The Ashworth Estate sprawled across twelve hundred acres of moorland, woodland, and manicured garden, a kingdom unto itself with its own laws and its own secrets. The manor house at its heart had stood since the reign of Queen Anne, its mullioned windows and crenellated parapets gazing out over the heather like the face of a dowager duchess who had seen too much to be surprised by anything. In summer, the gardens blazed with roses and delphiniums, and the lawn rolled down to a ornamental lake where swans drifted like clouds made flesh. In autumn, the woods behind the house turned to flame, and shooting parties tramped through the bracken in search of pheasant and grouse.
But this was the first week of November, and autumn had given way to something bleaker. The trees stood bare against a sky the color of old pewter, and the wind that swept down from the moors carried the smell of rain and decay. The shooting season was over. The house should have been quiet, its guest rooms empty, its staff reduced to the skeleton crew that maintained the place through the winter months.
Instead, the house was preparing for a party.
Sir Reginald Ashworth stood at the window of his study, watching the caterers' vans rumble up the drive. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and silver-haired, with the kind of face that inspired trust—strong jaw, clear blue eyes, a mouth that seemed perpetually on the verge of a benevolent smile. He had been knighted twelve years earlier for services to philanthropy, and the portrait that hung in the village hall showed him in his ceremonial robes, looking exactly as a philanthropist ought to look: kindly, dignified, faintly amused by the whole affair.
The portrait did not show his hands. That was a deliberate choice on the artist's part, or perhaps on Sir Reginald's. His hands were the one part of him that did not match the benevolent image—too large, too strong, the knuckles thickened by years of gripping shotguns and reins and other things that a philanthropist ought not to grip. At this moment, those hands were clasped behind his back, the fingers interlaced so tightly that the knuckles had gone white.
"There is a problem," he said, without turning around.
Behind him, standing in the doorway with his cap crushed between his hands, the gamekeeper Mullins shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was a thickset man with a face like a clenched fist, and he had served Sir Reginald for twenty-two years, since he was a boy of fifteen poaching rabbits on the estate. Sir Reginald had caught him and, instead of prosecuting, had offered him a job. It was a story Mullins told often, always with the same conclusion: "Sir Reginald saved my life. I'd do anything for him."
He had done a great many things over the years. Some of them kept him awake at night. Most of them he had learned to forget.
"The boy, sir," Mullins said. "We haven't found him yet. The hounds lost the scent at Gill's Beck. He must have gone into the water."
Sir Reginald turned from the window. His face was calm, but there was something in his eyes that made Mullins take an involuntary step backward. "The hounds lost the scent. A pack of pedigree foxhounds, trained to track across open moorland, lost the scent of a half-starved runaway from Manchester. Is that what you are telling me, Mullins?"
"The fog was thick, sir. And the beck—"
"I am not interested in excuses." Sir Reginald's voice did not rise. It never did. That was one of the things that made him terrifying. "I am interested in results. The boy saw something he should not have seen. He is a threat to everything we have built. Find him."
Mullins swallowed hard. "And the woman, sir? The body?"
"What of it?"
"The peat cutters found a bone this morning. Near the old trench. Constable Hargrove called that doctor woman out to look at it."
For the first time, Sir Reginald's composure flickered. It was a tiny thing—a tightening of the jaw, a slight narrowing of the eyes—but Mullins knew his employer well enough to recognize it as a sign of genuine concern. "Dr. Moore," Sir Reginald said. "Yes. My wife mentioned her. She has a reputation for being... observant."
"Should we do something about her, sir?"
Sir Reginald considered the question. He walked to his desk, a vast mahogany affair that had belonged to his grandfather, and picked up a letter opener carved from ivory. It was old, yellowed with age, and the handle was shaped like a hound in mid-leap. He turned it over in his hands, studying it as though it held the answer to some private riddle.
"No," he said at last. "Not yet. A village doctor asking questions is one thing. A village doctor found dead on the moor is quite another. That would bring real attention—the wrong kind of attention. Scotland Yard attention. We do not want that."
"But if she finds something—"
"She will find what we allow her to find." Sir Reginald set the letter opener down with a precise click. "The bone the peat cutters discovered. Is it recent?"
Mullins hesitated. "The trench was dug three years ago. The body should have been deep enough. But the rains last spring were heavy. The water table shifted. It might have brought something closer to the surface."
"Then there is only one bone. A femur, I am told. A single bone proves nothing. It could be ancient. It could be an animal. It could be anything." Sir Reginald allowed himself a thin smile. "Let the good doctor poke and prod to her heart's content. There is nothing for her to find. The rest of the trench is buried deep, and the peat does not give up its dead easily. What she does not know, she cannot prove."
"And the boy?"
