The Wolf of Haskell Hall

by Colleen Shannon

  She didn’t understand the Romany words, but one phrase she recognized.

  Haskell. She was cursing the females of the Haskell line in an effort to protect her own.

  Despite the terrible legacy that threatened her very life, Lil couldn’t hate the girl any more. No woman was strong enough to survive something so vile with love and faith intact. And what power could counteract such enmity so well justified?

  Weak, she leaned over the basin, but then she stood and shakily rinsed her mouth. She combed her hair and braided it. The ritual calmed her enough for her to be able to think. She’d never been subject to visions before, but she’d never had her emotions in such turmoil before, either.

  When the terrible power of the vision allowed her to move again, Lil turned toward the door. Perhaps it was true, and she and Ian were linked in a terrible bond begun in blood and pain. Perhaps it was her optimistic nature, or sheer Scots doggedness, but surely she couldn’t see such horrid things so clearly for no reason.

  It was a warning.

  She must not be trapped in the same curse of pride in her name and estates as her ancestor had been. What matter that Ian Griffith was not of her social rank? He fascinated her more than any man she’d ever met, and while she pursued the liaison at her peril, after tonight, she also had little choice.

  She had to embrace the curse to break it.

  But first she had to know what she faced. Know beyond any shadow of a doubt, know that yes, it was true. He smelled so acutely, walked so quietly, and saw so well even in darkness because he was part man, part wolf. Or that he was merely a very unusual, enigmatic man no woman could ever civilize, much less tame.

  The only way to know for sure was to search his rooms. For if Shelly had tracked a wolf that night, and Ian lay sleeping in his bed, she’d have her answer. If there really were a Wolf of Haskell Hall, it couldn’t be Ian.

  But if he was gone….

  Moving slowly, feeling the inexorable urge as surely as if the moon exerted a strange pull on her as well, Lil tied her new silk robe tightly about her slim waist. She picked up her lantern and exited her room for that long trek down the hall to his tower quarters.

  And if he was there? Would she be able to escape, virtue intact? Or would the wild urges he incited in her with no more than a look take possession of her, too?

  She smiled grimly. If it were true, as the Bible said, that lusting in the heart was as much a sin as fornication itself, then she was already a sinner many times over.

  She might as well enjoy her long, slow slide from virtue into damnation.

  Practical? Rational? Wise? Prudent?

  Delilah Trent had lived her life by such boundaries.

  Lil Haskell scarcely saw the fence, and if she did, she climbed right over it without breaking stride.

  The tower was locked. Lil used her key, wondering if she should knock, but somehow she knew surprise was best.

  The rooms were dark. Quiet. The curtains drawn tightly over the moonlight. Lil’s lantern threw her shadow on the walls and made it dance, as if her own sensual half had already liberated itself for the pleasure to come.

  Lil cocked her head, listening. And then she heard it. A low keening moan, the throaty sound of an animal in pain. Her skin crawled, and she wondered, for a panicked instant, if the wolf had somehow found its way inside the house.

  Then she realized the sound came from Ian’s bedroom up the spiral stairs.

  She ran up the curve so fast the lantern flame flickered wildly, and dashed into the bedroom. She stopped, gasping, at what she saw.

  Ian Griffith was tied to his bed by a complicated system of metal chains attached with a hitching mechanism. He was immobilized, wrists anchored to each heavy bedpost. Outraged, Lil looked around to see who could have done such a thing to him, but he was alone. She set the lantern down and inched closer to the bed.

  That low, keening moan came again.

  It sounded exactly like a wolf groaning in pain. He was bare-chested, the black hair on his chest glistening with sweat, covers wrapped about his waist as he thrashed in the throes of a nightmare.

  Lil had to catch the door jamb to support her weight as she swayed with relief. Obviously, if he hitched to his bed, and from the looks of it, had been for quite some time, he couldn’t have howled on the moors tonight. He was not a wolf. Just a very earthy man with a primitive allure that stripped away her own thin veneer of civilization.

