Chapter One
The eve before Winter Solstice arrived; heralded, as ever, by a flurry of snow and a bone-aching chill. Konrad welcomed the joys of the season by going to bed straight after dinner — alone. He took a book, three hot bricks and a glass (or two) of brandy with him, a combination which seemed to him to encompass all a gentleman could possibly wish for on such a night.
So deliciously comfortable was he in his four-poster bed, nightcap firmly warding off those errant wisps of draught which found their way around his heavy bed curtains, that he was not best pleased to be disturbed by a frigid whisper shivering through his mind like a sudden, icy wind.
Master.
If he ignored it, would it go away? Konrad tightened his grip upon his book, slithered fractionally further beneath his bl
