The Dark One (37 page)

Rosalind's trepidation grew as the carriage drove her through the London streets toward home. Night had almost fallen. Would Armond become the beast again tonight? Would he become one every night now? She needed to ask him about the curse. She needed to read the poem.

The house her father had bought for her stepmother now lay in ruin. Smoke still rose from the black ash that covered the ground. Rosalind noted that the fire had not seemed to spread. Armond's stable looked untouched, as well as the home they shared or, at least, had once shared.

Hawkins held the door for her as she walked toward the house. His stiff presence was a comfort to her. “Is Lord Wulf at home?”

“He's been upstairs since you left earlier,” Hawkins informed her. “He said he was not to be disturbed for the
remainder of the evening. I was told to take myself off for the night . . . Should I change my plans, Lady Wulf?”

“That won't be necessary, Hawkins,” she said. “I am not to be disturbed, either.”

“Very well then, my lady. I've left a cold supper out should either of you decide you are hungry.”

“Thank you, Hawkins. Good night,” she called as he moved up the stairs.

Armond's door was locked. Both of them, she soon discovered. Rosalind walked to her night table. The poem still lay there on top of the book she'd taken from Armond's room. She lifted it and read:

Damn the witch who cursed me.
I thought her heart was pure.
Alas, no woman understands duty,
be it to family, name, or war
I found no way to break it
no potion, chant, or deed.
From the day she cast the spell,
it will pass from seed to seed.

Betrayed by love, my own false tongue,
she bade the moon transform me.
The family name, once my pride,
becomes the beast that haunts me.
And in the witch's passing hour
she called me to her side.
Forgiveness lost, of mercy none, she spoke before she died:

“Seek you and find your worst enemy,
stand brave and do not flee.
Love is the curse that binds you,
but 'tis also the key to set you free.”

Her curse and riddle my bane,
this witch I loved yet could not wed.
Battles I have fought and won,
and still defeat I leave in my stead.
To the Wulfs who suffer my sins,
the sons who are neither man nor beast,
solve the conundrum I could not
and be from this curse released.

Rosalind blinked at the last line. Be from this curse released? Then there was hope? Why had Armond not told her that he could break the curse? That all was not dark and doom, as he would lead her to believe? She would ask him, Rosalind decided.

She turned toward the door that separated them, surprised to see him standing in the doorway, watching her.

“You should have stayed with the dowager,” he said. “It's almost dark. You won't be safe with me.”

“Why didn't you tell me that the curse could be broken?” she demanded, ignoring his warning.

“Because we haven't exactly figured how to break it.”

Rosalind walked toward him, the poem in hand. “The poem points the way. It says to seek you your worst enemy, be brave and do not flee.”

He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “I have sought my worst enemy. I have faced Penmore and Chapman, and I did not flee. Anyone who hurts you is my worst enemy, Rosalind.”

“But that was last night that you faced them. Maybe tonight it won't happen again.”

He stared down at her, his expression stem. “I don't want you in the house,” he said. “I don't want you anywhere near me.”

His words hurt her, because she feared he might mean them for more than tonight. She feared that he might mean
them for forever. “Why won't you fight?” she asked. “Why won't you fight for us?”

Suddenly he grabbed her shoulders, pulling her close to him. “Breaking the curse cannot be that simple. Did you read all of it? Did you read the part where he says: ‘Battles I have fought and won, / and still defeat I leave in my stead'? If that does not sway you, look at me. Look very closely, Rosalind.”

She stared up at him. His teeth were longer. She glanced at the hands he had pressed to her shoulders. His nails were clawlike. “No,” she whispered, her heart breaking.

“Yes,” he hissed. “It begins to take me even now. You are not safe with me. I would rather take my own life than ever hurt you. I know now why my father made his decision.”

