Beauty and the Wolf

by Marina Myles

  Draven had bedded her, which meant she’d just gotten her wish. Why then did she feel so confused?

  A chill raked through her but before she could speak, a series of primal howls rang out in the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Draven rolled off the bed and sprinted to the window. Isabella followed close behind. Through the steamed glass, she saw a dozen wolves lined up within the courtyard.

  “What on earth—?”

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said.

  She covered her ears against the deafening howls. “I don’t see the black wolf among them.”

  “No.” Draven’s voice was odd.

  Isabella frowned. “Where did they come from?”

  He turned to her. “I don’t know.”

  “How will you get rid of them?” she asked as her mouth grew dry.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Master Draven!” Rogers cried. “There is a pack of wolves in the courtyard. One o’ them crashed through a window and is wanderin’ through the house!”

  “Keep everyone in their bedchamber!” Draven cried. He turned to Isabella and urged her to dress and go back to her room via the secret passageway. “You’ll be safe there. When you reach your suites, lock yourself in.”

  The thought of the rat-infested labyrinth made her stomach plummet. She shook her head. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No!” he shot back. “The last thing you want to encounter is a wild wolf.”

  “Then I’ll stay in here.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Do as I say. I must go.”

  Isabella eyed the candles visible from inside Draven’s dressing room. She estimated that, if she hurried, she’d have enough wick to return safely to her room.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  Another howl split the air.

  Draven nodded as he pulled on a shirt, trousers, boots, and swirling greatcoat. After he escaped the suite for the courtyard below, Isabella returned to the window and peered out. Both Draven and Rogers emerged into the frosty night. Her husband was wielding a pistol. He raised the firearm to eye level and moved slowly toward the incensed pack of wolves. She could see that he was speaking to the animals that, strangely enough, seemed to obey him. They released their snarled expressions and hung their heads.

  As Draven crept closer to the wolves, they padded backward out of the hedge-trimmed courtyard then vanished into the night.

  Isabella had never seen anything like it.

  A howl resounded from inside the house. Heart hammering, she dressed, retrieved the candle branch, and rushed toward the secret passageway.

  Time to head back into the depths of hell.

  With quivering hands and unsure feet, she re-entered the open panel just beyond the shifted hearth. After closing the section of wall behind her, she lifted her skirts and descended the moisture-caked steps down to the passageway below.

  Suffering through the twists and turns of the hallway, Isabella glanced at her burning branch. Its four candles had melted at a simultaneous rate, mere centimeters from being extinguished. She quickened her pace. If she became imprisoned in the dark, the rats would have a field day with her.

  As she took another step forward, her shoe caught on a raised stone. She tumbled forward into the blackness and the candle branch flew out of her hand. The flames disappeared seconds before her head hit a section of the cold, stone wall.

  When she regained consciousness, the blinding darkness felt like the controlling cloak of the devil. Groggy and disoriented, she had no idea how long she had been lying on the bumpy stone floor.

  Was it still dark? Or had daylight peaked?

  A gush of liquid flowed over her forehead. Isabella could only assume it was blood. With a great deal of effort, she struggled to her feet and stretched out her hands. She felt the barriers of the wall, but she had no idea in which direction she faced. She shuffled slowly along the corridor, using her hands as a guide.

  Whimpering from the pain that gripped her head, she called out for help. She pounded her fists on the walls that held her captive, but there was no answer, only silence. Inching her way without the light of the candles, she resisted hysteria. She forced herself to continue but stopped when her foot struck something. She bent down and swept her hands over the ground until she felt the candle branch lying on its side. Relief rang inside her. Perhaps she could strike the stones with it to attract attention. If anything, it meant she was going in the right direction.

  More time passed as she searched.

  Where was the panel?

  She journeyed along, exhaling with frustration. When she turned to assure herself that the wall behind her hadn’t led off in some obscure direction, the candle branch knocked against a jutting stone and flew out of her hands again. She jerked in the direction of its clatter. But in which direction was she facing now? Sinking to the floor, she buried her head in her hands and began to sob.

