Beauty and the Wolf (2 page)

Sucking in a breath, she entered her husband’s suite. As Draven reclined in bed, the hunger in his obsidian eyes made her heart skitter. His smooth chest rose and fell beneath an opened, white shirt while the lights and shadows bouncing from the hearth enhanced his hollowed cheekbones. Stepping closer, Isabella couldn’t help but notice how enticingly his black, shoulder-length hair glimmered in the firelight.

At the very least, she was grateful that Draven was handsome. She had even softened like a wet leaf during their brief wedding kiss. If only his dark nature and intimidating scowl didn’t alarm her so.

He threw back the bed-sheet. A defined torso rising out of a pair of low-slung breeches made her avert her eyes.

“Join me,” he commanded.

She turned away from him, braced her legs against the side of the mattress, and slid into bed. After drawing the counterpane beneath her chin, she stared up at the ceiling. She could hardly believe she was here.

“I must admit that I’m nervous,” she said. “This will be my first time, well . . .”

The words hung in the air as heavily as if someone had used foul language in church.

Draven frowned. “If you weren’t a virgin, I wouldn’t have married you.”

He rolled closer to her but when she locked eyes with him, his ravenous stare made her draw back. In a slow, sultry motion Draven tugged the counterpane down and traced her amulet with his fingertips. His touch on her chest was incredibly hot, as if his entire body were engulfed in flames. She, in contrast, shuddered icy jolts in her nervous state.

“Is this the stone that put gossipmongers in a dither?” he asked.

She nodded and looked down at the curio. It felt strange to have someone else touch it.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you ever take it off?”

“No.”

“You’re not afraid of its prophecy?” Draven looked puzzled.

She shook her head.

He retracted his hand. “What, exactly, does the legend foretell?”

Staring into his fiery eyes, she could hardly think. “Well”—she scrambled to gather her thoughts—“nearly three thousand years ago, the amulet belonged to a headstrong, Egyptian princess named Tousret. This princess made Amenhotep, a high priest from her court, one of her secret lovers. As punishment for her selfishness—and for this priest breaking his holy vows—the Underworld God saw to it that Princess Tousret was drawn to Amenhotep in the worst possible way: a fatal attraction as it were. The God’s dark forces willed Tousret to stab Amenhotep before turning the knife on herself. Now any female who wears the stone even once is doomed to take the life of her true love before committing suicide.”

Draven’s eyes widened. “You are braver than I thought.”

She blushed. It was the first compliment he’d given her. “The amulet is a part of my father. He risked his life to find it.”

Draven fell into silence before he met her gaze again. “Lucky for you, I don’t believe in curses.”

The small tremor beneath his eye told Isabella he was lying.

“Still,” he said, “the amulet symbolizes too much dark history for my taste. Next time, I want you to remove it.”

Next time?
She was barely managing this round of intimacy.

Desire darkened Draven’s eyes and Isabella gulped. He leaned closer, his mouth hovering over hers. She pinched her eyes shut and folded her hands over her stomach to prepare for his kiss.

He stopped. “There is no reason to be prim and proper with me. You’re no longer a governess.”

Isabella’s eyes flew open at his condescending tone. It took all the restraint she could muster to hold her tongue.

Draven shoved the counterpane to the foot of the bed and studied the outline of her body. He drew her to him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, igniting a crackle of energy between them. Isabella’s throat caught and in a surreal moment, he clamped his mouth over hers. When his tongue forced its way past her lips, Isabella’s blood moved in wild rushes—and control over her emotions slipped from her grasp. She closed her eyes in silent ecstasy, surrendering to the deepness of his kiss and to the excitement it stirred in her.

The jab of Draven’s knee between her thighs snapped her back to reality. Chiding herself for reacting to him with such passion, she composed herself.

His hand swept over her breasts and when it descended to the flat plane of her abdomen, Isabella stiffened. She found it difficult to breathe under the pressure of his mouth and she had no idea to which side she should tilt her head. As his arousal grew solid against her leg, her pulse leapt at the foreign feel of it. Rolling on top of her, Draven’s shirttails draped over her negligee and, as he traced her lips with the ease of an expert, Isabella remembered his previous kisses. She’d known him to be tender, at least in those moments, so she began to relax a bit. Then he began pawing her. Reaching down, he pried her knees apart and slipped his hand into the open space. When he rubbed her core in rough motions, her limbs froze. Her groom was a devastatingly handsome man but she was only willing to acquiesce to him at her own speed.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I’ve heard that creating a child can be a wondrous experience. It’s just that—”

She blinked against a bright light. Shifting her gaze to the window, she saw that a full moon had emerged through a pair of parted clouds. As the ivory cast spilled across Draven’s face, he pulled away from her with eyes that flashed a profound fear. “I must inform you that I have no intention of fathering any offspring,” he said.

