had been born, Cassandra had spent far more time with her son than most other women of her station would with their offspring. Gideon actually admired her for it. 

“He’s with Madeline,” she said, and Gideon found himself rather piqued at her friend’s name, but before he could ask any more, Devon – Lord Covington, Cassandra’s husband, and Gideon’s closest friend – followed his wife in the door. 

“I heard there was a pup in here,” he said, looking around the room. “Has he made a mess all over the floor yet?”

“Not yet,” Gideon said. “A footman has seen to his requirements.”

“Good to hear it,” Devon said with a grin. “Perhaps you will make a proud papa after all.”

Gideon snorted, bending his head so that Devon and Cassandra wouldn’t see his face. Despite being closer to him than any other two people in the world, he didn’t want them to see how much the words affected him.

For it was true – he would like to be a father. He just wasn’t sure when — or if — that day would ever come. 

“It is unfortunate that Hope, Faith, Percy, and their husbands have left,” Cassandra said as she stroked the dog, whose fur was rather soft now that it had been properly washed. “They would have loved him.”

“I’d like to see Whitehall with a dog,” Devon said with a laugh, referencing the rather ill-natured Lord Whitehall, who had married Lady Hope. 

The five men who had been part of their group that undertook daring adventures had joined Gideon on a quest when he had found a riddle that he assumed would lead to a treasure. His sister had found another copy of the same riddle, leading her and her four closest friends to start their own hunt. Eventually, they merged their efforts after Cassandra and Devon fell in love while solving the first riddle, which had only led to another clue instead of the treasure Gideon had been hoping for. 

“Whitehall might be a genius codebreaker, which helped us a great deal when it came to solving the second clue, but an animal man, I cannot see,” Gideon said, leaning back, no longer attempting the pretense of continuing his work. 

The code Whitehall had solved with the help of Lady Hope had led to a third clue, one which required retrieving a necklace from Gideon and Cassandra’s aunt in Bath. As Lady Percy was there at the same time as Noah Rowley, they had undertaken the search together, which ended in finding a clue within the necklace – and marriage to one another. 

Rowley’s brother, Lord Ferrington, had then traveled to Spain along with a stowaway, Lady Faith, and they had returned with a map as well as a marriage due to their compromising situation. Fortunately, it had led to love in the end. 

As for the map? Gideon now had it in his possession and was doing his damnedest to determine where it led.

“What were you doing in the ruins, anyway?” Cassandra asked. “The last time we were there, Devon knocked over a wall and we were both nearly injured.”

“But aren’t you glad we were?” Devon asked, grinning suggestively at his wife, which had Gideon leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. 

“I was getting impatient,” he said. “I know we need to take a better look at the map together and solve the path it will be leading us down, but I couldn’t help the urge to begin searching myself.”

“That’s how you will get in trouble, Gideon,” Cassandra said, straightening. “All of us who have gone after a clue have found ourselves in danger at one time or another.”

“Is that why you are still here?” Gideon asked with sinking dread in his stomach. “I wondered why you hadn’t left yet. I had assumed that you wanted to stay to see this through, but is it because you do not think I am capable of accomplishing this alone?”

“Of course you are more than capable,” Cassandra said, rising from the floor where the dog had returned to his slumber and taking a chair in front of Gideon’s desk, crossing her arms over her chest. “We are still here for a few reasons. One being that I wanted Mother to be able to spend time with the baby.”

“And we do want to see this thing through, that part is true. We started this and we would like to see it to the finish,” Devon added, exchanging a meaningful look with his wife.

“And also…” Cassandra said, slightly wincing as she did so, “We hate to see you all alone.”

“Mother and Father are both here, and I have been alone for years,” Gideon said, his spine straightening. “I am more than capable of looking after myself.”

“You can look after yourself, but do you want to?” Cassandra asked imploringly. “No one wants to be alone.”

“Some of us have to be happy doing so,” he said uncomfortably, for his statement was not entirely true.

“Will you not seek out a wife?” she asked, shifting forward in her seat, her blue eyes boring into him. 

“In due time,” Gideon said, exasperated with this conversation, but he did feel that he owed an explanation to the two of them. “I cannot offer a woman marriage when we live in such ruins.”

