Wolf of Arundale Hall Page 2
She opened her mouth and screamed and screamed.
Her hand was still on the polished doorknob when she slid to the floor and drifted into oblivion.
Chapter Two
Where the hell was he? A shack. The wind ruffled the hair on Lord Joshua Arundale’s bruised head and he rose from the straw bed. He flexed his jaw and stretched his aching back. The fight the night before had been a brutal one. The Beast was sated…for now. Midday was coming, but the breeze was cool through the window.
Joshua fingered the roll of money on the table beside his bed. Marie must have collected it for him, minus her fee of course. An English lord willing to take a pounding was good entertainment for the locals here and paid decent money. Luckily, Marie was terrified of him and wouldn’t take a farthing without his consent.
His bed had been paid for and there was no reason to linger. His horse was hidden behind the woodpile and the animal nickered as he saddled it.
Even though he used these fights to keep the wolf within satisfied, it never really was. No, for true peace, Joshua would have to give in to the one thing the Beast demanded that he refused to do.
Go home to Elizabeth.
The place he approached on his horse as the late morning sun beat down on his head was no home. It was a hiding place. No one was on the road, the heat probably having driven many indoors.
The stark white paint of his Jamaican home made him blink. Just the thought of Elizabeth made the wolf within growl, rise to the surface, even though Joshua had spent hours the night before pounding it down. Slowly, painfully, he shoved the wolf back into the cage of his human body. The damn Beast fought him, resisted Joshua’s will. But years of isolation and anguish had taught Joshua to be hard and determined. He would win. He always won.
Now.
The memory of that one night, the night that kept him in Jamaica and away from the woman he truly loved, flooded his mind and tore the man and the Beast to shreds.
It had been shortly after his marriage and his passionate but incomplete wedding night. The moor had been shadowed and fogged in, the moon hidden behind random clouds. A perfect night. Joshua, or the wolf part of him, had stalked his prey. He had sniffed the air and growled in anticipation. His mate, his woman. He had scented the mark, the possession begun that needed only his passion to complete.
There, in the brush and heather, his wolf had slipped the leash of control.
No! You cannot have her.
But the Beast had been in full gallop, leaping over the land like a lion. Joshua’s human side had fought for control and the wolf within had knocked him aside.
When Joshua had become conscious again, he’d been standing over his sleeping wife, claws drawn and blood dripping from his fingers.
In anguish, he had commanded the Beast to obey him, struggling to contain it. Finally he’d won. And when he had, he’d realized the wolf had drawn his own blood. But it had been so close, so near to Elizabeth.
He had run, the Beast howling in frustration.
When he’d awoken the next morning with his face in the dirt and his naked body sore, he had immediately packed his bags. It had taken another two days, but he’d put an entire ocean between the wolf and Elizabeth.
Inside him, the Beast whimpered. Even the freedom of Jamaica could not appease the wolf within. It demanded its mate.
Joshua stabled his horse and methodically brushed the gleaming coat, his thoughts dark and unpleasant. Those first few years had been a blur, a blot on his normally spotless moral record. He’d got involved with slavers and shamelessly used anyone to appease the wolf. Control had been the last thing on his mind. Out of desperation, he’d distanced himself from Elizabeth, completely rejecting his old life. Adrift and miserable without the woman he loved, he’d drunk too much, seeking oblivion. The inevitable had happened.
Joshua put away his combs and brushes, his mind far away from the present. The Beast, completely in charge, had acted on instinct and done something the human side of Joshua would have never done.
The wolf had ripped the heart out of a man and eaten it.
Joshua gritted his teeth and jammed his hands into his pockets. What if the doctor hadn’t protected him? What would have become of Elizabeth and Arundale Hall if he’d ended up in a French prison? Drunk, dissolute and lost, it could only have been a matter of time before he’d ended up in jail. Or dead.
