Guardian of Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy)

by Nhys Glover

  Guardian

  of

  Werewolf Keep

  Nhys Glover

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. With the exception of historical events and people used as background for the story, and those in the public domain, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in this work come wholly from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Published by Belisama Press

  © Nhys Glover 2013

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  About the Author

  Nhys Glover is an Australian teacher, historian, international presenter and author, who now lives and writes in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales of England. Here she looks out over Bronte Country, and is inspired to write romantic (and a little bit hot) tales of adventure that feed her Soul and inspire her readers.

  Please visit www.nhysglover.com to find out more about Nhys, her fascinating life, and more details about her many books.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Philomena Davenport stared up at the pile of weathered stones and fallen turrets outlined on the twilit skyline of the desolate Yorkshire moor. This was Breckenhill Keep? How could it be? Her father’s will stipulated that she must live here for three months, before inheriting his immense wealth. But no one but goats could live in this fallen down ruin!

  It was a ghastly trick. Yet another perpetrated on her by her cruel, absent parent. What other explanation but cruelty could there be for leaving his wife and daughter to live in genteel poverty, believing him dead all these years, while he’d actually lived on with what could only be considered spectacular wealth? What kind of a man would do such a thing?

  The carriage trundled on toward its destination as the shadows gathered. The closer they came to the ancient castle, the more daunted she became. In places, it was several stories high, towering over them like a malignant giant. In others, it had toppled to the height of a fence.

  The central part of the Keep seemed solid enough. It appeared to be a stronghold, of sorts, with long, thin windows harking back to a time when bowmen hid at such openings to fire down on their medieval enemy. The castellated battlements at the very top were rounded with age, but they still reminded her of the castles on a chess board.

  The horses pulled up on the rutted driveway in front of a huge, oak door. This, at least, seemed to be in a good state of repair.

  Her new footman jumped down from his seat next to the driver, and came to the window. He peered in at her anxiously. Phil lifted her chin, and tried to look imperious.

  'Please open the door, Phelps, and help me down. Then go up to the door and knock. It is obvious that the staff is unaware, as yet, of our arrival.'

  Phil tried to sound older and more worldly than her twenty two years. She knew that servants would easily lose respect for a mistress who showed uncertainty of any kind. Her new staff didn’t need to know that before last week she had been little more than a servant herself.

  The footman opened the door with marked reluctance, and helped her down from the coach. Young Prudence, her maid, scrambled down after her. They both stood patiently waiting while the footman climbed the rough-cut stone stairs to the large door.

  Phelps used the huge brass door knocker, which was shaped like a yawning beast, to draw attention to them. The sound of the loud rap echoed hollowly in the gloom.

  They waited. Then waited a little longer. As the minutes passed, Phil realised she had stopped breathing. Deliberately, she drew a deep, calming breath into her lungs, and called up to her man.

  'Knock again. There has to be someone here.'

  Phelps did as he was told, this time with more enthusiasm.

  Night was upon them now, and the full moon provided their only light. In the eerie silence she heard the horses shift restlessly in their traces. It felt like they were the only people alive on this desolate moor.

  When the second knock still brought no response, Phelps raised the knocker again. As he did so, the door flew out from beneath his hand, and he almost fell across the threshold.

  'Who are you, and what do you want at this time of night?'

  Phil saw the door fly open, and heard the commanding male voice, but she could not see its owner. Her footman obviously could, because he was backing up fast, almost falling down the stone stairs in his haste to get away from whoever had addressed him.

  As it was clear that the footman was not going to make the announcement of her arrival, Phil stepped forward with her head held high.

  'It is the new mistress of this house, Philomena Davenport. We were delayed. Please be so kind as to have your people see to my needs. I am tired. It has been a long trip from London.'

  From the cavernous doorway stepped a tall figure. The moonlight provided only a silhouette of his shape, but it was enough to portray size, strength and vitality. This was a young man in his prime. And he was angry.

  'Go back to the village, and find shelter there for the night. We are not prepared for your arrival. Come again tomorrow at a civilized hour.' The man's voice was deep and gravelled, as if he suffered a sore throat. But the volume made it apparent that there was nothing wrong with his windpipes. His voice was loud enough to echo off the stones around them, and out onto the lonely moor.

  'How dare you speak to your new mistress in such a way! I am sorry that we must put you and the rest of the staff to inconvenience, but I am arrived, and I will be staying.' She wondered how she managed to put such steel into her tone, when she felt like folding up like a stringless puppet, and falling to the ground. But the idea of getting back into the carriage and making her way back down the steep goat track, which passed as a road, to the nearest village some miles away, was more than she was prepared to consider.

  'This is no place for you this night, madam,' the tall silhouette ground out with bare civility. 'I have no time to see to your needs. Go away!' He stepped back into the Keep, and made to close the great door.

