“We heard that gossip,” one of the men admitted. “Now we know it’s true!”
Another man, who was having trouble taking his eyes off Brooke, told Dominic, “You’re a lucky man, m’lord.”
Dominic actually smiled, though he replied, “That remains to be seen.”
That got quite a few laughs, probably because everyone in the tavern had guessed that she was checking up on him. And how was she going to explain this to him? She took a big sip of the local beer when he started toward her. Then the toasts started, and hearing so many people wishing her and Dominic health and happiness, she couldn’t stop smiling.
That might have been why he didn’t rush her out of the tavern. After a few more sips of beer, which she’d never tasted before, she stopped worrying that he might be annoyed that she’d come to the tavern.
But he did finally take the half-empty glass from her hand. “Time to go.”
She nodded and preceded him out the door and stumbled on the step.
Suddenly, his arm was about her waist. “Do I need to carry you home?”
She looked up at him. “D’you want to? No, of course you don’t. Which way is the path to Rothdale?”
He laughed. “Not accustomed to drink, are you?”
“No, well, wine, but rarely. But I’m fine. I just wasn’t looking down and forgot there was a step.”
“Sure.”
His tone sounded teasing rather than skeptical. She should stop hearing what she wanted to hear and remember that he had no reason to be nice to her—yet.
When they reached the path, he let go of her waist. She was disappointed. She liked the way she felt when his arm was around her—so secure, as if she belonged to someone. She wondered if he’d made the protective gesture because his tenants might have been watching them leave the village. Glancing at him, she realized that the man she’d seen in the tavern wasn’t the one she knew. No jacket, no cravat of any sort, dressed no differently from the other village men. And they didn’t treat him like their landlord; they appeared to like him! She wanted to learn more about the real Dominic Wolfe.
“What was it like growing up at Rothdale?”
He glanced down at her, seeming surprised by her question. “Wonderful, idyllic, peaceful—at least while my family was here with me.”
She shouldn’t say another word. Did everything have to lead back to his sister’s death? But that little bit of beer she’d drunk had made her bold. “When did you know you wanted to breed horses?”
“The day I set loose my father’s herd.”
She grinned. “You didn’t.”
“Indeed I did. It was a dare, but I still wanted to see what would happen other than my getting punished for it. Gabe helped me pull down a long strip of fence at the back of the pasture, so there would be a mass exodus, and there was. We couldn’t stop laughing as we watched Arnold’s father, who’d been head groom at the time, trying to chase down the horses on foot. Well worth the week I had to spend confined to my room. I was only nine at the time.”
“So your father raised horses, too?”
“And my grandfather before him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow in their footsteps until I pulled that prank. It might have been funny when I did it, but I soon regretted it and worried they wouldn’t all be caught, in particular my father’s prize stallion, who I wanted a get from for my own mount.”
“And did you get one?”
“Of course. Royal’s sire.”
“I’m glad.” She smiled, enjoying the genial conversation with Dominic as they walked through the starry night. “Those people in the tavern weren’t nervous around you. They remind me of the servants at our house in Leicestershire. They’re the people I had the most fun with while I was growing up.”
“Your parents allowed you to consort with them?”
“They didn’t know.” She giggled. “Those servants were my real family.”
They’d reached the house. He opened the front door for her, but didn’t follow her in. She turned. “You’re not coming to bed?”
“You might want to rephrase that.”
She didn’t know what he meant. Then she did and started blushing. “I wasn’t suggesting—”
“No, heaven forbid you do that. But I’m not nearly drunk enough yet to find my bed. D’you think it’s easy, sleeping in the room next to yours?”
She drew in her breath sharply, but he didn’t hear it; he’d already closed the door to head back to the tavern.
Chapter Thirty
DOMINIC MIGHT NOT BE drunk enough to sleep yet, but neither was Brooke after his last remark. She would have loved to think that he wanted her so much that it bothered him that she slept so nearby, but she didn’t believe that. He might have kissed her on two occasions, but neither time had been because he actually wanted to kiss her.
Maybe she should have told Dominic she had been referring to her bed, not his. She giggled, imagining his surprise. Would he have taken her up on the offer? Not before the wedding, he wouldn’t.
She sighed and stood at the window overlooking the park, which was bathed in moonlight. She should go down to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk to help her get back to sleep—She saw a white animal loping toward the house. Good grief, the white dog had followed her home and had got inside the hedges?
She hurried downstairs and to the back of the house out through the music room, which had tall French doors that opened onto the wide terrace above the park. She stood at the top of the steps that led down to the gardens and waited to see if the dog would come to her. It did, slowly mounting the steps. Brooke was grinning by then.
“I’ve always wanted my own pet,” she told the dog, feeling brave enough to rub it behind its ears as soon as it was within reach. “Well, one that I don’t ride. Would you like to live here? Come along if you do. We’ll figure out how to get you settled in, in the morning.”
As if it understood her, the dog followed her into the house. She stopped by the kitchen first and grabbed a large bowl of the thick stew she’d had for dinner and took it with her to her room. At least no servants were about to notice her unusual friend.
