by Nhys Glover
‘Stop! Oh please stop, Jasper. You are making it worse. I feel awful. I should never have started this. I did not think you would be so badly affected.’
‘I will get the doctor now if you are feeling worse. I have upset you. I am sorry.’
She gave a little cry of exasperation and struggled out of his arms, and before he could stop her, she’d clambered out of the bed and was standing in front of him in her long night gown that revealed every curve. It wasn’t meant to be a provocative piece of clothing, but knowing what lay beneath made it so for him. And he hated that his arousal was instant.
‘Dee, get back into bed,’ he said desperately, reaching for her before she fell.
‘No! Listen to me, Jasper. I am not sick. I am perfectly well. I let everyone think I was sick so that you would come back. I could not let you run away from what is between us.’
He drew back as if burned. Her meaning came slowly. Not sick? She had caused him to ride like a maniac to be at her side, thinking she was dying, when she was not sick at all?
Swearing furiously, he jumped to his feet and headed for the door.
‘Jasper, I am sorry. Please…I just…’
‘Manipulated me! Will you do anything to get what you want? I could have killed one of those mounts trying to get here as fast as I did? Did you even think about that?’
‘No. No, I thought you would come back, but not in such a rush. I did not consider you cared that much.’
‘Cared that much?! Woman, you have become the air that I breathe! It takes everything I am to stay away from you. Everything!’
‘Then do not! Do not stay away from me! I know I was wrong to trick you, but your stubborn refusal to give us a chance required it. If you feel anything for me, Jasper, please let us try to work this out. I do not care if you are a werewolf. I do not care if I am one now, too. I do not care if I have to be imprisoned here, as long as you are with me. Please…’
But he had heard enough. Her deviousness knew no bounds. This was not the woman he had given his heart to. That woman was an illusion. She didn’t exist. This manipulative, selfish witch was not her!
He tried not to hear her sobs as he stormed from the room and slammed the door after him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He didn’t slow down until he got to Byron’s study where he knew there would be a large bottle of brandy. Over the last week or so he had drunk more spirits than he had in his life. And in this moment, he was ready to double that over-indulgence.
‘You are back,’ Byron declared, coming to his feet as Jasper headed across the room for the cut glass decanter that sat on the table against the wall.
‘Yes. So it would seem.’ He downed the first glass and then filled it again before putting down the bottle.
‘You look like hell.’
‘That happens when you ride for nearly two days and nights to get to a woman who is supposed to be on death’s door.’
‘Oh, she told you.’
Jasper jerked his head around, stabbing his friend with his gaze. ‘You knew?’
‘It was the only way we could see to get you back here to deal with this. Running away solves nothing. I told you that.’
‘You were a party to this manipulation? This fraud! I could have killed myself riding like a madman!’
‘Which only proves how much you care about Dee. If you care that much, fight for her, man. Do not throw up your hands and cry off. She wants you! Even knowing what you are, what this place is for, she wants you! And you would not even give her a chance.’
He downed the brandy and felt it burn its way down into his empty stomach. He felt his head begin to spin as the spirits took effect.
‘How dare you try to tell me how to live my life!’ He yelled louder than he thought possible, his fury white-hot, his anguish beyond bearing.
‘You would prefer to spend the rest of your life tucked away in your prison, feeling sorry for yourself? Is that it? Easier than trying to make a different life? A happier life?’ Byron sighed and rubbed his hands through his overlong dark hair.
When he spoke again it was quieter and with more compassion. ‘You are the best man I have ever known, Jasper Horton, and that is not reduced by your condition. That condition actually made you the man you are. It turned you from a self-indulgent youth into a compassionate, caring man. The only time I have ever felt anything but respect for you has been in your dealings with Dee. No gentleman would treat her as you have done. You made love to her and then left her, for God’s sake!’
Jasper felt as if he’d been punched below the belt. It took everything he had not to gasp and double over from the pain. ‘You make me sound like a bounder! You know why I left.’
‘I know you think you are doing the right thing by her. But you must see that the only person you are keeping safe is yourself!’
‘Would you risk Phil becoming like me?’ he demanded.
‘I have. I do, every month I put her at risk. But it is her choice. She tells me that she has no life unless it is with me, here. And I believe her. So I live with the fear and worry for her safety. Because I want her to be happy. And this place, all of you, and me…We all make her happy.’
Jasper reeled away, as if Byron had delivered another blow. He lived with his fears, to make Phil happy? Is that what Byron did? If so, did that mean he was trying to protect himself from his fears by making Dee unhappy? Is that what he was doing? God, if that was true, he really was a cowardly bounder.
‘If…If she knew… I cannot make her happy.’ His admission was the final blow and he collapsed into the nearest chair and buried his head in his hands. He was so close to tears.
‘How do you know unless you try? That was all this ploy was designed to do, give you a chance to try. Maybe you are right and you cannot make her happy, and at the end of the month she will leave knowing this. But if you do not try, you will break that woman’s heart. Do you want to be responsible for that?’
Jasper blinked back the stinging tears and shook his head. When he looked up it was with determination.
‘All right. I will try to make her happy. Failing cannot feel any worse than what I feel right now.’
