Tempting the Wolf (28 page)

She held back and he released her, letting her take her time as he stretched out upon the blankets beneath him.

Her eyes took him in, skimming his body like a tangible flame. Perhaps a gentleman would have had the decency to be embarrassed, but he did not. Indeed, he lifted one brow and smiled at her as the heat of his erection danced against his skin.

Her eyes snapped with a mixture of fear and longing, and for a moment, he actually thought she might run, thought she might snatch up her gown and flee, but instead she eased onto the mattress beside him. The softness of her thigh brushed the tensed muscles of his. He guided her on top, until she straddled him, until she was poised above him.

“What—”

“Make love,” he rasped and bracing himself on his elbows, kissed her.

Everything was perfect then, everything was ordained. They touched and smoothed and arced in a haze of misty magic.

He skimmed his fingers over the peak of her budding breast and she arced into him, baring her heart.

There was nothing he could do but take her hips in his hands and ease slowly into the hot depths of her. They hissed in unison, and for a moment O’Banyon actually thought he had been wrong, that he would indeed succumb to the liquid heat of feeling her around him, pulling him under.

It was she who moved first, who rocked into the aching length of him. He reciprocated with a tortured growl, then feared the change had begun, but it had not. It was himself as he had not been for a hundred plus years. Perhaps as he had never been.

They rode together on the building tide. Her hands felt like brands against the flesh of his chest. Her knees hugged him, holding him close, riding him hard.

Tension bloomed and roared. O’Banyon gripped her thighs. Her luscious lips parted. Her body tensed and arched. He felt the release like a volcanic eruption, spewing forth every bit of strength from his muscles until he felt drained and exhausted.

And then she fell, soft and sated against the thrumming hollow of his chest, their heartbeats melding, their bodies limp.

He could barely draw a breath, could not, in fact, lift an arm. She had emptied him, had taken his all, and he fell, limp and spent into the soft darkness of sleep.

He awoke well after dawn and reached for her, needing her, but she was gone. He knew it in his heart before his mind fully accepted it. She was gone and he was alone.

“What do you mean, she’s not returned?” O’Banyon asked. He stood taut and edgy before Arborhill’s broad, double doors.

It had been two days since last he’d seen her. They had been the longest days of his life, stretching out before him in bleak agony, as vast and hopeless as the endless hours of darkness behind him. Oh aye, when she had failed to return, he had told himself how lucky he was to have the spell broken, to know that he could once again enjoy a bonny maid’s charms without becoming embarrassingly hirsute. Indeed, he had intended to do just that.

Instead, he had returned to Arborhill before evening. And on the following day. And the next.

“She’s not returned,” said Mrs. Catrill. “Since ‘er exodus some days past.”

“Where did she go?”

“As I’ve told you before, sir, my lady did not mention her destination.”

O’Banyon gritted his teeth. “When will she return?”

“I ‘ave no way of knowing that. Now if you’ll excuse me…” she said and shut the door.

He left then, returned to his townhouse. The night passed in grinding slowness. He spent the day asking for her, swallowing his pride, pressing others for any clue of her whereabouts. She owned property in Paris of course, and a villa in Italy. Perhaps she had gone there. But she had not. He was certain of that, could feel it in his soul.

Keelan watched with interest as he paced the length of his sitting room. God’s arse, why couldn’t he manage to lose the boy as thoroughly as he had lost the countess?

“Can’t you simply…” The lad leaned back in his chair, watching him. “Do what ye do?”

O’Banyon glared at him. “I’ve na idea what ye speak of.”

“I think ye do.”

“Well ye be wrong again,” he growled. He wore his plaid and naught else, thinking his ancestral garb would make him feel more himself. It did, if himself was an unkempt Irishman with a feral growl in his gut and an aching need to dismember someone. “Are ye certain she left no message with ye concerning her whereabouts?”

“She being…?”

“The countess!” O’Banyon snarled, and the boy grinned.

“Ahh.” He paused, then, “Nay, I am quite certain I would have noticed had she come to me door.”

“Tisna yer door.”

“Aye well, I believe I would have noticed had she come to
yer
door also. But she did na, did she?”

O’Banyon lowered his brows. “Mayhap now would be a likely time for ye to begin yer journey home, lad.”

“So the Irish Hound can lick his wounds in private?”

“What be ye yipping about?”

The boy shrugged. ” ‘Tis fair plain to see, she is na coming back to ye.”

He twisted toward the lad, his hands fisted, his jaw clenched. “Get out,” he ordered.

Keelan but raised his brows over well-amused eyes. “What did ye do to her to make her so distraught?”

“I’m warning ye—”

“I hope ye did na harm her. I would hate to think I’m sharing—”

“Get out!” O’Banyon roared and dragging the lad from his chair, all but tossed him from the house.

Anger poured through him like bile as he paced again, but it was anger laced with fear, with unmitigated terror. Where had she gone? And why had she left? Their one night together had been magical.

But perhaps it had not been so for her. Perhaps he had been so immersed in his own ecstasy that he had failed to consider her pleasure.

But no. She had moaned in his arms. Had writhed beneath his touch, but could that not be for dual reasons?

She was gone. That spoke volumes.

Yet even now he could feel the satin of her skin against—

Snarling a curse, O’Banyon ripped open his door and stormed from the house.

London was dark and dangerous. His mood was the same. He prowled the streets, asking questions, searching everywhere. But there was no trace of her.

It was well past vespers when he found his bed. Sleep took him finally, but nightmares haunted his dreams. She was there, just out of reach, watching him. The room was dark. She was alone, lying on her side. And suddenly, like the magic that was hers alone, she was naked. Her skin gleamed, gilt ivory in the flickering candlelight. She smiled, that secret seductive expression that made him ache with desire. He tried to go to her, but suddenly he was elsewhere and he could do naught but look on. Another man was in her bedchamber. Another paced across her room, sat upon her bed, looked down at her, his back toward O’Banyon.

