Tempting the Wolf (10 page)

“Do I—” he began, then paused. Inside his idiot’s mask, his mouth remained open for a moment. Though his gait only became marginally smoother, she felt the change in the quiver of her muscles—that lessening of tension, that fluidity of step. “Do I know you?”

” ‘Tis difficult to say,” she countered. “Are you acquainted with many swans?”

He laughed, sounding young and free despite the gray hair she could see above his collar. “What a grand ball this is.” He twirled her about a elderly couple. She drew her elbow breathlessly against herself, lest she brush them.

It seemed an eternity before the waltz came to an end.

“My lady.” Her partner bowed. “Another dance?”

But she shook her head. Weakness. Her refusal was a weakness, but she would allow it this once. “I fear I’ve not your energy,” she said and it was true. Already she felt drained, though he was unaware of the exchange, oblivious to the fact that his step was lighter, his movements quicker.

“Then I shall fetch you some refreshment to replenish you,” he said. “Wait here.”

She nodded simply, watched him go, and turning, faded into the crowd. The balcony doors were flung wide. She headed for them, focusing hard, doing her best to keep from touching the other revelers.

“Good eventide.”

She turned toward the speaker.

He wore a wolf’s mask and dark breeches. She forced herself to halt, to give him a brief nod. “Hello.”

“Might I beg a dance?” His voice was slightly slurred behind the mask. Probably drunk. Safer then. Alcohol masked reality. She considered refusing, but he was already reaching for her. She braced herself. Their hands met, but there was no pain. Nothing. Yet perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps there was a shiver of feeling she could not quite identify. She raised her eyes to his as he swept her across the floor.

Her feet felt light. Her head the same. Why? “Do I know you?” she asked.

“That may well depend,” he said. The conversation was strangely reminiscent of the one only moments earlier, but the feelings were entirely different, new and fresh and breathtaking. He leaned slightly closer. “On whether you are speaking biblically or otherwise.”

She stumbled, but his arm was strong against her back, bearing her up. They floated past another pair, standing still in a bright blur of color.

“What did you say?”

“I but wonder if you mean basically, or on a deeper level,” he said.

She found herself staring into his face, but his mask hid all except his eyes, which gleamed down at her, as bright and feral as a creature of the night’s.

“The Irish mongrel,” she whispered.

“Hound,” he corrected and gave her the slightest tilt of his head. The crowd spun past.

Anger spurred through her. She had made herself clear. She had no wish to see him. No wish to touch or be touched, yet here he was, with his arm laid with heart pounding intimacy against her back. She could not bear it. Dare not stand for it. “I thought perchance you had returned to the caves of your homeland?” she murmured.

“I beg your pardon.”

“I thought you had returned by cart to your homeland,” she said, gaze hard, lest he think her naive. Lest he think her a fool.

His eyes laughed. “I had pressing business here,” he said.

“Indeed?”

“Aye,” he said and pulled her a half an inch closer, so that his hip brushed hers.

She fought the emotions, held back the fear. “Then you must surely get straight to your task,” she said. “I’ve no wish to hold you here against your will.”

He grinned behind the mask. She could feel it in her soul.

“There is na reason to fear me, lass.”

“Fear you?” She almost pulled away, almost stumbled to a halt, but he kept her moving, kept her lost in the haunting sway of their bodies.

“I admit I am na one of the tame lap dogs what people your world, but I will na harm ye.”

“My good sir…” She caught his eyes in a steady hold. “I am sorry,” she said.

“And for what might ye apologize, lass?”

“For allowing you to believe I have some sort of interest in you.”

His steps never faltered. His blue-fire gaze held hers in an entrancing blaze. “Ye mean to say ye dunna?”

“I most certainly do not,” she said. “And for that you have my deepest apologies, for you are probably not so… rustic as you seem.”

“Rustic,” he said and twirled her in a breathtaking arc.

It took a moment before her world settled back into place, but she resolutely found her voice. “If the truth be told, I am considering Lord Bentley’s suit.”

“Lord Bentley,” he said. His tone was level, but perhaps if she listened carefully, she could hear the hint of a growl.

“His grace has honored me by asking for my hand in marriage.”

They spun again, wildly, so that her soul seemed to quiver, throwing them closer still.

“The title “his grace’ implies that he is a duke,” she told him, her tone measured, as if she spoke to a wayward bumpkin, and not a knight—a knight with sapphire eyes that seemed to see through her burning skin and into her very soul. “The highest rank of the British peerage.”

“Does it indeed, lassie?” His voice was almost a caress. The sound shivered across her skin.

“Yes,” she said and blinked as she stared up at him. “So tell me, Sir O’Banyon, of your pedigree.”

He never missed a step. His hand was firm on hers, his movements as graceful as a hunting beast’s. “Me mum was a weaver.”

She almost tripped. “A weaver,” she said.

“Aye.”

She did not glance about, but she knew there was not another in this posh assemblage who would admit such lowly antecedents. “And your father?”

His gaze never wavered. It felt like loving fingertips against her face, as if he knew the truth and cherished her anyway. She clawed back the weakling feelings he engendered, straightened her back.

“And what of your sire, sir?” she asked again. “You did know him, didn’t you?”

They spun again. She tightened her hand against his shoulder to keep from flying into dark oblivion.

“I believe he was in your king’s army.”

“You believe?”

“He died,” he said, “before I was birthed.”

“Oh.” She felt a stab of pain near her heart, but she would protect her own, survive, conquer. “I am sorry.”

“That he died, or that ye insulted me mum?”

“I did not mean to—”

“Aye, ye did,” he said. “And ye did na yet ken the half of it. The truth is, she killed him when I was yet in her womb.”

She stumbled violently, her throat tight with tension. “What?”

