Beauty and the Wolf (18 page)

I
sabella had promised Draven that she would return before the next full moon—to tell him whether she would resume living with him or not. In the interim, she would learn if she was with child.

Waiting those three, long weeks was agony for Draven. He passed the time as impatiently as a child forced to attend the symphony. And he had tortured himself with various scenarios.

Should he tell Isabella everything? Or should he remain silent about what he had learned from the Gypsy woman?

If only he could get his hands on that god-damned, Egyptian bracelet. But that was impossible. The bloody piece of jewelry was probably sitting in the vast Egyptian desert, buried beneath the shifting sands.

Knowing that the next full moon was drawing near, Draven neither slept nor ate. Rather, he constantly thought of the knowledge Marga Yavidovich had given him. And that evilness wasn’t something he could dispel unless he agreed to make the ultimate sacrifice. Isabella would be repulsed to know that the Gypsy woman believed it was she who would end his life before turning the gun on herself.

No, Draven decided. Isabella must never know these things.

Almost three weeks after Marga Yavidovich’s appearance, Rogers announced another visitor at Thorncliff Towers. Draven, annoyed that his morning sleep had been interrupted, responded to the valet in a groggy voice. “Whoever this unexpected visitor is, he or she must wait for me to dress. I shall receive them in the music room.”

“The music room, sir?” Rogers asked.

“That’s what I said, damn it!” Although he wouldn’t admit it, Draven didn’t wish to relive his encounter with Marga in the drawing room. He proceeded to pry himself out of bed and a quarter of an hour later, he greeted a kindly faced man sitting on the pianoforte bench.

“I’m sorry to have you wait,” Draven mumbled as he covered the length of the room. “I am afraid I was awake all night.”

“It’s quite all right.” The stranger spoke amiably, but irritation shone in his gray eyes.

“You are . . . ?” Draven asked.

“Benjamin Rayburn.” The gentleman stood and the two men exchanged handshakes.

“Please be seated,” Draven offered.

While Rayburn resumed his place on the bench, his tufted eyebrows and bushy mustache twitched. After he cleared his throat, he went on to explain that he was a friend of the Farrington family. He also claimed that he’d sent Harris Farrington correspondence ten days ago to arrange a visit.

“I had hoped to see both Sir Harris and your wife.” Agitation surfaced in Rayburn’s tone.

Draven strode to the picture window and threw back the curtains. He stared at the mist that rolled along the ground toward the gazebo. “I’m afraid that your timing leaves much to be desired, Mr. Rayburn. Lady Winthrop and her father are in London. She intended to seek medical help for Sir Harris.”

“I don’t understand. Is Harris sick?”

“Let’s just say that he has not been himself lately. Perhaps that is why he forgot about his appointment with you.”

“I see.” Rayburn tugged on the points of his vest. “And when will Lady Winthrop be returning?”

“Tomorrow,” Draven said, pivoting to face his visitor. “If you wish, you may stay the night as my guest.”

“No, thank you. I must return to London.”

“Shall I give my wife a message from you?”

“Yes,” Rayburn replied. “The most important thing I wish to relay to Lady Winthrop is that her uncle, Morton Farrington, has never been condemned to Fleet’s debtors’ prison.”

With that, Rayburn rose and handed Draven a business card. “Please have your wife contact me at her earliest convenience.”

Claiming that he preferred to show himself out, Draven’s visitor disappeared from the room with a quick gait.

Never been condemned to Fleet’s?
Draven mulled the words over in his mind. Now his curiosity was completely aroused. And though he dreaded telling Isabella, he decided she must know the discrepancy in her father’s story.

Relief rippled through Draven as Tuesday arrived. He picked at his nuncheon then stepped outside to meet his wife’s coach. Standing by the enormous front doors with his hands clasped behind his back, he realized that staying in that spot wouldn’t make her coach appear any earlier. He decided to pay a visit to his father’s gravesite.

