by Nhys Glover
Methodically, he continued to unbutton the tiny impediments to his access. In the end, in frustration, he tore at the front of the gown and watched as the buttons popped off and flew in every direction. Then he pulled the gown off her shoulders as he held her upright with one arm, as gently as possible.
‘Let me,’ Phil said, coming to his side and working on the laces at Fidelia’s back. Once she had begun to loosen the restraints, he eased the rest of the dress from her body, leaving her wearing only her undergarments and the infernal stays.
‘You should not be seeing her like this,’ Phil said as she continued to work on the stays.
‘Do you think I plan to take advantage of her in this moment when she is unconscious? Please give me some credit,’ Jasper snapped, throwing the dress aside and starting on her laced boots and stockings.
‘I think she may be humiliated that you have seen her in this state.’
‘I have seen her in this state already. Or close to it. Leave off bleating at me, Phil. I am not leaving her while she is like this. Where is that damned maid of hers with that ice water?’
At that moment, Byron appeared in the doorway, Mary just behind him. ‘Is she all right?’
Not sure to whom the question was directed, Jasper decided to answer anyway. ‘She has fainted because of these stays,’ he swore furiously without regard for the females present, ‘and she has banged her head. I do not know if it is still a faint that keeps her out, or if it is the head injury.’
‘Will I send for a doctor?’
‘Let us see if she comes around. Where is Cook? She knows more about injuries than anyone.’
‘I do know something,’ Phil piped up. ‘I nursed my mother.’
‘This is not consumption,’ Jasper tried to restrain his anger, but it was becoming more and more impossible with the number of distractions he was dealing with. All he wanted to do was gather the small woman in his arms and send them all away. She didn’t need all these people. All she needed was him!
‘Do not use that tone with my wife!’ Byron demanded stiffly, moving into the room and towering above them like an avenging angel.
‘Do not concern yourself, Byron. He is distraught. It is understandable. We are all feeling that way.’ Phil finally removed the stays completely and threw them aside before standing up to go to her husband’s side.
‘I will not have…’
‘Not now, please. There will be time for recriminations later. Charlotte has much to answer for. She told her what they are, just like that. The shock of it brought on this spell.’
Jasper glanced up and glared. ‘If anything serious comes of this, I will kill that woman!’
At that moment, Cook bustled in with the bowl of ice water. She sat down in the place Phil had vacated and directed him to lower his woman back down onto the bed. Dee looked as pale as the pillowcase beneath her head and he was struck anew with terror.
Cook put the bowl on the table beside the bed and then took up the unconscious woman’s limp arm. She felt for a pulse. Then she nodded, as if encouraged, and began to apply the cold compress to the head wound as she had been doing in the kitchen. Maybe he shouldn’t have moved her. But getting her out of the stays seemed far more important, at the time, than bathing her forehead.
‘Is she going to wake up soon?’ Jasper asked, tentatively now. If he had caused her more harm than good…
‘Yer did the right thing gettin’ those whalebones off ‘er. She’s breathin’ natural now. If it’s simply a faint, she’ll come ‘round in a moment.’ Cook looked at him and smiled her encouragement. He couldn’t remember a time when Cook had spoken so kindly to him. It scared him more than Fidelia’s condition.
As if her words made it so, Fidelia moaned and turned her head to the side, as if trying to escape the cold on her forehead.
‘There now, Madam, just lay yersel’ still for me. We’re tryin’ to get this lump down,’ Cook told her warmly, as if speaking to a young child.
Fidelia’s lids fluttered and Jasper was relieved to see the storm-cloud grey of her eyes once more. ‘W…What happened?’
‘Yer fainted, dearie. Yer just fainted. Nowt to be bothered by,’ Cook assured her, pressing the cold cloth back to the injury.
Then, as if her memories returned, Fidelia’s eyes opened wide in panic as she turned to search her surroundings. ‘You are safe, Dee. Stay calm,’ Jasper said, taking up her hand and rubbing it briskly between his. He didn’t know how much longer she would let him touch her. The rejection was close, he knew that.