If not for a Scottish doctor who’d had more curiosity than sense, Joshua never would have known how to control the Beast. It had been Dr. Comac Sutter who’d forced Joshua to open the letters from Elizabeth and Jaimison. Though it had been years before he’d broken away from the destructive life he’d created for himself, Comac had continued to deliver letters from home and admonish him to crawl back from the brink of his own personal hell.
The fans turned slowly and gave no relief. The white linen trousers and soft cotton shirt stuck to his skin immediately. His servants were nowhere to be found, since the afternoons were usually too hot to move at this time of year. He longed for a cool English summer, the morning fog that dotted the landscape with silver drops of dew. The longing had grown over the last three years, but he lacked the fortitude to leave Jamaica and return to the life he’d so thoroughly rejected.
He lounged on his porch and watched the sun climb in the sky, the afternoon in full force. A man on horseback approached the house. For a moment he tensed. Then he saw that it was Dr. Comac Sutter, as if thoughts of the man had conjured him. He often brought the mail.
Jaimison wrote dry, unemotional reports, which Joshua appreciated, since any emotion would have made the separation from his home more difficult. Perhaps Elizabeth had written another of her stilted little missives. It was his own fault. Fear had prompted him to reject her attempts to get answers. Answers he couldn’t give her.
“My friend, you look terrible,” Dr. Sutter said with a grin. The Scot was a Navy doctor who sailed between Jamaica and England to capture pirates. It had been a miracle that he had been there when the worst had happened.
“And you look like you’ve lost weight.” Joshua rose and was gratified to see one of his servant boys run out to take care of Comac’s horse. “What news?”
“A letter for you, my boy.” The older man handed him an envelope.
Jaimison’s scrawl.
Joshua stared at the letter in his hand and his heart stuttered. It wasn’t the usual business letter, the cold collection of facts with the dark truth lingering behind them, but a disjointed note, quickly dashed off by the looks of it. Jaimison had been the closest thing to a friend Joshua had had before he’d fled England. He’d begged his friend to watch over Elizabeth. Edward Jaimison had been a legacy from Joshua’s father—the Jaimison family had served the Arundales for three generations as their men of business.
Whether Jaimison knew about the Beast Joshua didn’t know, though beneath the reports about Perry and about Elizabeth there seemed to be an underlying message he chose to ignore. But now Jaimison bluntly revealed the current events at Arundale Hall.
My Lord,
I write to you, as you commanded, to inform you that there has been a development on Arundale land. Your lady, though quite capable, has had a terrible experience. A murder has been committed and the body placed upon your doorstep, found by Lady Arundale. I beg you to come home at once, since this a matter that concerns you personally.
Though the local authorities have taken a firm hand, they seem to be focused on your brother. Lady Arundale has not spoken to me about the matter and has been closed-mouthed with everyone. Your cousin, however, has been loud in her opinions, causing more distress for the household.
Enclosed is the doctor’s report.
I entreat you to come home.
Mr. Edward Jaimison
Joshua’s hand clenched around the missive.
“Bad news?” Sutter’s sharp black eyes studied him.
“My man at home.” He clenched his jaw. “He writes to me about…a situation.”
Suppressed violence rippled through Joshua and he slammed a fist into one of the wooden pillars. “There’s been a killing.”
Dr. Sutter showed no surprise. All the things Joshua had fled England to avoid seem to have happened anyway.
He had to return home. The thought made his blood freeze in his veins. Here, in the wilds of Jamaica, he’d found no relief from the curse that governed his life. Only through domination, pain and fighting other men could he keep the wolf at bay.
But if he went back to Arundale Hall, back to Elizabeth, the Beast would demand the thing Joshua had denied it for the last ten years.
Its mate.
Dr. Sutter knew about Lord Joshua Arundale. The rest of the island might believe he was a recluse, but the doctor had seen the wolf. “A killing means another wolf.”
Silently, Joshua handed the other man the doctor’s report.
The grim expression on the doctor’s face was eerily familiar. He’d worn the same look when he’d covered up Joshua’s killing all those years ago. His words were burned indelibly in Joshua’s memory.
