Tempting the Wolf (4 page)

She was being ridiculous, of course. He was only a man. An attractive man, yes. A man with a powerful allure. But a man nevertheless and surely not one from whom to flee like a harried fishwife. But she had done just that. Had left the Regent’s ball with all due haste. And why?

She had known many men. Had been desired by more than a few. Had outsmarted all and lived to tell about it. Well, no, not to tell about it. The Countess of Colline, Antoinette Desbonnet, Petite Fayette, was not so foolish, no matter which name she went by. Not any longer, for she could not afford the price.

The night was dark and still outside the beveled windows of her carriage. Mists roiled silently up from the lowlands, casting eerie swathes of ragged silver about her conveyance. She rode in a two-wheeled Eddings brougham, not as elegant as the phaeton she’d left at home, but costly and luxurious nevertheless, for she was wealthy. She was titled. She was beautiful. Indeed, maybe she was even liked in a manner of speaking. The way one likes thorned roses and feral cats—from a distance. Always from a distance. Always outside the circle. Outside the light. Secrets well hidden.

Cold memories crowded in. Shivering, her grubby fingers digging hard into dank, rotting wood. She remained hidden, not moving, not making the slightest sound. Barely breathing. They were coming, and they hated her with a passion she could not comprehend.

The carriage lurched violently beneath her. She stifled a scream, but no one leapt forth to drag her from her hidey hole. Beneath her, the brougham slowed to a shuddering halt, and with that motion, her wits returned.

She was neither small, nor hungry, nor alone. She was the white countess, serene and wealthy and aloof.

By the time her driver reached her door, she was composed.

“My lady.” Whitford jerked an ungainly bow. “My apologies. I fear there has been a mishap.”

She watched him in silence. The shifting light of the lanterns were not kind to him. His mouth was misshapen, pulled tight at the left corner, making his expression look like an evil leer. But she knew evil. Had long since made its acquaintance and found that it did not wear such an obvious facade.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“A log—” His face was pale, his head lopsided. He jerked spasmodically as though struck.

She waited. The spasm would pass.

“There was a log across the road, my lady,” he said. “I did not see it. We were going too fast. I fear…” Tears. Dammit all. There were tears in his perfect, amber eyes. Antoinette tightened her fists against the seat and raised her chin to lofty uncaring.

“Can you shift the barrier?” she asked.

He nodded. A tear dripped down the battlefield of his face. He swiped it away with the back of his hand. She clenched her teeth, waiting for his next words.

“But Ebony…” He paused, broken.

“The gelding,” she said. She did not name her beasts. But sometimes others did. Others who could afford that luxury.

“Yes. I am sorry, my lady.” Another tear. He straightened his misshapen back and let the tear roll down his face. “The gelding, I fear he may have broken his left fore.”

Her stomach cramped. Had she been in a crowd, she may have made a sound of impatient disapproval, but the effect would be wasted on Whit-ford. He knew things others did not. Sensed things best left undisturbed. ‘Twas one of several reasons she had hired him, and the only reason she sometimes wished she had not.

He stepped back as she exited the carriage. It was as black as sin outside, the moonlight shuttered beneath ragged clouds. But she had no quarrel with the darkness. ‘Twas her fellow man that worried her. She scanned the woods. They were naught but a vague abyss beyond the range of her senses, a black void where things unseen played at will. A tingle of apprehension crept up her spine.

“My lady,” Whitford said, ” ‘tis no place for you to tarry.”

“Nay,” she agreed, and turned, feeling the eerie sensations skitter up the length of her back.

Her footfalls sounded unnaturally loud against the muddy road. The gelding stood absolutely still, head high, muscles rigid against the pain.

But it was his fear that arrested her. She could feel it clouding the animal’s mind. He was broken, unable to run, and the woods were so near. Predators prowled there, waiting to pull him down. She felt his primitive thoughts as her own. He was an animal of flight, born for the open hillocks, and yet he did not turn his attention toward the dark forest that loomed beside him. Instead, he watched her, unblinking and trusting.

“Release him from the traces,” she ordered and pulled off a glove. The horse’s neck felt hot beneath her palm, but the pain was hotter, burning, stabbing.

