Inking the Wolf: A wolf shifter paranormal romance (Wolves of Crookshollow Book 3)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Aye, right. Of course I ken.” A shadow passed over his face, but then he smiled again. “I absolutely do not want this room.”

  “Good. You have your pick of the other rooms on this floor. Now get out here and look at my balcony.”

  After a short walk around my balcony, we toured the rest of the rooms on the first floor. Robbie’s face twisted with terror as he took in the froufrou wallpaper, frilly valances, and lacy curtains. “I think I’ll take the attic bedroom,” he said. “The one with the secret passage down to the kitchen.”

  “The servant's’ room? You can’t. Robbie, that’s in the attic. It’ll be freezing up there. And the bed’s tiny. You are … not tiny. You’ll hardly have any room for your stuff.”

  “I know. I just … I think I’ll feel more comfortable there. I can’t really deal with all this … rich people guff. Besides, I have direct access to the kitchen for midnight snacks. I cannae pass that up.”

  “If you’re sure …”

  “Aye, I’m sure.”

  Downstairs, the lawyer waited in the hall, tapping her foot impatiently on the hardwood floor in time with the grandfather clock. “Sorry,” I said, in a voice that didn’t contain an ounce of remorse. “We got lost in the attic. What else do you need from me?”

  “I just need you to sign these papers,” she said irritably, waving the stack under my nose. “Your mother has given you permission to take the keys and enter the house to make any necessary preparations and to store your chattels. As soon as the marriage is officially registered, you can move in.”

  I bent down to sign the papers. A scrawl of my signature, and it was done. Primrose House was mine, pending our marriage in just thirty days time. I shoved the papers into the lawyer’s arms, and she left in a hurry, leaving Robbie and I to stare at each other across that huge, empty entrance hall. Robbie took my hand and squeezed it.

  “We going to do this, and it’s going to be amazing.” he said, grinning that beautiful smile at me.

  I grinned back, but this time, my smile was forced. As I stared into his eyes, all I could think about was that sparse attic room and the way his face had contorted as he’d told me that he’d never been to school.

  I’d never realised before that there was so much about Robbie I didn’t know. What you’re doing is cruel. Elinor’s words drummed against my skull. But this wasn’t supposed to be about Robbie, it was about the art house. It was about making my dream come true, and creating a safe place where people like me and Robbie could come when they didn’t have family who supported them. I should have been ecstatic, so why was my stomach flipping with nerves?

  6

  Robbie

  With the papers signed, it was time to celebrate. Down in the kitchen, Bianca ordered a stack of Indian food, and messaged Elinor and Eric to come and join us for a celebratory dinner. While she bustled around the living room, trying to make her grandmother’s stuffy furnishing somehow comfortable, I went upstairs to check out the attic again.

  From the moment I’d stepped inside it, the attic room drew me in. The narrow brass bed, the tiny dormer window, the simple wooden chest coated with decades of dust … all of it so different from the ornate furniture crowding the rest of the house. I sat on the bed and gazed out the tiny window. It looked out over the back of the house. Neat rows of box hedges extended across a flat garden, extending down a steep set of steps and retaining walls toward the canopy of the forest. The towering trees shaded most of the beds, where squat bushes and sickly-flowers suffered under their cloying presence. The only real colour came from the canopy of purple primrose flowers spreading out from between the trunks, creeping over the edge of the lawn, like a purple army marching toward the house.

  Am I making a big mistake?

  Being here at Primrose House with Bianca, I could see her vision, as clear as if she’d placed a photograph in front of my eyes. She was a great shining star, a woman with purpose and creativity and spark. Under her watch, this house would be an amazing place, a hub of artistic activity.

  What was I? Nothing – a lowly wolf from the wrong side of the tracks, an outcast even among the pack that had chosen me, a stupid man who could barely read or write. I wanted Bianca so bad, but I knew now more than ever that I could never have her. I wasn’t worthy of her.

  That’s why I’d taken the attic room. I would marry Bianca, because it would make her dream come true, but I needed to remember who I was, and what my place here was. I ran my fingers along the dusty window frame, looking down at the forest that would shroud me during the full moon. At least here, I would be near to the wildest place in Crookshollow, the only place I probably really belonged.