Encased by a low, wrought-iron fence, the family cemetery was located to the east of the house over a small knoll. Draven tugged his frockcoat lapels up against the sharp autumn breeze. He took the five-minute walk to the small graveyard under dreary, overcast weather that provided a perfect atmosphere for his visit.

The yard contained only eight honorary plots because it was reserved for blue-blooded Winthrops—the first of which found their resting place here as early as 1596. Draven knew that if his illegitimate birthright were discovered, he would never be buried here.

The familiar bitterness over his Gypsy heritage resurfaced. He stepped lightly among the headstones, and when he reached his father’s plot, he read the inscription he’d seen a thousand times before.

“ ‘Devoted,’ my foot,” Draven murmured under his breath.

Helena would have placed any words on the headstone if those words portrayed her marriage in a good light. But he faced a problem graver than Helena’s insecurities. Could he prevent the woman he loved beyond all reason from being responsible for his death? If he succeeded in that, he would remain a wolf, forced to snatch away innocent lives while driving Isabella away in the process.

Either resolution seemed heartbreakingly final.

Draven raised his head at the sound of wheels crunching over gravel. Marching to the other side of the grounds, he watched the estate’s post chaise rock to a stop in the courtyard. Rogers clattered down from the bench and approached him with a troubled look.

“Yer lordship, Lady Winthrop did not arrive on the carriage from London. Apparently she has decided to stay in London.”

“God’s balls!” Draven began to rage.

Rogers laughed, his eyes twinkling.

He shook his head. “Not funny, you old coot.”

The valet hastened back to the post chaise and opened the door. Draven drew in a breath as Isabella alighted. His wife’s pretty face appeared from beneath a fashionable, lavender bonnet. He had missed everything about her including the charming way her auburn hair framed her luminescent skin and how finely etched her small nose was. She was his whole world and his heart pounded.

When their eyes connected for the first time in three weeks, he smiled. “My Bella.”

Isabella cast her eyes downward.

Draven’s nerves skittered.
What is her decision?

“How was your journey?” he asked as lightly as he could.

She frowned. “Bumpy and uncomfortable, as always. But it’s no matter.”

“Where is your father?”

“He informed me that he won’t be returning here since my amulet has been found.” Isabella took his outstretched hand. “Our conversation was horrible.”

He wanted to console her but he didn’t know how. “Shall we take a stroll?”

She nodded stiffly. “I need some fresh air.”

“What exactly did your father say?” he asked as she walked beside him, clutching her fur-trimmed muffler.

“He denied taking the amulet. He suggested that you had it all along—so that you might return it and appear a hero. I rebuked your involvement and there was a tension between us one could cut with a knife.”

Draven scowled. “Harris can create a million, strange explanations to cover up what he did, but I know what I saw, Isabella. I’m convinced he’s playing mind games with you, but I’m not sure why. Where is your amulet now?”

“Safely concealed in the lining of my portmanteau.”

“Excellent,” he said.

Isabella’s eyes remained glued to the ground. “I arranged for him to stay with my cousin again.” She paused. “I’m just grateful to see you.”

Draven’s insides flamed.

They strolled as Isabella chattered on about her appointment with Dr. Van Sant. She told him that the doctor described amnesia as a very difficult condition to treat. Besides the fact that its victims don’t realize there are gaps in their memory, the ability to recall things needed to be restored on its own.

The garden’s dry leaves snapped beneath their feet. Barren and brown, the desolate space seemed to want for a ray of sunshine—just like Isabella. Draven sat beside her on the stone bench amid an awkward silence.

“No doubt your father hates me,” he said.

“He doesn’t trust you.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “Do you trust me?”

“I’ve been doing nothing but thinking. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to stay in London.” Torment swept over her face. “I grew incredibly hot, as if I had a fever, yet I didn’t. The doctors said it wasn’t illness, but it felt like a crippling disease. My bones ached. My mouth went dry. I lay in bed for days.”

“Are you . . . with child?” Draven struggled to get the words out.

“No.” Her face betrayed a host of emotions. “Pregnancy wasn’t making me sick, but I felt deathly ill. Strangely enough, I started to feel better as I prepared to return here,” Isabella said.