“My lady.” Whitford’s voice was as broken as the steed when he shambled up behind her. “Perhaps if we press him he could yet get us to—”

“Release him,” she said and turning away, quickly pulled the soft leather back over her fingers. The gelding hobbled toward her, pulling the brougham, trying to follow, but Whit stopped him, murmuring soothing words as he tugged the reins from the terrets.

It was her fault. She stood staring into the woods. Her own idiotic fear had made her press too fast in the darkness. She’d made a mistake and others would pay.

A sound whispered in the woods. She turned toward it, breath held, but Whitford hobbled to her side, distracting her.

“You must return to the carriage, my lady. Tis not safe…” he began, but she interrupted.

“Keep the beast still.”

Whitford turned, saw the horse stumble toward them, and hurried to its side to halt its progress, but the hoofbeats did not cease. Indeed, they came on, muffled and steady in the darkness.

“Who goes there?” she called. Her voice trembled. She stiffened her spine, ashamed of her weakness. “Who—” she began again, but then she saw it, a pale apparition, bigger than life, bearing down on her from the tattered fog.

She stepped back, ready to flee, feeling the age-old terror grip her throat like calloused fingers.
I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean
—

“Me lady,” rumbled a voice from the darkness, “is aught amiss?”

She realized then that she had pressed her fist to her chest, as if to keep her heart from bursting. She lowered it slowly, grappling for courage. “Who comes?” she asked.

” ‘Tis Sir Banyon of the Celts,” came the answer from the darkness. When his steed took another step, she could almost make out his features, could almost believe he was harmless.

“Has there been a mishap, me lady?” he asked and rode into the shifting beams of her lantern.

The golden light caressed him, gilding his hair, shining in his azure eyes, as if the clouds had scuttled away from the moon to herald his approach, like a wayward angel come to earth.

But she had little use for angels. Indeed, she wanted nothing more than to be left alone. She glanced in the opposite direction, hoping for help from another front, but she was being ridiculous of course. Few would be as foolish as she. Few would hazard uncertain roads to flee from a golden-haired knight whose smile shone like a beacon in the darkness.

“I fear my beast has injured himself,” she said.

The Irishman settled back against the cantle of his saddle. Candlelight stroked the width of his neck, casting shadows in the hollow of his throat. For a posh, London buck, he seemed strangely natural there in the lonely darkness, as though he’d done far more than ride Hyde’s circuitous course to ogle and be ogled.

“On yonder log?” he asked, though he did not turn to look away. And in truth, it would do him little good, for ‘twas difficult to see one’s own feet.

“Yes,” she said and watched him dismount, a fluid dance in the darkness, though his steed did not look like a willing partner and pinned its ears against its poll.

“You should not be traveling so late, lass,” he said, approaching her. “There may well be dangerous men aboot.”

Lithe and lean, he stood a full ten inches taller than she and outweighed her by a good five stone. She tilted her head up at his approach and held her ground.

“My thanks for that advise, sir,” she said. Her tone was wondrous sincere, testimony to years of careful training. She must remember to be grateful for the old man’s harsh tutelage someday, but the gelding’s pain was increasing again. She felt it as a dull ache in the back of her head. “But for now perhaps assistance would be more appropriate than warnings.”

She saw the flash of his smile in the darkness.

“Me apologies, lass,” he said and bowed with a sweep of his hand toward his mount. “Might I offer ye a ride to yer destination?”

“No.” Training be damned.

He straightened abruptly. She could feel his surprise.

“But you may take my driver,” she said.

“Yer—”

“Whitford,” she called, but he was already beside her, his brow, the only unmarred portion of his face, furrowed. “You must ride with this gentleman to Arborhill to fetch another steed.”

“Nay.”

“No.”

The two men spoke in hasty unison, surprising her with their mutual passion. She raised an imperial brow.

“M’lady,” Whitmore said, stirring restlessly. “I cannot leave you here alone. I cannot.”

“He is right, lass,” burred the Irishman.” ‘Twould be unforgivable folly to abandon ye. Chivalry insists that I stay at yer side.” He grinned. “However distasteful the task might prove. Yer driver can take me own mount and—”

“No.” She’d spoken faster than she’d planned again and drew a careful breath now, clasping her hands in front of the pearlescent drape of her skirt. The mists that curled about her knees like silvery fronds matched it to mystical perfection. “I fear that will not do.”

