The Ravencliff Bride (27 page)

The animal whined and shook himself, nuzzling her hand, licking it with that soft, warm tongue.

She braved a look at his wound. Inching her fingers along his foreleg, she spread the fur and found it higher up.

“It
is
in your shoulder,” she marveled. “Why, it’s nearly healed. This doesn’t hurt you, does it? Then, what on earth was wrong with you before? Was it Nell? You don’t like her, do you, Nero? I wonder why? Maybe you sense that she isn’t all that fond of you.” She surged to her feet. “Well, that’s no excuse for being rude. You frightened her half out of her wits. You won’t do that again, will you, boy?”

If a dog could look nonplussed, this one did. His expression extracted the closest thing to a giggle that had passed her lips in days, and she ruffled the thick fur about his neck.

“All right, play dumb,” she said, “but I’d better not have a pitcher of water handy if you do it again. You need to learn some manners, boy—though I’m not surprised, considering the fine example your master sets for you.”

She nudged him aside, and walked into her bedchamber. Nero padded after her, gazing at her in the oddest way before loosing the most mournful howl she had ever heard. It sent the fingers of a crawling chill along her spine and puckered her scalp with gooseflesh. All at once, he bolted and streaked into the sitting room, and out through the open foyer door.

Sara had had quite enough roaming about for one day, but she poked her head out into the corridor just the same to follow his direction with her eyes. To her amazement, he didn’t head straight for the landing as he had in the past. Instead, he disappeared in the shadowy recesses of the green suite across the way.

Sara stared after him. What on earth was he doing in there? Should she investigate? It was only across the hall. She shifted from one bare foot to another, deliberating for several moments before throwing caution to the winds and venturing out into the deserted hallway. It was only a few short steps, and she entered the darkened chamber. She found herself in a well-appointed sitting room. Soft, diffuse light coming from the bedchamber beyond showed her that the room was empty, and she followed the shaft of moonglow, taking slow, measured steps.

“Nero?” she called. Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. Suppose Mallory were hiding there? She almost turned back at the thought, but it was too late for that. Instead, she crossed the bedchamber threshold only to pull up short at sight of Nicholas standing in the middle of the Oriental carpet. He was naked and aroused.

Sara gasped aloud. Nicholas stood rooted to the spot, his hypnotic obsidian stare riveted on her.

“N-Nero?” she stammered. “Where—”

“Gone,” said Nicholas. “I chased him off.”

“W-what are you doing here like . . . like
that?
” she said, stumbling over every word.

“Preparing for bed,” he snapped, grabbing his shirt off the floor in a vain attempt to cover his nakedness.

“Here?” she said. “Why here? Why aren’t you preparing for bed in your own suite?”

“Because I cannot keep an eye on you from my own suite,” he pronounced.

“
Oh!
” Sara seethed in exasperation, slapping at her nightdress with a balled-up fist. She spun, making a dash for the door, but he threw down the shirt, reached her in two strides, and spun her toward him.

“You don’t think you need watching?” he asked, close in her face. “Look at yourself! Wandering the halls half-naked in that nightdress. It’s as transparent as a cobweb. You may as well be naked. What if you’d come upon Mallory?”

“You’re a fine one to speak of going about naked, my lord!” she retorted, struggling in his arms. “You seem to be separated from your clothes again, yourself. And I wasn’t wandering the halls. I merely stepped across the corridor because I saw Nero enter here. He had just left me, if you must know, and I wondered what he was up to. He hasn’t been himself of late, and I’m concerned about him. It’s a good thing, too, because no one else seems to be. Everyone wants to be rid of him—
you
want to shoot him. Don’t dare deny it! I saw you, remember. Perhaps you’ve already disposed of the poor animal. Oh, my God, if you’ve harmed that dog—”

“What do you mean, he hasn’t been himself?” Nicholas interrupted.

Sara’s mouth dropped open. There he was, in the altogether, gripping her upper arms like a madman as though he hadn’t the slightest notion that he was stark naked, and what had gotten his attention? Nero’s peculiar behavior.

“Answer me, Sara!” he said, shaking her gently.

“Nicholas, please . . . ,” she murmured.