It’s the power of the Egyptian amulet at work
.

She gazed at him with the innocence of a child. “I must tell you where I stand.”

He held his breath.

“People may think me mad, Draven, but I want to be with you.” Tears glazed her golden eyes. “Monster or not, I know another side of you. I know you are capable of gentleness—and love. And we shall fight this together.”

Relief brought Draven’s shoulders crashing forward. He drew her to him. His soul sang with unbound happiness as he tried to push aside the fact that she was in danger being here. “I’ve missed you terribly. I could think of nothing but you.”

Isabella sighed into the fabric of his coat. “You look as though you haven’t slept at all.”

“I haven’t,” he admitted.

“Is there something else you want to tell me?”

“A gentleman by the name of Benjamin Rayburn arrived here at Thorncliff Towers yesterday.” He held her at arm’s length so he could see her face. “The man was cordial, but he seemed put off that your father wasn’t here. He claimed that your father was expecting him.”

“That’s very odd.” Isabella’s face twisted up. “My father never said anything about expecting a visitor. Why didn’t Uncle Ben stay until we returned?”

“I’m not sure. But he handed me his calling card. I’m to give it to you, not your father.”

She took the card from Draven. “I shall contact him immediately. Did he say anything else?”

Draven lowered his voice. “He told me that your uncle Morton is not at Fleet’s. In fact, he’s never been sentenced to serve time there.”

“But that’s what Papa told me.” Confusion clouded Isabella’s eyes.

“Yes, I know.”

“I don’t understand,” she said in a trembling voice. “What does this mean?”

“It means that we must be extremely careful about whom we trust from this point on.”

A droplet spilled down her cheeks and Draven caught it with the tip of his finger. He planted a gentle kiss on her cheek in replacement.

When Isabella glanced about the bare garden, he followed her stare. “This is the spot where we met the night my mother was poisoned,” he said. “Do you remember that frigid evening?”

Isabella nodded with nostalgia. “We huddled on this bench and stared up at the moon.”

He tugged her face toward him. “It was also the night I scared you.”

“I remember—all too vividly.” She blushed.

“I will never do that again, Bella.” He raised a hand to the softness of her cheeks. “Your decision to support me makes me very happy. And I want to show you how much. Will you lie with me again?”

Her expression turned serious. “I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then come to me after supper. I’ll wait up for you, and the door will be unlocked. And wear nothing beneath your nightgown.”

She pressed her fingertip to his lips. “Until tonight.”

F
or Isabella, making the decision to return to Draven hadn’t been difficult. It was as if she’d had no choice.

She had become devastatingly ill while she was away. She had lain in bed with a raging fever and her thoughts had become hazy, confused. In her weakened state, her courses came and went, confirming that she was not with child.

When she learned the news, she had mixed feelings. It was true that she’d been desperate to create a family with Draven. But now, of course, they had much to sort out. Until they did, she decided that their lovemaking must still take place under the protection of a sheath.

Seeing Draven again made her wonder if having a child was actually in her destiny.
Maybe God has other plans for me, plans that involve helping him.

Isabella traveled down the darkened hall and up to the fourth floor. When she arrived in front of Draven’s bedchamber doors, her stomach tightened. She tried the doorknob. It slipped open in her hands and she stepped into the sitting room.

At first she didn’t see Draven.
He must be in bed before a fire.
She followed the flickering shadow of the hearth but found the bed empty.

“Bella.”

She wheeled around at the sound of his voice.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Draven was sitting casually in an overstuffed chair beneath the window. Bare-chested, he sat with one leg dangling freely over the side of the chair, his untied trousers tight against his manhood. As he lounged there in that provocative position, he appeared more sexually potent and delicious-looking than any man she’d ever seen. Isabella’s eyes roamed over his chiseled torso and his massive shoulders. He resembled an ancient carved statue, the most perfect specimen of a human male she’d ever seen. Her heart thundered.

He waved her closer. “I left the door unlocked as promised. Did you do as I asked? Did you wear nothing beneath your shift?”

