The Bride of Time (12 page)

Tessa stared long and hard at Giles. He hadn’t moved until now. When he started toward her, she was set to run. “Keep your distance, sir!” she warned.

Giles’s posture collapsed. “Here,” he said, extending the candle branch toward her. “I only meant to give you this. I do not need candles to light my way in this house, but you are unfamiliar with the Abbey. It’s growing dark. I wouldn’t want you to do yourself a mischief. It would be wise to return to your rooms and stay in them until morning.”

“Might I remind you, I
was
in them, sir, content to stay there, until you dragged me out.”

His fingers grazed hers as Tessa took the candles, igniting that inner fire again. Radiant thrills spread through her whole body, like the ripples a pebble makes breaking the surface of a stream. Unprepared, she nearly lost her grip upon the candle branch.

“Is it too heavy for you?” he asked, his hand at the ready to assist.

“Hardly!” she snapped at him. “I didn’t have a good grip, but I do have one now, I assure you. Good night, Mr. Longworth.”

Giles roughly walked his fingers through his mussed hair. Darkness pressed up against the mullioned panes in the absence of the candles. The moon had not yet risen, but the pull was already unbearable. Her parting
words had reached his ears as if through an echo chamber. He’d sent her off just in time.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and groaned as his fingers closed around Tessa’s tortoiseshell hairpins. In the heat of the argument, he’d forgotten all about returning them. It was too late now. There wasn’t a moment to lose. Besides, the pins would give him another excuse to approach her in the morning. With that decided, he staggered through the open door, made his way to the landing, and started to climb.

What had ever possessed him to seize her like that? He couldn’t have made a more serious blunder. It was way too early for such intimacy. He was fortunate that she didn’t run screaming from the house. Tessa LaPrelle was no doxy. She had all the bearing of a lady regardless of her class, and he’d treated her like a common bird of paradise. Perhaps it was the pull of the full moon and the all-consuming urge to ravage that came with it which caused him to give in to lust. She had responded, however. He’d felt her breath catch and her heart quicken. He’d felt her melt against him as he tasted her honey sweetness. He’d felt the feeble pressure of her warm hand over his heart, a cursory rebuff, for those fingers had fisted in his shirt front, drawing him closer as their throaty moans mingled. It was shortly after that she’d struck him. Was it in anger at him for taking such liberties, or anger at herself for allowing them? There was no time to analyze it now. The moon was rising. He didn’t need to see it to be certain. He could
feel
it.

Foster was waiting for him in the solarium. He had removed the easel and cleared the table of most of the artist materials. A tray of food rested there now, mutton cutlets, mayonnaise of chicken, and a bit of leftover larded pheasant, with some sauced vegetables too disguised to identify.

“I was just about to come after you, sir. The moon is
rising,” the valet said. He gestured toward the vacant spot where the easel had rested. “I took the liberty,” he explained.

“What’s this?” Giles asked, nonplussed.

“The painting,” said the valet. “I…I know how important it is to you. I’ve put it in the suite next door…to keep it safe from harm. If you are correct—I say
if
, because I cannot bring myself to believe it—we do not know how the transformation will affect you in confinement. I feared it might come to harm here, sir.”

“What would I do without you, Foster?” Giles said fondly. “I never would have thought of it. I’ve too much on my mind, old friend. Thank you.”

“Is there anything else, sir?”

“No,” Giles said. “I want you to go back to the servants’ quarters and stay there. Lock the green baize door, and do not open it no matter what you hear.”

“Oh, I won’t hear anything once I lock you in up here, sir. No one will. You are too far removed from the rest way up here in the attic, as is Master Monty.”

“You are assuming that the hasp will hold on that door,” Giles said. “There is no bar on it, like there is on the attic storage room where Master Monty is confined. You are assuming the iron hasp and padlock will hold what ever beast is in me, Foster. I can only pray you are right.”

Tessa slammed the door to her apartments and locked it. Her heart was pounding. Her body, still on fire from Longworth’s embrace, had betrayed her. She had responded. She had clung to him like one of his Penzance roundheels! She felt her cheeks; they were scorching hot. That could be excused away as anger, but still, she must look a fright.