Steering her to a wing chair beside the unlit hearth, he sat her in it. “Don’t move,” he cautioned. Snatching his dressing gown from the bed, he shrugged it on with rough hands. It was too late. She’d already seen what lay beneath—the broad shoulders, the lightly furred chest, the narrow waist, and well-muscled thighs, the magnificence of his sex. His body was burned into her memory, just as his scent was. Every instinct urged her to vault out of that chair and run, but she could not—
would not
. Her body was on fire for him.

“How is Nero . . . different?” he persisted, standing over her, arms akimbo, his broad chest heaving.

“For the most part he’s been playful and loving,” she said. “There’s no question that he’s protective of me. It’s just since he was shot that there seems to be a change.”

“What kind of change?”

“Oh, it isn’t that he’s changed completely. It’s just that sometimes he frightens me now. He never did before.”

“Frightens you how? Come, come, Sara, I need to know.”

“Why?” she snapped. “Do you want me to give you more ammunition? Do you want me to load the gun that kills him? I think not, my lord.”

“Bloody hell!” Nicholas thundered. “Nero is
mine
. If he is out of sorts, Mrs. Bromley can concoct a remedy. Why do you insist that I mean to kill that animal?”

“Because I saw you try to!” Sara snapped. “Or was that during one of your ‘lapses’?”

Nicholas didn’t speak. His posture collapsed, and his hands fell limp at his sides. He looked so lost in that moment she was tempted to melt. After careful deliberation, she decided that she would tell him, but not because of that—because there might be help to be had for Nero if she did.

“It started with little things,” she said. “The way he tried to take over my suite, the way he’d curl his lips back in a silent snarl. He wouldn’t let me examine his wound, and then just now, he let me spread the fur—even let me touch it.”

He seemed to turn as pale as the moonlight filtering in through the leaded panes. Several times he opened his mouth as if to speak, but didn’t, and she couldn’t read his thoughts. His body tensed again. The veins in his neck were standing out in bold relief, and the muscles in his jaw began to pulsate in a steady rhythm.

“Once, I found him in my bed,” Sara went on. “He had pulled down some of my things from the armoire and dragged them about. When I scolded him and tried to nudge him off the bed, he sprang at me—”

“He didn’t
bite
you?” Nicholas cut in, taking a step toward her. For a moment she feared he was about to spring as Nero had.

“N-no,” she murmured, catching her breath. His sudden motion had disarmed her. “I . . . I doused him with water from the pitcher by my bed. His teeth banged against
it
, not me. And then, the next time I saw him he was just as he was
tonight, like the old Nero, the one I would never fear. The one I love. I thought perhaps he might be in pain and that it had him out of sorts, but he didn’t seem so earlier at all.”

“When was the last time he seemed . . . out of sorts?” Nicholas murmured.

Sara fell silent. If she were to answer that, she would have to tell him of her exploration of the secret chambers. That would implicate Nell, and that she would not do.

“I . . . I can’t recall,” she hedged, “but nothing of that nature ever occurred before Mr. Mallory shot him.”

He lifted her out of the chair and took her in his arms. She couldn’t see his face, but when he spoke, there were tears in his voice.

“Sara, I must ask you to trust me,” he said. “Please believe me when I say that I mean no ill to that animal. He is as much a part of me as these hands that hold you.”

“But you said I shouldn’t become attached to Nero, that he might be leaving, and then you . . . you—”

“I know what I said,” he interrupted. “And, yes, he may have to leave us, but not in the way that you accuse. You must keep the door to your suite locked whether you are in it or not, until Alex is found and Nero is . . . seen to. You should have told me all this long ago. You are in danger . . . more danger than I knew,” he added absently.

“How can I be in danger when you are standing guard over me so relentlessly?” she snapped.

“Sara, Nero is part
wolf
,” he said. “Wolves are . . . unpredictable. You must obey me. I will lock you in before I see you come to harm.”

“I thought from the beginning that he might be!” she cried. “I’ve never seen a wolf, of course, but I have seen pictures of them in books in my father’s library. Now I can really see Nero’s beauty. He cuts a poor figure as a dog, I will allow, but as a
wolf
he is splendid.”

