by Nhys Glover
The thought of Jasper having to withstand such pain made her heart ache.
How had she become so attached to this strange man in such a short time? A few days ago he was simply a madman who had accosted her. Now, she felt like her life had opened up because of him, and it had become alive with a rich abundance of sensation she had never experienced before. All because of his presence in it. Even when he was hurting her, she felt more strongly than she ever had in her ‘other’ life. She didn’t want to go back to that pastel life again.
‘Do you think he has infected me? And how will I know if I have come down with this condition? Will I get sick?’
‘Let us not concern ourselves with that at the moment. It is early days and you are not yet over the trauma of your kidnapping. Let us take one day at a time.’
Fidelia allowed her friend to deflect her questions again. One day at a time sounded like a good idea. Each of her days here had already become more eventful than whole years had been in the past. She would follow Phil’s dictates and move slowly.
CHAPTER NINE
Jasper picked up her scent the moment her carriage arrived at the front door, but he maintained an iron grip on his urges. As soon as she was inside, he headed out to the stables to keep the distance from her as great as possible. Going to the village would increase that distance.
One of his tasks was to collect the mail from the village every few days. They were inundated with information concerning werewolves from all over the world, and that information had to be collated and examined closely for any hint of a cure. Much of his time was taken up with that research.
But now the idea of being trapped in the library was like remaining permanently down in the dungeons. His wolf, or the man overwhelmed by lust, was too restless to remain enclosed, especially when the object of his desire was so close at hand.
It was well past luncheon before he returned to the Keep and dropped off the mail in the library. He scented her the moment he entered the building, but it was becoming difficult to determine just where she was, as she’d left a trail in every room she entered. And clearly they had given her the tour because he smelled her everywhere.
Wanting to tear his hair out by the roots, he chose, instead, to go to the kitchen for leftovers from lunch. Here, he found Cook and Mary chattering about their newest arrival. When he entered the room, they immediately shut their mouths and stared at him as if he was the devil incarnate.
‘There is nothing you have said about me that I have not said about myself,’ he declared, as he tore off bread from the fresh loaf on the bench and slathered it with chutney. Then he went to the pantry and selected an already cut slice of ham. With bread in one hand and meat in the other he proceeded to take a bite from each and then chew and swallow in a methodical, if not gentlemanly, fashion.
‘Yer didn’t hurt ‘er at all when yer found ‘er?’ Cook asked, more curious than concerned.
‘No. The beast was gentle and took care of her. He found a cave nearby and sat with her, sharing his body heat until morning.’ He could tell they were amazed by these details, as he had been. They all believed that their wolves would kill anyone who came too close.
They also knew from their research that werewolves would never attack a healthy man. They would go after wounded or weakened humans only, much as wolves in the wild. But his wolf had somehow known how to waylay the carriage and attack the man who jumped down from it. A healthy, if not particularly large specimen, of mankind – with a pistol. The explosion alone should have sent the creature heading for cover. Instead, it attacked with fury. Jasper still lived with the echoes of that fury and the taste of blood in his mouth.
But he felt no regret for what his wolf had done. That man deserved what he got and more.
‘And this friend of Phil’s, this Lady Montgomery, she don’t know you’re the beast who saved ‘er?’ Cook went on, her face flushed with excitement.
‘No. I left her when I came back to myself. As far as I know, she has no inkling of what she has come to. What we are.’ He tried not to sound critical, but he knew his self-loathing infected his tone.
‘Well she may be safe from your beastie, but I wouldn’t want ta test her on any of ours. She shoulda been sent away,’ Cook concluded, folding her arms over her copious breasts with a finality that brooked no opposition.
‘I may have infected her,’ he admitted, feeling the food in his gut turn rancid at the thought.
‘’Ow? If you were gentle wi’ ‘er?’
‘I…I kissed her. On the mouth.’ He tasted ash instead of words.
Cook looked at him in shocked surprise. Mary followed her lead, her pale blue eyes wide with astonishment.
‘Kissed her? Why ever would you do…’
‘Does it matter now? I did it, and until we can be certain she has suffered no ill effects from my uncontrolled behaviour she must remain here. I do not know how Byron plans to handle it when the time comes. At the moment, I am simply dealing with the situation one day at a time.’
‘You like her, don’t you?’ Mary asked, tipping her head to the side as if studying a strange creature never seen before.
‘I…it does not matter what I feel for Lady Montgomery. As soon as we have ascertained that she is free of infection, she will be leaving.’ He dropped the last of his bread and meat on the table and turned on his heel, storming from the room.
In the narrow hallway leading from the kitchen to the entrance hall, he came upon her. His rage and frustration kept his senses from warning him. Before he could do anything about it, he barrelled into Fidelia and knocked her to the polished floor.
‘Oh, Good Lord!’ he cried, crouching down beside her to determine what new harm he had done her. What the devil was she doing wandering around the Keep on her own? Hadn’t she been told to stay with her chaperone? He couldn’t be trusted. Surely she understood that by now?
‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord, I am unharmed,’ Fidelia sputtered, her distress making a lie of her words.