  The manacles were so tight about his wrists that his hands were growing white. His wrists were raw and red, and she realized, appalled, that his circulation had been cut off. She must get him loose before he hurt himself. She had to feel carefully along the manacle before she found the tiny latch. So small that one almost had to know where it was to release it.

  She was able to easily unlatch one wrist, and then the other. The awful thought came to her that this was an ingenious restraint system, one obviously devised so a man could latch one arm and then use his teeth to open the latch and attach the other to the chain. When he pulled on the slack, it automatically tightened about a pulley.

  He must be able to get free in the same manner. If he pulled again, the pulley released and the chain grew slack. But he’d have to dexterously use his fingers and teeth to get the first latch loose so he could free his other hand.

  Why had he submitted himself to this? And why would he make it so he could release himself with equal ease? It made no sense.

  Unless….he’d designed the system to work only with the tactile skill of fingers. Even as the last manacle fell, freeing him, a chill ran up her spine.

  Immediately, still sleeping, he drew his wounds to his mouth and licked them.

  She backed a step, for there was something so canine in the way he moved, the way his tongue lapped, that she almost wondered if she could be mistaken. But no, she told herself.

  You ninny, even a werewolf can’t be in two places at once.

  He stopped thrashing, licked his other wrist, and went very still. She assumed he’d fallen into a peaceful sleep. For a stolen instant, she hovered over him, eating him hungrily with her eyes.

  His torso was as broad as she’d suspected, the musculature perfect, lithe, lean, but not bulging. His chest hair was as black as the hair on his head, narrowing to the slim waist that disappeared beneath the covers. And his arms were long, supple, biceps bulging only slightly.

  Her hands trembled with the need to touch him, to see if his chest hair was as soft as it looked, but she bit her lip savagely and backed away. Prudent, sensible Delilah told Lil Haskell that it was foolish to even think of having an affair with her estate manager. Why, it would scandalize the entire county.

  But Lil’s nostrils flared with the wild scent of him. Part man, part sweat, part sandalwood soap. All arousing. Two steps back from the bed, Lil made Delilah stop.

  Surely it wouldn’t hurt to look a moment longer. Just look….

  One of those perfect arms reached out, and long fingers caught her wrist.

  Propping himself up on one elbow, Ian drew her gently down on the bed beside him. “Why make do with looking when touching is so much more pleasing? Since you were kind enough to release me from my bonds, Delilah, I can only do the same for you.”

  And he lay back, pulling her down atop him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lil knew she should scream. She knew she should run. She even knew this was rank folly that would lead to tragedy.

  But when she felt the heat of his body, smelled his unique, wild scent, this one defining moment made all else immaterial.

  Only feeling mattered.

  Again, he showed an eerie ability to empathize with her thoughts. He caught the end of her thick blond braid and used it as a flexible, glittering golden chain to bind them together. “Ah, Delilah, you release me from the earthly bonds of my enslavement and replace them with ties Samson himself could not break. What hope have I to resist you?”

  Ian tugged gently on the long braid, weaving it behind
her neck, over his shoulder. Closer, closer, until their torsos brushed. Through the twin layers of silk, she felt the hard muscles, the living vitality of bone and blood.

  Blood surged in response. Bones ached with the need to get closer still.

  If he had been rough, if he’d pressed her immediately into the bed and mounted her, she perhaps could have resisted him. But his indomitable strength was leashed now, a tiger purring, rubbing against her for her pleasure as well as his own.

  Stroke me. Please me. I will not eat you.

  The peculiar insight came to her: in the old tale of the lady and the tiger, in this case, the two were one. Disaster lurked in either direction, behind both doorways.

  Trembling, fully aware of what she courted, she walked both directions at once, feeling in an atavistic way that only by walking through disaster would she find peace and happiness. For the last heiress, and the last Griffith male, of Haskell Hall.

  Most arousing of all, nothing was so seductive as weakness.

  It proved, she, too, had power over this man who was stronger, in mind, body and soul, than any man she’d ever known.

