The Dark One (14 page)

“I am aware of that,” he assured her. “Regardless of your first opinion of me, I am not a coward.”

Recalling that first night together, she felt her cheeks flush. She supposed she had misjudged him, after all. “I see now that you were only being sensible, whereas I was not,” she admitted.

He reached out and traced his thumb along the line of her wine-wet lips. “I didn't want to be,” he admitted, then brought his thumb to his own lips and stuck it inside of his mouth.

Suddenly she knew that he would not play fair. His seduction had already begun. . . . It began the first night she met him. She was attracted to him physically—it would be pointless to tell herself otherwise—but she needed more. She wanted more. She deserved more, and so did he. But how to make him realize that?

“Excuse me, Lord Wulf, but Lord Gabriel has just arrived.”

Startled, Rosalind glanced away from Armond and toward Hawkins, who'd entered without her hearing him.

“Gabriel?” Armond also looked surprised, she noted. “What's my brother doing here?”

“I took the liberty of sending for your brothers this morning after you had been taken away,” Hawkins answered. “I thought you might want them here.”

From his expression, Rosalind thought Armond felt the opposite. He sighed. “Send him in.”

Armond took the goblet and drank. Rosalind sat staring at the doorway. She heard the soft tread of boots; then a man, a blond giant of a man, one as tall as Armond but built like a peasant field hand, walked into the room.

Rosalind couldn't help but stare. Gabriel Wulf immediately struck her as a man less refined than his oldest brother, but what he lacked in polish, he more than made up for in blatant rugged attractiveness. He had a bit of scruff on his face, the dark whiskers shadowing a strong jaw that looked etched from granite. His hair was darker than Armond's. More sandy-colored than blond, but with a few streaks so pale they nearly appeared white in the candlelight. He quite took her breath away with the sheer strength of his presence.

“What the bloody hell happened this morning and how—”

The man stopped speaking in mid-sentence when he caught sight of Rosalind.

“Gabriel,” Armond acknowledged drily. “This is Lady Rosalind, my wife. Rosalind, this is Lord Gabriel.”

“Wife?” the man asked, barely giving Rosalind a glance. “Are you bloody mad?”

“Meet me in my study,” Armond instructed his brother. “I will join you in a moment.”

“But when did you marry this woman? And why in God's name would you do such a thing? We agreed—”

“Gabriel,” Armond cautioned. “Greet my wife properly and take your leave.”

That Armond was the oldest immediately became clear. His brother seemed to remember himself. He straightened and walked farther into the room.

“Lady Wulf. . . .” he clipped, bowing stiffly.

“You may call me Rosalind,” she offered, smiling at her new brother-in-law.

He did not smile back. “If that is your wish,” he said, his tone still void of warmth. He cast Armond a dark look and quit the room.

“My brother has bad manners,” Armond said to her. “He spends too much time in the country. The estate is his one true love. He'd work himself to death if Jackson wasn't around to drag him in for meals and an occasional game of cards.”

Rosalind didn't feel as if the marriage was off to a good start. “I'd like to retire,” she said, and now that the wine had time to sink into her bones, she found she was exhausted.

“Hawkins will show you to your room.” Armond rose and pulled out her chair, took her hand, and helped her stand. When she swayed slightly, he pulled her closer. Rosalind looked up at him. His eyes had taken on that strange glow again. Perhaps it was simply the way the candlelight fell upon him.

“Good night, Rosalind.”

He'd bent his head and his lips almost brushed hers when he spoke. Her lashes drifted downward and she leaned into him, a little startled to realize she'd just instigated a kiss. Even more surprised to part her lips beneath his in invitation. The wine, she assumed, coupled with exhaustion, had lowered her defenses against him.

His lips nuzzled and teased hers for a moment before he finally kissed her. The wine was nothing compared to the potency of his mouth moving against hers, the warm
intrusion of his tongue, the feel of his hands moving down her back to press her hips against his.

