Alexander-Fyn-Sanguinarian

will put us far closer to Castle Haven than we want to be.”
    The tall thin cashier returned within minutes. “Please come this way, Miss Rutledge.” He bowed politely and led them past a series of desks where men worked diligently, looking up only briefly as they passed. At a door with a mottled glass panel, labeled in gold script with the name of the bank manager, he stopped. “I think Mr. Charters wishes to see you alone, Miss Rutledge. I’ll fetch your companion a chair.”
    “I would much prefer that Mrs. Brackett accompany me,”
    Evangeline protested.
    “It’s all right, Miss Evie.” The housekeeper dumped her valise on the floor and folded her arms threateningly at the clerk. She looked like a strongman in a circus sideshow. “I’ll stay right here. It’s your money. He has to give it to you. Now get in there and demand it. If you need my help, you just shout.”
    Evangeline put down her valise and with a last desperate look at Mrs. Brackett, entered the large, dim office. The curtains were drawn almost all the way across the windows—no lamp was lit. A man sitting behind the big desk had swung the swivel chair round so that his back was to her. Evangeline tapped her foot, his rudeness fortifying her resolve. “I wish to have my money now. You had better 26
    Fyn Alexander
    give it to me.”
    The chair turned around smoothly on its wooden base, and in one fluid motion the man sitting in it rose. Very slender, with long arms and legs, his height seemed to go on and on. He wore unrelieved black and against his chest, on a long chain, hung a large silver key-like figure which Evangeline knew from her Egyptian studies to be an ankh. She had never seen the bank manager before but she knew this man was not him. A jittery butterfly sensation began in her stomach and rose until her throat felt constricted. Her legs turned to jelly. If she did not sit down forthwith she was going to faint.
    The man stepped around the desk, caught her, and set her in a chair, carefully but not gently. “Disobedient girl!” He leaned into her face. “I warned you not to defy me.” His eyes, so close to hers, were a frightening yellow, his skin bone-white, his hair was black and so long and straight it trailed past his shoulders and down his back.
    Possessed of a catlike quality, he stepped away to stalk back and forth across the room, seeming terribly confined within it, though it was large.
    “Lord Ravenscroft?” she whispered.
    He whirled round upon her. “Yes, Lord Ravenscroft,” he repeated with heavy sarcasm. “Did you think I would simply let you run off?
    Did you think I would trust you to arrive in Yorkshire without being carefully watched? Your uncle warned me you were unhappy about the marriage arrangements.”
    “Are you surprised?” she asked, her hand to her chest. “I don’t even know you.”
    “Except by my reputation?”
    Evangeline shivered, though a fire burned in the grate. Lord Ravenscroft kept well away from it as he paced. “So you were in the carriage last night. I was beginning to doubt my senses.”
    “I was.” He strode back toward her so purposefully that she leapt up from her chair, moving several steps backward to the door until her back pressed hard against it. She did not attempt to turn the handle, it Sanguinarian 27
    would be pointless. He advanced on her, not touching her, but standing very close, looking down at her.
    “No, I am not surprised that you are apprehensive about our marriage, but whether you like it or not, Miss Rutledge, the wedding will go ahead. My inheritance depends upon it and I will be blazing angry with anyone who stands in the way of my inheriting my family estate. I must marry within the next two weeks, and I intend to marry you, my dear Miss Rutledge.”
    One long, thin, white hand shot out, encircling her neck. His face leaned menacingly close to hers. Evangeline could hardly breathe, though his fingers in no way restricted her throat. “Are you afraid of me, Miss Rutledge?” He stared into her eyes. “I don’t think you can be so terribly afraid or you would not have attempted this petty scheme of yours. You would not have tried to run away from me if you were as terrified as you look.”
    Evangeline swallowed hard but made no attempt to speak.
    “I have business to attend to today which you are keeping me from with this little display of rebellion. I am never pleased when I am kept from my business, never. Now listen closely. Are you