  “Isabella!” a voice called.

  Draven?

  She wiped away her tears and pulled herself to a standing position. Something clamped its teeth into her foot and pain radiated up her leg. Screaming, she kicked the rat away and stumbled along in the direction of her husband’s voice.

  “I’m here, Draven!” Her hoarse throat muffled the words.

  A glow of light stretched around a corner of the passageway. The vision was followed by Draven grasping a candle branch.

  “My God, Isabella!”

  Her vision spun in vicious circles as she crumbled to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Isabella awoke to find Draven grasping her hand with a fierce protectiveness. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with shadows. She assumed he had been awake all night.

  He touched her hair with his free hand. “You gave me quite a scare.”

  “I . . . fell and dropped my candle branch.”

  Draven hushed her as he smoothed the bed-sheet and tucked it beneath her arm. “Rest now,” he said. “Dr. Lamstein has attended to your rodent bite and to the nasty bump on your forehead.”

  “Thank you for saving me,” she whispered, blinking against her tears.

  Lines of concern creased his forehead. “I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost you, Isabella. This has made me more determined than ever to convince you to stay.”

  His dark eyes moved in and out of focus, thanks to the painkiller Dr. Lamstein had administered. “Did you capture the wolf that got inside the house?” she said in a weak voice.

  “Yes,” he said.

  As Isabella drifted off to sleep, her mind flashed on the vision of Draven talking to the wolves in the courtyard. How strange that he seemed to communicate with them.

  After watching a pale and shaken Isabella succumb to sleep, Draven stood and paced the room with a deep scowl. Regret raged through his veins. He had practically raped his own wife before insisting she take the passageway back to her room. He, for one, didn’t have to imagine the degree of terror she had experienced in the pitch black. As a boy, he’d been imprisoned by the very same walls. Full of impertinence as a lad, he thought to worry everyone by hiding in the passageway. He’d waited for at least three hours before he was discovered. By the time Rogers rescued Draven from the darkness, he had used up all of his youthful tears and could barely breathe.

  The memory reminded him that any barrier separating a person from their freedom is a powerful thing. It made him regret that he had insisted Isabella stay at Thorncliff Towers forever.

  He had saved her and made love to her, but did she hate him regardless?

  Assured by the doctor that his wife would sleep for several hours, Draven took the stairs back to his suite. He thrust the door open and plowed through his private library to the sitting room. That is where he came upon Rogers, who was drawing him a bath.

  The elderly man smiled. “I thought ye could use a warm bath and yer concoction after the scare with her ladyship.”

  “You�
��re a godsend, old boy.” Draven rubbed the back of his neck. He paced while the valet tended to the setup. “I was the one who suggested Isabella use the passageway back to her suite. She was frightened out of her mind—and who could blame her?”

  Rogers nodded as he hung Draven’s blue silk dressing gown on the edge of the wardrobe door.

  After the two men discussed Draven’s own boyhood peril, the valet helped his master undress and slip into the frothy suds. “I was scared for ye as a lad, but ye were nine years old. Her ladyship is a grown woman who can survive the worst o’ challenges.”

  Draven raised an eyebrow. “Challenges like me?”

  The skin around the manservant’s eyes crinkled. “Aye.”

  “Isabella is rather like a tigress,” Draven murmured more to himself than to Rogers. “Quite remarkable, really.”

  “She has impressive qualities, indeed. And I suspect she’d make a poised countess, if she weren’t leavin’ this place.” Rogers handed him a glass. “Yer nostrum, m’lord.”

  Draven made a face as he accepted it. “She can’t leave, damn it!”

  “Calm down, m’lord. Now remember. Yer to sip the drink as ye sit in the warm water.”

  Several years ago, a fortune-teller in a traveling circus had suggested this combination of herbs when Draven had approached her about cures for lycanthropy. The nostrum consisted of echinacea to purify one’s blood, arnica for its healing properties, and butternut to expel impurities via one’s digestive tract.