The admission couldn’t have knocked Isabella more off balance. “
I . . . I
don’t understand.”

Draven bolted out of bed. His entire body began to shake. “I have personal reasons for not wanting a child. But what you need to know is that we will use a modern form of prevention.”

She pulled herself to a sitting position. “You choose this moment, our wedding night, to inform me of this? Didn’t you think I should have a say in the matter?”

As the veins in his temples bulged and pounded, she recoiled against the headboard.

“Something is happening to me,” he said, spinning away from her. All at once, his shirt split up the middle of his back and fell to the floor. Then, with his face hidden from view, he picked up a chair and hurled it through the window.

Isabella whipped back the bed-sheet, her hand pressed to her mouth in horror.

Fearing for her safety, she rushed inside the dressing room and locked the door. Through her sobs, she heard a loud cry then more breaking glass. A minute later, all was quiet.

She grabbed Draven’s wool coat and draped it over her negligee. Turning the doorknob over with a quaking hand, she forced herself to peer into the bedchamber. Wind whistled into the room through the shattered window and the fire in the hearth had all but died out. But Draven was nowhere to be found.

Seizing the chance to flee the room, Isabella escaped into the corridor and raced downstairs. She’d known this loveless marriage was a bad idea, but now she was truly frightened. Refusing to stay at Thorncliff Towers a moment longer, she ran for the stables. And with every step she took, she vowed never to return.

 

T
he black post chaise bounced to a stop in front of Dunwich’s coaching station. Huddled on its rear bench, Isabella didn’t notice. She was too busy dreaming up adjectives for the man she loathed with every fiber of her being.

Mysterious. Cruel. Selfish. Despicable. Deceptive.
Mad.

“Madam,” the driver called above a brewing storm, “this is your stop.”

She looked out the window. In the distance, Thorncliff Towers hovered ominously over a wall of trees like an imposing fortress. It was a foreboding sight, but what struck terror in her heart was the thought that Draven was waiting for her inside.

Isabella had returned to London without knowing what had happened to her husband on their wedding night. Instead of initiating a divorce during their time apart, he’d tried various tactics—some outrageous yet all from a distance—to convince her to return. As time went on, her lack of response must have caused him to abandon his persuasive efforts.

How will Draven receive me now?
All she knew about his current state of mind was that he had shut himself away from the world under a cloud of depression.

Ironically, things hadn’t been much better for Isabella. The Farringtons had slipped into tremendous debt following the accident Harris Farrington suffered while searching for Amenhotep’s bracelet. Isabella helped her disoriented father return to London after the disastrous landslide, and in caring for him, she’d been forced to ration their food and seek a governess post again. Unfortunately, no one was willing to hire a countess who had scandalously abandoned her wealthy husband.

Those torturous months had hardened Isabella. She survived as best she could, but like a slow-festering wound, the Farringtons’ poverty became intolerable and that destitution compelled her to make a change.

“You must return to Draven,” her weakened father begged. “Since he obviously has no intentions of divorcing you, he is the only one who can help us now.”

After her cousin, Fiona, offered to take in her disabled father temporarily, Isabella finally agreed. But she decided that she would return to Draven armed with a plan. She couldn’t afford proper medical care for her father, but if she became the mother of a genuine Winthrop heir, she would obtain indefinite financial security. Having Draven’s child meant that her husband—with his instability and wrath—wouldn’t be able to toss her aside so easily.

There is only one problem,
Isabella thought as the carriage hitched a curve. Considering Draven’s refusal to have children, she must become accidentally impregnated in the throes of passion.

The driver opened the door and as he held out his hand, an unexplained force propelled her into the thick fog. The portly driver, who had informed Isabella that he would go no farther than Dunwich, heaved her portmanteau to the ground. After he resumed his seat at the box, he threw her an empathetic look and sent the horses off with a snap of his whip.

The carriage streamed away and she received a shower of mud from its rear wheels.

“Of all the damnable luck!” It felt liberating to swear in the solitude of the empty street. She yanked a handkerchief from her reticule and wiped the mud from her face.

Glancing around, she wondered if Draven had received the letter she sent three weeks ago. If he had, where was his carriage?

