The Wolf of Haskell Hall

by Colleen Shannon

  Teaser frontispiece, The Wolf of Haskell Hall

  “Go ahead. Discharge me if you wish.”

  She started and whirled. How did he walk so silently?

  No smile upon that enigmatic face now as he said softly, “But you will still not be rid of me. Any more than I will be rid of you. The Haskell women and the Griffith men have been linked for centuries, Delilah. Your blood is as hot with the bond between us as my own.”

  Still holding her gaze, he reached around her for the sketchbook. He flipped it open and showed her the top picture, the next, and the next.

  Heat started at the top of her head and ran like magma to her toes. The images got progressively more sensual.

  And progressively more shocking.

  They were all of her. Face only, then bust, then from the waist up. Dressed lightly at first, then only in chemise and stockings. Finally….as he flipped through the sketchbook, he ended on a full length nude.

  Before she put thought to action, her hand lashed out and slapped that arrogant face hard enough to jerk his head to the side.

  “You bounder! You have no right to even think of me so, much less–” She broke off with a gasp as he caught the back of her skull in both his powerful hands and tipped her head back. His touch swept through her stem to stern like a tidal wave.

  For a moment she was pristine, like a beach never stepped upon by human foot. And then he shoved her against the wall, pressing into her with his masculine frame that so strangely seemed to fit her own.

  And she was marked.

  Marked forever after, no matter what came of this night when it seemed only the two of them were awake in all the world. She felt the imprint of him, indelibly stamped through the shivering sands of pride and propriety straight to the bedrock of her soul.

  When he kissed her, she tipped her head back to meet him.

  And finally, she saw emotion in those strange amber eye

  THE WOLF OF HASKELL HALL

  BY:

  COLLEEN SHANNON

  Motto: Delilah Haskell, Heiress of Haskell Hall

  “I will neither yield to the song of the siren, nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile, nor the howling of the wolf.”

  George Chapman, Eastward Ho, Act V, scene i

  Prayer: Ian Griffith, Estate Manager of Haskell Hall

  “For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, one passion doth expel another still.”

  George Chapman, Eastward Ho, Act V, scene i

  October 2015

  Published by:

  The Fugl Group

  Pflugerville, TX 78660

  Notice: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as ‘unsold and destroyed’ to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this ‘stripped book.’

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Copyright 2006 by Colleen M. Fuglaar

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN 9780996941600

  Visit us on the web at colleenshannonauthor.com

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  CORNWALL, ENGLAND, 1878

  Pain. Thirst. Hunger. The three demons ran alongside him in the gloom, dark harbingers leading him to a future more terribly beguiling with every step he took deeper into the moor.

  Once he had struggled against this fate. He’d traveled the ends of the earth to avoid it. But neither the burning sands of the Sahara nor the bone-seeping chill of an Andean hut had quieted the call of blood to blood.

  Such was the fate of his father.

  And his father’s father, back into the mists of time when Druids chanted and danced naked in the….

  Moonlight.

  He lifted his face to the siren call. Now that he accepted his family’s curse as a blessing, this winsome wanton no longer terrified him. Power surged through him with every alluring ray, making his senses acute to things no mere mortal could understand.

  The taste of home upon his tongue with the salt damp of the marsh.

  The feel of moss-covered ground beneath his bare feet, springy yet firm.

  The touch of mist writhing like a woman’s silken skin against his bare torso.

  The sight of wild things darting about in the cover of darkness, secure that his flawed human eyes could not see the red glow of their heat. And sounds…

  The laughter floated toward him, a taunt and temptation drifting on the wind. He lifted his nose and sniffed. Through all the other smells of the fecund Cornish night, he caught the most seductive scent of all: woman. For an instant, he stood where he was, both grounded on the soil of home, yet lost in the dilemma of his kind. The remnants of humanity whispered in one ear–

  –and demons howled in the other.

  Louder, and far more seductive.

  Pain…a stab so acute that it felt as if his rib cage expanded to hold the muscle and bone his frail human frame could not contain.

  Thirst…His tongue, unbearably sensitive now, lapped out to taste a pond, but the thin water didn’t have the texture and taste he craved.

  Hunger…It twisted his guts into knots. He bent double, fighting the dark urges, but then the laughter came again. With it, the last of his humanity faded away, a pinprick receding down the dark maw of the night.

  In one agile bound, he whirled and scaled the tall hedge separating him from his prey. Down, down the slope into the clearing, where the latest Haskell heiress galloped her horse in the moonlight. Her long silvery hair was a banner waving behind her in the stiff breeze, taunting him with the need to catch it and pull her out of the saddle. Unaware of him, she urged the white mare on to faster strides.

  Not fast enough.

  How easily he kept pace, power surging through him from the tips of his curving fingers to toes growing into claws.

  Feet silent on the damp earth, he gained on her with every step.