Streaking through the sitting room and bedroom, she flopped down on the vanity chair and observed her face.
It was worse than she’d imagined. Her cheeks were hopelessly blotched with crimson patches. Her eyes were swollen, and tear tracks marred her face. When had she cried? Tears of anger shed returning to her room? It must have been. She was too upset to remember.

Reaching with both hands, she threaded them through her hair. Her hair! Her pins! Where were her hairpins? What with the heat of the dustup, he’d forgotten to give them to her, and she’d forgotten to ask for them. She could hardly go about with her hair bouncing against her buttocks. She had to have the hairpins back—now, before he lost them. She had no other means of dressing her hair, and she couldn’t appear in the servant’s hall to break her fast come morning with her hair flowing loose like a schoolgirl’s. More than likely Longworth had returned to his studio. She would catch him before he retired—but not like this, not with tear tracks and great crimson splotches spoiling her face. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d made her cry.

Tessa poured some of the water Dorcas had left for her eve ning toilette from the pitcher on the dry sink into the basin beneath, and splashed it on her face. It took several applications to fade the redness, but her puffy eyelids remained. There was nothing for it. Hopefully, if she stayed within the shadows he wouldn’t notice. She would not enter the studio, after all. This business would be conducted from the hallway. With that decided she took up the candle branch, unlocked the door, and hurried toward the landing.

She had just started up the third-floor staircase when she heard what sounded like howling funneling down the attic stairwell. It couldn’t be. There were no animals in the Abbey.

“Mr. Longworth?” she called hesitantly.

The sound came again, only now it more closely
resembled a growl, then a definite feral whine and what sounded like wood splintering. It was a blood-chilling racket that backed Tessa down the attic stairs, the hem of her black bombazine frock sweeping the newel post.

Blowing out the candles, she set the silver branch down on the third-floor hall table and flattened herself against the wall in a shadowy alcove, scarcely breathing. There wasn’t time for her to reach her suite without being seen. After a moment, a deafening cracking noise ruptured the eerie silence that had fallen. Then the guttural growls began again, and she glimpsed the bulk of a large, dark shadow streaking down the attic stairs, over the landing to disappear in the lower regions of the Abbey. Her heart fairly stopped when the dreadful howl came again, and then the sound of breaking glass.

Tessa stood rooted to the spot until the snarling, whining, howling sounds grew distant before venturing out of the alcove. Had some wild beast gotten into the house? And where was Giles Longworth? Why hadn’t he answered her? Forcing one foot in front of the other, she snatched the candle branch from the table, to use as a weapon if needs must, and inched her way toward the staircase, fearful of finding him savaged in his solarium studio.

The door was hanging half off its hinges, hasp and padlock still attached. Why had it been locked from the outside? Is this where Master Monty had been confined? Was that him she’d heard howling like an animal? Was it the boy she’d seen streaking down the stairs? How could a mere child have done such as this? She almost rescinded that thought the minute it crossed her mind. After seeing the devastation in the chamber below, she was almost ready to believe anything of the rage-bitten child.
But this!

“M-Mr. Longworth…?” she called again, approaching the gaping studio door. Still no answer came, and
she stepped over the threshold and gasped at the sight that met her eyes.

Toppled furniture was scattered about the room. The Aubusson carpet was rolled back in a heap, peppered with food and the tray it had rested on, broken china, some of the paint and brushes she’d seen there earlier, and what looked like Longworth’s clothes strewn about. The easel was gone. Tessa was relieved at that. By the look of the rest of the room, the canvas would likely have been destroyed.

Moonlight was streaming in through the glass ceiling, and Tessa made her way to the window. How clear the sky was, and studded with stars. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. The full moon had lit the patchwork hills as bright as day. She gazed down longingly, remembering how in love with those hills and moors she had been gazing at Longworth’s painting in the little gallery. How she’d longed to feel the grass of those little hills and valleys beneath her feet. She was in the midst of them now, but there was no euphoria, only darkness and fear. What had become of her beautiful fantasy?