‘Let me help you up. I do apologise. I did not see you.’
‘It is perfectly all right. The hall is dark. Quite understandable.’ She placed her tiny hand in his and let him draw her to her unsteady feet.
Once he held her hand, he couldn’t bring himself to let it go, even once she was firmly righted. Jasper drew that hand closer to him and studied it as if searching for the secrets of the Ancients in its palm. Fidelia made no move to draw it back, and she seemed to study him as closely as he studied her palm.
‘I am sorry I have not gone away as you requested. Phil would not let me.’
He glanced up so he could meet her troubled gaze. ‘I must apologise for my behaviour that day. I spoke without thinking. I was concerned.’
‘For my safety, so Phil informed me. She said I might have caught this contagion you all suffer from, because of what we did.’
Jasper was mesmerised by her eyes that seemed black in the shadowed hallway. Without realising he did it, his hand came out and brushed a stray curl back from her face.
‘It is unlikely. Our research seems to indicate that…What we did should not cause you harm. But until we are sure…’ His voice was little more than a whisper now, a breath that fanned out across her bright pink cheeks. Her eyes seemed to glisten.
‘Is this condition I have heard so little about, such an awful thing?’ Her voice was no more than a whisper, too, and he leaned even closer to catch her words. Or to draw more of her scent into his nose. He wasn’t sure which.
‘It is awful. But do not fear; it is unlikely I have infected you.’ His tongue itched to taste her.
‘How long have you been infected?’ She moved ever so slightly closer to him, seemingly unconcerned with the danger he posed.
‘Nearly three years. It feels like a lifetime.’ He couldn’t stop himself edging a little closer, too. His mouth was now inches from hers. Would it matter if he kissed her again? If she was infected, then repeating the act would not make any differ
ence, and if she wasn’t, then they knew that kissing would not turn her.
As if she read his mind, she nodded her agreement, parting her lips. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried. And he had no desire to try. It felt like years since he’d taster her sweet lips, had known the warm, welcome depths of her mouth.
He gathered her close and crossed the short distance that separated their lips. The sigh of contentment he heard coming from her mouth enflamed him. Before he could process it, he was deepening the kiss, hungrily taking everything she offered and asking for more.
This feeling she drew from him was not like any he had known before. It drugged his senses, slowed his brain until he could barely think of anything but her. In the back of his mind he knew what he was doing was wrong and dangerous. Hadn’t he agreed to stay away from her last night? Why wasn’t Phil acting as her watchdog now, stopping this headlong race into danger?
But her soft lips moulded perfectly with his, and her small tongue was growing confident, slipping out to duel with his as if she sought his taste as desperately as he sought hers. He ran his hands down the length of her back, wanting to feel her skin beneath his hands. The hard press of whalebone frustrated him.
‘Dee?’
As if Phil’s call was a bucket of ice water thrown over them, they jerked apart. Mortified by his behaviour, he stared at the flustered little woman in front of him. She had her fingers over her mouth, as if testing their softness. Her gaze met his in shock.
‘Dee?’
Fidelia spun away from him toward the voice. He saw over the top of her head, Phil hurrying toward them.
‘Oh, there you are. Maude said you had come down to the kitchen to discuss tonight’s meal. You did not have to do that. Maude is quite capable of passing on your requirements…’ Phil stopped talking as soon as she saw him standing there, directly behind her friend. ‘Oh, Jas… What are you doing here?’
‘I missed luncheon,’ he managed to get out. ‘I was getting something from the kitchen to tide me over until dinner.’ He knew he sounded like a naughty school boy caught midway through some devilry. The heat of a blush raced up his neck and into his cheeks.
‘We came upon each other purely by accident,’ Fidelia added, sounding just as guilty as he did.
‘Well, let me accompany you to see Cook. I am sure she will be able to meet your requirements. She caters for all tastes here.’ Phil came up to Fidelia’s side and took her arm, smiling brightly at Jasper as she led his woman away. The taste of her was still in his mouth, and his senses were still reeling.
Unable to budge from his spot, he watched her disappear into the sunlit room at the end of the hall. Only then did he realise he was holding his breath.
This was not going to work. It wasn’t courage he was lacking, it was control. She had been in the Keep no more than a few hours and he had already put her in danger again. Why, when she knew of the infection, did she not fight him off? Surely she had some semblance of self-preservation?
Shaking his head, he began to stride down the hall, determined to put as much distance between himself and Fidelia as possible. Though the idea of being locked up in the library was an anathema to him, he could think of nowhere else to go. Maybe reading some of the new mail might get his mind off the little woman.
And maybe not.
‘Dee, you have to keep away from him,’ Phil scolded, drawing her into the kitchen, only to find the room empty.
‘Stop treating me like a child,’ Fidelia said angrily. ‘I did not mean to come upon him in the hallway. And even if I did, what I do is my decision, not yours. If you will not tell me what this terrible contagion is that I am at risk of contracting, do not expect me to have the caution you deem necessary.’
Phil stared at her in surprise for several moments. ‘You have changed. The old Dee would never speak like that.’