She took a step backward and removed her garment so that he might have his answer.

He sucked in a breath. “Now take down your hair.”

In response, she removed a pin from her chignon. In a single tumble, her reddish-brown curls spilled over her shoulders and bounced between her bare breasts.

Draven gasped. “You’re stunning.”

Isabella started to speak, but he stopped her by putting one finger to his closed lips.

“Join me, my sweet.” He extended his arms forward.

She moved to him. As she clasped his hands, her palms became damp against the heat of his body. Inhaling his musky fragrance, she licked her lips and willed herself to shut out the violence he’d shown her the first time she had shared his bed.

“You have blossomed into an amazing woman in your time here, my Bella. A woman strong enough to control her own destiny. I want you to pleasure yourself before I take you,” he said hoarsely. “Straddle my thigh and move yourself against it.”

Trembling, she separated her legs and mounted him. Draven took one of her hands and cradled the back of her neck with the other. He stared at her with smoldering admiration while her mouth hovered above his. Exhaling, his warm breath rose to greet her face and before she knew it, he was catching her lips with fiery kisses—kisses that made it nearly impossible for her to breathe.

“I dreamt of you every night while you were away,” he rasped as an undeniable urgency exploded between them.

His tongue darted in and out of Isabella’s mouth, exciting her. Fulfilling her. With his mouth sealed over hers, he traced the outline of her jaw before his touch moved along her bent neck to the shadowed spot between her breasts.

“Move your cunny in small circles against my leg,” he urged between kisses.

She had never pleasured herself before and wasn’t sure what to do. Draven shifted his sinewy thigh upward so that she could rotate her sensitive core against its solidness. The friction intensified against her depths, tantalizing and dampening them. She gyrated slowly at first, then faster. In the meantime, Draven continued to catch her mouth with hot kisses. He teased her nipples to a high charge, causing low moans to escape from somewhere deep inside her throat. As the sounds filtered into the air, Draven’s desire flamed.

“Make yourself come,” he coaxed her.

Isabella writhed against the strength of his leg while he kneaded her buttocks. Her body began to tremble and she wanted to scream at the dizzying sensation. When her center stopped pulsating, Draven delved his fingers beneath her to gather her wetness. He smiled.

“Now it’s my turn.” He guided her hand into his breeches. She released his throbbing shaft and this time she knew what to do. She boldly tightened and released her grasp up and down the length of his sex, making it as solid as iron.

“Are you ready?” he whispered gruffly into her neck.

“Yes.” She was literally aching for the feel of him inside of her. She stood briefly so that she could tug off his breeches with two firm jerks. He sat and pulled her to him.

“I want you to use a sheath,” she whispered.

Disappointment flickered over his face, but he did as she asked. Once he had secured the pigskin over his penis by tying its ribbons, Draven didn’t waste another minute. He grabbed her hips, parted her legs, and urged her body on top of him. While she straddled his shaft slick with want, she gripped the wings of the armchair on either side of his head. Rocking up and down with heightened rapture, her breasts swung before him. Draven gathered them together in one fist. He took them in his mouth and suckled them fiercely until they turned dark.

Empowerment swelled inside Isabella as she realized she liked being above Draven, claiming the husband many said was mad and unfeeling. She knew him in a way no one else did and she wanted to protect him, love him, and cure him as only a wife could do.

Reveling in the titillating pressure she’d built up by being above him, her eyes fluttered shut and another moan of ecstasy filled the air. The pressure was so intense that she bit her lip to prevent herself from screeching.

Draven too, grunted with passion as he buried his face in the crevice between her breasts. He pressed his hands to her hips and kept them captive over his stiffness.

There!
The petals of her core began to pulsate again as he rocked his hips upward. The rhythm escalated and the vibration seemed to last forever. Draven came too. His body shuddered before he withdrew from her. But an instant later, his pleasurable expression vanished.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Bloody hell,” he cried. “The sheath broke!”

Isabella flew into a panic. “My God—”

“I . . . don’t know what to say.” Draven avoided her gaze.

