The Dark One (30 page)

Rosalind moved to the wardrobe and opened it. Inside were Lydia's clothes. Rosalind nearly dropped the tin of tea leaves. The sight of Lydia's things unnerved her. Why hadn't she taken them with her when Franklin had dismissed her?

Perhaps because Lydia had never left the house. Or if she had, not by her own free will. Chills raced up Rosalind's back. She tried to remember that night she'd awoken to the sounds of screaming. But Franklin couldn't have hung Lydia from the rafters. He'd been with Rosalind that night at the LeGrandes' soiree.

“Lady Wulf,” Mary whispered down the stairs. “Hurry out now; he's gone. I need that tin!”

Rosalind swept from the room. She walked up the stairs and into the kitchen, handing Mary the tea tin when she reentered the kitchen. “Have you been in Lydia's room since she left?”

“No,” Mary admitted, and a guilty flush stained her cheeks. “I'm sure it needs a good scrubbing, but until the master hires someone to take her place, I didn't see the point, not with all I have to do around here.”

“Of course,” Rosalind agreed. “Brew my stepbrother a cup from the leaves, but remember, don't use them for his mother's tea.”

The housekeeper nodded and Rosalind slipped out of the house. As she hurried across the lawn, more than Lydia leaving all her things behind bothered her. Franklin thought a cup of the tea would help him sleep. She knew she was on the right path about suspecting her stepmother was being drugged.

She would tell Armond when he woke. Her spirits sagged as she approached the house. He wanted to send her away. He wanted to keep the door locked between them. He wanted to be her friend. Their future together did not look bright. And if Franklin had his way, they would have no future together at all.

Rosalind felt as if her life had spiraled out of her control again. And she felt helpless to put it back on the right path. Her memory of Jackson's late night visit was hazy, she supposed because she'd still been suffering the effects of the doctored tea. Had she told him that she loved Armond? She feared she had, which made her all the more miserable, admitting her feelings and, she suspected, admitting her sorrow that Armond did not return them.

But then she recalled what Jackson had said to her. He'd said that sometimes a man's love for a woman was not reflected in his words but in his eyes and in his deeds.
She thought about that. She thought about Armond's worry over her, about his determination to protect her, and about the very words he had said to her concerning the lock on his door.

She'd focused on his last words to her, his suggestion that they become friends, and because she had, she'd dismissed the importance of the true reason he'd placed a lock between them.

Armond thought she deserved more than he could give her, and he'd said that he wouldn't ask her to settle for less. He'd sacrificed the physical relationship he'd wanted between them out of respect for her wants, her desires, her dreams. What sort of man would do such a thing for a woman? There seemed to be only one answer, and it was an answer that suddenly filled her with such joy and such tenderness for him that she wanted to weep.

Armond loved her. He might not wish to love her, but he did. But how to tear down the barriers he'd constructed between them? How to make him realize there was nothing wrong in her loving him and him loving her in return? No silly curse that could rob them of a happy future together. No reason they could not be friends and partners, and lovers.

Amelia's shocked remark regarding Rosalind's unconsummated marriage suddenly sounded in her head. “Whatever are you waiting for, Rosalind?” She'd answered that she was waiting for love, and now love had found her. She would wait no longer. Tonight, she would tear down the walls Armond Wulf had constructed around his heart. Tonight, she would claim him.

Armond had spent the day in restless slumber. He kept having dark dreams about Rosalind in a deserted house, wearing the gown she'd worn the night of the Greenleys' ball and lying dead on a dirty mattress thrown on the
floor. At times, the dreams would shift from her to him, and he'd see his reflection in a mirror. See that he had fangs and fur and a bright blue glow to his eyes.

His world had changed since the first night he met Rosalind, and he couldn't help but feel as if he was careening down a path of self-destruction, no reins in his hands to slow his flight, no control to stop the inevitable. He had to stop Chapman. He had to stop him if it meant killing him without proof that Rosalind's stepbrother was a murderer. Armond would save Rosalind even if it meant his total destruction. The witching hour was upon him. Denying the truth would not save him.

