Big Bad Wolf

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Sometimes Wolf called her beautiful, but Molly had never believed it. This woman was truly beautiful.

  Molly took Wolf’s arm, and Adele noted the move with a cold smile.

  “You’re such a scoundrel, Wolf. All this time you’ve been sneaking off to Maine by yourself, and now we find you’ve been keeping this little country girl there all along.”

  Wolf just smiled.

  “Actually,” Molly said, leaning forward to gain Adele’s attention. “We just met a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Really.” The look Adele gave Molly was cutting, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “How charming,” she added dryly.

  Before Molly could think of a response, Wolf’s strange friend Foster arrived, sneaking up quietly. “I don’t want to miss this,” he muttered as he took Adele’s arm. Already, it seemed that Foster had had much too much to drink. He held a half empty glass comfortably in one hand, as he leaned against Adele.

  “You’ve met Wolf’s country girl?” Adele asked, a condescending tone in her husky voice.

  “Briefly,” Foster answered with a lift of his glass in Molly’s direction. “It seems I always appear just as they’re headed out or off or something of the like.” He gave her a wide smile. “You put every woman in the room to shame, Mrs. Trevelyan,” he toasted, and then he turned to Adele with a start. “Except for you, of course, dear Adele.”

  Adele was not appeased.

  “If you’ll excuse us.” Wolf led her away from the odd couple. “I promised Molly the next waltz.”

  He spun her away from them, and onto the dance floor. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “For what?”

  Molly sighed, content for a moment in Wolf’s arms. She wasn’t a great dancer, but she hadn’t yet stepped on Wolf’s toes. “For rescuing me, of course, from your . . . your very strange friend.”

  “Adele or Foster?”

  “Both.” She wondered if she should ask Wolf about his relationship with Adele, but she was afraid he would be brutally honest with her.

  “Most women find Foster irresistible,” Wolf said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

  “And why is that?”

  Wolf almost smiled. “His looks, I suppose. He’s such a pretty boy. Of course, his money doesn’t hurt, and he can be quite a flatterer, as you well know.”

  “Well, I think he’s very odd.”

  “You do?”

  “He drinks more than you do, and he smiles like a complete idiot, and . . . . ” She couldn’t tell Wolf that there were times she just didn’t like the way the man looked at her. “And how do you know him, anyway? Does he do business with you?”

  “No. Foster inherited a lot of money, and decided to live like an English lord instead of an American financier. He doesn’t work, and doesn’t pretend to. I met him at the gentlemen’s club where we both keep a room.”

  “You still keep a room there?” For the first time that evening, Molly slipped and stepped on Wolf’s toe.

  He seemed unconcerned. “Yes. I’ll need it when you go back to Vanora Point, and it gives me a place to change clothes and rest after a sparring match.”

  “After a what?”

  “There’s a boxing ring at the club, and occasionally I spar with another member, or a boy they hire to fight with the members.”

  “You fight?”

  Wolf leaned in close. “Shocked?”

  “Nothing you do shocks me anymore,” Molly revealed, her voice purposely droll.

  “Actually, I haven’t been to the club since we arrived. There’s been no time.” He spun her around, and Molly smiled. If she had her way, he wouldn’t ever have the time or the energy for such a dangerous and unworthy pursuit.

  “How long do we have to stay here, tonight?”

  “Tired?”

  “No.”

  Molly stared into his deep green eyes, telling him silently that she didn’t need all this. The diamonds or the fancy balls, the shocking and expensive gowns, the luxurious suite. All she really needed was Wolf.

  Wolf grinned. Perhaps he could read her mind, after all. “You are becoming as shocking and bold as your husband Mrs. Trevelyan.”

  “That should please you greatly,” she said as he led her from the dance floor before the waltz was finished.

  Molly had refused since their arrival to take the elevator, and in this Wolf indulged her. He even seemed to find it amusing that she was uncomfortable in the boxy device.

