Beauty and the Wolf

by Marina Myles

  The remark sent the three men into hysterics.

  “You’re all foxed!” she cried. She refused to be a part of this madness any longer. “I’d like a word, now!” When she reached Draven’s chair, she yanked the cards from his hands and threw them vehemently on the table.

  “I think your wife means business,” squealed the third player who hadn’t spoken until now.

  “You’re right, Sir Bartholomew. Very well.” Draven removed the cigar from his mouth and extinguished it. He carried his off-balance frame into the corridor where Isabella followed him. With every step they took, the echo of laughter faded behind them.

  Isabella stopped in the dim shadows and turned. “Do you take nothing seriously?”

  Draven dropped his head. She waited as he swayed on his feet. But instead of raising his voice in defensive anger, he slurred his next remark. “My whole world has just been dashed to hell. I didn’t think there was anything left to do but have a drink.”

  “You mean: have a dozen drinks.”

  Draven took her by the arm. “I’m sorry the people of Dunwich feel the way they do. The money I used to start my shipbuilding business is money I should have used to help them.”

  “That’s not why I’m angry,” she blazed back.

  Draven remained silent as he teetered back on his heels.

  “Your lack of help is bad enough, Draven,” Isabella continued. “But you have deceived your own wife. Now I know that the man I’m chained to becomes a blood-driven beast when the full moon shines—”

  He rocked closer to her, reeking of brandy. “If I had told you the truth I would have lost you.”

  “At least I would have learned it with dignity, instead of during a public display.” Isabella’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know what kind of man makes the most frightening werewolf of all?”

  He looked humbled, defeated. “No.”

  She couldn’t lie. “A madman like you. You have two sides to your personality even without the provocation of the moon. A manipulative, charming side and a dirty, lying side.”

  She began to storm away but Draven’s words stopped her. “The citizens of Dunwich plan to rally together with villagers from neighboring towns. With every available resource they’re determined to fight this vicious black wolf... this werewolf.”

  It seemed strange to hear him say the word.

  “My God,” she said under her breath.

  “Isabella, it was just a matter of time before someone discovered me. It’s my guess that no matter the arsenal of weapons they bring forth—stones, wolf bane, torches, pitchforks, or perhaps a silver bullet—it will ultimately result in my demise.”

  He came to stand by her. Before she could move away, he took her by the shoulders and pinned her against the cold wall. “Don’t you see? We can never be together. As I told you before: our love is doomed. I didn’t need the power of your curse to make that happen. I am truly sorry.”

  Isabella fought for a breath. The happiness they’d shared yesterday had been snatched out from under them. And so quickly.

  “This is about murderous evil of which you have no idea,” Draven said. “Why do you think I begged you not to come back here after our wedding night? Why do you think I pleaded with you to end my life? When I become this monster, it takes every fiber of my being not to hurt anyone.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes as he continued.

  “You hardly knew me before my curse was actualized so you may find this hard to believe. But a change in me has occurred. I was selfish, spoiled, and unloving before you came into my life. But you’ve helped me transform. I feel now. I want to shower you with love and I want to be loved. You are the only good thing in my life. And I refused to let anything push you away. But now my alter ego is consuming me. It’s possessive and taunting and it’s ruining all that I feel and all that I do. Maybe it’s best that you left—”

  He pitched forward. Isabella steadied him. In this state, he seemed so pitiful and vulnerable. Draven looked at her tenderly for a long while, his defenses all but gone. How many times had she considered coming back to him after their wedding night, to see him gaze at her just this way? She had replayed the moment he held her for the first time over and over again. She felt as safe in his arms as a bride at the altar—as if she finally belonged to someone who could take care of her, as she’d always cared for others. To someone else those feelings might seem pathetic, but the way she’d grown to care for Draven was what it was.

  Now everything was spiraling downward.

  They embraced for a long while. Isabella drew away and Draven brushed the tears from her cheeks.

  “I understand you need time to think,” he whispered.

  She nodded. Her common sense was having a horrendous battle with her overwhelming empathy for Draven.

  “Leave this place for a while,” he said. “Take your father back to London and see to his health.”

  “Perhaps you should go somewhere as well,” she said. “Someplace far beyond the long hand of the lynch mob.”

  “Where shall I go? To Scotland? To the Americas? No. The risk of a killing spree will follow me.”

  She tore her gaze from the pitiful look in his eyes.

  “What I am telling you is that you are free to choose your fate,” Draven said in a voice coated with emotion. “But promise me that you will return to tell me if you wish to remain my wife.”

  She made no reply in her confused state.

  Before he slipped into the shadows, he feathered a soft kiss across her lips. “Always remember: I will love you until the last moon rises.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Isabella informed her father straightaway that they would be leaving Thorncliff Towers. As he prepared to go with her, Harris hadn’t yet revealed his possession of her amulet, but that was the least of her worries.

  She suspected that while she was in London, Draven would shut himself away from the world again. Would the walls of Thorncliff Towers protect him against the murderous mob?

