Cast in Shadows

by Laura Landon

  PROLOGUE

  Gideon Wayland, Marquess of Sheffield, heir to the Duke of Townsend, woke with his arms and legs strapped to the narrow bed. He was locked in the same cell where they put him whenever he suffered one of his…episodes. This was where they took him so he couldn’t hurt anyone when he became violent. Where his father insisted he stay so the world wouldn’t find out that his son suffered from the same sickness from which Gideon’s mother had suffered. The illness that had taken her life.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what had happened this time. But as usual, he couldn’t recall anything except the racing of his heart, then the sounds roaring in his head, and the pain. Pain so intense he thought his head might explode. Then, the violence.

  Each time one of these attacks came, it took more men to confine him.

  Gideon fisted his hands at his sides. He was eighteen now, and no longer as easy to restrain as he’d been when he was a boy. He was as large as his father, but Gideon was stronger. His father didn’t ride for hours on end to escape the madness that consumed him. His father didn’t wield an axe to chop wood for the fires that kept Townsend Manor warm the entire winter in order to fall into an exhausted sleep each night when he collapsed into bed. His father didn’t row a boat from one side of the large lake on Townsend Estate to the other to forget the destruction he’d caused during one of his attacks. Or, on warm summer days and nights, swim the length of the lake again and again to dull his fears and forget what would eventually become of him.

  Gideon knew he rode and swam as a way to escape the future that was ahead of him. A future when he would no longer be free to ride or swim, but locked away as his mother had been.

  Each attack was worse than the last. The results more damaging. He was becoming dangerous.

  He turned his head to scan the room, praying that his long-time nurse, Lettie, would be there. Knowing she would. She was a rock in his otherwise volatile and instable world.

  She dozed in a chair with a cover pulled beneath her chin and the needlework she always had handy draped in her lap. He wondered how long she’d been there. How long she’d been at his bedside waiting for him to wake. No doubt since they’d brought him here.

  As if his nurse knew her charge had awakened, she stirred, then opened her eyes and looked at him. She pushed the cover from her body and rose.

  “How are you, my lord?”

  This was the first question Lettie always asked after he’d recovered from one of his incidents. His answer would be the same as always. “Like my head is going to explode and I’ve been run over by a wagon.”

  “I’ll give you something for your pain,” she said, then went to the small table by his bed to pour a small amount of laudanum into a glass of wine. But instead of brushing her soft, withered fingers across his brow like she usually did, she kept her face averted from his view.

  “Look at me, Lettie,” he whispered.

  “Never you mind, my lord. It’s nothing.”

  He was consumed by a wave of guilt and terror. “Look at me,” he ordered again.

  The woman who had stayed at his side his whole life slowly turned her head. Gideon’s stomach lurched at the sight of the dark bruise that covered her cheek.

  “Don’t you chastise yourself, my lord. ’Tis my own fault. I knew to stay out of your path, but interfered anyway.”

  “And why did you interfere, Lettie?”

  The servant stopped with the key half turned in the lock that held one of his hands tied to the bed.

  “Tell me, Lettie.”

  She turned the key, and one of his hands was free. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

  Gideon shook his head as he took the key from the servant’s hand and unlocked the cuffs that bound his other hand. “It was just like all the others. I remember nothing after it started.”

  Gideon unlocked the cuffs from his ankles, then swung his legs over the side of the cot. He anchored his forearms on his thighs and clutched his head in his hands. “Was Father there?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Gideon breathed a heavy sigh. “I remember that he and the duchess graced me with a visit. I feared I wasn’t fortunate enough that they’d left before the attack started.” Gideon raked his fingers through his hair. “I take it this attack was quite bad.”

  “Yes, my lord. One of your worst.”

  “Did I harm Father? Or her grace?”

  “The duchess escaped unharmed.”

  “But Father?”

  “He will be sporting a bruise or two, my lord.”

  Gideon sprang to his feet and stormed to the only window in the room. “How will this end, Lettie? What if I cause more than bruises the next time?” Gideon reached out his arms and braced one hand against either side of the window. “What if I am like my mother?”

  Lettie rushed to stand beside him, then placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You are not like your mother. You do not suffer from the same problems as she suffered. I will not have you think so.”

  “But—”

  Before Gideon could take comfort in Lettie’s reassuring words, the door opened and his father and stepmother stood inside the small room.

  Gideon’s gaze scanned the three burly men standing guard outside the room, then his focus shifted to the sorrow-filled expression on his stepmother’s face and her red-rimmed eyes. Finally, he focused on the unyielding expression on his father’s face.

  This was the day Gideon had always known would eventually come. The day when his nightmares became a reality.

  “Father,” he said in greeting, although he wasn’t sure how he’d found his voice. “Your Grace,” he said, greeting his stepmother.

  “Gideon,” his father answered.

  His stepmother was silent. She only dabbed at her tear-filled eyes and nodded.

  “I’d invite you to sit,” Gideon said as he looked around the room. “But as you can see, there is only one chair.”