‘You!’ It was accusation and question in one and he clung a little harder to her hand.
‘Dee, don’t think about it now,’ Phil told her, leaning over Jasper’s shoulder to get a better look at her friend.
‘Stop telling me not to think about things! This is not going to go away just because I do not think about it,’ Fidelia said testily, beginning to draw her hand back from his.
‘Dee,’ Phil cautioned her again.
‘No, stop it. How many are there of you? You werewolves?’ she demanded of him, her gaze latching onto him fiercely.
‘Most of us.’
‘Not you, Phil?’ She dragged her gaze from him to look at her friend, pleading for the right answer.
‘No, of course not. And not Byron or Jamey, the young lad you have seen around here.’
‘Everyone else is a werewolf? How…How can you have kept this from me? I could have been attacked like Rathgart was…’ She shuddered at the memory.
‘My wolf did not hurt you,’ Jasper said, pleading for understanding, for acceptance.
Fidelia brought her gaze back to his face, and he saw the moment she put the pieces together. Her eyes opened wide with shock and then their lids fluttered as she began processing the thought.
‘It was you, then. I thought as much. Did you know it would not hurt me? Were you sure when you came after me?’
Jasper looked away as he shook his head, and felt her fingers finally slip free of his. ‘Then you put me in more danger than I was already in with Rathgart.’
‘I could not stay behind. I had to save you!’ he cried, jumping to his feet, unable to keep still a moment longer. Somehow, in the last minutes, the room had been cleared of all but Byron and Phil, himself and Cook. He fleetingly wondered where Maude had gone.
‘They say a bite or a scratch from a werewolf will turn someone into such a creature. Is that true?’
Defeated, he nodded.
‘So, if that beast had even scratched me by accident, when he was scratching a flea, for instance, I might have been turned. Or will the kisses you gave me do it anyway? Are we all waiting until the next full moon to see if I turn into one of you?’ Her voice had risen to a screech, and she was shaking her head, trying to free herself of Cook’s cloth.
‘We do not think kisses will do it. We think the contagion can only be passed while in wolf form,’ Phil spoke up, trying to take the focus of the attack away from him. Even though Phil was still angry with him for what he’d done, she was determined to defend him. It was so typical of her.
‘So if the wolf had decided to bite me instead of help me…’ Fidelia shuddered. ‘Go away. Please, all of you, leave me. I need to think. I have to…think. Where is Maude? I need Maude.’ The last word was said on a sob as tears glistened in her eyes.
Jasper went to the door and looked for the old maid. He saw her hobbling toward him, a tray of tea in her hands. ‘Your mistress needs you.’
Maude hurried even faster, and when she entered the room, Jasper left it. It did no good remaining when she obviously didn’t want anything more to do with him. It was his own fault. She was justified in her anger, at the risk he had taken with her. Even being ravaged by Rathgart would have been a better alternative than being turned into a werewolf. At least the first would have an end. Being a werewolf was a lifetime contagion.
Shaking his head, he turned in the direction of his room. What he wanted now was a drink, more than a drink. H
e wanted to drink so much he lost consciousness. He wanted to forget everything that had happened in the last few days. Make it as if none of it had happened. The guilty pain was too much.
Sometime later, Byron came to his room and entered without knocking. Jasper was standing in front of his window, staring out at the afternoon sunshine.
‘You all right, old man?’ Byron asked, taking the bottle from his hand. ‘This does not help.’
This time, he hadn’t bothered with a glass. He had been taking long pulls directly from the bottle.
‘It does not hurt.’ He gave a little chuckle at his own wit. Yes, the alcohol was doing its job. If he could make a banal joke at a time like this then he was definitely well on his way to being drunk.
‘She is in shock. Charlotte had no right to tell her that way. She was bound to react poorly, under the circumstances. When she has time to think it through.’