“I’ll not leave you, m’ lady,” said Whitford, and shifted a distrustful glare toward the Celt.

She would have laughed if the pain in her head were not beginning to pound with such vicious insistence.

“Very well then, monsieur,” she said, and turned regretfully toward the Irishman. “We’ve little choice then but to hitch your steed to my conveyance.”

“Though I would dearly love to oblige, I fear me destrier can be a bit peevish and will na carry a cart.”

She gave him a scowl for his antiquated verbiage. “Luckily, your
destrier
will not be asked to tote some ramshackle dog cart,” she said, turning primly away and holding her skirt from the mud. “If you will kindly remove his gear, we shall be on our—”

“
Her
gear.”

She swiveled her head toward him impatiently. “I beg your pardon.”

” ‘Tis a mare.”

She turned her gaze back toward his mount. The beast stood a good seventeen hands at the withers, had hooves the size of dinner plates and a baleful glare that might well quell a seasoned gunner.

Their gazes met, anger shining like dark lightning in the equine eyes. ” ‘Tis an Eddings brougham,” she mused.

“Me apologies,” said O’Banyon, eying her in the shifting light, “but I fear it would na matter if the carriage be crafted of purest gold by the king himself. The steed be a mite… opinionated and will na carry a conveyance of any sort.”

She held the animal’s gaze a moment longer before speaking.

“You are wrong,” she said and turned brusquely back toward the knight. “You may place your saddle at the back of my carriage. Whitford.” She glanced toward her driver. “Fetch my wrap, please. The night grows chill.”

The men eyed each other distrustfully, and for a moment she thought they might refuse, but finally they turned to their assigned tasks. She waited an abbreviated second, then hurried toward her gelding. He raised his head a painful inch.

“I am sorry,
mon petit
,” she whispered and stripping off her gloves, set her hands to his brow.

Pain battered her, but in a moment it was gone. Ebony dropped to his knees, then rolled peacefully onto his side and lay still, his kindly eyes closed.

Silence echoed in the night. Tears welled hot and bitter in the grubby girl’s emerald eyes, but the cool countess remained unmoved.

“What happened?”

Fayette jerked at the intrusion, but the countess of Colline turned with regal slowness toward the Irishman and pulled on her gloves. “I think the beast is dead.”

Whitmore stood halfway between her and the carriage, her shawl drooping in her hands. His gaze met hers. She pulled hers away with an effort. “Hitch up the mare,” she ordered and pacing to the carriage, managed to mount unassisted.

The cushion felt strangely unstable beneath her. She placed her hands against the black leather, steadying herself. There was no pain now. Just regret, and fatigue, as heavy as a tether weight in her soul.

Time slowed to a crawl. Reality blurred. She was small again, and weightless, alone but unafraid. In a heavy liquid, floating.

“Are ye unwell, lass?”

She realized foggily that the Irishman was facing her from the opposite seat and wondered how long he had been there, how much he had seen.

Scattered wits skittered back into place, marshaled by sheer will and abject necessity.

“I am fine.” Her voice sounded distant, but she linked her fingers in her lap and straightened her back against the tufted seat. “Your steed is properly hitched?”

He gave her an odd glance. “We have gone a good three furlongs since.”

Dammit all. She had to gain control, to shake away the cloying cobwebs that threatened to strangle her. “I realize as much,” she said, “I but longed to hear you admit you were wrong.”

In the flash and sway of the brougham’s lanterns, his grin looked to be a cross between angelic grace and demonic pleasure. “Did ye now?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He nodded. A narrow braid lay half hidden by the mass of hair that waved gently beside his left ear. Beaded with irregular black circlets, it gleamed like bent gold in the lantern light. How would it feel against her fingertips?

“Verra well then, lass,” he admitted, “ye were right. She was as gentle as a lambkin in the traces. How did ye ken?”

She gave him a negligible tilt of her head, though even that was difficult. “Because I wished it to be so.”

He laughed, the devil at play. “Do ye always get what ye wish for then?”