“Castleton is hardly a ruin,” Devon said, leaning back against the doorframe as he studied him. Devon had helped Gideon through some difficult times in his life, and likely knew what he was thinking better than anyone. “Yes, it could use some improvements, but when I tell you that it is comfortable and I enjoy my time here, I mean it.”

“We need servants, we need improvements, we need furniture that wasn’t built for my great-grandfather!” Gideon said, throwing his hands into the air. “I’d like to offer a woman more than this. I have rested my hopes on this treasure for over a year now. However…  if this treasure comes to nothing – and I am beginning to think that might be the case – then I might have less choice as to who I marry.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Cassandra asked, her head snapping up, and she had to push back a piece of hair, the same auburn color as his own, away from her face. 

“It means,” he said carefully, “that if there is no other option, I will have to marry a woman with a significant dowry.”

Cassandra bit her lip. “Gideon, that is so sad.”

He shrugged. “It’s practical.”

“Yes, but—”

“It is what it is, Cassandra,” he said, not wanting to speak on it any longer. 

“You know, I had always wondered if maybe Madeline—”

“No,” he said swiftly, holding up a hand.

“Why would you not even entertain the idea?” she asked defensively, which made sense, for Cassandra was as loyal of a friend as there ever was. 

“Madeline’s family would want nothing to do with the scandals that come with ours.”

“How can you say that?” Cassandra said indignantly. “For one, her family is not exactly conventional nor concerned about scandal. Her father has provided her more freedom than any father should, and he would be thrilled to have her married off to any eligible young man. Secondly, you just finished saying that you will marry for a fortune if you have to.”

“Of which, if I am not mistaken, Madeline has none.”

“That is true. But if we find the treasure, that doesn’t matter. Why would you be willing to saddle another unsuspecting young woman with our family scandal and not Madeline?”

Gideon knew that his words were not going to be accepted by Cassandra, but he owed her the truth.

“Madeline is not the type of woman to sit back and allow scandal to ebb away.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means… that she has a propensity to say what she thinks without worrying about the consequences. I would like to lead our family back to respectability.”

“That is a most terrible thing to say,” Cassandra said, standing abruptly. “But perhaps I forgot the lengths you are willing to go to in order to make things so respectable.”

“Cassandra…"

Cassandra just glared at him, and Gideon was reminded of how angry she had been with him for so many years. He had made mistakes in his past – mistakes that had led to her being ostracized for sins that she didn’t even commit – and he thought they had moved past them.

But perhaps she had only forgiven him and not forgotten. 

“Well,” Cassandra said, stepping backward toward Devon, who appeared rather ill-at-ease, caught between his wife and his closest friend, “whatever you do, do not let Mother or Father know of your plan. They would be devastated.”

“Why?” Gideon said, raking a hand through his hair. “It is their fault we are in this mess.”

“Gideon!”

He sighed, lowering his head. “I know. That was a beastly thing to say. It was not the fault of either of them.”

“No, it certainly was not,” Cassandra said. 

“It was my fault,” Gideon muttered in a low voice, admitting out loud for the first time the thought that had haunted him for years now. “All of it. That is why I care so much, you know. Why I have been so determined to fix this. After Father became sick and the stewards and men of business began squandering all of the family’s fortunes, I should have known. I should have been paying more attention, spending more time at home. Then I would have realized that all was not right. But no, I was away at school, then spending time in London, having fun with my friends, playing a few pranks to release my boredom.”

He waved his hand toward Devon, who looked as shocked as Cassandra.

“You cannot blame yourself for that,” Devon said in a low voice. “You were doing what every young man of the ton does.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Gideon said. “If you don’t mind, I will finish the rest of the accounts for the day before joining you for dinner.”

“But—” Cassandra began, stepping forward, but Devon stopped her, gently placing his large hand over hers, lowering them down as he wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and began to steer her out the door. 

“Let’s leave Gideon be for a time, love.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Go,” Gideon said in a low voice as he sunk back into his chair. “Please.”

As they walked out the door, arms around one another, Gideon had never felt so alone.