‘She will be even more convinced I am to blame for putting her in danger. And she would be right. My God, man, what was I thinking, going after her like that? It was pure luck that the monster inside me did her no harm. He could have been like Bobby was with Phil. I could have torn out her throat!’
‘But you did not. Your wolf has had your best interest at heart from the start.’
‘’Ron, give over. It does not matter. The fact is, I did not even consider the implications nor the danger to unsuspecting people in my path. All I cared about was getting to her. Whether it is the work of the wolf or my love-sick self, the end result is the same. I have broken every rule we have put in place. And I do not have any idea how to make it right. So please, unless you plan on putting a bullet in my head, go away and leave me to my thoughts.’
Byron nodded and turned away, bottle still in hand. Jasper couldn’t even bring himself to demand it back. He just climbed to his unsteady feet and collapsed across his bed, hoping against hopes that he’d fall into oblivion once his stinging eyes were closed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The hour was late and Fidelia was alone. She had sent Maude away an hour or two ago, and Philomena, exasperated with her unwillingness to talk to her, had at last left her in peace.
As she stared at her hands without seeing them, Fidelia wondered why she could not lift herself out of the misery she felt. It was like a black cloud had descended on her and blocked everything else from sight. If she had any thoughts at all, it was of Jasper. She replayed their last meeting over and over again, the impossible ecstasy and wildness of those kisses, neither of them caring whether she was being put at risk or not, and then the utter confusion and misery that followed when Charlotte made her announcement.
She never considered herself capable of such extremes of emotion. All her life she had been told what a calm and sweet-natured little thing she was. That such enormity of emotion could exist for all these years, unexperienced, seemed impossible. How could she not have known how pastel coloured her world had been? Until she’s seen it in vibrant sensual colours, like Rossetti's Golden Water, she had nothing to compare it with.
But now, after being awakened to such intense sensation, it seemed her world would not revert to its previous pastel shades but, instead, had become a soul-numbing grey.
Fidelia climbed to her feet and walked over to the full-length mirror that stood in the corner of her temporary bedroom. She studied the black-clothed doll before her. As soon as she had been able to remove the invaders from her room, she’d made Maude pull out a loose fitting gown for her to wear, one that didn’t require a corset. If Maude had been given her way several hours earlier, she would have been dressed in her nightgown now, tucked up for an early night. But she hadn’t been interested in sleeping then, nor was she interested in doing so now.
She looked at herself more closely. In widow’s weeds, she looked as black and white as her world. Not even her eyes broke the stark monochrome of what she saw. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Fidelia began to remove her dress, tearing at the hooks in her impatience. Layer after layer of clothing fell to the floor until she stood before the mirror, naked.
Cocking her head to one side, she studied the contours of her form. She didn't look so doll-like now. Her pale body, with its pink-tipped breasts, was gently curved and pleasing to the eye. It amazed her that she had never thought to look at herself like this before.
What did Jasper see when he looked at me? She tried to remember just how much of her body had been revealed to him in those madly passionate moments they’d shared in the hotel at Harrogate. He would have seen her slight shoulders and her small breasts. He had certainly seemed to enjoy the feel and taste of those. But the rest of her had been covered, cinched into a torturous whalebone corset that made it impossible for her to feel his hands on her, or for his hands to feel her body.
Phil was right. What madness drove women to wear such diabolical under-garments? In her case, it had nothing to do with appearing small-waisted. She was small-waisted. She did it because it was considered proper. Maybe she would take Phil's advice and stop following fashion. She was a widow now, after all. A mature woman. She could make her own choices.
Fighting down the thought of the angry rebuke her mother would give at such scandalous disregard for acceptable social mores, she noticed the colour rising in her cheeks.
She was blushing! And not at the sight of her own nakedness. With fury. What an amazing experience. She felt furious with the silly world she lived in. How shocking was that! And not so very long ago, she had been furious with Phil and Jasper, too. So furious she had thrown them both out.