He drew her back up. The taut muscles of his shoulder shifted rhythmically beneath her grip.

“To me own mind, death seems too mild a response for the rape of a wee lass,” he said. “But mayhap I be out of fashion.”

Fayette whimpered, but Antoinette held herself perfectly straight. “I did not—”

“She and me aunties nurtured me,” he continued.

She could not help but wince, but she was masked, she was gloved. He would not know. “Alone?”

“They were a lively trio and doted on me something fierce.”

O’Banyon as a child, not hiding beneath a fetid fallen log, not quivering in a hole. But happy. Loved. Carefree. Laughing in that way that made the world shine with joy. Smiling as though he knew her secrets and did not care.

” ‘Twas a hardship for them to be sure,” he said. “She died when I was but four and ten.” His hand held hers just so. His body moved with fluid grace, his oaken thighs brushing hers, sparking midnight feelings. “I thought her as bonny as a wild rose till the day I put her in the ground with her wee cross upon her breast.”

The girl inside the countess cried, unashamed and unabashed. The woman said nothing.
Could
say nothing.

“As bonny as ye mayhap,” he added, tilting his head a bit.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, though she did not know how the words escaped. They should have been kept behind her careful mask. Should have been safe in Fayette’s trembling hands.

His gaze caressed her. His hands held her steady. “Verra well, lass. If ye tell me of yer childhood.”

She felt herself blanch. Felt her knees tremble, but she moved as she should, as she’d been taught, like a princess.
For God’s sake, girl, are you a washer woman or an heiress
? The old man’s voice snarled harsh and cold in her memory.

“She was a lady in waiting in the French court,” she lied. “The queen’s cousin by marriage.”

“
A
beauty to challenge all the flowers in Paris?” he asked.

Beautiful and kind and so long gone. She had left her only daughter at too tender an age.
Take care of my Faye
, she had whispered to her grieving husband. But he had failed, succumbing to fever and sorrow just days later. “Not particularly,” she lied. “The queen did not care to be outshone.”

“What was her name?”

“Her name?” She remembered the lessons, of course. Remembered the old man’s every word as if her very life depended on it. But it yet hurt to tell the lies she’d been taught. To defile the fragile memories. “Lady Reneire.” Fayette shook her head, denying the lie.

“And her given name?”

“Beatrice.”

“A foine name,” he said. “And it ‘twas she who named ye Antoinette?”

No
. “Of course.”

He was watching her. Too close. Too hot. Too intimate. “There are times when it suits ye,” he said. “But there are times when ye seem entirely different, like a wee, small—”

She jerked out of his arms and stumbled to a halt, bereft at the loss of his hand in hers. The room spun around her.

“Lass?”

The door. Where was the door?

O’Banyon pulled off his mask and touched her arm. Feelings sparked like lightning through her. She jerked away.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Ye hurt.”

She stared at him, heart pounding. “What?”

“What troubles ye, love?” He stood very close, almost touching, but not quite, and yet she could feel his nearness like a warm caress. “Tell me. I shall make it better if ever I can.”

She shook her head and backed away. “You can’t,” she rasped.

“What is it?”

“I need…” Touch. Warmth. Love. An image sparked in her mind, a picture of them together, skin to skin, heart to heart. He was laughing as if the world were not terror and darkness, as if he could cast her life in happy sunlight simply by holding her in his arms. The sound of his laughter rumbled through her system like silver magic. But it was not real. She trembled, breathing hard.

“Come.” He drew her toward the doors. Air wafted across her cheeks, but her arm burned beneath his hand. “Sit.”

She felt a bench against her legs and did as commanded.

“Remain here. I shall return in a moment.”

She nodded. He dropped his mask beside her and turned away, and yet, from the back, he looked no less the wolf, his tawny hair agleam in the light of a thousand lanterns.

There was something there. Something different. Maybe as different as she. Maybe this time she could trust. Maybe…

But inside Fayette sobbed, her voice broken, her heart bruised.

Antoinette forced herself to stand, to move quietly toward the door, toward safety.

She was not a fool. She would not trust. Not now. Not ever.

The crowds seemed to crush in on her, but she hurried through, holding her skirts aloft, barely breathing, barely seeing.

“My lady.”

Her vision cleared. Whitford stood before her, his ruined face creased with worry.

“Take me home,” she whispered, and just managed to pull herself inside the safe confines of her carriage.

They were coming for her.

Fayette shivered, wriggling deeper into the swamp. Fetid smells wrinkled her nostrils. The mud was cold, numbing her arms, paralyzing her legs. Something slithered against her side. She almost screamed. Almost cried out. But there were worse things than wriggly creatures in dark holes. Far worse.

Voices. She could hear them. Men’s voices, deep and sinister, coming for her, whispering. Lies.

She hadn’t meant to harm the boy. He had fallen. That was all.

Aye, he’d said cruel things. Nasty things. Unforgivable things. But—“There she is.”

The light shone in her eyes, blinding her, freezing her.

“Non!”

Antoinette awoke with a start.

Her breath rattled in the cavernous bedchamber. Her hands were wet and trembling, gripping fast to the bed linens. Her lungs felt tight, as if she were drowning.

Men. Lanterns swaying against the midnight darkness. Coming for her.

A strangling noise issued from her throat. She cowered against her pillows.

They were soft against her back, soft and warm, and it was that sensation, that reminder of safety that finally eased the tension from her throat.

All was well. She scanned the space between herself and the window. A score of plants cluttered the room, cascading from her wardrobe, climbing up her bed frame. She drew a deep breath of the earthy scent of life, but the room seemed hot and close.

She pulled the linens aside. They tangled about her legs, pulling her down, dragging her under, but she was coherent now. Awake. Safe.