  My hand trailed across the wall, leaving a smudge in the dust. I lifted the lid of the wooden chest, coughing as a cloud of dust wafted across my face. Inside, there were a few threadbare wool blankets, riddled with holes, a woman’s wool coat and hat, a linen apron, and, nestled right at the bottom, a book.

  I picked the book up in my hands, staring at the words in the hope they would suddenly reveal their meaning. I sounded out the letters, the way my mother had taught me. “Fa-fa-fairy …” I muttered, until I figured out it was a book of fairy tales. I held the book up to my face, sniffing the musty paper. A flash of memory overcame me. A similar book, held in my mother’s hands, as she stroked my fur and read to me in a harsh whisper, as quiet as possible so my father wouldn’t catch her. We huddled together in a forest clearing far from the pack’s territory, open to the cold moon. The story was of a princess trapped in a tower, waiting for her prince to rescue her. I remembered that as much as I wanted to be the prince, riding in to save the day, I knew I had more in common with the princess. I was trapped, too.

  I stroked the cover of the book, imagining the girl who lived in this room reading these stories by candlelight, staring out the tiny window, wondering if her prince would come to rescue her. I was here now, but I was still no prince. I’m just as trapped as always.

  Even though I’d never know any of the maids or servants, I had more in common with the women who’d lived in this room than I did with any of the people in my life right now. Even Bianca. We were all young and uneducated, with few options for the future other than to keep working hard and hoping life had a little joy in it.

  I set down the book, and continued my investigation of the room. My fingers brushed a crack in the wooden wall. A whiff of cool air hit my palm. I bent down to investigate, and realised it wasn’t just a panel in the wood. It was another hidden door.

  I took the woollen blanket from the bed. A cloud of dust puffed around me as I balled it up around my hand and used it to wipe away the thick layer of dust and cobwebs. My fingers poked through moth-holes as bits of the blanket fluttered away. I cleaned along the crack, revealing a large rectangle. A faint draft emanated from the behind the crack. The surface was completely smooth – there was no handle or finger hole to open it.

  There might be a spring. I pressed my fingers all round the edges, searching for some pliant part of the wood. In the top right corner, I hit the jackpot – the wood shifted under my fingers, and a soft click echoed through the tiny room. A gap appeared in the right of the door, swinging inward to reveal a small set of shelves crowded with objects.

  A secret cupboard. This house sure was dead pure brilliant.

  I reached inside and pulled some of the objects out into the light. They were covered with a thick layer of dust, and the musty smell suggested they hadn’t been disturbed for many years. The top shelf held a few small pieces of silver – a miniature chalice, a sugar bowl, a few mismatched spoons. The kinds of objects a servant might pilfer from her masters to sell off for some quick cash. There was some jewellery too – faceted gems glinting even through the layers of dust.

  From the bottom shelf, I lifted a leather-bound book, wrapped in a thin leather strap. I took it down, holding it gingerly as I wiped the dust from the cover. A date embossed in gold on the cover read, “1836.”

  Gi
ngerly, I sat down on the bed, and opened the book. It was a scrapbook, with fabric swatches and photographs and thin lines of journalling written with exquisite loopy script. I’d never in a million years be able to read it. Two words were lettered on the first page. After ten minutes of squinting and sounding out aloud, I figured out they were the name, “Silvia Sinclair.” Bianca’s family name. It must be the girl who owned the book. But why would one of the family’s scrapbooks be up here in the attic?

  A photograph on the second page caught my eye. A severe-looking girl of maybe sixteen posed without smiling, her black gown buttoned right up under her chin. She clasped her hands in front of her chest. On her finger, she wore a large, garish ring. A family heirloom, I didn’t doubt.

  It made me think of the Benedict Ring. It was now my job to find it. I needed to find it. I had to prove to Caleb and Luke and all the others that I could be trusted. The rest of the pack had so much history together – they’d helped each other through all kinds of situations. But I was new, and until a few months ago, Caleb considered me his enemy. Irvine still did.