She knew that he was aroused, for she felt him hard against her. Rather than alarm her, Rosalind found that her ability to so easily excite him, in turn, excited her. Her body melted into his, her hands traveling up his chest to curl around his neck and twine her fingers in his hair.

“I remember,” he said against her lips. “I remember what you feel like, what you taste like. You haunt my dreams.”

She remembered as well. The feel of his hot mouth against her breasts. The way her nipples had hardened and she had ached between her legs. She wanted to feel his hands upon her skin again, his mouth at her breasts. She wanted all they had shared that first night together and more.

A loud clearing of a throat made them separate abruptly. Hawkins stood in the doorway. “Lord Gabriel is growing impatient and asked me to see why you have not yet joined him. I have the lady's room prepared and wondered if I should escort her upstairs.”

Good heavens, Rosalind assumed she must be drunk to have instigated intimacy between her and Armond when she'd just been earlier thinking she needed more than physical pleasure from him. She wondered if her body had failed to receive the message. Or if he was simply that skilled at seduction. It took little effort on his part. All he had to do was be in the same room with her, kiss her, and she forgot herself.

“I think I should come along with you, Hawkins,” she said, and started toward the man. “Good night, Armond,” she added, but didn't turn back to look at him.

She felt his gaze boring into her back, not sharp, like a knife, but warm, like a caress. He did not respond and she
hurried after Hawkins like a coward running from a foe she'd picked a fight with, but soon realized she could not defeat. The trek up the stairs to the second story helped clear her head somewhat, in that it stole the languid heat Armond had spread to her bones and brought her mind back into focus.

Hawkins opened a door and she followed him inside of a large room, tastefully decorated, though the furnishings were outdated. The adjoining door into the next room suggested these had once been Armond's parents' bedchambers. If, indeed, the house had once belonged to them. She would have to ask Armond.

A fire struggled to catch in the grate and Rosalind rubbed her arms due to the chill. One of Armond's shirts had been laid out upon the bed. She glanced at Hawkins in question as to what it was doing there.

“I see that you have no luggage, Lady Wulf. My Lord's shirt is the best that I can provide for you in the way of sleeping attire. I hope it will suffice, at least for tonight.”

“It will be fine,” Rosalind said to him. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

“There is no lady's maid in service,” Hawkins informed her. “If you wish, I will assist you.”

He looked perfectly serious, as always, and even managed to maintain his air of boredom. Rosalind couldn't see the stuffy man playing the part of maid.

“I can manage,” she assured him.

“Will that be all then, Lady Wulf?”

“Yes, thank you, Hawkins.”

He inclined his head and moved toward the door. “I can have a bath drawn and sent up to you in the morning. Would that please you, Your Ladyship?”

“Immensely,” she answered, and wished she could have one tonight, but she wouldn't put such a burden on the man at this late hour. “Good night, Hawkins.”

Again he inclined his head; then he left the room. Only after he'd gone did the enormity of her situation strike Rosalind. She was married. Married to Armond Wulf. Living in his home now. She moved to the fire and held her hands toward the warmth. Her gaze strayed to the adjoining door. There were no locks. She couldn't lock him out even if there were. He was her husband. On the bright side, better Armond Wulf than the disgusting Viscount Penmore.

The thought brought home the realities of her situation. Franklin would be furious she had managed to foil his plans for her after all. And Penmore. She suspected he would be angry that he would not have her as his wife, simply because the man was used to getting what he wanted. Would he call in Franklin's debts and see her stepbrother put in prison? It was a pleasant possibility. Then she and Armond wouldn't be forced to deal with Franklin.

Rosalind wondered how her husband fared with his own brother. Lord Gabriel hadn't looked at all pleased to learn that Armond had married.

“I will ask you again. Are you mad?”

Armond poured his brother a glass of warm brandy. He walked across the study and handed it to Gabriel, who was seated in a plush leather chair in front of Armond's mahogany desk. Armond took the chair next to him.