He knew that now.

A soft rap sounded from Rosalind's suite. “Armond? Are you awake? I must speak to you.”

He thought it best to ignore her.

“Armond?” she called again. “I've discovered something at the house next door that you should know about.”

What the hell had she been doing next door? He'd planned to tell her that she was not to venture there again, regardless if Chapman wasn't at home. Armond didn't want to think about her in that house. Now might be a good time to make his wishes in that regard known to her.

Although he was naked, Armond gathered the sheet around his waist and moved to the door he'd locked earlier. He unlocked the door and cracked it open. Rosalind pushed her way inside.

“I went next door today to instruct Mary to stop using the tea Franklin insists his mother drink daily,” she informed him. “I—” She stopped in midsentence, her gaze roaming over him. “Why are you naked?”

He smiled at her, waiting for a blush to explode in her cheeks and a little surprised when the reaction didn't happen. “I sleep naked,” he explained. “I've been asleep all day.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Good. Now, as I said, I went next door and I discovered something about Lydia.”

Had she said “good”? Armond moved from the door and returned to his bed, where he sat. “I want to talk to you about going next door. I know that you are concerned for your stepmother, but I won't allow you to keep putting yourself in danger on her behalf.”

“Don't you want to know what I discovered about Lydia?”

She'd questioned his form of attire; now he was distracted with mentally questioning hers. She wore some sort of cloak, and her usually expressive hands now clutched the garment together in a death grip that left her knuckles white.

“Armond,” she said to get his attention. “Lydia's things were still in her room. I don't think she ever left. I think she might have been dragged away against her will. I heard screaming that night and thought I was having nightmares.”

He glanced away from her hands clutching the cloak. “I've suspected all along that Chapman was the man who beat her,” he said. “I just couldn't see how he could be responsible for her hanging when he'd been with you all evening at the LeGrandes' affair.”

Rosalind frowned. “That's true. But don't you suspect that Franklin might have a partner in his dark deeds?”

He more than suspected; he now knew it for fact. “Yes, I'm certain now,” he told her. “But why would someone involved with him do something like faking a woman's hanging beneath Chapman's very roof?”

She shrugged, and in doing so, the cape slid off of one shoulder, exposing her pale, creamy skin. A lump formed in Armond's throat. He swallowed it down in order to ask, “Rosalind, what are you wearing?”

She chewed on her full bottom lip rather than answer.
Then she approached him. She stood before him and he noticed that her feet were bare, the same as his.

“The night we married, you told me that you would not force me to consummate our marriage. You said the decision of when would be up to me.” She drew a shaky breath and released her death grip on the cape. It slid down her body to the floor. “I have made my decision. Tonight, Armond.”

Her words barely registered. How could they? She stood before him as bare as he was beneath his sheet. His eyes drank in her beauty. From her small, delicate feet, her long, slender legs, her woman's mound covered by a small nest of dark curls to her slim hips, small waist, and round, firm breasts. She was a work of art. She was what all men dreamed of, and she was his for the taking. But could he take what she offered, when she was still ignorant about what kind of man she would give herself to?

“You said you wanted more,” he reminded her. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

She lifted her chin. “I know what's in my heart. And I believe I know what's in yours. Would you refuse me, Armond?”

He had to look away from her. His willpower as a man was in jeopardy, but that wasn't the worst. He felt the beast prowling beneath his skin. The beast that smelled her attraction to him. The beast that knew only of lust and nothing of love.

“Go back to your room,” he ordered softly. “Whatever is in your heart, it is wasted on me.”

She didn't respond for a moment, and he was afraid to look at her. Afraid her eyes would be filled with tears again and he would pull her into his arms. If he touched her, he was lost.