  I had to make sure my position was well established before the pack put their plan to reveal shifter existence into action. If the pack kicked me out, I’d never be able to come back to Crookshollow, and I’d never see Bianca again.

  That was not an option. All I had to do was follow the clues to find the ring. Anna would tell me where to find the documents. She’d do the difficult stuff. I’d just have to read titles and search through shelves. It might take me a long time to figure out the words, and I probably didn’t know what they all meant, but that’s what dictionaries were for. How hard could it be?

  “Robbie!” Bianca’s voice called up the staircase. “Where are you? The food’s here!”

  “Coming!” Folding the photo album under my arm, I shut the hidden door again, clicking it into place. I couldn’t do much about replacing the dust, but I wanted to leave it for Bianca to decide what to do with. It was her house, after all, and her treasure.

  “Bianca,” I cried as I burst into the living room, holding the book up. “You won’t believe what I’ve found.”

  The girls pawed over the scrapbook while they ate their curry. Eric and I sat opposite them, on either end of the couch, politely eating our dinner – butter chicken for me, some weird spicy beef thing for him – without speaking.

  Eric intimidated me. He stood nearly six-feet tall. Dark, gleaming black hair streamed down his back. He dressed like a Victorian dandy in frock coats and cravats in lush fabrics. He had money, fame, talent. He read books with unpronounceable titles, and could recite poetry on command. He had nothing to say to an uneducated, uncouth wolf like me.

  “This is so cool,” Elinor said, her fingers carefully turning the pages. “It’s a snapshot into your great-great-grandmother’s life.”

  “That’s your great-great-grandmother?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah.” Bianca grinned. “I don’t know much about her, but my mother made me memorise five generations of our family tree as a child. That shit is burned into my brain.”

  “I wonder why the book was in the attic,” I said. “If she was part of the family, she wouldn’t ever go upstairs.”

  “I wonder, too. You said there were other things in the secret cupboard?” Bianca tossed her empty curry container down on the table. She leaned back in the chair, her combat boots resting on the edge of the fancy table, beer gripped in her hand. She burped. I loved the fact that even in the presence of a celebrity like Eric, Bianca was comfortable enough to be completely herself.

  “Yeah, some jewellery and silver. I wondered if a maid who lived in the attic room might’ve stolen them. They were all quite small objects, easy to slip into pockets …”

  My voice trailed off as I noticed Elinor giving me an odd look, a look that said, “How come you know so much about robbery?” My face flushed, and I stared down at my hands, not wanting the conversation to shift towards my past.

  “Odd that this maid left those behind, or that she’d have stolen this book. It might be sentimental to Silvia, but it wouldn’t be valuable.” Bianca flipped another page. “Silvia mentions a maid here.”

  She started to read. “‘Mother is angry with Hattie again, because she was teaching me her tarot cards. I don’t understand what concerns Mother so. The cards are a harmless game, another of Hattie’s fancies. But I do so enjoy her games and stories, much more than that hideous Martha and all her prim and proper lessons. Mother says Hattie will not be long with us. I hope she does not force Hattie away. She has been saving money to rescue her brother, who is locked up in Bedlam. If she cannot find work then she will not be able to pay the fee to free him.’”

  “Does it say anything else?”

  Bianca turned another few pages. “Yes. here. The writing is really messy, and she’s pushed her nib really hard. ‘I am so angry! Mama and Hattie had a terrible row. Mama said Hattie has been stealing from us, but from the way she was shouting … I do not believe that was the true reason at all. I believe she has caught us.’ Caught them doing what?”

  “You’ve missed a ton of entries; it’s probably back there somewhere.” Elinor jabbed the page. “It looks like Hattie might be our thief. Look at this one. ‘I’m weeping as I write this, my tears smudging the ink. There’s been a terrible accident. Mother and Father went away for the night. Hattie and I were playing cards in the drawing room, when there was a rapping on the window. Hattie opened the window, and there was Ben, the gardener’s son. Hattie helped him to climb in the window. I couldn’t believe it. Ben came and played cards with us, and he and Hattie drank some of Daddy’s brandy, and they danced silly dances while I played the piano for them. Hattie pretended to propose to him with a ring of Mama’s. It was so silly. Of course woman don’t propose. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life.