“And he could be . . . dangerous. Promise me you will do as I ask.”

“Nicholas . . .”

Pulling her into his arms, he cupped her face in his massive hand, and gazed into her eyes. He seemed to be memorizing every inch of her face, every pore in her skin, which was on fire under his scrutiny. The throbbing had begun inside, pounding like a heartbeat, moistening her sex. Why was he looking at her like that, with those misty eyes dilated in the moonlight? When he spoke, it didn’t break the spell; it heightened it to a more intimate plane, stoking the fire that had ignited a passion she didn’t even know existed.
There
was the real danger—in getting too close to that fire, in letting it mark her, burn her, spoil her, forever shackled to a hopeless love. Nevertheless, she let the flames engulf her, let them gobble her up.

“Sara, my God, if anything were to happen to you, I believe I would run mad,” he murmured against her lips before he took them. He tasted of salt, and of sweet wine lingering on his skilled tongue as it entered her, parting her lips, plunging deeper, extracting the moan waiting in her throat to be released by his ardor. It mingled with one rumbling in his own throat, and he devoured it, just as he devoured her resolve and her inhibitions, stripping her bare of them.

His hand left her face and roamed lower, his fingers lightly caressing her arched throat, and the notch at its base. They crept along as he felt for the pulse, for the thrumming blood pumping there, and slid his mouth over the spot, his silken tongue feeling for the pulsating flow until she shivered. The ghost of rough stubble on his face against her tender skin sent shock waves through her sex. What had he awakened? Every fiber of her being longed for him, ached for him. Her blood was racing through her veins, through the pulse point he caressed. Surely, he could feel her passion. It was coursing through her in rhythm with the shuddering heart in his tight chest pressed against her.

He untied the silk ribbon that drew the neck of her shift closed with trembling fingers, and spread it wide, fondling
her shoulder and then her breast, the fullness of which he crushed against his open palm. He worked the hard nipple between his thumb and forefinger, then took it in his mouth—sucking, nipping, extracting another moan from the very depths of her. The sound he made shot her through with searing heat and cold chills all at once. It was something she might have expected to come from Nero’s throat, rather than his.

He slid her nightdress down until it puddled at her feet. Then, shedding his dressing gown, he scooped her up in arms of muscle become so rock hard, the cords in them seemed about to snap. Laying her on the bed, he gathered her against him.

No man had ever seen Sara’s naked body before, much less touched it. The fingers of a blush stole over her skin from head to toe, a steamy rush of hot blood riding the thrill of the experience, especially when his skilled hand lingered over the mound of soft, moist hair between her thighs. They were properly wed, and yet there was a glimmer of something forbidden in his embrace. Had he lodged that in her head with his constant insistence that there be no physical aspect of their arrangement? Could it be her inexperience—her maidenly modesty—or was it because the marriage was by proxy that it didn’t seem real? She wouldn’t delve deeper into the cause. Whatever it was, it heightened the effect beyond imagining. That facet of the forbidden flamed, and caught her in a firestorm that would not be quenched.

Capturing her hand, he drew it to his lips and kissed her moist palm, then crimped her fingers around his sex; Sara’s breath caught as it responded to her touch. She gasped again as his mouth opened hers, and as his deep, feral moan resonated inside her. Her heart leapt at the sound of it—more animal than human—flowing through her body.

She buried her hand in his hair. How soft it was, like silk between her fingers. The fine hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. His hackles were raised, every sinew
in him tensed against her. His heart seemed as if it were about to leap from his chest the way it pounded against her breast.

“God help me,” he murmured.

Spreading her legs, he reached between and began stroking her there. Those fingers, so gentle, so nimble for their size, petting her swollen sex wrenched a dry sob from her that she hadn’t even realized escaped until it rang in her ears. It seemed to be coming from an echo chamber far off in the distance, as was his heart-stopping howl. There was no other word to describe the sound he made. It belonged in the wild, not in that bed. His eyes were black coals burning into her, dark with arousal, almost aglow in the moonlight. Something in that look excited and terrified her all at once. Raw passion had overtaken him, and yet he was holding back. What ecstasy, if he were to let it out. Sara would settle for nothing less, and she arched herself against him.