“He gave your mother no choice,” she said. “Just as you want to take my choice from me. You say your worst enemy is whoever would hurt me, Armond. Then you are my worst enemy. Your willingness to forsake the love we have for one another hurts me far worse than a man's fist, or his knife, could ever do. If you let your fear defeat you, if you let it rip your life from you and mine along with it, then you are your own worst enemy.”

He released her and walked back into his room. “Go now, Rosalind. Return to the dowager's home and stay there until I am able to locate my brothers and tell them what has happened.” He turned back to her and his eyes were filled with blue light. “You deserve more than this.” He indicated his face with a sweep of his hand.

She gasped slightly and took a step back at the sight of him. Her fear hurt him. She realized her mistake too late. He grasped the door and started to close it on her. Rosalind hurried forward. “What do you fear most, Armond?”

He paused, his eyes glowing brightly in the coming dark. “I fear I will hurt you. I saw what I did to Penmore.
I don't remember what I do when the beast takes me, Rosalind. If he takes my mind, how am I to control him? How will I ever know if I might pounce upon you and rip your throat out?”

“You could have hurt me last night,” she told him. She remembered now how Franklin had used her as a shield because the wolf would not attack her. “You would never hurt me, Armond. It doesn't matter what form you take.”

“I don't know that!” he thundered at her; then suddenly he gasped and doubled over. He staggered farther into his room and fell to the floor.

Rosalind remembered last night when the pain had come for him. She realized when the pain came, the wolf was not far behind. She had asked him to have faith in himself; now she must find the strength to do the same. She had to trust in Armond when he would not trust in himself. Rosalind took a deep breath, stepped into his room, closed the door, and shut them in together.

The pain stole Armond's breath and fogged his mind. He pulled his knees in toward his chest. Beneath his skin, he felt his bones moving, reshaping themselves. He had assumed that, since he could not escape the room Chapman had closed him in with Penmore, he could not escape his own room with the doors closed. Despite his pain, he managed to pull his shirt over his head; then, with misshapen fingers, he unfastened his trousers and kicked them off.

The pain allowed him little in the way of rational thought, and soon his thoughts would not be his own. Still, for a moment, Rosalind's scent penetrated his tortured senses and he realized she was in the room with him. The thought struck terror in him. It would destroy him to ever hurt her. For years he had guarded his heart, and she had come into his life and stolen it within a bat of a lash the first night he met her at the Greenleys' ball. He loved her more than life itself. He had to fight off the pain and make certain she left . . . while she still could.

He forced his throat to work, the words to leave his mouth, when the pain wanted to demand all of his attention. “Leave me, Rosalind! Escape while you still can!”

From far away, her voice drifted to him. “I trust in you, Armond. I know you will not harm me.”

Damn her! The agony of knowing she would stay with him, regardless of what he became, meshed with the joy of knowing her love for him was deep. Once, his life had been a dark, cold place. People had whispered about him and scattered to avoid contact with him. Rosalind had changed everything, and yet she had changed nothing. She couldn't stop the curse that now took him. He couldn't stop it, although he fought it now with all the strength he could muster.

He forced his eyes open, his gaze scanning the room while his body convulsed and contorted in preparation for the change. What he saw was not her but only the outline of her body, the red haze of her blood pumping through her veins. Visions of Penmore's lifeless body flashed through Armond's mind. The gaping wound at the man's throat. He tried to shout at Rosalind to run from him, to save herself, but all that emerged from his throat was a strangled howl of frustration.

She had seen him turn last night, but Rosalind had been in shock and the memory seemed hazy to her. Now the proof of what he was seemed all too real. She couldn't imagine the pain he suffered while his bones shifted and shaped themselves into a form far from human. While hair sprouted from his skin and became fur and his tall frame shortened and shifted into the shape of a wolf. But when it rose on all fours, the man now gone, she couldn't deny that even in this form, Armond was beautiful.

The hair rose on the back of her neck when the beast peeled back its lips and growled at her. She hoped the response was nothing more than the fading remnants of Armond's anger toward her for not fleeing as he'd wanted her to do. Rosalind swallowed down the lump in her throat and stared deep into the glowing eyes of the beast.
Somewhere inside the animal was Armond, and she must remember that.