  “We have no intention of staying,” his father answered.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.” Gideon straightened his shoulders and locked his hands behind his back. “It shouldn’t take long for you to inform me of my fate.”

  “Do you think this is easy for me, son?”

  His father’s voice was filled with anger. And even a hint of regret.

  “No, Father. No easier for you to say, than for me to hear.”

  “I have no choice,” he bellowed. “Last night proved that.”

  Gideon let his gaze concentrate on the discolorations on his father’s face. A dark mark blackened his father’s right jaw and an even darker bruise was evident beneath his left eye.

  Gideon refused to show weakness. He was a prisoner in his father’s home, had been since he’d suffered his first attack at the age of eight. Now, he refused to cower as his judge handed down his sentence.

  “I wish there were another choice, Gideon, but there isn’t. Your belongings have been packed and you will be taken to Shadowdown Estate.”

  “The asylum,” Gideon whispered.

  “No! Not an asylum. A sanctuary. A place where you will have a certain amount of freedom, yet you will be afforded protection so you cannot hurt yourself. Or anyone else.”

  Gideon knew this had always been a possibility. No, more than a possibility. A probability. But hearing his father set down the official decree was like receiving a punch to the gut. His body wanted to double over from the pain, but he refused to show weakness. He forced himself to remain upright and accept the pronouncement as the heir to the Townsend dukedom had been trained.

  “Shadowdown has an excellent stable and I’ve made arrangements for you to take Gibraltar with you. You will enjoy the freedom to ride when you are able.” His grace look
ed at his wife. “You will reside in the cottage. Her grace has seen to it that your accommodations are in order. I’m sure you will find them more than adequate.”

  Gideon forced himself to look at his stepmother’s pain-ravaged face. Even though she wasn’t his mother, she’d always been kind to him. He knew she’d always hoped his episodes would stop. That he would be the heir his father could be proud of. The look on her face told him she regretted the decision to send Gideon away as much as he did.

  Then Gideon looked at his long-time nurse. Her face was void of all color, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “What about Lettie?”

  His father looked shocked. “She, of course, won’t be permitted on the premises, except to visit.”

  “I don’t mean for her to accompany me. I am old enough to see to myself. I only want to make sure she is adequately compensated for her years of service and devotion. I want her to have a home of her own, preferably a cottage within walking distance of Shadowdown so she can visit when she wants. And I want you to promise me she will always be provided for. I don’t want someone who so diligently cared for Mother, then for me, to want for anything.”

  His grace nodded. “I’ll see to your wishes. Is there anything else?”

  “No, Father.”

  The Duke of Townsend nodded, but at the last moment, Gideon noticed the expression on his father’s face fall. His father had always been such a strong man, so infallible. That’s how he wanted to remember him.

  “Other than…”

  His father blinked back whatever emotions threatened to surface.

  “I don’t blame you, Father. Never think that I do.”

  With that, Gideon Wayland, future Duke of Townsend, walked through the door without looking back.

  CHAPTER 1

  Ten Years Later

  Eve Cornwell pulled back the curtains in her father’s office at Shadowdown Sanitarium and watched one of the residents swing an axe as he chopped firewood. From the height of the pile of kindling against several of the outbuildings, none of the rooms on the estate would lack wood for their fires for the next three years at the least.

  “What are you so interested in, girl?” her father said from the opposite side of the room. “Whatever it is seems to have all your interest. You didn’t even hear me come in.”

  Eve looked over her shoulder and smiled at her father. “Not what, Father. Who.”

  Her father crossed his study and looked out into the fenced stable yard. “Ah,” he said, on a sigh. “Now I see. And I understand your interest.”

  “That’s the Marquess of Sheffield, isn’t it?” she said, not able to take her eyes off of the handsome man below her. He’d removed his jacket and waistcoat, and had rolled up the sleeves of his white lawn shirt nearly to his elbows. His broad shoulders and muscled forearms were as powerful as any she’d ever seen.

  His rich coffee-colored hair was a trifle longer than her father usually permitted on the residents, and when the marquess paused to roll his shoulders, the material of his shirt pulled tight across his back. He stood to his full height, with his legs braced wide apart and the ax in his hand resting atop his right shoulder as he stretched the muscles he’d been using to chop wood. Eve felt a stirring deep inside her.

  “How long has Lord Sheffield been here?” she asked. She’d seen him when she’d visited her father over the past several years, but that was just briefly during her short stays at Shadowdown. She’d never spoken to him, nor did she think he’d even noticed her. Now that she had finished school and had returned home, she intended to take an interest in all of the residents of the sanitarium and help wherever she could.

  “Nearly ten years,” her father answered. “He came here at the age of eighteen.”

  “So you weren’t here when he came,” she continued.

  “No. He’d been here more than four years when I came.”

  Eve faced her father. “Why is he here?”

  Dr. Cornwell walked to his desk and pulled a folder from a stack of ledgers. “Why are you asking?”

  Eve shrugged. “I’m just curious.”