All at once, motion caught her eye. Something was streaking across the courtyard. It looked like an animal, a huge dog, or a
wolf
. How could that be? There were no wolves in England. Tessa blinked to clear her vision, certain she’d imagined it, but no. The animal was large and shaggy and black, its fur silvered in the moonlight. At the edge of the thicket that hemmed the lawn, the animal stopped, one foreleg suspended, threw back its head, and let loose a howl that all but curdled her blood before it disappeared in the darkness.

A chill traversed Tessa’s spine as she stood for a long moment staring after the animal, hoping for another glimpse, trying to make sense of what she’d just seen. After her discussion about the boy with Longworth, had her imagination conjured a werewolf out there? Had
she just seen Master Monty running away from the second devastation he’d left in his wake that day? Glancing about, she had to admit the condition of the solarium was almost identical to the child’s handiwork which Longworth had shown her below earlier.

Shuddering again, she turned and tripped over Longworth’s boots and breeches among the debris. Something fell out of the pocket of the buckskins. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the object: one of Tessa’s tortoiseshell hairpins. Her breath caught as she bent to retrieve it, remembering why she’d come up to the studio in the first place.

Foraging through the pocket it had fallen from, she unearthed the other two pins. She hesitated. If she took them back, he would know she’d been here—seen this. But did that really matter? They were hers, weren’t they? She had to decide. He could return at any moment and find her going through his pockets. He might think her a thief, and she knew well his view of thieves.

Deciding, she dropped the buckskins as if they were live coals and, clutching the precious hairpins, scurried back to her chamber and locked the door.

Chapter Ten

Giles climbed back inside by way of the oriel window he’d crashed through when he left the Abbey, just as the streamers of first light brightened the horizon. There was blood on his shoulder and thigh where he’d cut them on the broken glass coming and going, and upon his face, from what ever he’d savaged in wolf form. Praying it was an animal, he streaked naked through the deserted halls to his chamber, where he washed and made himself presentable before climbing up to the studio to see what his transformation had wrought. Foster had reached the solarium before him, and was already addressing the mess he’d found there.

“Leave that,” Giles said. “We need to check on the boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Foster said. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him up there.”

“Eh…about the oriel window downstairs…”

“It’s already being seen to,” Foster said. “Able is going to board it up until we can replace the glass.”

“On top of things as usual, Foster, thank you, but we still have two more nights to get through. Have Able clear the glass away, and leave it until the moon begins to wane.”

“Yes, sir. Did you hurt yourself, sir?”

“A few scratches; they’ll mend.”

“I’ll draw your bath after breakfast, sir. Those ‘scratches’ will need proper tending if they are to heal. If I know you, they’re a lot more serious than you make out. I’ve seen the window and the blood upon it. You risk infection.”

One of his wounds was deep, on the inside of his thigh, where one of the shards pierced him climbing back in. Foster was right, of course, but there wasn’t time. All too soon the day would be gone, and the nightmare would begin again. Much had to be done before that, far too much to indulge in the luxury of a bath.

“That will just have to wait. The Gypsies are camped out on the south moor again. I want to consult with them about the boy.”

“How do you know they’ve come back, sir?”

“I saw them last night. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that.”

“You went all the way to the south moor, sir?” the valet asked, incredulous.

Giles nodded. “You’d be surprised how far a fleet-footed wolf can run.”

Giles said no more as they made their way to the storage chamber. To his relief, the door was still on its hinges, and the bar was still in place. Monty was evidently better at this than he was, but then the boy had had a bit more practice.

Giles lifted the bar and unlocked the door. Much of the furniture, trunks and crates stored inside were piled so high they blocked some of the windows, and it took a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. A fractured shaft of daylight streaming in through the uppermost window, which was clear of stored items, showed them Monty sleeping soundly on his cot; not a hair was out of place. The food they’d left him had been
eaten, the dishes neatly stacked on their tray. The room was just as they’d left it, no evidence of disarray. Giles and the valet stared at each other, nonplussed. Below, the child yawned and stretched like a cherub.