Isabella’s agitation escalated as the storm broke. Seeking shelter from the rain beneath the station’s portico, she waited and waited. When there was still no sign of the Winthrop coach, she tugged on the brim of her bonnet and hurried inside. The main room stood as silent as a graveyard at midnight and contained no one except a man behind a counter.

Shivering, she took a step forward. “Good evening, sir. Do you have a driver available to take me to the Winthrop estate?”

The elderly man leaned forward. “Perhaps. May I ask who you are, madam? I know everyone in this small village.”

“I’m Isabella Far . . . I mean, I am Countess Winthrop.” She hadn’t used her married title in such a long time. The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

“You don’t look like a countess,” the spindly clerk said as he eyed her disheveled appearance.

“For heaven’s sake! Would any woman in her right mind claim to be married to the volatile Earl of Dunwich if she were not?”

“No,” he conceded.

She forced an anxious lump down her throat. “Sir, if you please. I’ve been traveling all day from London. Do you or do you not have a driver available?”

“On this miserable night, your ladyship? It’s nearly nine o’clock in the evening and you have no lady’s maid to accompany you.”

Isabella gripped her reticule. “Regardless, that is my request.”

Concern clouded the man’s pale eyes. “There is a driver available, but I wish you would wait ’til morning, m’lady. The roads haven’t been safe to travel at night.” He leaned even closer and she held her breath to avoid his stale odor.

“Not safe?” she asked.

“Nay. A wolf has been spotted in the forest.”

“That’s impossible! There are no native wolves left in England.”

“Not an ordinary wolf. A
werewolf
,” he said, his voice catching.

She looked at him as if he’d just sprouted wings. Werewolves were the stuff of dark fairy tales and she liked to think she was too old to believe in them now. Determined to keep to the schedule she’d penned in her letter she said, “I cannot wait until morning.”

“Very well, your ladyship. Sebastian, ready the coach,” the man cried over his shoulder.

While Isabella purchased a ticket of passage, a balding man wobbled past her to gather her luggage. She bid the clerk a hasty good night, followed the slow-paced Sebastian, and climbed into the carriage with exasperation on her lips.

The team of horses took off at full gallop. As the animals heaved the coach up the cliffside road, Isabella’s fingers quivered around the hand strap. A clap of thunder roared over the coastal waters of Suffolk and her nerves propelled themselves to an unprecedented level.

Take a damper!
She traced the outline of the amulet before securing her hands in her lap. If she hoped to face Draven with any sense of dignity she must try and order herself.

She peered out the window as the carriage charged forward at breakneck speed. When a pair of stone columns topped by ominous-looking gryphons streamed by, she realized she had entered Winthrop property. The thought drew Draven’s smoldering stare that much closer.

Remembering her plan to seduce her estranged husband, she unclasped the top buttons of her dress and shimmied her ample cleavage upward—as she had seen a disreputable woman do once. She was wholly uncomfortable with being a Jezebel, but she was willing to do it in the name of seduction. And what better opportunity to seduce Draven than on the night they were reunited?

The carriage rattled on and the oppressive house Isabella had spent but a short while in came into view. It looked more eerie than she remembered. The rambling structure loomed over a bevy of turbulent waves like an abandoned lighthouse. At the very apex of Thorncliff Towers, thick stones formed individual thorn-covered spires, undoubtedly inspiring the estate’s name. The estate seemed to scrutinize the coastal town of Dunwich with cold insurgency while its shadowy, unkempt grounds coaxed Isabella’s neck hair to stand on edge.

The coach sped over a final grade like an angry black raven. Still rumbling violently, it entered a courtyard bordered by clipped hedges where it rolled to a halt.

The smell of brine filled her nostrils as the driver opened the door. She stood and craned her head forward in order to take in the sheer size of the house. Her upward gaze skimmed the pattern of stones and came to rest on a window in the house’s south turret. Lightning flashed and though her vision was obscured by the downpour, she could have sworn she saw a male figure watching her from the window. The jaunt of the man’s head and the broadness of his shoulders were familiar but as quickly as the lightning flashed, the figure disappeared.

Plagued by a prickling of nerves, she accepted the driver’s hand and forced herself to make contact with the ground. Her half boots sunk into the muddy earth.

“Bloody rain!” She rather enjoyed spewing her second profanity of the day.

Trudging through the mud, Isabella made her way to the marble-coated portico where she located the bell pull. The squall hissed angrily behind her. She gave the cord a tug and waited. The latch flipped over and the portal creaked open to reveal a grim and pervading darkness.