She laughed bitterly. Maybe she was turning into a werewolf. That might explain her vivid senses and her heightened emotional state. Werewolves were ferocious creatures in folklore. And her experience with Jasper in that form only supported that lore. She’d watched him tear Rathgart’s throat out and toss his body around like a rag.
Oh, good Lord. What if I am a werewolf now? She tried to imagine what that might be like. Would she look like Jasper, or would she be a much smaller creature to match her comparable human size? Did Jasper even think like a human when he was taken over by the beast, or did he become all instinct? But he had acted very human when he had cared for her that night in the snow. So maybe the human existed within the beast.
She knew so little about these creatures and hadn’t allowed anyone to tell her more. Her reaction had been to close down and deny everything. But just as she had told Phil, it didn’t serve her not to know what she faced. So denying and rejecting what she had asked to be told only pointed to her contrariness and cowardice.
For a moment, she considered her options. It was late. She had taken an early dinner in her room from a tray Maude brought to her. And now the house was quiet and still. Her maid would have taken to her bed too, by now.
But she had no desire to sleep. Her only burning thought was to find answers. If she was to become one of these creatures she needed to know what that entailed. Hiding her head in a hole like she had heard ostriches in Africa did only made things worse.
Her mind turned to the one person who would be able to give her the kind of answers she required. Jasper. And if anyone owed her those answers, it was him.
Before she could change her mind, Fidelia hastily pulled on her satin robe and left her room. Sometime during the tour of the Keep, Phil mentioned which room Jasper had as his. She had noted it, not really considering ever having an opportunity to go there. It wasn’t appropriate for a woman to go to a man’s bedroom, after all. Not even a new widow such as herself. But she no longer thought about propriety. How appropriate was it to be a werewolf? The old rules no longer applied to her. No wonder they did not have class barriers here. They were all part of one class or designation – Monster.
Determined to know more about her possible condition, Fidelia hurried down the dark hallway, her bedroom lamp lighting her way as she searched for Jasper’s room. When she reached the door she thought was his, she didn’t bother knocking. Such a sound might di
sturb others sleeping nearby.
The door creaked loudly as she opened it, and when she closed it, the slight hollow thud it made had her certain the whole house would be roused. But after holding her breath for several long seconds, she heard no sounds to indicate anyone else but she was up and around.
Then the enormity of what she had done came home. She had closed herself in with a werewolf. A beast who made no effort to hide his desire for her. What was she doing, coming here like this, naked beneath the satin robe like some man’s mistress? Jasper wouldn’t understand. He would misinterpret her reason for being here.
But even as she contemplated reaching for the doorhandle again, her need for answers overcame her reticence. She had come to this room in the middle of the night for answers, and she would not leave until she had them.
With more determination now, she crept across the room to the bed. The fire in the grate burned low and gave off little light or warmth. Jasper’s room was largely in darkness, except for the glow given off by her own lamp. It was, therefore, understandable that she didn’t see him until she was almost directly above him.
Jasper lay face down on the bed, still fully clothed, right down to his boots. His overlong hair fell across his face, and Fidelia was sure she could smell alcohol on him. Was he drunk? She had never considered that such an upright man as Jasper Horton might be a drunkard.
Tentatively, she touched his shoulder, aware of the size and muscular strength of it beneath the starched cloth. Nothing happened. She shook his arm this time, trying to rouse him.
‘Lord Jasper, wake up,’ she said as loudly as she could without risking waking others in the rooms nearby. He didn’t move, nor even made a sound.
He couldn’t be dead could he? She had blamed him for her possible condition. She had rejected him most unkindly. If he had taken it badly, might he have chosen to do what others of his kind had done – taken his own life?
The thought of him dead made her stomach turn over. Fighting down panic, she put the lamp on the side-table and shook his arm with even more energy. She had to wake him up. He couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t allow him to be dead. Not because of her!