  Without fully thinking it through, Phil bounded up the stairs, ignoring her heavy skirts, and managed to put her foot in the doorway before the door fully closed. She yelped in pain as the heavy door hit her booted foot, but she didn't remove it.

  'Madam, you would test a saint, and I am not one. Take your foot away from the door and be gone! I have no time for your spoiled and brainless tantrums. There is danger here this night. Be gone!'

  For a moment, Phil was struck dumb, the shock of his attack scattering all thoughts from her head. Then, a slow burn began to make its way up her neck, and with it came fury.

  'You think that what you have witnessed so far is a tantrum, sir? Do not push me, or I will show you a tantrum, one that will bring an army to this door, and have you thrown out on your high and mighty posterior!' She spoke softly, and because of it, her words carried weight. 'Open the door and let me and my people in, or there will be real danger here when I return. I am no brainless twit. This is my inheritance, and you will not keep it from me, even for one night!'

  The door flew open once more, before the sound of her steely voice had died away, and Phil pulled her aching foot back beneath her. For the first time, she saw the arrogant bounder who stood gatekeeper to what was hers.

  She was not a short woman, but she felt t
iny in comparison to the giant who towered over her. He reminded her of the Keep that surrounded them, big and roughly hewn, cold and forbidding. And just as the Keep frightened her, but would not put her off, neither would the man.

  He was dressed as a gentleman, if a rather dishevelled and unfashionable one. His hair was overly long, falling in curling waves to his shirt collar, and looked black in the deep shadows that surrounded him. What she could see of his features in the moonlight were heavy and harshly defined, the nose jutting arrogantly from high cheekbones. Heavy brows shielded the caverns of his eyes. Several days’ growth bearded his cheeks. He was as tense as a tightly coiled spring. And tired, she realised with an unexpected pang of sympathy.

  'I am sorry for keeping you from your bed,' she said more gently, now that she had gained the advantage.

  'There will be no bed for me this night. Nor will you find sleep within these walls, if you are foolish enough to stay. I have warned you. Be it on your own head, if you choose not to heed my warning.'

  With that final volley, the man retreated into the darkness, leaving her standing in the doorway. There was not one taper lit in the huge entryway. How he made his way so smoothly without light was just another mystery amongst so many others.

  'Wait. Where are you going? You cannot just leave me here. You must send someone to show me to my bedchamber. Someone to accompany my men to the stables, and find them a place for the night...' her voice petered out as she realized he was not going to stop or turn around. Her victory of the moment before seemed suddenly very hollow.

  What could she do? She didn't know what lay beyond the door. She didn't even have a lantern to light her path. This was madness.

  She turned back to the coach and her servants, newly hired in London using the travelling money her father’s solicitor had provided. They looked as confused and frightened as she felt.

  'Unload my bags please, and put them inside. And light me a lantern. Prudence will come with me, and the two of you men will have to find what accommodation you can at the stable, which I assume will be around the back.'

  None of her words seemed to appeal to the three people waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  'You can ‘ave your bags an’ a lantern, Miss, but no amounta coin’s gonna make me stay ‘ere this night. I'm takin’ the Master's advice an’ goin' back to the village. It's not far,' said the gruff coachman.

  Phelps nodded his head in agreement, and after a quick glance at the men, Prudence joined the revolution, too.

  'I'm not stayin’ ‘ere tonight, Miss. You seem a nice sort, really ya do. But I don' like this place, not a bit. I don' need the work enough to risk me neck.'

  'You'll be risking your neck far more by going back down that goat track in the dark. Don't let that oaf put you off. We are perfectly safe here.' Phil felt as if the ground beneath her feet had suddenly turned to quicksand. She fought the urge to panic. She had paid them all good money in advance. They couldn't go off and leave her here alone, could they?

  But it seemed they could and would.

  After unpacking her new trunks from the top of the coach, and lining them up just inside the door of the Keep, the men lit the gas lanterns on the side of the coach, and gave her another to light her way.

  Speechless, she watched them go about their preparation to desert her. In the gentle glow of the lantern, Phil studied her travel-soiled clothing and grimy kid gloves that had been brand new at the start of her journey. Her fears intensified. They were doing it. They were really going to go off and leave her here alone.

  She could change her mind. There was nothing keeping her here. She could give in gracefully, and let them drive her back down the moor to a warm, comfortable bed in a village inn. She didn't have to stand her ground.

  But she did. Because that was how she had been raised. If her father, heartless brute that he later proved to be, could stand bravely against the marauding Russian enemy at Balaclava, then she could do the same here. This might not be the 'Charge of the Light Brigade', but there was no reason why she couldn’t show the same kind of bravery those men had done. She may only be a woman, but this was her land. Her father had left it to her. And no one was going to drive her away, even for a night.