  They climbed the stairs slowly, arm in arm. Away from the crowded ballroom, Molly could truly relax.

  Wolf waited until they were behind the locked doors of their suite before he kissed her. He claimed her mouth, trailed his lips over her throat, past the diamonds and to the rise of pale flesh above her decadent gown.

  “Wolf?” she whispered as she turned to allow him to unfasten her dress. “That Adele woman —”

  “Hush.” He trailed his lips along her spine.

  “But . . . I didn’t like her at all. Is she one of the mistresses you told me about? I mean, you told me there had been . . . and I never expected that you were a monk before we met, but . . . . ”

  Wolf spun her around and glared down at her. “You’re stammering, Red. Stop it.”

  “But the way she looked at you, I’ll have you know I didn’t like it at all.”

  He grinned. “A little sympathy, darling. Adele’s just recently been widowed.”

  “I didn’t realize.” Of course, if Adele had been married it wasn’t possible that she had been one of Wolf’s women. “How very sad.”

  Wolf slipped the unfastened gown from her shoulders. “Well, old Tidwell had lived a long life, and he died happy, from what I hear.”

  “How does a man die happy?”

  “In bed, and not alone.”

  “Oh.” She frowned as she began to work the buttons of Wolf’s shirt. “He was older? A lot older?”

  “Old enough to be her grandfather.”

  “Adele’s very beautiful,” Molly admitted wistfully. “Why would she marry a man so old?” She lifted her arms, and Wolf whipped the chemise from her body.

  “For the same reason you married me, Red. The old man had amassed quite a fortune.”

  She was tiring of this argument, and gave it little energy. “I didn’t marry you for your money,” Molly insisted softly.

  “Then why, Red?” Wolf turned her around and unfastened the diamonds. His question was light-hearted, and she knew he took none of this conversation seriously.

  “You were very persistent,” she whispered.

  “I was, wasn’t I?” He dragged the necklace slowly across her bare flesh, allowing the cold stones to fall into the valley of her breasts before he took them from her completely and dropped them on a nearby table. “What was it that finally convinced you to have me?”

  The tone of his voice remained nonchalant, and Molly knew her husband didn’t yet believe there was any love between them. Life was a game, to him, and this was just another part of the sport.

  “Three things, actually,” she revealed as she turned to watch Wolf shed the last of his evening clothes. “The wildflowers, your hesitant request for redheaded children, and that first kiss.”

  He came to her and took the pins from her hair, allowing the curls to fall over her shoulders and down her back. There were moments, moments like this, when she felt she could tell him anything. Everything. Even that she loved him. He desired her, if nothing else, and he couldn’t deny it. There was such hunger in his eyes, and even a hint of vulnerability.

  “I still say it’s sad,” she whispered as Wolf reached beneath her hair to remove the diamond earrings. He trailed his fingers and the earrings slowly down her neck before dropping them to the table with the necklace.

  “Being my wife?” He asked with a lift of his black eyebrows.

  “No, that poor Adele. It’s horrible. I don’t ever want to be a widow.”

  “Trust me, Red.” Wolf lifted her easily and headed for the bedcha
mber. “I don’t ever want you to be one.”

  Molly slept nestled against his side, as she always did, and Wolf stared at the canopy above their heads, as he often did.

  He wanted to rouse her slowly, to make love to her again, but he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her when she was sleeping so peacefully.

  Besides, waking her now would be proof that he needed her, and that wouldn’t do.

  Why did she continue to insist that she hadn’t married him for his money? He knew that was the reason, and didn’t care. Marriages had been arranged for hundreds of years, with the parties gaining something they wanted or needed. Land. Alliance. Money. Heirs.

  Molly would never again have to work hard just to get by, and neither would her mother. She’d have everything a woman could want. Clothes. Jewels. Servants. The best of everything.

  What Wolf got from the deal was Molly herself. She’d always said she couldn’t be bought, but he’d proved her wrong. The price had been high, but she was his.