  “‘I went to bed at ten, but I could hear Hattie and Ben laughing downstairs. Then, there was a sudden commotion. The front door slammed. Mama’s voice boomed through the house, reaching my ears even through the thick walls. She screamed that Hattie had sinned in her house, and she’d no longer be welcome within these walls. Hattie was screaming and crying, and I think Mama was dragging her by her hair because Ben was also crying out for her to stop. Then there was this horrible crash, and Mama started to scream.

  “‘I ran down the stairs and found Mama and Father and Ben on the front steps. Ben wore only his breeches, and the pale skin of his chest glowed under the moonlight. Father was trying to comfort Mama, who was hysterical. I squeezed past them. Ben tried to drag me back, but I saw her … Hattie, my beautiful Hattie, naked apart from my Mama’s mink coat. She lay crumpled at the foot of the steps, her eyes like glass beads, her neck bent at a horrid angle.”

  “Whoah,” Eric said. “That’s intense.”

  “I wonder what happened next?” Elinor asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Hattie died because she fell down the steps. But was it an accident? Or did the mother push her? I wonder if there’s any records of a trial.”

  “I’m going to the library tomorrow,” I said. “Anna’s going to help me try and find more information on the Benedict Ring. I’ll have a look for information about Hattie and Silvia, too.”

  “That’d be awesome, thanks Robbie.” Bianca grinned. “I can’t wait to learn more about them.”

  Elinor shut the book, and handed it to Bianca. “If Hattie was the one who stole the silver, this would explain why it was never found. I bet the family didn’t know about the hidden doorway. The secret died with her.”

  “Then how did the scrapbook end up in there?” Eric asked, wiping the edges of his mouth with a napkin.

  “We have to see this secret hideaway.” Bianca leapt up, her eyes sparkling. Eric reached out and saved a takeout container before it toppled over the edge of the table.

  I led them all up to the attic and showed them the little hidden cupboard. Bianca took out the objects and spread
them out on the bed, her eyes alight with joy. “I love this,” she breathed, holding the little silver teaspoons in her hand. “I love that this house has hidden secrets. I hope we find more.”

  “What will you do with these?” Elinor held up the silver sugar bowl.

  “I’m not sure just yet. I think we’ll leave them up here for now.” Bianca’s face lit up. “I know. We should hold a seance.”

  “No, you’re joking.” Elinor looked disgusted.

  “I’m not. Maybe the spirit of Hattie still haunts the attic. She can tell us all sorts of fun things about what used to go on in this house. Here, help me push the bed to one side.”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Eric said, twisting a strand of his perfect hair. I didn’t blame him. He had already been to the spirit world once, and very nearly didn’t return.

  “Hey, you used to be a ghost. Wouldn’t you have liked it if people could talk to you? Besides, I saved your arse from being a permanent poltergeist. You owe me one. ”

  “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

  Downstairs, Bianca found a piece of chalk down in the kitchen drawer, as well as some beeswax candles in elaborate silver holders. She piled the candles into my hands and made me bring them upstairs. Back in the attic, she made me and Eric shove the bed against the wall, and drew a series of letters in a semicircle on the floorboards. She took the largest goblet from Hattie’s hoard and flipped it upside down, placing it in the centre.

  “How much do you know about this stuff?” Elinor asked, her forehead creased.

  “Only what I’ve seen on TV.” Bianca crouched on the outside of the circle. “Let’s do this.”

  Elinor grasped Eric’s hand, and they crouched down in front of the spirit board. I sat between Bianca and Elinor. We all looked to Bianca. She indicated for Eric, who was closest to the door, to turn off the light.

  The candles flickered, casting strange patterns of light across their faces. I moved closer to Bianca, grabbing her hand in mine, trying to ignore the electric energy that coursed from her fingers into mine. Elinor took my other hand, but no strange energy leapt from her skin onto mine.