  With stubborn chin jutting, she watched the coach drive away into the night. The doorway yawned open, waiting to gobble her whole. She turned resolutely toward it, and marched into the Keep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Byron Carstairs watched the coach drive away with some satisfaction. At least now he only had one unsuspecting person to protect this night.

  But what a one she had turned out to be: the new heiress, daughter of the man who had been like a father to him for nine long years. He had not even known she existed until he read the letter Patrick had given him on his deathbed.

  He understood why the Captain, as he was called by all those who lived in and around Breckenhill Keep, had kept the girl a secret. His past life would have been a painful memory he preferred no reminders of. But why leave the girl this legacy? No loving father would be so cruel. Why insist that a young, innocent woman spend three interminable months in the Hell Hole that had been his own prison for the last ten years? Why put her into such danger? Why let her risk learning his horrifying secret, as she was bound to do if she stayed here long enough, after keeping her away from it for so long?

  Byron felt anger seethe beneath his carefully maintained facade. Wasn't it enough that the Captain had laid the duty of care for the unfortunate denizens of the Keep in his reluctant hands for the last nine years? Now he'd added another burden to his overflowing load: Guardian of an innocent young woman. How could he be expected to protect her from what lived within the Keep's stone walls? How was he to shelter her from the truth that would surely drive her mad, if it didn't kill her first?

  The only saving grace in this ever-increasing nightmare was that the girl wasn't as sweetly docile as he had expected. Patrick Davenport's daughter appeared to be a chip off the same block of granite. She even shared her father's fiery countenance. But where Patrick had been a self-proclaimed 'carrot-top' in his youth, Philamena's hair, beneath that demure bonnet, had seemed a darker shade – more auburn.

  But darkness was deceptive. In the full light of day, it might be that her hair was ginger, her luminous white skin marred by freckles, and those dark eyes fringed with pale red spikes that would leave her looking insipid. She might not be the glorious beauty the darkness had wanted to make of her.

  But even if that were the case, and if her eyes were not as dark and appealing as they appeared to be, he doubted that the word insipid would ever be used to describe Miss Philomena Davenport. There was just too much fire and passion in her, to be labelled anything less than glorious.

  He was glad of that, even though it might have made his life easier if he could have bullied her into doing his bidding. If she was to stand a chance in hell of surviving unscathed her three months detention in Breckenhill Keep, she would need all the fire and spirit she had at her command.

  Brave men had been driven mad with fear by what the Keep contained. How was he to keep such a fate from befalling this one frail woman, no matter how spirited?

  The coach was gone now, and he heard the great oak door close. He knew she was standing there in the entry hall, alone and unsure of her next actions. If she wasn't to fall into immediate danger, he would have to go and get her. He would have to give her a room with a stout lock, and insist she use it. The moon was rising higher with every passing minute, and though it was still quiet, he knew it would not be long before those kept imprisoned beneath the Keep discovered they were trapped, and began their frenzied attempts to escape.

  He wanted her locked down safe before that happened. Safe and unsuspecting: The first was far easier than the last.

  He quickly made his way back down to the entry hall where the girl stood illuminated by the glow of her one lantern. She looked terrified, standing there in her sober travelling clothes, dusty from travel,
bonnet slightly eschew. Wisps of dark golden hair hung lose around her pale face. Huge, dark eyes peered around her into the gloom.

  'If you insist on staying, then follow me,' he said grudgingly. He didn't want to make this easy for her. Nor for himself.

  She seemed to have been aware of his return, even though he moved in darkness, for she didn't jump at his harsh words. Instead, she picked up a small valise at her feet, and walked toward him.

  'Thank you for making an effort at hospitality, now that you have scared my servants away.' Her tone said that she was not in the least grateful to him. Byron wanted to smile, and that surprised him. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled. Nine years ago? That sounded about right. In those long ago days he had smiled and laughed a lot. He'd been a happy-go-lucky young man, with his whole future ahead of him. Soon, he would have reached the age to enlist, and he’d been looking forward to the glory to be found defending Victoria's Empire from the beasts of the Sevastopol.

  But that fateful moonlit night, nine years ago, had changed everything. His parent's coach had overturned on the way home from a party. He had been thrown clear. When he'd regained consciousness, it was to a nightmare of blood and horror unrivalled even by the stories from the Crimea.

  Help had come that night in the form of villagers who had heard the accident. Their torches had driven the beast off. But the horror was not so easily driven away. Not when he staggered to his feet to find his parents torn to bloody pieces before him, and the coachman, blood-soaked but alive, groaning in agony.

  What happened next had been stamped on his memory forever, although for many days after the event he thought he had dreamed it. The villagers checked him for wounds, and finding none, assisted him. But the wounded coachman they had killed, right there in front of him. He had been in shock, or he might have tried to stop them. But to his befuddled brain, it was just one more horror to add to so many others.