After setting the bowl on the floor, she closed the door and watched how quickly the dog ate the food. She probably wouldn’t be able to keep it here . . . well, not without permission. But after what Dominic had said about Raston, he might allow it. He liked dogs, so why wouldn’t he? Of course she knew exactly why: to deny her simply because he could.
She would worry about that in the morning. And she’d have to find out from the kitchen staff what they fed Wolf. Her friend had devoured that large bowl of stew in mere seconds.
She filled the empty bowl with water before she sat next to the dog on the floor to get better acquainted. After it had let her rub it behind the ears, she didn’t think it would object to a more thorough petting. It didn’t, and when it lay on the floor next to her so she could rub its belly, she was able to see it was indeed a female. Brooke was completely won over. She would find a way to keep it.
In the morning when Alfreda woke her, bringing in a fresh pitcher of water, Brooke smiled at the dream she’d had about the white dog coming to Rothdale. It had been so vivid and yet so unlikely, which was why she gasped when she saw the dog sleeping at the foot of the bed.
Her first impulse was to cover it with the blanket until she could explain what it was doing there, but she said to Alfreda, “Don’t be alarmed. I’ve found myself a new pet. It’s friendly.”
“And why would I worry—that’s a big dog. I’ve already been to visit Raston this morn, so I think I’ll keep my distance.”
“It’s just a dog, Freda.”
“Is it? I’ll just go assure the staff of that before you take it outside and half the household runs out screaming.”
Brooke grinned. Alfreda was being quite pragmatic about it even if she was backing out of the room. “You’ll grow to love her!”
“Why does everyone keep telling me who or what I’m going to
love?” Alfreda mumbled on her way out the door.
Brooke dressed quickly, talking to the dog all the while. She hoped Alfreda had just been joking about the screaming, but maybe she should clear the way before she let the animal out of the room. But it jumped down from the bed to follow her when she started toward the door, so she stopped and bent down on one knee.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes to take you out for a romp. Can you wait? Stay?”
It was obviously used to people. Never a growl, not once showing its teeth, but Brooke still didn’t know for sure if it understood her, let alone any simple commands. But it sat on its haunches in the center of the room, let her pet it again, and stayed there while she hurried to the door. She nearly tripped over Wolf as she left the room. He’d been sniffing at the bottom of her door and tried to get past her into the room, but she quickly closed the door before he could. She would introduce the two animals—she hoped they would get along—but not before she had permission to keep her pet. At least Wolf wasn’t barking and drawing attention to the secret visitor in her room.
But the worst kind of attention had already been drawn. “What the deuce?” Dominic had stepped out of his room and seen what his dog was doing. “You charmed my dog with that bloody carrot, didn’t you?” With Wolf now scratching at her door to get in, Dominic approached. “Does he think you have more carrots in there?”
“Yes,” she lied.
But she made the mistake of being too obvious in blocking her door by standing with her arms spread wide. Which is why he pushed her aside to open it. Wolf rushed in, but stopped abruptly when he saw the other dog. Dominic didn’t move any farther into the room either.
“That’s a wolf,” he said incredulously.
Brooke snorted. “And how would you know when you’ve never seen one?”
“I have and I’ll show you, but you’re not getting anywhere near that animal again.”
She tried to walk around him to put herself between him and the white dog, but he thrust out an arm to block her. “Stop it,” she protested, “it’s a friendly dog.”
“Do you even know what a friendly dog is like? It would be wagging its tail at you, not sitting there eyeing you like you’re its next meal. We have to kill it.”
She gasped. “Don’t you dare!”
The whimpering drew her eyes to Wolf. He had dropped down to his belly and was inching his way toward the other dog, whimpering all the way. Eyes wide, she guessed in amazement, “That’s his mother.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Dominic scoffed.
“Use your eyes. That’s a lost pup begging its mother to accept him back in the pack.”
“You can’t keep it.”
“And why not? You kept Wolf. Your pet was just as wild when you found him. He tried to eat you.”
“He didn’t know any better, now he does. But that”—Dominic stabbed a finger toward her majestic friend—“is a wild thing full grown.”
“How can you say that when she is calmly sitting there doing absolutely nothing threatening?”
“You can’t keep a real wolf indoors.”
“I disagree that it’s a wolf.”
He glanced at her sharply. “Oh, now you think they are extinct, when you have twice tried to convince me otherwise?”
She stuck her chin out. “She helped me. She called me back to the ruins during the rainstorm when I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. She knows people. She didn’t growl at me when I first saw her. She didn’t growl at Alfreda this morning. She’s not growling at you when you are threatening her. I want to keep her. She’s obviously not a wolf.”
In answer he took her hand and pulled her out of there and straight downstairs to the parlor. “What are you—?”
The question was answered when he dug a key out of his pocket and moved to the southeast corner of the large room where the tower wall curved into the house. She’d tried to get into the tower room while exploring the house on her own, but she’d found it locked.
She tensed when Dominic unlocked the door, thinking he intended to lock her up in the tower while he killed her pet. She was ready to fight him tooth and nail, but she was arrested by what she saw inside that room.