  It did seem to calm Draven’s nerves, as the fortune-teller had promised. The only problem was its wickedly foul taste.

  Rogers laughed and placed his hand over his spindly knees. “Ye seem like a child when ye make those faces.”

  Draven cocked his head back, finished the nostrum, then wiped his mouth. “I’d like to see you drink it, old boy.”

  “No, thank ye,” the valet said before he took the glass.

  Draven grunted.

  The valet handed him a washcloth. “We must do all we can to stop these transformations.”

  “Let’s not speak of them. They are a sore subject,” Draven said as he washed his body. After he was done, he dropped the cloth into the water and gripped the sides of the tub. Taking a deep breath, he plunged his head underwater then popped out, shaking his hair to and fro.

  Silence filled the room as Rogers shaved Draven’s face. When the manservant was finished, he wiped away the excessive lather with a towel and handed over a mirror.

  “I like it,” Draven said. He stroked the tiny slip of a goatee Rogers had left beneath his bottom lip.

  Rogers emitted a heavy sigh. Draven turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “What are ye to do durin’ the next full moon, m’lord?” The valet’s eyes glowed with concern.

  Draven emerged from the water and whipped the towel around his waist. “I don’t have the foggiest. Right now my goal is to convince Isabella to stay. She doesn’t know that I literally transform into the black wolf. I hope to find the Gypsy woman responsible for the spell before she learns the truth.”

  Rogers smiled. “I suppose the warm baths and concoctions don’t do a damned thing to help ye.”

  “Somehow they make me feel better.” Draven smiled. “As do you, old boy.”

  A soft pink color rose in the valet’s cheeks. He lifted the dressing gown to shoulder height. After slipping the gown on, Draven went to comb his hair. Rogers followed. “Yer lordship, perhaps ye can woo her ladyship anew by showin’ her the heartfelt letters ye wrote her in her absence. As for liftin’ yer curse, I went ta town yesterday fer supplies and the villagers were dronin’ on about Gypsies makin’ camp along the pond.”

  “I encountered a family of three who got separated from their band. But who gave them permission to stay on my property?”

  “I did. And if ye don’t run them off, it will be a step to showin’ some kindness and redemption,” Rogers said firmly.

  Draven slapped the man on the back with affection. “All right, old boy.”

  “Nothin’ but good will come of it, I assure ye.”

  “I hope you’re right. Now where are those letters?” Draven asked distractedly.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  By week’s end, the bite on Isabella’s foot had nearly healed and the gash on her forehead had begun to do the same. The search for her amulet had led nowhere, yet her father remained at the house—determined to find the necklace before he went back to London.

  Draven sat by her side all the while, reading her love sonnets, poems, and chapters from novels. She’d had no idea that he liked to read as much as she did. She loved to watch his full lips form the words, and the way his strong hands clasped the books warmed her heart.

  Quotes from Lord Byron were lovely and a relatively new novel called Mansfield Park was intriguing, but what moved Isabella most were the letters Draven had written to her during their separation but had kept to himself. She could hardly believe the man who’d shown her such cruelty on their wedding night was capable of this kind of unhindered romance and tenderness.

  On a cold Saturday morning, Isabella begged Draven to read her favorite letter again.

  He gave her a sheepish look but acquiesced nevertheless.

  My dearest Isabella,

  How can I ever say I am sorry enough times? How can I convince you of my remorse for treating you with hostility instead of temperance? While I cannot explain my actions on our wedding night, I can apologize for them—and hopefully reduce their drama by this letter. You have captivated my every sense, my every need to share myself with someone. You have spurred my every passion and I suspect that, if you ever grace my life with your presence again, you will make me a better man.

  If ever I have the courage to give you this letter, you will know how my heart aches in your absence and how my arms long to embrace you. You will know that my soul has pounded with a sadness I have never known. If you return to me, you will show more courage than I, apparently, can muster to contact you.

