CHAPTER ONE

The Heritage

What men or gods are these?

What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle

to escape?

What pipes and timbrels?

What wild ecstasy?

John Keats

In the late springtime of 1912, on the day of my 21st birthday, I, Sir Richard Cailean, inherited my father’s land and mansion. It was, and is still today, a towering, heavy-stoned mansion crouching like a rapacious beast on a craggy hilltop. Alone, ruthless, surrounded by the lonely moors and forests of south-west Scotland, it gazes into the distance, eager for the arrival of its next lovely victim.

An arm of the sea snakes in to form a small bay at the foot of a cliff behind the mansion. Two massive round towers on opposite corners give it the aspect of a sinister fortress. That, and the tall thorny hedge surrounding the borders of the estate, inspired my grandfather to give it the title, ‘Blackthorne House’.

“How did my father die? There was no funeral,” I asked.

Aunt Caroline sat on the carriage seat next to me, not trusting the decision of the driver, Blanford, to let me handle the reins alone for the last mile. “He was a passenger on the Titanic. He was going to America to purchase a cargo of... well...we call them lovestock. There is good money in the buying and selling of their services, what with all the rumors of a coming war, and shortages. His body was never found.” She was silent for a moment, staring in a far memory. “He was a good brother—we are closer than most families. We all shared the delights and pleasures of Blackthorne’s deep secrets.”

Aunt Caroline rarely smiled, but one flickered across her lips now. I noticed her slim hand absently slip between her legs, caressing her long slim thigh through her black dress. “He enjoyed his work here so very much. The bevy of beautiful lovestock he procured, he shared with all of us.”

“What secrets?”

The smile instantly vanished. “Here now, mind your horses. There’s the entrance gate, between the... ”

A brawny middle-aged man stepped out of the hut just inside the iron-barred gates and opened them for us. He touched the forelock of his disheveled black hair with the fingers of his beefy right hand. A long scar crossed his face diagonally from his forehead to his chin. Where it crossed his eye, it was concealed with a black patch. He wore a shaggy brown shirt with its laces loosened, opened half-way down the front to reveal his hairy chest. A thick black belt with an iron buckle held up his Black pants, worn tight-legged to his beefy, muscular thighs and calves, and tucked i