“The man was wanted for murder and you’ve done the world a favor. But I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself if you don’t learn to control the creature.”
Joshua had carried in his heart the knowledge that he had murdered another man. The guilt had almost destroyed him. The very reason he’d run from England, from his home, from the woman he loved, had come to pass. He’d married Elizabeth because he’d been selfish. He’d left her to save her from himself. But selfishly, he’d left his familial responsibilities in her hands.
How she must hate him.
Another reason to stay away from the innocent woman he’d dragged into his personal nightmare. Now wounds similar to the ones he’d inflicted on his own victim appeared on a body apparently deposited on his wife’s doorstep.
Dr. Sutter glanced up from the letter. “Your brother?”
“I don’t know. I thought—I’d hoped—that I was the only…anomaly in my family. It seems I may have hoped in vain.” Joshua gritted his teeth. Was it possible? Could Perry have killed this man?
Pipe smoke filled his nostrils, a smell that reminded him of his father. Comac Sutter had become a father figure, a friend, when Joshua had believed he was better off dead.
“Perhaps you shouldnae have run away,” Comac commented.
“Perhaps,” Joshua repeated bitterly. “At the time, it seemed the only choice.”
Comac nodded. “For your lady wife, I know. But the wolf needs his mate.” The man flopped into a seat and Joshua’s servant, Aina, appeared.
“Avez-vous besoin de quelque chose à boire, Maître?”
“Apportez-moi et mon hôte un peu de rhum de ma cave personnelle,” Joshua answered the maid, then turned to Comac. “You will enjoy my rum, Comac. Since I left the slavery business I have begun to distill my own. It’s quite good.”
The slavery business had been a dirty, ugly thing. Another strike against him. Yet he had to hope that his adamant changes had improved his chances of avoiding hell. Damaged beyond repair, he could not go home and claim the rights of a husband when he had long since lost his humanity. Yet he had to go home, to face those he’d left.
The maid brought two glasses. “I won’t say no.” Dr. Sutter grinned at him. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I hope you’re right,” Joshua said seriously. “Because if I have to go home, I will need all my wits.”
“You’ll need more than that, my friend,” his companion said dryly. He drank the rum and nodded at the glass. “Ten years ago, you left a little lass in charge of a household in chaos. You might consider the possibility she’s not going to welcome you home.” The doctor rose. “There’s more than a murder to deal with at Arundale Hall.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Dr. Sutter grinned. “Keep me informed, laddie. I’ll be interested to know how Lady Arundale takes to your ‘handling’.” The man climbed back onto his horse and waved farewell.
The thought that Elizabeth might hate him made his belly ache. She had always been the only one who understood him, comforted him, sometimes with her silence. He’d fallen in love with her the minute she’d scrambled from a tree, caught apple-stealing on his land. She’d paid for that apple with a kiss.
At twelve, he’d inherited his father’s land and position. And his curse. With both his mother and father dead, the task of raising him and Perry had fallen to his grandmother, a bitter woman with a vicious hatred of all things Arundale. Perry had suffered more under her than Joshua had.
The Beast had appeared on his fourteenth birthday. It had frightened him, driven him onto the moor to howl his fear and anguish. There was no one to tell him what had happened, why he became this horrific monster whenever his passions got away from him.
He stared out across the veranda to the sugar cane fields that stretched for miles. A wolf. For the most part, Joshua was a man, fully capable and in control. But under great stress or arousal, he changed. Hair sprang from his skin and his spine lengthened, his jaw thickened. His eyes changed from their customary calm gray to a bright, animalistic blue. If he could have passed for one of the animals in the forest, he might have been camouflaged forever. Instead, the Beast was half-man, half-wolf, bi-pedal and tall.
Here in the Jamaican landscape, where a strange creature would be just another tale told by natives, it could be hidden. But in England? He shook his head. From what Jaimison told him, however, Joshua suspected Perry had inherited the curse. Probably he’d been as confused by it as Joshua had been. Where had Joshua been when Perry had turned fourteen?