  Her father looked at her for several moments, then pointed to a chair that faced him. After she sat, he took his chair, then placed his forearms on the top of the desk. His fingers were twined as he thoughtfully studied the papers beneath his arms. “Stay away from him, Eve,” he said when he lifted his gaze.

  Her eyebrows rose. “Why, Father?”

  “Because he’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous, how?”

  “I know what you want to do, Eve. You want to save him, just like you wish someone could have saved Jeremy.”

  She allowed her gaze to rest on her father. He hid the sorrow in his eyes like he always did when speaking of his only son. Eve’s brother. But even after all these years, the hurt was still there. “Don’t you?”

  “Lord Sheffield isn’t Jeremy. He isn’t weak like Jeremy was.”

  “Jeremy wasn’t weak,” Eve argued, but she knew her argument was false.

  “Jeremy was my son, Eve. And I loved him. But he was troubled. And you know why.”

  Eve lowered her head and stared at her hands clasped in her lap. “Why couldn’t he realize Mother’s death wasn’t his fault?”

  “Because it was,” her father whispered. “It was an accident, but it was his fault. And he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done. He couldn’t believe we forgave him.”

  “Perhaps if I would have tried harder,” she said, but her father’s raised hand stopped her words.

  “There was nothing more you could have done,” her father said in a stern voice. “And there is nothing you can do for Lord Sheffield.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve talked to him and evaluated him for nearly six years, and…” Her father paused.

  “What is it Father?”

  “I’ve never had a case like this.”

  Eve looked at the bewildered expression on her father’s face. “What do you mean?”

  “If I were to give a report of him at the moment, I would have to say that he’s as normal as you or me, more normal than most of the nobility I’ve met in my lifetime.”

  “Then why is he here?”

  “Because of the episodes from which he suffers.”

  “What kind of episodes?”

  “Very violent seizures, which is why I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  “But surely—”

  “No, Eve. You cannot imagine the damage he’s capable of doing when under these strange spells. He broke Randolph’s arm during the last episode. He picked up the table in his kitchen and threw it against a wall. It took two men to put it back where it belonged it was so heavy.”

  “Do you know what causes these episodes?”

  Her father shook his head. “There’s no pattern, although they seem to occur more frequently late in the day, or in the evening.”

  Eve rose from her chair and returned to the window. Lord Sheffield still swung the axe as if each swipe destroyed one of his demons. She turned back to her father. “Would you consider allowing me to visit with him if I promise to only see him early in the day, and never indoors, but always in the open spaces such as the garden?”

  “No,” her father said with alarming quickness.

  “Do you have a plan then to solve the puzzle of his episodes?”

  Her father opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and shook his head. “I don’t know what to look for. I’ve thought of everything it might be, but…”

  “Then how can you refuse my help? This is a man approximately the same age as Jeremy was when he couldn’t live with his guilt any longer. What if Lord Sheffield makes the same decision Jeremy made concerning his seizures?”

  “I don’t want you to have contact with him, Eve. Not until I know what causes his episodes.”

  “Then let me help.” She turned to face her father. “Papa, you’re the best doctor I know when it comes to understanding a
troubled mind. That’s why the Duke of Townsend chose you to come here. It’s why you’ve been recognized so often by others in your field. It’s why I returned to Shadowdown. So I could work at your side, and learn as much as I could from the best.”

  Eve turned her gaze back to the scene beyond the window. The marquess still chopped wood with tireless ease.

  She turned back to face her father and locked her hands in front of her. She knew her stance indicated her determination. “But if you intend to protect me from every case you consider dangerous, you’ll force me to find employment elsewhere. I want to be treated as any other employee, not cosseted because I’m your daughter.”

  For several long moments her father didn’t reply. Then, as if he realized her seriousness, he closed the folder on the papers on his desk and looked at her. “You can talk to Lord Sheffield, but only in the mornings.”

  Eve nodded.

  “And you will always stay out of doors where you can run to safety if one of his episodes occur.”

  Eve nodded again.

  “And you will have either Thomas or Matthew with you at all times. You will never, under any circumstances, be with Lord Sheffield if you are not accompanied by one of the men.”

  Eve hesitated. “Isn’t that a little extreme, Father?”

  “You are the only family I have left, Eve. I intend to do everything in my power to make sure nothing ever happens to you.”

  Eve looked at the caring expression on her father’s face and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I love you, Papa,” she said, rushing to the desk to wrap her arms around her father’s neck and kiss him on the cheek. “Nothing will happen to me. I couldn’t bear to leave you.”

  Her father cleared his throat several times, then picked up the folder from his desk and handed it to her.

  “You might want to look at this before you visit with Lord Sheffield. These are notes I made after each visit with him.”

  Eve took the folder. “Thank you, Papa. Maybe there’s something we can do to help Lord Sheffield. At least we will have tried.”

  Eve walked to the door with the folder clutched to her breast. If she could save just one person from making the same tragic decision Jeremy had made, she would consider her life’s goal fulfilled.