  His heart hammered as hard as hers; the hand gently stroking the curve of her neck trembled; and his eyes, those glowing amber eyes not even darkness could conquer were dilated with wonder. His own need was raw in his face.

  And she was lost.

  Worse than lost.

  For Delilah reveled in her own fall–seductress seduced.

  “Ian,” she whispered achingly, burying her lips in the throbbing hollow of his neck. Her tongue flicked shyly into the indentation, and when his heart surged its response, she literally tasted passion. It was elixir such as none she’d ever known–and it made her ravenous for more.

  He kept his trembling hands firmly on her waist as if she were his only anchor in the coming storm. “Delilah, be sure this is what you want. Once our bond of blood is consecrated in this bed, there will be no turning back. My fate will be your fate.”

  Gibberish. Everything past ‘be sure this is what you want’ was gibberish. How could he even ask?

  Want? What a pale word. For this, she had come here, for this, Haskell blood called to Griffith blood. Fate had entered this brooding old mansion with her on that night a few weeks back. She could fight it no longer.

  Standing, Lil untied her robe and let the silk fall off her shoulders to pool at her feet. On some vague level, she heard wind howling past the casements. Urgent, a warning, a plea, it moaned through the cracks, rustling the heavy drapes covering the huge window. The outside casements creaked as if they, too found the forces of nature too much to control.

  But when Ian sat up, and the covers fell to his hip bones, Lil could hear naught but the pounding of her own heart. Dear heaven, he was beautiful.

  Broad shoulders segueing into taught, muscular belly, black hair narrowing to a thin, smooth line that disappeared beneath the covers. His skin was tanned. He must work often without a shirt. His flesh had a burnished quality, as if he glowed with an inner dormant power he could scarcely contain.

  Most arousing of all, even in the dimness of the room lit only by the flickering lantern, Lil saw the tell-tale lump in the sheet at the apex of his thighs. He shifted restlessly under her acquisitive gaze, and the covers fell a bit more, revealing a broadening of the hair line as it met his lower abdomen. Still Lil stared.

  For the first time in her life, she knew the meaning of lust.

  The thought of all that flagrant maleness, what it wanted, where it would go inside her body, incited a deep throbbing in Lil that prepared a way for him. And he’d scarcely touched her yet….

  The storm howled, to no avail. Suspended between damnation and delight, Lil and Ian touched only with their eyes. Communicating on that visceral, primitive level, as men and women had spoken since Eve ate the apple. A very old story, but it was….

  …new to Delilah.

  Precious, delicious. And as seductive as the crisp, sweet apple must have been to Eve. But here, bare to her gaze and all she made him feel, Ian was Adam. Adam as God intended, wild, earthy, elemental, but as human as she was. In this secluded tower grounded on the soil of their ancestors, together, they would fall, or rise. Either way, Ian would be there to catch her and lead her to a bright new day. A day where there were no rumors, no shadows, no fears. No curse.

  Only joy given and received in equal measure, compounding with every exchange.

  Lil tugged the string at the high neck of her night rail and felt the thin lawn open, wider, wider, baring her shoulders. Another breath, and it would fall to her waist. She reached to tug again, but his voice came, a deep purr of urgency. “No. Come here.”

  He wanted to do it himself.

  Unwrap her like a gift for his pleasure. Independent Delilah should have balked at such rank male arrogance.

  But Lil held sway. Traitress Lil, Seductress Lil moved forward and stood docilely before him.

  As he reached out to her, his glowing amber eyes were steady upon her, ravenous with a hunger that went beyond reason, or right, or wrong. A hunger that went soul deep and drew her own soul upward to meet it.

  But when he touched her, one rough fingertip only, tracing her delicate collar bones, hunger became ache. And when he brought both hands up to knead her upper arms, the linen fell lower still, held in a posture of modesty only by her deep inhalation of shock at his touch.

  Her bosom raised with the breath that felt, in truth, as if it were her first.

  And her last.

  Her last as Delilah Haskell, heiress. Just as easily as that was Delilah shorn, and Lil, Ian’s woman, born.