“Well, that is the rumor, isn't it?” he asked drily. He sighed and leaned his elbows upon his knees, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It's complicated. Rosalind lives next door, or she did. I have visited her bedchamber on a couple of occasions, last night being one of them. I spent the night, but only to comfort her,” he added. “Then this morning when I arrived home, two inspectors were in my stable with another woman's dead body.”

“Ah,” Gabriel said. “So your neighbor was your alibi?”

“She came forward without me asking,” Armond told him. “She completely ruined herself regardless that the lady and I have not been intimate . . . at least not
that
intimate together. What could I do but marry her?”

Gabriel snorted. “Still playing the gentleman, Armond? What for? It makes no difference to society. Those our parents once rubbed elbows with are all too happy to now stab us in the back. Every flock must have their black sheep. It's what keeps their insignificant little lives from boring them to death.”

And Armond thought he was the cynical one. He straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. “There is more about Rosalind. I strongly suspect that her stepbrother is guilty of Bess O'Conner's death, and of the death of the woman he left as a surprise for me this morning. He's been abusive to Rosalind, has in fact tried to force her into a marriage with a foul man by the name of Penmore. She needs my protection.”

Gabriel shook his head. “You cannot afford to play the gallant, Armond. None of us can be the gentlemen our parents raised us to be, because we are no longer who we once were. You are half in love with her already; I can tell that. Who will protect your wife from you, Armond?”

His brother's question struck to Armond's core. What made him believe for even a moment that he was a better solution for Rosalind than the one she had? He would not beat her. He would not force himself upon her. But if he fell, he might kill her. He couldn't fall; that was all there was to it. He couldn't love her. Not ever.

“What's done is done,” he said to Gabriel. “It cannot be undone. I will give Rosalind sanctuary, and I will hunt her stepbrother as the wolf in me wants to hunt him. I will at least disprove one false rumor about us.”

Gabriel rose, walked to the liquor cabinet, and replaced his empty glass. “We have another problem. Jackson has gone missing.”

Armond assumed that his younger brother had simply been too anxious to visit the brothels of London to stop and inquire if Armond might have been hanged by the neck for murder first. “Missing since when?”

“Right after you left. I thought he'd decided to catch up with you and assumed he was here, but Hawkins informed me that was not the case, and that he hasn't seen Jackson since you returned home.”

“No, neither have I,” Armond said. Jackson worried
him. His little brother was the reason the Wulf brothers had a bad reputation. He was vain, a womanizer, and sadly, he'd become much too fond of spirits since his return from abroad eight months prior. He had no interest in the estate, no interest, it seemed, in anything but liquor and willing women.

“I didn't want to say anything to you, not unless I had proof, which I do not, but I think something happened to Jackson while he was abroad. Something that has forever changed him,” Gabriel said.

Armond's blood froze. “You think he fell?”

Gabriel joined him again, seating himself across from Armond. “He seems to spend a lot of time in the woods behind the estate. Especially when the moon is full.”

A thought occurred to Armond. One he'd as soon he hadn't thought of. Jackson was here in their townhome when the first woman had been discovered. Now another one had shown up, and Jackson was missing, probably running amok in London. Armond didn't like what he was thinking. He didn't like it at all.

“We need to find him,” he said. “We'll begin our search for Jackson in the morning.”

Gabriel nodded. His gaze turned toward the ceiling. “And what about your wife, up there, alone in your room? Waiting for her bridegroom? What kind of a marriage can you have with this woman, Armond? What kind of a marriage could any of us have?”

“It is a marriage of convenience,” he decided. “Nothing more.”

Gabriel laughed sarcastically. “She's convenient all right. Pretty, too, I noticed.”

“Maybe you shouldn't notice too much about her.” Armond's voice almost resembled a growl. He glanced away from the surprise on his brother's face. “Rosalind is
my
problem. I'll deal with her.”

“Just remember what happened to our father when a marriage of convenience turned into something more, even after all those years of living with our mother. You were there the same as the rest of us. Do you want to turn into that?”

Armond remembered all too well. And no, he did not want to turn into that. “When we find Jackson, I want both of you to return to the estate. I will fight my own battles.”