He tightened his lips. Joshua had been planning his nuptials when Perry’s fourteenth birthday had come and gone. At eighteen he’d moved into Arundale Hall and away from his domineering and hostile grandmother.
It wasn’t until Joshua had married Elizabeth that he’d brought his brother to their old home. What damage had been done in his absence? Only three months after his marriage he’d run from England, from Arundale Hall, from the curse.
He’d been a fool. A cold fist of fear gripped his belly. Jaimison’s reports noting the places from which he’d retrieved Perry sounded eerily familiar. And this final crisis, the murder of a man, his heart torn out and missing, put an end to Joshua’s willful blindness. Could Perry turn on Elizabeth and hurt her? Was it a coincidence that the murder so closely resembled his own vicious action all those years ago? These killings were definitely the work of some animal, some wild beast. But could it be his brother?
And what if Perry tried to claim Elizabeth?
The wolf inside snarled and spat at the idea. Joshua took a deep breath. No. Elizabeth was marked by him. Even after ten years the mark would not fade. Even Elizabeth had no idea what it was, but if Perry was another like himself, Joshua knew his brother would never touch her, even though he had not claimed her fully.
She probably didn’t even remember when he’d marked her. It was one of Joshua’s cherished memories. Their wedding night, a night on which he’d had to cage his desire but wouldn’t allow hers to go unfulfilled. He’d taken possession of her clitoris with his mouth and driven her to orgasm, reveling in her broken, innocent cries of surprised release.
His sweet bride had been shuddering with pleasure when he’d bitten her just inside her thigh. Instinct had overtaken him and she’d bled from the wound he’d made. But one lick from his tongue and it had stopped.
Damn. Just the thought of his wife and the mark he’d left on her skin made him as hard as a rock. What was she like now? Ten years was a long time. Would she have put on weight? Or shriveled away to nothing? Was she still the pretty little thing who had driven him to distraction all those years ago?
He cursed and yanked out a piece of paper. His response to Jaimison would reach the man before he arrived on English soil. Of course, he didn’t have to request that
Jaimison watch over Elizabeth. That had been their arrangement from the start.
The human side of him wondered what his reception would be. The Beast had only one thought.
My mate, my mate, my mate.
Chapter Three
Three weeks later
England. Home. Joshua felt a surge of contentment when he spied familiar landscapes and paths.
One night in London had been enough. The gossip about Perry had been extensive and ugly. Some, Joshua was sure, exaggerated, but most probably did not. The gossip about his female cousin Melinda had been even less complimentary. The woman had actually sought, in his name, an audience with the court to dissolve Joshua’s marriage. Through several intricate channels, Melinda had enlisted her gullible male companions to seek a divorce for Joshua based on Elizabeth’s barren state and his absence. That she’d done this behind his back, using his patronage to do so, made him fume.
Had Elizabeth heard these rumors and believed him complicit? He gritted his teeth and hoped he hadn’t come home too late. The more he heard, the more discomfited he became. Always the same response to his return, emphasizing the questionability of the welcome he would get when he arrived at Arundale Hall. Men his father had known were sly in their insinuations about Joshua’s marital state. Most were convinced he had returned to seek permission to divorce Elizabeth.
The murder at Arundale Hall seemed to have caused little stir, the consensus being that some wild animal had killed a man. Gruesome but not interesting enough to hold the heartless attention of the London crowd.
Several of his father’s friends were at the inn where he stayed but his arrival had gone largely unnoticed, which he preferred. Though his return might cause speculation it seemed to create little sensation. Jaimison met Joshua at the inn the following morning with news and a horse.
They met in the small sitting room on the ground floor and Jaimison shook the dust from his dark-green canvas duster.
“My lord,” he said with a respectful bow. “I barely recognized you.” His bright-blue eyes were wide.