Byron nodded and offered him another glass of brandy. He shook his head. What he needed was food, a bath and a plan, not more alcohol.
When she entered the dining room for luncheon several hours later, Fidelia felt like every eye was on her. They must all know by now what she had done to get her own way. Jasper had been right. She was a selfish, manipulative woman who thought no further than her own needs.
What did she know about being a werewolf? To her, it sounded romantic and adventurous. If that were really the case, then why would anyone ever take his own life? No, it must be far worse than Jasper had painted it, and if so, his attempt to keep her from it was probably for the best. She demanded to be treated like an adult, not a child, and yet her behaviour was childish in the extreme.
‘Dee!’ Phil called, waving to her to join her and Byron at the head of the long wooden table where all the residents of the Keep shared their meals. Head down, avoiding everyone’s gaze, she took the seat across from her friend.
‘You look remarkably recovered,’ Byron said, tongue-in-cheek.
She glanced at him in surprise. Dry wit was not something she would have attributed to this man.
‘Actually, I feel worse now than I have since I arrived here,’ she confessed, taking up her damask table napkin and folding it across her lap.
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said a husky male voice behind her. Fidelia felt as if she’d been shot. The spike of pleasure and pain at the sound of Jasper’s voice was too sudden and unexpected. The pleasant note it contained was confusing, to say the least. Not more than an hour before, he had dismissed her with loathing. Now he spoke as if they had just met at a social gathering.
She glanced in the direction of the voice and saw a transformed man. His blonde hair was still wet from a bath, his clothing was clean and immaculately
presented. His cheeks were freshly shaved. But it was the look in his eye that was the most surprising. His brilliant blue eyes were alive with interest and amusement. Who had wrought this transformation on the haggard, bedraggled man she had seen so recently?
‘How are your parents?’ Phil asked as he seated himself next to Fidelia and across from Phil and Byron.
‘Well thank you. They send their best. My brother and sisters nagged me endlessly to come and visit again. They think it is a great adventure to live in a castle.’
‘Draughty corridors not-withstanding, it is rather adventurous,’ Phil said with a grin as she looked at Byron. Something passed between them that was meant for only them. Fidelia felt envious of the obvious affection the two shared. Sometimes it was like they were the only people in the room. Every word, every glance was meant only for the other, no matter whom they interacted with.
‘I did explain about the disadvantages, but they still only remember the banquet hall decked out in flowers last summer. I am sure they imagined medieval ladies in conical hats coming down the staircase to be met by knights in shining armour.’ He gave a loud laugh that had the others at the table turning to look at him curiously.
Jasper looked at her and smiled, his handsome face suddenly irresistible. ‘I was thinking of playing tonight after dinner. How would that be? A little entertainment for you, our guest. It must seem very dull here, with no regular activities on offer for these long dark nights.’
Fidelia couldn’t hold back her surprise, and before she could stop herself, she was addressing her surprisingly amiable companion. ‘Entertainment? What do you play?’
His bright blue eyes met her gaze and they seemed to sparkle. ‘The violin. I am told I am quite accomplished.’
‘No false modesty, Jas. You know full well that you are a virtuoso of that instrument,’ Byron said as he started cutting the roast pig into slices for everyone. The smell had Fidelia’s mouth watering. How odd. While Jasper had been away, food hadn’t interested her. She had eaten what she needed to, but without pleasure. Now she was ravenous, and the smell delighted her.
So her senses were heightened once more, it would seem, just because Jasper was near. Phil was right. This had nothing to do with being a werewolf, and everything to do with just one werewolf: A man who now considered her the worst person in the world.
‘How long have you played?’ she asked, trying to keep the polite sociability going. If he could put on a show for the others at the table, so could she. Maybe none of them knew the awful thing she had done to one of their kind.
‘Since I was a lad. I think my mother put a small violin in my hands at age five and then hastily retreated, knowing the gruesome sounds that would soon be issuing from the instrument. But I had an excellent teacher and I loved to play, even when I made the strings screech like an angry tomcat.’
Her laughter surprised her. Such self-deprecating humour was unexpected. And yet it fitted with the man she had started to know before the bad feelings overtook the good.
‘I learned to play the piano-forte for several years in my youth. I was asked to stop by my mother, who swore I gave her a headache each time I practised my scales.’
‘I did not know that, Dee. How awful of her. She probably had a headache long before you started playing. Your mother always seemed to suffer them, and her other ailments.’ Phil was trying to keep the criticism out of her voice, but to Fidelia, who knew her so well, it was all too apparent.
Fidelia’s mother did more complaining about her ailments than Phil’s mother ever did, even when she was dying of that dreadful disease. It had shamed her when her mother put on such a display in front of her grieving friend.
‘I think most parents assume that musical brilliance will pour forth from their child’s fingertips the moment they take up an instrument. They forget the years of painstaking practise required to become even mildly competent,’ Jasper said gently.
Jasper’s manners were soothing her guilty conscience, and she found herself giving him her first genuine smile.
‘You have a lovely voice, Dee. Maybe you could entertain us, too,’ Phil said brightly.