  When she exhaled, the linen, too, fell without regret, catching at his hands on her shoulders.

  A soft exclamation came from him, and then he rose to his knees on the bed, shifting his grip to her back. With a rustle that sounded like a sigh of satisfaction, the fabric bared her bosom to those slumberous amber eyes. His rough palms stroked her back, neck to tail bone, lightly, soothingly.

  Every nerve in her body came to excruciating life. She felt her nipples harden, and she swayed toward him. But he held her gently away, as if he knew once he felt the brush of her skin upon his own, the leashed power surging through him would bound free and consume them both.

  Their torsos were so close she could feel the heat of his body. She wanted to look down, to where the covers had bared him, but she was caught in the amber glow of his eyes–moth to flame, fly to sap. He seemed to want to look past flesh, and blood, and bone, to the nerves and impulses of her heart and mind. Far deeper than any man had ever looked. And she wanted to open to him and let him do more than look….

  “Are you a virgin, Delilah?” he asked, still stroking her back, still not letting her torso brush his.

  She should have been insulted, but she could only shake her head. “Twice. With…my former fiancé.”

  “He was a fool. His loss is my gain. And shortly, it will be yours, too.” He moved forward and drew her gently to him at the same time. At last their torsos pressed together. Tanned skin on pale skin.

  Hair against smoothness.

  Ian moved his chest from side to side, doubling the sensation of those tactile pleasures. Her nipples hardened further, aching now with delight.

  “Do you like this?” he asked softly.

  Her eyes drifted shut and she had to bite her lip to stifle a groan. He laughed.

  The primitive male sound seemed to brush every exposed nerve in her body. Acting on instinct, she clasped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Open-mouthed, flaming with all the passion he aroused in her with only a look and a touch.

  Every nerve in his body went rigid. He gave a harsh intake of breath, seeming to draw his strength from her own lungs, and then he exhaled, giving her the breath of life again.

  The symbolism did not escape her even in the heat of the moment. Shortly they would share an even more intimate exchange of life force. The liquid warmth in her lower body set up a pulsing, a h
unger with an entity all its own.

  Delilah Trent had never been a convenience, or a vessel for any man. But Lil Haskell yearned to know this one primal man in every way possible to female kind: mind, body, soul. If that made her a vessel, too, so be it.

  It was difficult to taste the cup of life without sharing it.

  When Ian finally pulled her down on the bed, the nightdress caught at her hips as he drew her to the length of his long, lithe form. She shifted restlessly, needing to feel the power of his legs against her own, but he caught her hands above her head.

  “No. Let me unwrap you. You’re the best gift I’ve ever had, Delilah.” And he smoothed his rough palms over her shoulders, down her arms, tangled his fingers with hers. Their hands entwined, he helped her push the thin fabric down and off her legs. Inch by slow, luxurious inch. Like a boy who seldom got a present so he had to make it last.

  Tears stung Lil’s eyes. In that moment, the riotous passion quieted, allowing her a moment of clarity. The riptides of lust had pulled her farther and farther from self to a wild shore she could share only with Ian. But this new, quiet vista of possibility was far more risky; its boundaries limited only by her fear of the unknown. For this country of great hope could be entered only by lovers.

  Admittance might be granted by her body, but sex was only a symbol for a closeness this unique, powerful man allowed no one.

  It was love Ian needed most.

  That need was blatant in the slight trembling of his hands, the dilated eyes, the hard-won restraint he kept upon himself even though she had been the one to come to him and he knew she was not a virgin.

  Her fiancé had offered no such forbearance. Her clothes off, he was inside her, five minutes and the deed was done. Leaving her aching, wondering–is that all there was?

  Again, eerily, Ian seemed to read her mind. “You will be aching when you leave my bed, Delilah. But not with unfulfilled desire.” So saying, he lay back on the soft mattress and pulled her nakedness atop him.

  She felt the power that made him man pulsing between them. And even as her body began to tremble again, that dangerous fullness spread perilously close to her heart. She would never have believed this arrogant beast capable of such tenderness….until now.