"The boy is a different matter." Sir Reginald walked back to the window. The last of the caterers' vans had disappeared around the side of the house, and the drive was empty again. "He saw us. He saw the face. If he talks to anyone—if he talks to Dr. Moore—the whole edifice could come crashing down. I will not allow that. I have spent thirty years building this estate, this reputation, this legacy. I will not see it destroyed by a gutter rat from Manchester."
"I'll put more men on the search," Mullins said. "We'll find him."
"See that you do." Sir Reginald's voice softened, becoming almost conversational. "The party tonight is important. The guest list includes several individuals who have contributed generously to our charitable endeavors over the years. They are expecting a weekend of relaxation and sport. I do not want them disturbed by talk of stray bones and runaway boys. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. That will be all."
Mullins left, closing the door behind him with the exaggerated care of a man who knew that any noise might shatter the fragile calm. Sir Reginald remained at the window, watching the sky darken over the moor. The fog was already beginning to gather in the hollows, white tendrils reaching out like fingers testing the air. It would be a thick night. A good night for hunting.
He turned back to his desk and opened the middle drawer. Inside lay a ledger bound in dark leather, its pages filled with names written in a neat, precise hand. Dates. Places. Sums of money. And beside each entry, a small cross marked in red ink. Sir Reginald ran his finger down the list, pausing here and there to read a name. Some of the names were famous. Some were obscure. All of them represented men who had paid handsomely for the privilege of participating in what Sir Reginald called, in his private correspondence, "the ultimate sport."
The ledger was insurance. Every man who had ever pulled a trigger on the Ashworth Estate was recorded in its pages, their guilt preserved as surely as the bodies in the peat. If Sir Reginald fell, they would fall with him. It was a reassuring thought.
He closed the ledger and locked it in the drawer. Then he rang for his valet and began to dress for the party.
The first guests arrived at seven o'clock. They came in gleaming motorcars driven by uniformed chauffeurs—a Rolls-Royce from London, a Daimler from York, a Bentley that had made the long drive from Edinburgh. The men who stepped out of those cars wore evening dress of impeccable cut, their faces familiar from the financial pages and the society columns. Industrialists. Politicians. A retired general whose name still commanded respect in certain circles. A shipping magnate whose fortune had been built on the back of Empire. A German businessman whose presence in England was ostensibly connected to the import of timber.
Sir Reginald greeted each of them personally, shaking hands with the practiced warmth of a man who had spent decades perfecting the art of welcome. The great hall of the manor glowed with candlelight and the sparkle of crystal. A fire roared in the massive hearth, and the air was rich with the scent of roasting meat and fine tobacco.
"Gentlemen," Sir Reginald said, raising a glass of champagne as the last of his guests settled into the drawing room, "I want to thank you all for making the journey. I know that the autumn can be a difficult time for travel, and your presence here is a testament to the importance of the work we do together."
There was a murmur of appreciation. The retired general raised his own glass in salute.
"As you know," Sir Reginald continued, "the Ashworth Charitable Trust has raised over two hundred thousand pounds for the relief of suffering across the Empire. Our orphanages in Yorkshire, our mission hospitals in Africa, our scholarship program for deserving boys—all of this would be impossible without your generosity. Tonight, we celebrate what we have achieved. And tomorrow..." He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to quicken the pulse of every man in the room. "Tomorrow, we shall enjoy the sport that brings us together. I have arranged something special."
The German industrialist leaned forward in his chair. His name was Schreiber, and he had been coming to the estate twice a year for the better part of a decade. His face was flushed with drink and anticipation. "A special hunt, Sir Reginald?"
"Indeed." Sir Reginald smiled. "The moors are full of game this year. I think you will find the quarry most satisfying."
A ripple of laughter passed through the room. It was the laughter of men who shared a secret, a knowledge that bound them together more tightly than any public declaration of friendship ever could. They understood what Sir Reginald was offering. They had paid for it, after all—paid sums that would have made a working man's eyes water, paid in cash and in favors and in the currency of mutual complicity.
Lady Ashworth did not join them for drinks. She remained upstairs in her private sitting room, a book open on her lap, her eyes fixed on a page she had not turned for nearly an hour. She could hear the murmur of voices from below, the occasional burst of laughter, the chime of glasses. She knew what those men were celebrating. She had known for years, and the knowledge had settled into her like a cold stone lodged beneath her heart.
She thought of Dr. Moore, of the bone on the moor, of the way the village doctor had looked at her with those sharp, assessing eyes. For the first time in a long while, Lady Ashworth allowed herself to feel something that might have been hope. Perhaps, after all these years, someone was finally asking the right questions. Perhaps the fog was beginning to lift.
Downstairs, the party continued. And in the ravine at the edge of the estate, a boy with a torn jacket and a hunger that gnawed at his belly watched the lights of the manor house burning golden in the darkness, and wondered what kind of party required so many guests on a night so thick with fog.
He did not know the answer. But he intended to find out.
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