  And then, as he got close enough to leap, all his senses narrowed down to one driving urge.

  The need to feed.

  He was tensing to spring when he felt the Other bound into step beside him. They bared fangs at one another, stiff neck hairs bristling as they growled a warning. For an instant, they matched, step for step, jostling for position as they battled over who would have first taste.

  And then, as if even her dull human senses came alive to the danger, the woman looked over her shoulder. She screamed, trying to wheel her mount away from them.

  But it was too late.

  For her.

  And for him…

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Delilah Hortense Haskell Trent drew the light curricle to a halt just inside the wrought iron gates of Haskell Hall. Delilah and her two servants stared up
at the odd mansion.

  The Hall glowed like a sanctuary in the increasing gloom illuminated only by a half moon. Lights glowed from every window, as if the servants were determined to do their part to welcome the new mistress. But the bright displays only accentuated the building’s sad state of decay. It was a hodgepodge of architectural styles, from the simple Georgian pilasters and flat front of the central portion, to the fussy Victorian wings on both sides, each capped with octagonal towers. Still, the overall effect might have been charmingly eccentric absent the sagging shutters, peeling double front doors and mouldering, ivy-covered stone that needed a good regrouting.

  The gravel drive in front, however, was cleanly swept, and the grounds were immaculate.

  “Blimey, she’s a frowsy bitch, drawers a droppin’ round her knees at the first sign o’ interest,” came the ribald appraisal from Jeremy, Lil’s groom, bodyguard, and favorite general nuisance.

  Lil didn’t even glance at him, for she’d long since given up trying to make him keep a civil tongue in his head. But he had other qualities she valued more than politesse.

  As usual, Safira gave him a hushing look out of her slanted, exotic eyes luminous against her burnished Haitian skin. “Mon, you have no need to stir up trouble before we even set foot inside the place.”

  “Trouble don’t need stirrin’ up here, me dusky beauty,” Jeremy retorted. “It follows, bold like, right through the door with us. I can feel it in me bones.”

  This time, Safira didn’t argue. Her lovely dark eyes got huge as she fingered the talisman at her throat and stared up at the Hall. “Mistress, the little bandy cock could be right, for once. Maybe we should turn around and catch the first boat back to America.”

  Lil spared them each an amused glance before she clicked her tongue to the horse. “Sometimes I’m not sure which of you is more superstitious. The voodoo priestess or the Cockney sailor who quit the sea because his captain had the temerity to bring his wife aboard.”

  Neither of them retorted with their usual spunk, so she left off her teasing. It was too late to turn back now. She was in England, the land of her mother’s birth, for the first time, and she intended to enjoy every moment.

  She had, after all, crossed an ocean to get here, drawn as much by curiosity as by duty. Without her presence, the tiny village of Haskell would fail, Mr. Randall Cottoway, esq., of Jasper, Diebold and Cottoway, London solicitors, had told her. The estate would be parceled off among various male relatives, the villagers and miners likely put out of work, if she did not stake her rightful claim to the inheritance. She, he’d informed her with typical lofty British superiority, was needed back in Cornwall. Surely–he’d made plain with a scornful glance around her mother’s over-lavish drawing room–she could afford a few months and a few pounds to save the estate for future Haskell heirs.

  “Such a bequeathal, coming down through the distaff side of the Haskell family, is highly unusual in English law,” the solicitor had stated. “Because you are the last known female heir with Haskell blood, if you do not satisfy the terms of the inheritance by living on the property for six months, then everything will finally pass, after three centuries, into the male hands of several distant cousins related only to the patriarchal side of the family.” He’d tipped his ridiculous bowler hat, left a packet of papers, and exited, obviously relieved that his duty was done and he could return to civilization.

  Like her stoic Scottish father, Lil could be coaxed, she could be cajoled, best of all she could be reasoned with. But she could never be bullied.

  Challenged, however, was another matter.

  So here she sat, drawing the curricle to a halt under the hulking building that seemed to brood down at them. For a craven instant, she felt a quiver of unease shiver down her sword-straight spine. She had much of the sheer practicality of her stalwart father, and little of the flighty moodiness of her mother. However, as she stared up at the Hall, a strange foreboding niggled its way through her usual calm, as insidious as the gathering fog.

  Had she done the right thing in coming here?

  The doors burst open. Light flooded the darkness as smiling servants filed out. She had no time for regrets, or foolish fancies.

  Then.

  The next day, Lil sat in the salon partaking in that peculiar English ritual that had been the one legacy her mother seemed to cherish: high tea. Lil had never told her mother, since they always seemed to have plenty to argue about with added incentive, but, like her father, Lil despised the taste of tea. However, since she had no wish to be considered more of a heathen American than she obviously already was to these people, she forced herself to drink it.