Putting a trembling hand over her mouth, she broke down.

“Please don’t cry.” He took her hands in his.

She slumped against him, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Shhh.” He tried to comfort her by stroking her hair. “Isabella, please don’t despair. Everything will be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I can’t tell the future, but I know how I feel at the moment. You are a ray of sunshine that slices through my world of darkness. Not only have you saved me from my solitary existence, but you’ve shown me that there were things about me—even before I was struck with this curse—that needed changing. And I can never thank you enough. You are an extraordinary person through and through, and when we have a child, that child can be nothing but good as well.”

Isabella forced a lump down her throat. “I never believed in curses, until I met you. What if I give birth to a boy, a boy born with your hideous curse?”

Draven looked at Isabella and his heart raced. Her pink cheeks glowed like an enchanting Christmas candle and her auburn hair shone like flowing nectar. She was beyond beautiful, yet her eyes housed a silent torment. He loved her more than anything, but he knew he was putting her through hell.

He’d known about Tousret’s curse and had been selfish to marry her in the first place.
But no more.
An epiphany erupted inside him and suddenly he knew what it meant to be compassionate. To be selfless. To love unconditionally. He must love someone else more than he loved himself. And that person was Isabella.

Pulling on his breeches, Draven directed her to sit on the edge of the bed. While she tugged on her nightgown, his stomach clenched. He was going to have to tell her that she was in danger here and he must send her away. “Bella, this is the last time we will be together for a while.”

She frowned as his words came out in a rush. “What did you say?”

“My next request may appear to have come out of nowhere, but I hope it’s something you’ll agree to.”

“A request? Agree to?” she echoed. “I don’t understand.”

“Hear me out,” Draven pleaded. “You must leave this place.”

“Leave? What are you talking about? We just made love—”

“Try and understand.”

“If you are worried about me being pregnant, please don’t,” she said. “We will deal with it the best way we know how.”

“It’s not that.”

Her eyes widened with confusion.

“It’s imperative that we part ways,” he repeated.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You owe me a better explanation than that, Draven.”

“This place holds nothing but danger for you,” he said. “You must go somewhere and wait for me. Until I can figure things out more clearly.”

“Go without you? You’re scaring me.”

“I don’t mean to scare you.” Leaning in, he gently reached for her hand.

“But I just came back. Why did you let me return?”

“I didn’t come to the decision until right now. When I realized the hell I was putting you through.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t buy that explanation. Did something happen while I was away?”

“No.”

She wriggled her hand free from his grasp. “It must have. Tell me what happened.”

He shook his head and turned his gaze toward the fire.

“After all we’ve been through, I deserve to know,” Isabella insisted.

She was right. But he must protect her at all costs. “It’s nothing I can speak of. Just promise me you’ll leave this house at once. Resume your governess position, if that is what makes you happy.”

“You expect me to leave you, but you won’t tell me why?”

Anger began to pulsate in Draven’s veins. “Damn it, woman!” he growled. “What part of this don’t you understand? If you stay here at Thorncliff Towers, you’ll surely die.”

Tears continued to flow over Isabella’s cheeks. “You’re just saying that to frighten me away.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I won’t do it.”

His blood boiled and his hands shook. He was losing control. And though he tried to tear himself away from her, his wrath kept him glued to the bed. Isabella’s eyes filled with fear as he grabbed her elbows roughly and bit down on one of her shoulders.
Perhaps that will convince her to leave.
She screeched and tried to pull away from him. He hated himself in that moment, just as he hated himself for killing the Gypsy girl.

Isabella screamed again. She tried to slide past him—which made him grab hold of her more tightly. The action smeared her blood on his hand, but as she wriggled free, Isabella swatted it down before the smell could tempt him. Then she ran from the room.

In a mad fury, Draven thrust the window open and heaved himself into the frosty night air. To satiate the urge he had to run, he scaled the outer wall of the house and flew across the headland in his human form. And as his pace increased, his heart thudded with the knowledge that his love for Isabella and her love for him were the cruelest curses of all.