Her eyes widened, as if she just now recognized the intruder. She cowered away. The man raised his hand, and now there was a knife clutched in his fist.

“Nay!” O’Banyon awoke with a start. His chest felt tight, his skin clammy. His fingers were curled like talons against his bed sheets.

“What the hell happened to ye?” Keelan stood in his doorway, nearly unseen, but not unknown, not with O’Banyon’s heightened senses. He could smell the scent of him. Could taste his own terror on the air.

“Get out!” he growled, but the lad leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and chuckled.

“Jesus, Irish, ‘tis time ye set this behind ye, is it na? She’s gone. Well out of your reach.”

“Get the hell out!” O’Banyon warned, but the lad stepped into the room, shaking his head as he came.

“Forget about her. She’s surely forgot about ye.”

A growl issued low in Banyon’s throat. He eased onto his hands and knees. The blankets slipped away from his naked body. “Tell me, lad, do you wish to die so young?”

The boy shrugged. “Na particularly, nay, and mayhap she does na either. Mayhap ‘tis why she escaped ye. Mayhap ‘tis why she chose another.”

O’Banyon could feel the change rip though him, could feel the bite of anger roar along his spine. “Get out of my sight.”

“She is probably moaning in his arms even now. Glad to be rid of ye so that she might—”

But suddenly O’Banyon leapt. He heard his own growl, heard the boy’s yelp of surprise, and then he was gone, just managing the door before the change was complete, before he was leaping down the road.

The darkness of the night suited him well. Fear and anger drove him like a whip.

He was at her estate in a matter of minutes, but she wasn’t there. He knew it immediately, knew it through the pads of his feet. But she had been. He could smell her exodus, could taste her retreat. The carriage had taken her away. There, to the north.

Lifting his head, he gazed into the distance… and felt her fear in the marrow of his soul.

***

The cottage in the woods was quiet and dark, lit only with one flickering tallow candle, but Antoinette liked it thus. She was alone here. Well, nearly so. Perhaps she could be happy with this simple sort of life. Perhaps she could be safe, undisturbed.

But O’Banyon’s face lit her memory. Feelings shivered through her, a magic so potent and heady that her heart seemed to swell—

But she wouldn’t think of that. She couldn’t afford to, not for his sake and not for hers.

She was an anomaly, a danger. He was… She didn’t know what he was. Magic of his own sort, surely.

A sound scraped against her window. She jerked her head in that direction, but ‘twas naught more than a branch against the panes. The wind was picking up.

She paced the confines of the cottage. She was well away from the city, away from eyes that watched her with calculated knowing. Faces that turned to watch her walk by and whisper behind her back.

She glanced toward the window. A man’s image flashed there.

She gasped. But the apparition was already gone, disappeared, replaced by nothing. Blackness. Her limbs felt weak.

What was wrong with her? She was simply imagining. All was well. She was safe, hidden here in the woods. Alone to level her thoughts, to find her bearing. Even Whitford and Minny had gone. But not without duress. She had sent them on, saying she needed them to prepare to return to Florence, but they knew the truth.

Something squeaked from the kitchen. She caught her breath and turned toward the sound, her muscles wooden. All was silent. ‘Twas a mouse surely. Nothing more. They had come aplenty since the cottage had been left empty. Perhaps she should get a cat.

Retrieving the candle from the nearby table, she lifted it high and almost laughed at her own wayward thoughts as she turned toward the kitchen. Just what she needed to set tongues wagging—a cat. Perhaps she could get a tattered broomstick as well or—

“Hello, countess.”

She jerked back with a gasp. A shadow stepped into the room. The candle bobbled in her hand, spilling wax across her fingers.

Mr. Winters’s face glowed in the flickering light.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper of shock, unrecognizable in the ensuing silence.

“I was worried about you,” he said, but his smile was crooked, his eyes strangely bright.

She straightened her back, willing away the fear, but it was there, lodged in her soul, a heavy weight on her heart. And once again she was in the swamp, fear filling her lungs until she could barely breathe. “How did you know I was here?” she murmured.

“How did I know?” He spread his hands and approached. “I know much, my love. I know, for instance, that your name is not Antoinette.”

Fear skittered like hunted deer up her spine. They’d found her. But how? “I fear you are intoxicated, Mr. Winters.” She turned away. The candle bobbled again. She flickered her gaze across the room, searching for a weapon. Anything. “I think you’d best leave.”

“Leave.” He laughed. “When I’ve gone to so much trouble to get here?”

She raised her chin. Sickness clutched her gut. “Whitford will be returning in a short while,” she said. “He will—”

“Ahh yes, Whitford,” he said. “Your…” He opened his eyes wide, his lips quirking mockingly. “Minion.”

He’d left a pistol on the table, had insisted that she keep it. But she’d put it away, buried it in a drawer.

“Tell me, countess,” he said, “was he deformed before you met him, or was that your doing?”

She jerked her gaze toward him, remembering these taunting tones from long years past. A gangly boy calling her witch, his lips curled in derision. But that was far behind her, another time, another person. Not herself at all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She was close to the drawer now, nearly there.

“I’m talking about the black arts, countess.”

Dread ripped through her. She turned toward him, breath held. “I’m afraid you’ve gone quite mad, Mr. Winters.”

He laughed. “Perhaps. But I am also right. I know who you are,” he said and took a step toward her.

Fear stalked her, treading softly, tickling up her spine. But she had felt fear before, and it would not help to run. Not now. ‘Twas too close. Too real. She set the candle on the table. Wax spilled onto the wood in an erratic pattern. The flame hissed and flickered.