The Dark One (28 page)

“You mean, about the murders?”

“About Bess O'Conner.” He glanced down at her. “If your stepmother knew her son had killed a woman, what would she do?”

Rosalind wasn't certain. “She's always doted on Franklin, no matter how mean-spirited he was to everyone else. I know she has principles. I'm not sure what she would do,” she finally concluded.

“Maybe he wasn't, either,” Armond commented.

Her eyelids grew heavy. It seemed there was something else she wanted to tell Armond. Now she remembered. “Franklin is going out tonight,” she slurred. “I heard him tell Mary.”

“Then I'm going out as well,” Armond said. “I want you to sleep off the effects of whatever drug Chapman is using to keep his mother sedated.”

“Why drug her?” she wondered. “If he feared she would report his actions, why not kill her?”

Armond smoothed her hair back from her face. “Maybe because she's his mother. Maybe because killing her so soon on the heels of Bess O'Conner's murder would throw, suspicion in his direction. It would be smarter to keep her
drugged, tell all that she is dying, and when the time is right, kill her. No one would question her death if she'd been ill for some time.”

Rosalind shuddered and Armond draped a quilt over her. “I must save her,” she whispered.

“Go to sleep, Rosalind.”

Darkness rushed up to claim her, but still, there was something she wanted to ask him. Her mind had trouble grasping what it was. Then she remembered.

“Why have you locked me out, Armond? Why have you locked me out of your bedchamber, and your heart?”

She couldn't open her eyes to see his expression. She couldn't stay awake long enough to hear his response. The darkness called to her.

Perhaps he was insane, like everyone believed. Armond gritted his teeth and held on to the underside of Chapman's phaeton. It was the only way he could think of that Chapman wouldn't see him trailing him. The only way to make certain the man hadn't set another trap for him. His muscles bulged with the strain of holding on, but somehow he managed. That no mortal man could possibly do what he was now doing, he chose to disregard.

He couldn't as easily disregard the questions Rosalind had whispered to him before she'd fallen into a drugged sleep. What answer could he give her that wouldn't turn her against him? Wouldn't repulse her? He had locked her out of his room, but he could not lock her out of his heart. She'd stolen inside of it the night he met her. He was doomed, and if she did love him, she was doomed as well. The sudden jar of the buggy brought him back to the present.

The phaeton had already stopped once to collect a passenger. Armond knew by the scent of the woman and her cockney accent that she was a prostitute. Now they pulled up and stopped on a darkened street. A street where Armond heard only silence.

“You want me to go in there?” he heard the woman ask. “It looks deserted.”

“It will suit our purpose,” Chapman said in a clipped tone. “Does it really matter where you spread your legs as long as you get the coin I've promised you?”

“Don't have to be crass,” the woman said. “But no, I don't guess it matters.”

The phaeton's springs bounced when Chapman and the woman exited the buggy. Armond would wait until they were inside of the house before he crept from his hiding place. He didn't want to frighten Chapman away, not when he might finally trap him. Armond planned to use the woman as a witness against Chapman. He might not be able to pin all the murders that had taken place on the man, but could prove that he intended to murder this woman.

Staring out from beneath the buggy, Armond saw that a glow now filled the window of a downstairs back room in the deserted house. He let go and rolled out from beneath the phaeton. He flexed his arms to relax the muscles that had been strained while he held on beneath the buggy.

The street was deserted. Most of the houses looked vacant like this one. He'd made mental notes of their journey, gauging how far they traveled and in what direction. Silently he crept up to the house, then moved around the side where he saw the soft glow from the window. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

“You want me to wear this?” the woman asked. “What for?”

“The gentleman who will be joining us wishes for you to look the part of a lady.”

“What gentleman? You said nothing about a gentleman joining us.”

“Didn't I?” Chapman sounded sarcastically innocent. “Well, yes, there will be a gentleman joining us.”

“Wait a minute,” the woman said. “Didn't agree to
pleasure two of you at once. I don't do those kinds of things.”