  Isabella felt a familiar rush of nerves as she encountered him in the dining hall the next afternoon. He was sitting in front of an untouched plate of roasted beef, distress deepening the lines of his forehead.

  The heaviness in her heart had stolen away her appetite, so she stood rigidly beside the table. She cleared her throat in order to get his attention.

  Draven remained silent as repressed emotion surfaced in his bloodshot eyes.

  She laced her hands together. “I’m leaving in an hour. I will return before the next full moon—to tell you of the direction I shall take.”

  Draven, hunched in an anguished pose, ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, Isabella.” He paused. “So this is good-bye for now?”

  She nodded.

  He reached for her hand but she refused to unbraid them from her firm clasp. The action seemed to claw at him like a sharp dagger.

  “You have no idea how my feelings for you govern my every thought and action,” he said. “Bella, you are everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman, from your honesty and intelligence to your extraordinary spirit.”

  “Why didn’t you say these wonderful things long ago? And why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Her heart accelerated. “I shall return before the next full moon.” She spun on her heel in an attempt to hide her tears. As she left to attend to her packing, a single thought plagued her mind: Will learning I’m pregnant make me return permanently?

  The ride into Dunwich seemed to take forever. Isabella, seated across from her father, tried to engage him in trivial conversation, but he seemed preoccupied all the while, as if his thoughts were adrift on a distant sea.

  “Papa,” she said in a loud voice, “since we’re alone, I must tell you that an enormous lynch mob is gathering. You heard the Gypsies who appeared at the ball, didn’t you? The mob intends to capture Draven.”

  Harris broke his eyes from the landscape and met her gaze. “If your husband isn’t the black wolf, he will have nothing to
fear.”

  “That is hardly what I expected you to say.” She stiffened in her seat.

  After a moment, his eyes turned soulful. “I’m sorry that you ever married that madman, Isa. If I’d only listened to those rumors of Draven’s insanity—”

  “Draven suffers under a terrifying curse, but he is not insane,” Isabella said, her heart aching.

  “Then may heaven help him.”

  She heaved a sigh of frustration. She could only hope the doctor in London could help Papa. He neither acted nor spoke as she remembered. After a brief silence, she decided to broach the subject of her amulet. She inhaled for courage. “There is something else I have been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” Harris said distractedly. He stroked his chin and continued to glance out the window at the rural scenery.

  “Yes. It’s about my necklace.”

  That seemed to capture his attention. He leaned forward on his cane and looked her directly in the eye. “What about your amulet, my dear? Have you found it?”

  “No, but apparently you have.” She wrung the thick cord of her reticule nervously around her fingertips.

  Confusion shadowed his face. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was beside myself when it went missing. Draven took it upon himself to search for it. That is why he went into your room. No doubt you found it in disarray.”

  “I did,” he said slowly. “And?”

  “And . . . Draven told me he found the amulet in your bedside table drawer.”

  Her father remained silent beneath a dubious expression.

  “Naturally, Draven was excited,” she continued, “so he kindly returned it to me.”

  Harris crossed his arms. “And you believed him? That I took it, I mean?”

  “What reason would he have for lying?”

  “I can’t say for certain, but let’s suppose he lied to cover up the fact that he stole the amulet from you while you slept.”

  “Are you insinuating that he stole it with the intention of returning it to me later?” she asked.

  “Considering the problems you’ve been having, it makes perfect sense. Ultimately, he wishes to appear the hero.”

  Isabella shot a look out the window as yet another small village rolled by. She hadn’t anticipated this suggestion. Who would she believe now? On the one hand, Draven did have a great deal of ground to make up after he practically clawed her in his own bed. However, if Papa was guilty of taking her amulet, maybe he intended to sell it for a much-needed profit. It was likely that he would go to any length to protect the act.

  Her expression turned solemn. “I’m sorry, Papa, but I believe Draven. If you wanted the amulet back, you should have simply asked me. So, no more lies. We’re going to London to see a doctor who specializes in amnesia.”

  “Your loyalty lies with your husband now,” he said softly. “I understand.”

  She reached for his hand. “You haven’t acted like yourself since the accident. Maybe this doctor can help you. Promise me you’ll consent to an examination.”

  “Is my behavior that strange?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Harris put his hand to his forehead and grimaced.

  Another headache, Isabella presumed.

  “Very well.” He gave her a weary smile. “I give you my word.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Draven was struck by how quiet the house seemed after Isabella departed.

  He wandered into the library to read, but found no joy in it. He took Lucifer for a ride, but even the stallion seemed despondent in Isabella’s absence.

  A bundle of nerves, he finally retired to his private chambers where he took a light supper in solitude. He was about to ready himself for bed when there was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?” he called out while he wound his pocket watch.

  “It’s Rogers, sir.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ye ’ave a visitor, sir.”

  At this hour? Draven moved closer. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know ’ow to put this, m’lord—”

  “For God’s sake, old boy!”

  Rogers lowered his voice. “She’s a Gypsy who says ’er name is Marga Yavidovich. Sir, she claims she is the grandmother of the girl ye killed when you were sixteen.”