  As she bit into a cucumber sandwich, Lil had to admit that no one knew better how to disguise gossip as high society than the English. Even the snooty Denver socialites who’d never accepted the Trents–their scandalous riches actually made, they’d whispered, by Mr. Trent’s own hands–could take lessons in hypocrisy from these country ladies.

  Mrs. Farquar of Farquar Hill, gushed, “So brave of you to venture here across the sea, all the way to Cornwall from America. Of course, I make no doubt that even our desolate moors are positively teeming with social occasions compared to what you probably knew in…now what was the name of that town you’re from, my dear?”

  Biting back the urge to tell the plump little busybody that Denver even had gas lights and paved streets, really it did, unlike the parts hereabout, Lil politely wiped the corners of her mouth with her linen napkin and responded, “Denver. Colorado.”

  “Oh yes,” piped up Mrs. Farquar’s horse-faced daughter, “you remember, Maman. That’s where all the gold and silver miners moved after they made their fortunes.”

  Both ladies darted complacent looks at Lil out of the corners of their eyes.

  It hadn’t taken them long to investigate her background. How had they managed it so quickly in this backwater? Lil’s teeth snapped down on a scone this time, but she managed to hold her tongue.

  However, Jeremy, who’d been setting a new fire for them in the grate, had no such qualms. Dusting his hands off on his breeches, he said out of the corner of his mouth, “Aye, same place as many a pretty English rose went a scoutin’ fer a rich husband if she could get it, and a rich protector if she couldn’t.” Jeremy raked Miss Farquar with his wintry blue eyes to match the silver wings on his unusually large–and stubborn–head. “Ye could try your luck, gel, but a man’d as lief mount a thoroughbred as a nag, and back ye’d be quick-like, puttin’ down yer betters.”

  Both women goggled at him in shock.

  Hiding a smile behind her napkin, Lil gave him a severe look over the linen. When her mouth was straight she lowered the cloth, hoping her voice was sterner than her merry green eyes. “Jeremy, leave the room at once, and never speak to my guests so again!”

  As usual, he read her like a book. He gave his cocky little half salute, half wave, and strolled out with his peculiar, rolling gait, not in the least abashed.

  “Well, really! How do you bear such a…” Mrs. Farquar’s outrage stopped mid-spate as she stared at the door. Her daughter did likewise, and the looks on their faces made Lil swivel in her chair in alarm to see what horror stood there.

  At first she could make out nothing in the dark hallway, but then the shadow moved into the room and resolved itself into a man.

  A very tall, powerful man.

  He wore work breeches and calf-high boots that molded his long legs, giving them an obscene clarity and beauty of power and form that would have made a lesser woman than Lil blush. His white lawn shirt was so thin that she could see the shadow of his chest hair, so she knew he must be dark. His face and hair were shaded under a broad-brimmed work hat. And his hands…she shivered as she stared at his hands.

  The nails were blunt and clean, but his long fingers had a tensile strength and…readiness expressed in every flagrantly male sinew of his indomitable frame. And when he walked into the room, he was silent despite his size, muscles movi
ng in oiled precision until he stood ten feet away. He flicked a short quirt against his leg, broadcasting impatient dislike as if he had no more patience for the two gossips than Lil did. His rudeness in not removing his hat spoke loudly of his opinion of them.

  Mother and daughter muttered excuses and fled, snapping the drawing room door closed behind them.

  Only the sound of the fire crackled, but Lil refused to be intimidated by her own estate manager. For this man could be none other than Ian Griffith. “Why did you not knock, Mr. Griffith?” She glanced at the mantel clock. “You are early for our appointment.”

  “If you wish I’ll go back out and return in five minutes–mistress.” The deep, soft voice put a slight emphasis on the last word, and the intonation gave erotic meaning to the polite usage. Still, he did not remove his hat, and she had the peculiar feeling he didn’t as much for his own protection as for hers.

  Why would he be afraid of her gaze?

  The urge to move her chair away from him almost overcame her, but instead, Lil tilted back her silvery head of fashionably coiffed hair and stared boldly up into the shadow of the hat, her own green gaze steady. She caught the glitter of eyes coasting from her small, slipper shod feet, up the green taffeta gown, past her full hips and small waist, to her generous bosom, pausing on the vee between her breasts before traveling on to her white throat. The glitter grew brighter as he watched the pulse pound there, but then he whacked the quirt hard against his leg as if to punish his own thoughts, and the glitter snuffed out like a light.

  That’s why he seemed so threatening, Lil instinctively realized. This man had the measured control of a leashed tiger. It would suffer you to feed it and train it and play with it, only so long as it pleased. But once that power was unleashed, and the wildness broke through….

  Nonsense. “Remove your hat, if you please.” He was just a man, and she was no ninny to be so intimidated.

  A sharp intake of breath betrayed his shock at the curt command, but he raised that large, capable hand and pulled off the hat.