Chapter Thirty-One
A CHILL RAN DOWN BROOKE’S back as she stepped into the gloomy room. Its curved walls were made of rough gray stone just like the floor. A few paintings covered with white cloths, probably to protect them from the dust, hung on the walls. An old chest rested on a low table in the middle of the room. Aside from that, Brooke couldn’t see much because the room had no windows. The only light came through the open doorway. Dust motes danced in the light, but she didn’t see any cobwebs like in the tower room upstairs.
That grim memory made her ask, “Do you know the condition of the upstairs tower room where you tried to put me when I arrived? It’s filled with cobwebs.”
“Is it? I haven’t been up there since I was a child. But you could have cleaned it. D’you think you’re going to just sit here and do nothing if you stay?”
He actually smiled when he said that! She clamped her mouth shut. Implying he would turn her into a servant when he had so many of them in the house was just another of his tactics to make her flee.
“One moment.” He left the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to hear the sound of the door closing, but he came back with a lit candle. She wished he hadn’t. His eyes glowed in the candlelight—like a wolf’s. It was no wonder the rumors about him flourished.
“What’s in the chest?” she asked when he set the candle down next to it.
“Trinkets, jewelry, favorite knickknacks, and journals that belonged to my ancestors.”
Journals? She wondered if the missing pages from Ella’s diary were locked in that chest. Did she dare to ask to see them?
“Each one left behind at least one item that is worth keeping. Some are too big to fit in the chest, like this painting. It’s two hundred years old.”
He took the cover off one of the paintings. She drew in her breath sharply. Two wolves, one pure white, the other solid gray. The animals were lean and predatory-looking with a ferocious gleam in their eyes. Apart from that it was uncanny how closely the white one resembled the dog she’d snuck into the house. No wonder Dominic had brought her here to see it.
“And this one is even older.”
He unveiled another painting, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the first one. One of the wolves sat as if ready to pounce; the other lay in front of it looking satisfied, as if it had just devoured a large meal. “Who painted this?”
“Cornelius Wolfe’s daughter, Cornelia.”
“She was able to get this close to the wolves?” Brooke asked incredulously.
“No, she recorded in her journal that she used a spyglass to observe them. There are a dozen more of her paintings in the attic, all of wolves. They obviously fascinated her. And while they might have been considered extinct in other parts of the Isle, they still lingered in the north country in her day. Is there now going to be another Wolfe fascinated by real wolves?”
Brooke was taken aback. Had he just acknowledged they were getting married? She was sure he was just teasing her, so she asked, “Why do you keep this one down here locked away?”
“It’s the only one that depicts the wolves close up. It’s a beautiful painting. I used to keep it in my bedroom, but when I turned eighteen, I considered it a bit childish and took it down.”
“And if the servants saw it in your room—no wonder that rumor about your being part wolf started.”
He raised a brow at her guess. “It’s a silly rumor that more likely started when I was a young boy and used to howl at school for fun, to frighten the younger boys. But Cornelius’s daughter nearly died finishing this one. Her other paintings are more distant views. But for this one she was determined to paint them as if they were right in front of her. It took her months to finish it, to find them in the same pose even though this pair were mates and often side by
side.”
“How do you know all that?”
“She kept a journal. Many of my ancestors did. They wrote about the family curse and their opinions of it. Some were foolish enough to believe it. But they all blame these two for it.”
She finally glanced at the other painting he’d unveiled. It depicted a nobleman of the Elizabethan era dressed in full regalia and standing with his hand on the shoulder of a seated woman who was dressed just as grandly. The pose was typical for a married couple.
“Who are they?”
“That’s Cornelius Wolfe, the black sheep I told you about. He was newly titled when this was painted, master of Rothdale, and full of himself. She was his mistress. Some think she was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman in York, but most think she was one of the Rothdale villagers. But Cornelius raised her status, dressed her like a grand lady, treated her like one, even introduced her to his friends as one because it amused him to do so.”
“And gained your neighbors’ ridicule and enmity because of it?” Brooke guessed, thinking of the Shaws.
“Yes, but Cornelius didn’t care,” Dominic said disapprovingly. “As I said, he was a hedonist, entirely devoted to his own amusements. That’s all she was to him. When he had this portrait made of them, she was certain he would marry her, but when she suggested it, he laughed at her.”
“Not very—”
“Black sheep to the core.”
“Oh, I see, she cursed your family because he crushed her hopes?”
“Something like that. She left, damning him and his line to perdition. She actually died mysteriously that same day.”
“He killed her?!”
“No. There are two different versions of what befell her. According to one, she went home and killed herself; according to the other, she was accused of witchcraft by the village priest, a relative of hers, and was burned at the stake. But no other information about her survived, not even her name. The belief in witches was widespread back then, from the lowest born to the highest noble. It didn’t take much a’tall for someone to be accused of being one. People weren’t inclined to change their opinion of the woman when Cornelius married ten years later and his firstborn died at birth. That tragedy was attributed to that woman’s curse.”