  She’d seemed genuinely distressed to learn that Adele was a widow, and even more distressed at the possibility of finding herself in that situation. Wolf hadn’t wanted to remind her, as he’d propelled her toward the bed, that when that day came she’d be a very rich widow.

  He had tried to joke about dying happy himself, when the time came, as he’d tossed Molly to the bed, but Molly had made it clear she didn’t find his joke amusing.

  She stirred against him, and lifted her leg slowly, brushing it against his.

  Forgetting his earlier concern that waking Molly as he wanted to would prove that he needed her. Wolf stroked her side slowly, bringing his hand to a breast she’d pressed against his ribs. She murmured in her sleep, and shifted slightly so that her breast rested fully in his hand.

  Eyes closed, she lifted her face to him, and the faint moonlight that broke through the window illuminated a small smile for him.

  “You never sleep,” she murmured.

  Wolf took his hand from her breast, letting his fingers linger and drag across the silky skin. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Molly’s eyes opened slowly. She took his hand and put it right back where it had been when she’d awakened, and then she placed her small, delicate hand low on his belly. “Of course you did,” she said, her voice low and sleepy. “And since we’re both awake . . . . ”

  The sentence trailed off as Molly brought her face to his and kissed him gently.

  When Wolf rolled Molly onto her back and entered her, he knew he would never have enough of this. Of her. When she arched against him and cried out, he knew she was his, and his alone. When his own completion came, with an intensity that drove away all rational thought, he knew that he needed her, just as she’d always planned.

  And when Wolf fell asleep in Molly’s arms, he knew this marriage was more real than he’d ever intended it to be.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Molly was well into The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when the knock at the door sounded, and she nearly jumped out of her skin and off the settee. She hurried to the door, anxious to prove to herself that there was no reason to be shaking so.

  She remembered well the face of the policeman, and she’d never forget little Arthur. Once again, the policeman gripped the boy by the collar, and Arthur struggled to no avail. A nervous bellboy stood a few steps back, wringing his hands in an uncustomary display of anxiety.

  “I wanted to send up a card, Mrs. Trevelyan,” the bellboy said defensively, “But this officer refused to wait.”

  “That’s quite all right.” Molly smiled at the fidgeting bellboy to ease his discomfort, and then turned her attention to the stern police officer.

  “What’s he done now?” Molly asked wearily.

  “Stealin’ again,” the policeman growled.

  “He’s a difficult child,” Molly revealed. “I’m afraid he ran away again, almost immediately after you returned him to us such a short time ago.”

  “There are places for boys like this.”

  Molly shivered at the policeman’s words. Places for boys like this couldn’t be very nice. “One moment.”

  Molly collected a sum of money from her shoe that would surely cover whatever Arthur had stolen. She left the door to the suite open while the policeman and the child waited in the hallway.

  “Here we are,” she said brightly as she returned to the policeman. “Would you please take care of paying for whatever it is Ralph’s stolen?”

  The policeman held his hand out, palm up, as Molly counted out what was certain to be more than enough for whatever Arthur had filched this time.

  As she added a couple of extra bills, the man’s glum face broke into what was almost a smile. With a mighty shove, he sent Arthur stumbling into the room.

  “If you see him on the street again, would you be so kind as to keep an eye on him for me?” Molly asked sweetly. “He’s been a trial, but he’s a good boy at heart.”

  Stuffing the bills into his pocket, the policeman agreed.

  Molly closed the door and leaned against it, giving the defiant Arthur a shake of her head.

  “Stealing again?”

  “I was hungry,” he insisted, eyeing the door as if he were trying to find a way past her and to freedom.

  Molly didn’t move. “Perhaps you should join me for lunch,” she suggested.

  Arthur narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  “I do get tired of eating alone,” she added, as if he would be doing her a great favor by agreeing to dine with her. “You’ll have to have a bath first, of course, and I suppose you could wear something of Wolf’s.” Anything of Wolf’s would be much too large on the boy, but a definite improvement over the rags he wore.