She touched him instead. Rosalind reached for his
hand and placed it against her breast, as he had done to her the other night. “Are you certain?”

His hand molded to the soft mound, the taunt nipple teasing his palm. His blood burned for her. His cock had grown hard the moment she swept into his room. She was a siren; and he, the sailor lulled by her song.

“You don't know all there is to know about me,” he warned her, but didn't remove his hand from her breast. “I am damned, Rosalind.”

Her eyes softened upon him. “Then I am damned along with you. Surrender to me, Armond. I love you. I give myself willingly.”

Hearing the words from her lips was bittersweet. Part of him rejoiced; another part wept. Wept for the injustice of life and the pain of love where a future would be dark and bleak. He would release her, he decided. Once it happened, and it would . . . soon, he would disappear. She might love the man she so softly looked upon now, but she would not love what he would soon become. No woman could. His mother included.

His hand moved slowly from her breast to her waist. He pulled her down on the bed beside him, quickly tumbling her on her back.

“I thought you learned upon our first meeting to be careful what you ask for,” he said. “You might just get it.”

“So you keep telling me,” she taunted him. “Tonight we play no games, we worry of no consequences. Tonight is for us, and us alone.”

His body slid on top of hers, the sheet he'd wrapped around him tangled between them. His skin was smooth and firm, hot beneath her fingers when she ran them along the length of his back. Her breasts were pushed flush against his chest, and she felt the thudding of their hearts. He kissed her then, slowly, deliberately, his patience in stark contrast to the wild beating of his heart.

The kiss was gentle and possessive at the same time. He lulled her with his mouth, lulled her into relaxation until he deepened his claim, until he forced her to feel more than simple pleasant sensation. His tongue stroked hers until she answered, joined him in the dance. Then the gates of passion were thrown wide.

She moaned into his open mouth; her nails bit into the smooth skin of his shoulders. Her body registered the complete feel of him against her, the sheet that was once wrapped around his waist having mysteriously disappeared. His hard, impressive member pressed against her stomach, and some instinct given to her without her knowledge made her press back, made her move against him.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “I want to make you ready for me.”

He kissed her neck, his teeth nipping softly at her skin, then moved lower, his hands closing around her aching breasts before he took each nipple in turn into his mouth and suckled her. He teased her mercilessly, his tongue drawing lazy circles around her nipples before he took one inside again, the hot suction of his mouth a link to the pressure she felt building lower. Her nails dug deeper, and again she couldn't control the need to arch upward against him.

His hand slid between them and he touched her where he had once touched her before, stroked her in the same manner that had made her shatter beneath his skillful fingers. She understood the rhythm now and what she strove to find, more than willing to move with him, against him, whatever it took to increase the pressure and end the ache that built and built. He slipped a finger inside of her and she momentarily froze.

“I won't hurt you,” Armond said close to her ear. “I need to stretch you a little, prepare you for me.”

Gradually her trepidation eased, and Armond continued to stroke the bud of her sensation with his thumb as his finger moved deeper inside of her. The combination only heightened her sensation, brought her closer to the edge of madness, and soon she found herself moving against him again, welcoming the added substance of two fingers inside of her instead of one.

Her back arched and she tried to take his fingers deeper inside of her. She knew she was wet there, hot to the point of feverish, swollen against the palm of his hand, aching, aching with a need to be filled.

“Armond,” she breathed. “I need . . .” She wasn't sure what she needed. “I want . . .”

“I know,” he said, his voice low and husky. He gently
slid his fingers from her, leaving a void; then he raised himself above her, parted her legs wider with his knees, and she felt his rigid manhood poised at her entrance.

She felt the resistance of her tight passage the moment the large head of his member tried to penetrate. She scooted away, an unconscious action, she supposed, survival instincts. He would not let her escape. His hands closed around her waist and he held her still.

“Do not tense against me,” he instructed. “Relax; allow my invasion. It will only hurt for a moment.”