“You will tonight,” Chapman assured her. “And it won't be the both of us at the same time. The gentleman likes to watch first, and then take his turn.”

“To hell he will,” the woman snorted. “I'm leaving.”

A sharp slap sounded a moment later. Armond clenched his fists at his sides. It took all of his control not to storm inside and beat Chapman for striking a woman. Knowing he'd done the same to Rosalind made Armond's blood boil.

“Now, put the damn dress on!” Chapman growled. “Or do I have to convince you further?”

“No,” the woman rasped. “I'll do what you want, just don't hit me again.”

“That's better,” Chapman crooned. “I find disobedient women a trial to my temper. Just do as you're told to do and you won't get hurt.”

Silence. Armond assumed the woman was putting on whatever dress it was that Chapman had wanted her to change into. He wondered when the “other” gentleman would arrive. He'd always felt there were two men involved and now he'd soon have proof.

“Take the pins from your hair and wear it down,” Chapman commanded. “In fact, the more it hangs in your face, the more likely he will be able to pretend that you are someone else.”

“Who is this gentleman we're waiting for?”

The woman received another loud slap for asking. “You are not to speak, not unless you are asked to speak, understand? You haven't the cultured voice of a lady, and that's what he wants. To do his dirty deeds with a lady, only of course he cannot. At least not unless he is married to her.”

“I understand,” the woman said, and Armond heard the fear in her voice.

“Lift up your gown and expose yourself to me,” Chapman further instructed. “I want to make certain you don't have the pox.”

“I told you I didn't,” the woman said.

She received another slap.

“Do it!” Chapman thundered.

Chapman humiliated the woman. He pushed Armond to act before he was ready. He needed to know the other man's identity, but swore if Chapman hit the woman one more time, he wouldn't be able to wait.

“You think I like this?” Chapman asked the woman. “Performing for him? Dancing to his tune? I'd just as soon slit his fat throat.”

“Why don't the two of us just—”

“Did I give you permission to speak?” Chapman interrupted.

The woman whimpered in response. Her scream a moment later made Armond jump.

“Come back here, you bitch!”

Sounds of a struggle came from inside of the house. The woman screamed again, and the sound of a fist smashing into soft flesh reached Armond's oversensitive ears. He cursed and bounded around the house, kicking in the front door.

“Chapman!” he thundered. “Get your hands off of her!”

A pistol discharged in the dark, splintering the wall beside Armond's head. He dived to the floor.

“Come on in, Wulf,” Chapman taunted. “I'd like nothing better than to put a bullet in your head.”

Armond had a pistol stuck inside the waistband of his trousers as well, but as tempted as he was to use it, he still had no solid proof that Chapman had killed the two women he'd found on his property, that he, in fact, intended to kill the woman he'd brought here tonight. Armond had never
heard Franklin say he intended to kill her. He could only give his word, which wouldn't count for much with the inspectors or among society.

“Let the woman go, Chapman!” he called. “Let her go or I'll shoot you down.”

Chapman didn't answer, but Armond's unusual night vision allowed him to see Chapman's shape, and the fact that he now held the terrified woman before him, using her as a shield.

“Go ahead and shoot, Wulf!” he challenged.

He'd like that. He didn't know that Armond could see him. Didn't know that Armond knew if he fired, he'd kill the woman and not Chapman, and then be accountable for her murder.

Armond clenched his jaw and waited for Chapman to make his next move. The man forced the woman toward the open door. When he'd almost reached the door, he suddenly shoved her away. The woman stumbled forward and fell on top of Armond. Her hands flailed and she started screaming. Armond struggled to push her off of him, and by the time he'd gained his feet he heard a whip crack and the sway of the phaeton as it pulled away from the house.

Racing outside, Armond saw the buggy ahead on the street, moving at a pace he would have never believed Chapman could inspire from his sorry horses. Armond went after him, his boots pounding on the cobbled streets. Part of him knew that it was pointless to chase a man careening down the street in a buggy, pulled by two whip-crazed horses; another part of him suspected that if he pushed himself, he could catch them.