Blushing, Fidelia looked down at the plate in front of her that had somehow become piled high with food. She hadn’t even seen it happen. And her wine glass had been filled, also. From this, she now took a long appreciative swallow. The chilled white wine was just what she needed to whet her appetite.
The rest of the meal passed amiably with a few jokes about bagpipe playing big bad wolves thrown in by Will. It amazed her how they all seemed to enjoy making fun of their condition, each vying to tell the most outrageous joke or story about being a wolf. By the end of the meal, Fidelia, who had not shared any but the first few uncomfortable meals with these people before, felt almost like one of them. Even the surly Charlotte managed to smile at her briefly.
After the meal was finished, Jasper helped Fidelia up and offered her his arm. ‘May I take you for a circuit of the great hall? It was quite a sight for the ball we had here at the end of summer last year. We plan to hold another in late spring, when the roads become safe for travel again.’
Fidelia felt a spasm of distress as she realised just how dangerous the roads were in the ice and snow. And she had incited Jasper to travel them heedlessly, to race back to her side.
‘It is all right, Dee, I am not angry with you anymore. Byron gave me a good talking to, and made me see that it was I who was in the wrong. I behaved in a most ungentlemanly fashion to you. I took you to my bed and then cast you aside without a word. I tried to tell myself it was because I was protecting you from all of us. But in truth, I was protecting myself from more heart-ache. Byron made me see that.’
‘I would never hurt you,’ Dee said, pressing the arm she now clung to, as they promenaded out into the entry hall and across to the huge double doors that opened into the Great Hall. This space was kept closed because it was impossible to keep warm in winter. What furniture that was there was covered with sheets, and dust motes floated on the beams of sunlight coming in from the high, stained glass windows overhead.
‘Dee, I need you to know what I did. I need you to know why I do not deserve someone like you.’ His voice was hoarse with controlled emotion.
‘Tell me, then. If you think I will hurt you when I hear this, then get it over with. I cannot imagine anything you could tell me that would make me do such a thing, but I am open to your best efforts.’ She tried to keep her voice light and playful, but she knew the subject was no longer amusing.
‘I was infected by a werewolf that attacked a drunkard one night on my way home from my club. I beat the beast off with my walking stick, but not before it bit me. It was an insignificant wound, and I did not consider it worth even a doctor’s visit. I simply had my housekeeper apply a bandage and I forgot about it.
‘A month later, I awoke to utter destruction. The small townhouse I owned in Belgravia looked as if brigands had been set loose on the place. And most strange of all, I was stark naked and covered with blood. It was not my blood.
‘After hastily throwing on what few clothes had escaped the rampage, I went in search of my housekeeper. She was a wonderful woman who had been like a second mother to me from an early age. When I had left home to further my studies after Cambridge, she asked to join me as my housekeeper. She had never married and always said that I was the closest thing to a son she ever had.’ He stopped talking for several long minutes as their feet kept walking wide circuits of the chilly Great Hall. Fidelia had a feeling she knew what was coming, but her heart ached at the thought.
‘I found her dead in a pool of her own blood. The same blood that covered my body. I had torn out her throat. Of course, I did not realise it was I who had done the deed. I still thought ruffians had broken in and committed the heinous crime. I thought they had left me for dead, too. It was not until a special constable was called in, and I was taken into custody, that I found out what had actually done the damage. I had been the
one to tear out that loving woman’s throat.’ He choked on the last few words.
‘Not you, Jasper. Your wolf. You would never do such a terrible thing.’
‘Yes, I would. If my wolf had not killed Rathgart, I would have done so. His wildness is in me now. Even though I have always prided myself on being the most civilized of us, I am still no more than a wild beast in human costume.’ His bitterness hurt her.
‘You are not to blame for what happened. You did not know. How could you?’
‘No, I did not know then. But what of the nights when I intentionally let myself out of my prison and went after you? When I left to find you, knowing it was unlikely I would find a safe place to spend the night. Do you remember that woman I thought you were when you first arrived? How furious I was with her for leaving her arrival so late. Well, I was far worse than she. And I should have met the same end as she did.’
‘What end?’ This was shocking news she had been unaware of.
‘Her father sent us news that she had not left in time. She turned and killed one of the tenant farmer’s sons. The farmer shot her dead.
‘That could have been me on either of those nights I sought you out. Knowing what I was capable of, I put you in terrible danger. Even now, I cannot believe I did such a thing, or that my wolf treated you so well.’
Fidelia stopped and turned to face him in the dingy light of the chilly Hall. ‘Look at me, Jasper. Please.’
He lifted his head and met her gaze. The agony she saw written there took her breath away.
‘It does not matter now what might have happened. The fact is that nothing did happen. Just as you did not die charging back to my side when you thought I was dying. We cannot spend our lives crucifying ourselves for the mistakes we make, the terrible calamities we might have caused. All we can do is move on and try not to make the same kind of mistakes again.
‘You have never broken the rules of this place before. You have no reason to ever do it again. As for myself, I swear I will never make up such a thoughtless lie again to trick you. And with that decision, we start again.’ She took Jasper’s face between her hands and used her thumbs to stroke his plump lower lip.
