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ripping the paper out of his father’s fingers, “for as much as I can make off it.”
    “And then what, you idiot? Gamble it or whore it away?”
    Rafe stuffed the paper back into his coat pocket. “I’m going to travel,” he stated sharply. “You may own half of England, but you don’t own the Colonies, or the southern Americas, or the Orient. And you don’t by God own me. Mother, Maddie, good day.”
    His gaze lingered for a moment on Julia, and then he strode out the door and slammed it behind him so hard the windows rattled.
    Julia sat looking at the door. “My,” she muttered faintly.
    The door flew open again. “Beeks!”
    The startled butler stepped forward. “Yes, Master Rafael?”
    “I’m taking my kit with me. Box the rest of my things. I’ll send word if I need any of it.”
    “Very good, sir.”
    The door slammed again.
    “Go stop him, Julia, before he does something he’ll regret,” the duke blustered.
    She faced her husband, trying to remain calm. It would do no good if she exploded as well, much as she would like to. “You think I could stop him, Lewis? After what you said to him?”
    “After what I said? Bah. A good riddance to him, then.”
    Maddie and Quin looked at each other, clearly dismayed, and Julia sat back in her chair. She wondered if Lewis realized that, barring a miracle, he’d just lost a son. Apparently Rafe’s next challenge was to escape the Bancrofts.

Chapter 2
    R afe arrived in Cheshire three days later. By the time he rode up the muddy, rutted road that led to Forton Hall, he’d decided to begin his travels in India—though Japan still had a definite pull. If the Hall was of decent-enough size and location, he would never have to worry about money or his independence from the duke again.
    At the last inn the locals looked at him with obvious curiosity, and then gave him directions. He hoped it wasn’t their idea of rural humor to send him into the middle of a bog, or something. Four miles west he came upon Crown Creek and its stone bridge, as they had instructed. If it wasn’t the right direction, at least it was picturesque. He crossed the old bridge, then pulled up his bay, Aristotle.
    He couldn’t recall that he’d ever been to Cheshire before. It was one of the few counties where the Bancrofts didn’t have a holding, so according to his father’s thinking, it had little to recommend it. A pair of redwing thrushes, a hundred miles south of their usual summer range, fluted at him and vanished into the surrounding woodlands of scattered beech, ash, and maple. It was beautiful country, the fresh green a welcome change from his last two months in southern Africa during thedry season. The hills of neighboring Derbyshire rose dimly blue-gray to the east, and he could almost smell the ocean to the west on the slight, cool breeze.
    Rafe smiled, humming a waltz tune, as he sent Aristotle forward again. Pretty, quiet, green country—just the type of land that would fetch the best price from prospective landowners. Sometimes he simply couldn’t believe his own good fortune. Nigel Harrington was a complete fool to have parted with Forton Hall for a hundred-quid wager.
    An overgrown hedge curved northwest and merged into a chaos of yellow-flowered weeds and tall grass. Rafe’s gaze followed the drive up the slight rise, to the doorway of Forton Hall itself. The smile dropped from his face.
    “Damnation,” he swore. “Damn, damn, damn.”
    He slowly dismounted, unable to take his gaze from the complete wreck before him.
    The entire west wing of the house had caved in on itself, with small sections of rafter and wall still sticking up into the sky like the bleached rib bones of a great whale. Broken shutters lay in tumbled heaps of wood and shrubbery at the foot of the pitted white walls, while the coverings that remained hung at crazy angles from the windows. Broken glass, plaster, wood, stone, and shingles flattened the remains of what might once have been a