Flustered now, Fidelia shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can change. I do not have to stay the person you have always known. In the last month, I have grieved the loss of a husband and two daughters, been attacked in my own home, discovered that I am not the passionless milksop I always believed myself to be, been kidnapped, watched a man torn to pieces by a beast, and then spent the night alone with that same beast. Surely anyone would have changed after all that?’
It was Phil’s turn to be flustered. She blushed bright red and looked away. ‘I know, I know. I was not criticising you. I was just voicing my sudden realisation. You have been through more than your share in a very short time. But that does not mean you have to court more trouble.’
‘I am not courting anything! I did not intend to meet Lord Jasper in the hallway or for him to knock me to the floor. If I encouraged his kiss, then that was an aberration of the moment, although if I am infected with this terrible condition from his previous kisses, then it should not matter if I allow myself the pleasure of more. You do not understand, Phil! When I am with him I feel every sense heighten. I am exhilarated! And I do not want to stop feeling this way, even if I am putting myself in danger.’
‘We’re werewolves!’ A sullen female voice broke into the silence that had fallen between the friends at the end of Fidelia’s declaration.
Fidelia saw Phil blanch and look in the direction of the voice. She followed her gaze and saw a beautiful young woman with a riot of dark curly hair standing in the outer doorway of the kitchen.
‘Charlotte!’ Phil said on a gasp.
‘Stop pussy-footing around her, Phil. She needs to know what she’s getting herself into.’ The woman was familiar. Fidelia had seen her at meal times, but couldn’t remember if they had been introduced. From her accent, she surmised that this Charlotte was not a lady. All this she processed before her words sank in.
‘We planned…’
‘Yes, well plans rarely work out the way they should. Just tell her and let her decide what she wants to do about it.’ The woman, arms filled with rose stem cuttings, stomped on through the kitchen and out into the hallway they had so recently traversed.
When she was gone, Fidelia let her mind focus on her words at last.
‘What did she mean?’ Fidelia sputtered, not quite sure what the outrageous termagant had meant by werewolves. Surely it was a derogatory description of their condition, not a statement of fact. Werewolves weren’t real!
But then she remembered the big black beast she had cuddled up to all night long. She had never seen a creature so large or ferocious before. And yet, it had seemed almost human in the way that it treated her. And those eyes. Those eyes had been so blue and familiar.
Oh good heavens! She knew those eyes, had remarked on their brilliant blue, and had found herself drowning in them on more than one occasion. A naked man at her door in the morning after hearing howling the night before; a man’s bare footprints outside the cave. The pieces were fitting together now that she had been given the crucial piece of the puzzle
‘Dee, do not jump to conclusions,’ Phil warned unsteadily, reaching out for her. But her voice seemed to come from a long way away, and the sunlit kitchen was going suddenly dark.
The last thing she registered before darkness claimed her completely was Phil’s panic.
Then there was nothing.
CHAPTER TEN
Jasper became aware of the uproar as he tried to settle to reading one of the letters he’d picked up that morning. Mary came rushing into the library, her face flushed, her eyes darting around as if searching for someone.
‘Where’s Byron?’ she demanded in a voice far louder than she usually used.
Jasper looked around the room, even though he knew his friend was not there. ‘What has happened?’
‘Charlotte told her and she fainted, hitting her head on the table as she fell,’ Mary threw over her shoulder as she hustled away.
Jasper didn’t need to ask who had fainted or what Charlotte had told her. He was on his feet and running before Mary had fully disappeared out the door again.
The journey from the library o
n the second floor to the kitchen on the ground floor took far longer than he would have expected, considering he ran it like the devil was on his tail. But finally he reached the room and found the place packed with agitated people. Cook was wiping Fidelia’s face with a wet cloth. Phil was pushing the table out of the way, with the help of young Jamey. And Job stood in the open doorway that led to the garden, shifting from foot to foot, obviously trying to determine how he could help without getting in the way.
Jasper had no such concerns. He stormed in, swept Cook out of the way, and lifted his tiny woman into his arms as easily as if she was a life-sized doll. Then he strode out the door and headed for the room he knew had been allocated to her.
‘Jasper, be careful.’ He didn’t bother replying to Phil’s directive. Every thought was on the woman in his arms, on her face, white and pasty, and on the red mark on her forehead growing larger with every moment that passed.
At the door to her room, he hitched her into a better position so he could reach for the door handle. As he did so, Fidelia’s maid opened the door. Her look of distress was more than he could handle in that moment. Sweeping past Maude and her bleatings, he strode over to the bed and gently laid his burden down. Then he began unbuttoning the front of her gown.
‘Sir, you can’t be doin’ that!’ Maude exclaimed.
‘I am trying to get to these damnable stays, woman. Propriety counts for nothing in her condition. Do not hit me over the head with a tea tray. I am only doing what is necessary,’ he managed to get out.
‘Let me, sir,’ Maude said, a little less horrified now.
‘You can serve your mistress better by getting some ice water to put on this lump on her head. She hit it as she fell, so I am told. If we do not get the swelling down, she will have quite a bruise when she comes around.’
He tried not to think, if she comes around, but the thought, once there, was hard to uproot.