  I hope you are well. For the possibility that you, an angel sent from heaven, are suffering in the slightest of ways, is something I cannot bear.

  Your ever-faithful husband,

  Draven

  “That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” Isabella admitted.

  Just as Draven rose out of his seat to kiss her, Gwyneth bounced into the room holding a tray of tea and confectionaries.

  “Perhaps you can knock next time, Gwyneth.” He frowned.

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  After setting the tray on the writing desk, the abigail flittered to the bed in order to smooth Isabella’s sheets. “How are ye feelin’, yer ladyship?” she asked. “’Tis a good sign that ye have some color in yer face.”

  “I’m feeling better every day, Gwyneth. Thank you.” She smiled. “I really don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss.”

  The girl threw her hands in the air. “Ye had the staff scared out of our minds, m’lady!”

  Draven turned Isabella’s face toward him. “You had me scared as well.”

  “I’m just glad I survived the ordeal,” she said, touching the heavy wrapping that encircled her head. “When can I take this bandage off?”

  Gwyneth tsked. “Doctor says ye might have a concussion. So, ye must leave it on for another week, yer ladyship. Now, is there anythin’ ye need?”

  “No. Thank you, Gwyneth.”

  The young maid nodded and left the room. Draven helped Isabella wrap a dressing robe around her shoulders. He supported her as they made their way to a window seat padded with silk.

  “Are you really feeling better today?” His eyes looked tender in the morning light.

  She nodded distractedly.

  He followed her gaze to the steely haze that blanketed the waves below the house. “If the weather wasn’t so dismal and you weren’t recovering from that horrific ordeal, I’d take you to the fields behind St. John’s Abbey. They offer a spectacular vi
ew of the North Sea.

  “That sounds lovely.” She put a hand to her head, which felt heavy from being out of bed. It took a moment for her to stabilize herself. “I wouldn’t wish the terror of being trapped on my worst enemy.”

  He took her hand. “An enemy like me?”

  “You aren’t my worst enemy.”

  “That’s right,” he said puffing out his chest proudly. “I’m your husband . . . a husband who was delighted to make love to his wife for the first time a few days ago.”

  She blushed as she took a sip of tea. “It was wonderful, if not worrisome.”

  “Isn’t a baby what you desire?” he asked.

  “It is. But—”

  Draven looked her straight in the eye. “If you’re carrying our child, God would not be so cruel as to give you a marred son.”

  She tore her eyes away. She could hardly wait three weeks—when her courses either came or did not. But there was no use in discussing it until then. “I survived that trauma in the passageway but I haven’t found my amulet.”

  “I suspect you’ll come upon it soon,” he said sincerely. “And I hope you decide to stay after you do.”

  The cool light of sunrise spilled into the room as Isabella pondered his plea.

  When she said nothing, Draven pushed his shoulders back. “Right. We shall take this one day at a time. The doctor said you shouldn’t travel for a few more weeks . . . just enough time to persuade you that living here at Thorncliff Towers doesn’t have to be so gloomy.”

  “Persuading me of that shall take a miracle, I’m afraid.”

  He gave her a charming smile. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m adept at persuasion.”

  “You’re off to a very good start,” she said as visions of their wild lovemaking rose to mind.

  He stood. “Tomorrow we shall get you out of bed and outdoors. Fresh air will do you a world of good.”

  The next morning, a dapper-looking Draven came to escort Isabella to breakfast in a dark blue waistcoat and breeches that fit him like a second skin. She could tell that he’d just come from his ride because he smelled of pine and salt air. After they ate a hearty meal of potatoes, eggs, and porridge, he convinced her to take a walk with him around the estate’s grounds. Striding hand in hand, they made their way from the back of the house, past the garden slope, to Thorncliff Towers’ stone façade. Isabella wasn’t thrilled about her head injury, but it had prevented Draven from suggesting she join him on his horse ride today.