  “I ain’t takin’ no bath.”

  Molly leaned against the door, refusing to be intimidated by the urchin. “That’s too bad. The food here is excellent. Yesterday there was steak an inch thick, and the most delicious rolls, warm from the oven, and potatoes, and chocolate cake for dessert.”

  Arthur didn’t quite trust Molly, but the promise of such a feast was too much for him to resist. She ran the bath while an amazed Arthur looked on, and left behind towels and soap and one of Wolf’s more worn shirts and a pair of trousers. The cuffs of the shirt were just beginning to fray, and the trousers were sturdy but not among his best. With a belt cinched tight they’d do just fine.

  It was a handsome and completely transformed boy who descended the stairs with her. His hair was much too long, but it was clean and Molly could see that it was a medium honey brown. In the new clothes that were too large, Arthur held himself tall.

  She’d expected him to devour his food, but Arthur ate slowly, savoring every bite.

  Arthur was not quick to answer her questions, but as the meal wore on and a few tidbits were divulged, Molly came to understand the urchin who continued to steal. He had no family. His mother had died the year before. For a while he’d worked for a chimney sweep, but at fourteen he was already too big for the job.

  Since being dismissed by the chimney sweep, he’d been living on the street and stealing or begging for food.

  That just wouldn’t do, Molly thought.

  She considered, for a moment, taking the boy in. How would she ever convince Wolf to take on this kind of responsibility? It would never work. Besides, Wolf would be a terrible influence on such a young boy.

  Before the meal had ended, she’d arrived at a solution.

  Arthur didn’t need to be taken in, he needed a real and stable job, a place to stay and food on the table.

  The Waldorf was just the place for him.

  “What’s wrong with you, Wolf? Married life going sour so soon?” There was a smile in Foster’s voice, and Wolf scowled at his friend.

  For the first time since his return to New York, Wolf had stopped at the gentlemen’s club when his day was done at the office. Every day he found that he was all but rushing to the Waldorf to see his wife, smiling as he contemplated the ni
ght to come. How totally inappropriate and unlike him that was.

  Today he’d forced himself to stop. He needed time to think, he told himself.

  “Not at all,” he confided as Foster joined him. This was a man’s room, a place for cigars and brandy and all the pleasures Molly turned her nose up at. “It’s going, in fact, disgustingly well.”

  He had indeed found Molly’s vice. In his bed she held nothing back. In his arms she melted. They laughed in bed — a first for Wolf — and Molly cried out as Wolf brought her to the ultimate pleasure.

  He should have been pleased, but there was a nagging voice in his brain that had become quite insistent, a voice that told him, again and again, that Molly could find that same pleasure in the arms of another man.

  It was ridiculous. He didn’t love her, but this insistent doubt was too close to jealousy for comfort. He told himself it was his right, and nothing more. Molly was his wife, after all. He had every right to feel a certain possessiveness.

  “You don’t look very happy for a man whose marriage is going disgustingly well.”

  Wolf returned his attention to Foster and sipped at the brandy. “I have my suspicions,” Wolf revealed.

  Foster grinned widely. “What sort of suspicions? She doesn’t look the sort you’d have to worry about, but they’re often the ones you have to watch most carefully. Has she already been unfaithful?”

  “No,” Wolf said softly. “At least not yet. I wonder, though, what she would do if she were tempted. She has such —” He stopped abruptly. There was no need to share with Foster that Molly hid an incredible passion beneath her veil of propriety.

  “You could always hire a man to watch her,” Foster suggested. “That’s what Celia’s husband did when he suspected that we . . . well, you remember how unpleasant that evening was.”

  Foster had never lacked for women in his life, in spite of his obvious failings. Few women could resist the combination of his charm, his money, and his good looks. There had been a time when Wolf and Foster spent many evenings together, and more than one woman had commented that they made an odd pair.