He willed his legs to move faster, drew air deep into his lungs, and lunged forward, the dark shapes of abandoned houses and stinking alleyways rushing past him at an impossible speed. His vision shifted and instead of
shapes he saw colors. The horse racing ahead of him became bright red blurs against the night. He saw their blood through their skin.

A glance to his left and he made out the red shapes of rats as they scavenged the alleyways. Faster he pushed himself, harder, and in his mind he no longer saw himself as a man. He had four legs, not two. Long fangs in place of his teeth. Claws in place of his fingernails. Fur in place of skin. He became one with the night, one with the loud beating of his heart and the blood that rushed through his veins.

He had almost caught the phaeton, was prepared to leap forward and hold tight. He was equally prepared to pounce upon Franklin Chapman and tear his throat out. Something came at him from the left. He couldn't stop in time to avoid the man and ran right into him, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

Armond rolled several times, scraping his flesh against the rough cobbled streets. He lay there for a moment, trying to catch his breath.

“Bloody idiot!” The man he'd run into rolled off the ground and stumbled once he'd found his stance. “Watch where you're going! You hit me so hard I feel like I'm going to spout up all this cheap gin I've had tonight.”

The man did exactly that, dropping to his knees and retching into the gutter. Armond tried to slow the wild beating of his heart. He was a man, not the beast that had taken shape in his mind. Once he caught the breath that hitting the man had knocked from his lungs, he rose.

“Are you all right?” he asked the man.

“No bloody thanks to you,” the man muttered, then went back to his retching.

Armond returned to the deserted house. He needed to check on the woman. The house was empty. She had fled and he couldn't blame her. He walked to the back room
where two candles still sputtered. A gown lay wadded up in one corner. The woman had obviously discarded it, perhaps not wanting Chapman to have any reason to come after her.

Armond picked up the gown. His senses immediately stirred. He knew that scent. He shook the gown out and looked at it by the candlelight. It was the gown Rosalind had worn the first night he met her at the Greenleys' ball.

Rosalind opened her eyes to see a man standing over her. The fire's glow cast a golden halo around his head, and her first thought was that Armond had come to check on her. As his features moved into focus, she realized the man was not her husband. She gasped and tried to sit.

“Don't be alarmed,” the man said softly. “Don't be afraid. I am Lord Jackson, your brother-in-law.”

It was easy to take him at his word. Now that she could see him, she also saw the resemblance to Armond and Gabriel and the dimples that belonged to the young boy in the Wulf portrait downstairs.

“What are you doing here?” she felt was a sane enough question.

“This is my family home,” he reminded her.

“I mean in my bedchamber,” Rosalind specified, pulling the covers up closer around her, although she realized by the sleeves on her arms that she wasn't in her bedclothes but still dressed from her day.

Every bit as bold as his oldest brother, Jackson seated himself upon her bed. “I didn't get to meet you last time I was here. You were in bed then, too. I think you might spend a lot of time in bed, I know if you were mine you would, so what could I do but join you here in order to introduce myself?”

“Does Armond know you're here?”

He smiled, and his dimples cut deep slashes in the sides of his cheeks. “Here at the house or here in your bedchamber?”

“Either?” she answered.

“Neither,” he assured her. “I don't imagine he would like for me to be here, in your bedchamber, I mean. The last time I suggested that I come up, crawl into bed with you, and introduce myself, he growled at me.”

She nearly smiled. “He did?”

“Never was one to share,” Jackson confided in her. “I thought I should meet you before I set out on my quest.”

“I believe Armond is under the impression that you have returned to the country estate.”

“He's often wrong,” Jackson informed her. “Has he told you much about me?”

Rosalind shook her head.

“Figures,” he muttered. He pinned her with the deepest, darkest eyes she had ever seen. “I'm the black sheep,” he informed her. He frowned. “Well, since everyone thinks we are all black sheep, I suppose I am simply the blackest of the flock. I drink, I gamble, I'm lazy, and I am a womanizer. Oh, and now Armond believes that I am also a murderer.”