The door was at her back, her hand behind her on the knob. It took almost more willpower than she possessed to keep from turning the knob and opening the door, slipping into her room, and closing the wolf off from her. That was not her objective. Her objective was to prove to Armond that he would never hurt her. She prayed she wouldn't pay for her own trust in him with her life.

Gradually, the wolf's low growls ceased. The animal simply stared at her. She stared back until the game became tiresome. Even though her heart pounded inside of her chest and a thin sweat had broken out on her brow, she twisted the knob behind her and opened the door leading into her room. Rosalind stepped backward into her room but did not close the door. Slowly, she backed away, putting distance between herself and the wolf. She left the door open. The animal did not venture inside. Instead it stayed in Armond's darkened room, its glowing eyes watching her from a distance.

She tried to do normal things, although she was sane enough to realize her life now was far from normal. Her sampler sat in her sewing basket, and she tried to stitch. Her hands shook so badly, her efforts were futile. Rosalind put the sampler aside and picked up the book on her night table. She tried to read, but her gaze kept straying to the room next door and the glowing eyes watching her.

It would be a long night.

Armond came awake upon his cold floor. He was curled into a ball, his knees against his chest, naked and shivering, just as he had been yesterday morning when he awakened next to Penmore's lifeless body. With sickening clarity, he recalled last night and Rosalind being in his room with him when the change had started to take him.
He was up off of the floor so fast the blood rushed to his head and he staggered.

He glanced around his room but didn't see Rosalind anywhere. Then he noticed that her door was open. He walked into the room, the morning cold causing his body to spasm with chills. Rosalind lay on the bed. His heart slammed against his chest as he approached her. He stared down at her pale beauty, her dark hair spread out against the whiteness of her bed linens. Her lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes.

His knees nearly buckled with relief to see her alive and, as much as he could tell, uninjured. His teeth chattered so badly he couldn't speak. Armond supposed the transition from fur to skin was what had caused the reaction. That and the fact that with Hawkins out last night, no night fires had been lit to warm either Armond's room or Rosalind's. She didn't speak to him, but her actions said more than words ever could. She threw back the covers and welcomed him into her bed.

He went willingly, but only because he needed her warmth to stop his uncontrollable spasms. He needed to be able to yell at her for going against his instructions to leave. She still wore her clothing . . . a wise decision in case she'd decided to flee into the night in order to escape him. Her body heat remained trapped beneath her clothing, and with shaking hands he tried to undress her.

Rosalind seemed to understand what he needed, and brushed his hands aside, quickly rising long enough to strip down to her undergarments and slide back beside him. She pulled him to her and wrapped her arms around him, sharing the warmth of her body. His head rested against the swell of her breasts. She smelled of lavender, and beneath his ear he heard the steady beat of her heart. Gradually, her warmth penetrated his skin. He realized the sacrifice she had made last night for him. She had
trusted him with her life. Trusted him when he could not even trust himself.

His heart swelled with love for her, and lower, he responded to her being pressed against him as any warm-blooded man would do. With his head nestled against her breasts, it seemed natural to turn his face and capture her nipple through the thin fabric of her shift. She sucked in her breath sharply, but she did not push him away.

Her nipples were small and rose-colored. They beaded beneath his tongue. Hungry for more, he pulled the fabric of her shift down lower to expose her breasts. He suckled and teased at first one breast and then the other. Rosalind's fingers twisted into his hair and she arched against him, her soft moans of pleasure firing the blood rushing through his veins.

Slowly, he inched his way down her body, pulling her underclothes away as he went. He pressed hot kisses against her stomach; then lower, he inhaled her intoxicating woman's scent. She tried to clamp her knees together against him, but he held them open, bending to taste her, to seek out her most sensitive place and give her pleasure.