  “What?” Draven released the pocket watch and it slipped to the floor.

  “She arrived moments ago by neither horseback nor carriage.” Rogers’s voice cracked. “Sir, she must ’ave walked all the way up the steep cliff to Thorncliff Towers . . . on foot.”

  It took a moment for Draven to realize that this was a very good turn of events. Perhaps the woman could tell him how to find the witch who thrust the curse on him. “Show her into the drawing room, Rogers. I’ll be there momentarily.”

  Draven donned his silver waistcoat in haste and as he descended the staircase, he struggled for composure. Entering the drawing room, he clasped his hands behind his back to hide the fact that he was shaking like a leaf. His visitor sat dwarfed in an oversized armchair. Yet the resolve in Marga Yavidovich’s expression told Draven she was a strong, determined woman. Her hands were calmly intertwined and her dark brown eyes studied him intently.

  When Draven came to stand before her, she neither stood nor smiled. Instead, she cocked her head to one side. He guessed her to be upwards of sixty years of age. As he studied her lined face, it seemed truly ironic that she was born of the same blood as he, for she seemed overcome with poverty and persecution. Perhaps the only similarity between them was the same dark defiance in her eyes that always seemed to cause a commotion in his.

  His shame over what he’d done to her granddaughter grew as he stared into that dark insurgency.

  Draven asked the woman if she cared for something warm to drink. She refused so he waved Rogers out of the room. He sat on an ottoman and he and the Gypsy proceeded to stare at one another for what felt like an eternity. Assuming he would have to initiate the conversation, he finally spoke.

  “I must ask you why you’ve come here this evening, Marga. May I call you that?”

  Nodding, the woman leaned forward. She encouraged him to do the same with a crook of her forefinger.

  “I’ve come to see if Ekaterina Stella’s curse has come true. The curse of a Romanian vârcolac. A werewolf.”

  Draven could restrain himself no longer. “It bloody well has!”

  “And what has that been like for you?”

  “Like? That damned spell has forced me to live on a nightmarish carousel. It’s impossible for me to get off, no matter how I try. I assure you that during the next full moon, the transformation will happen again.”

  Apparently satisfied with the answer, the woman sat back in her chair. “I see that over the years, you’ve become a true romero. You appear to be a noble and elegant gentleman.”

  “My manservant informed me that you are the grandmother of the young girl I accidentally . . . killed.” He forced gentleness into his voice. “If this is true, I do not expect compliments.”

  “Are you aware that your birth mother, though she was younger than I, was my best friend?” she asked in a thin voice.

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened to your mother?”

  “No,” he said.

  “She drowned herself in the pond at the edge of Dunwich.” The pain in the woman’s eyes was obvious. “You see, when Miranda came to this house with you, a babe in arms, your father offered her money to disappear forever.”

  Emotion tugged at Draven. “Miranda? Was that my mother’s name?”

  She nodded. “Miranda refused the money but she agreed to leave you here. She left this place without you and without any sign of love from your father. For her—and for your grandmother who watched her suffer—it was devastating.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “So the story goes.”

  “And you have no feeling for their pain?”

  “I never knew my real
mother. Besides, the harsh reality is, she gave me away instead of caring for me.”

  “No, no,” the woman said as she wagged her finger in distress. “She relinquished you out of love. She came to this house hoping to form a family—Miranda, you, and your father. When the earl insulted her by offering her 80,000 pounds to go away, she was heartbroken. But she could also see that your father carried a soft spot for you in his heart. When Miranda set foot in this grand house and saw how opulently the Winthrops lived, she realized that if you were raised at Thorncliff Towers you, too, would have the finest things money could buy. She told me that she didn’t want the disoriented and nomadic Gypsy life for you. So she left you here. Afterward, she told everyone that saying good-bye to you was the hardest thing she’d ever done.”

  A ping of sadness vibrated inside him. “That is why she killed herself?”

  “Yes,” Marga said solemnly.

  “I didn’t know my mother committed suicide.”

  “Because we were as close as sisters, a part of me died the night Miranda took her life.” Tears welled in her eyes. “The rage I felt was so severe, it ate away at me for many years. Adding to that rage was the contempt I felt toward you. You took away my only grandchild.”

  Draven leapt up and began to pace. “I regret my actions. I didn’t intend to kill your granddaughter. You see, I lost my father moments before I came to the camp. He told me on his deathbed that I have Gypsy blood in my veins. I didn’t take the news well, to say the least.”

  Marga nodded. “Turning your back on your own people propelled the rauna curse. You did a terrible thing by killing an innocent girl from your clan.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “But,” she added, “you have suffered because of it. My visions have verified this. The torment you endured in the asylum and the guilt you still carry proves that you have gained compassion, despite your innately selfish nature.”

  Hope stirred inside him. “Will this sever my curse?”

  “It is not enough,” she replied.

  “Please”—he dropped to one knee before her—“where is my grandmother now? She must undo this hideous spell!”