The Cursed One (6 page)

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Authors: Ronda Thompson

BOOK: The Cursed One
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“Mora.” She turned toward the girl. “Surely there are other weapons in the house. For hunting and such?”
“Not anymore,” the girl said quietly. “The servants took what they could find when they fled. For protection.”
“Shame on them for leaving you behind in the first
place, but defenseless as well, it is inexcusable,” Amelia muttered. The truth of the matter was, Amelia might not have given the plight of a servant a second thought before she'd been sucked into her current nightmare. The girl was so young, looked so helpless, that Amelia couldn't help but be enraged on her behalf.
“Kind of you to care, my lady,” Mora said. “But to be honest, not much had happened before. Not until last night. Not until he came.”
Mora nodded toward Gabriel's retreating figure. Amelia suddenly wondered how Wulf had gotten into the house last night. She didn't remember him explaining that. But she was being silly to suspect him. Lord Gabriel might be from a family considered outcasts among the social set in London, a family said to be cursed by insanity, but his family still maintained wealth. Her best friend was married to his brother. There was nothing in the least suspicious about Gabriel Wulf. He'd saved her life last night.
Wulf disappeared into the stable a moment later. That's when Amelia noticed it. “Listen,” she whispered to Mora.
The girl glanced at her. “I don't hear anything, my lady.”
Amelia gripped the pistol tighter in her hand. “I know. There should be sounds. Birds chirping in the trees. Insects buzzing. It is totally quiet.”
Mora rubbed her arms. “Do you feel it?” she asked. “Eyes watching us?”
Scanning the trees surrounding the manor house, Amelia saw nothing. But Mora was right. Amelia felt as if they were being watched. If Lord Gabriel didn't
come out of the stable in a moment, she would take Mora back inside and bolt all the doors again.
Amelia breathed a sigh of relief when Wulf emerged from the stable. He was frowning. Even so, he was so handsome she couldn't help but stare at him. Just as she had done those months ago in London, her chaperone finally cuffing her on the back of the head for being so bold in public.
“The bodies are gone, just as I suspected,” Gabriel said upon reaching them. “I saw no signs of tracks. Mora, show me where the outside cellar door is.”
The girl nodded, although it was plain that she didn't care to be outside in the open. Gabriel took the pistol from Amelia's hand. Their fingers brushed and again an odd tingling raced up her arm. She thought by the slight tensing of his jaw that he felt it, too.
“Around the back of the house,” Mora said. “This way.”
The three of them moved away from the porch and walked around the side of the manor house. Luckily, the thorny shrubs that surrounded the house would also make gaining access to the many windows on the lower floor difficult, Amelia noted.
“They once bloomed with wild roses,” Wulf said to her, as if noting her interest in the shrubs. “That was when Robert's mother was still alive. He's let them go since her passing.”
“How did you get into the house last night?” There, she would ask and put her mind to rest over the matter.
Lord Gabriel nodded toward a tall oak that cast shade over one side of the house. “As boys, we all used to climb down that tree late at night and steal away and
swim in a pond not far from here. I recalled that and climbed the tree. The window to Robert's boyhood room was not latched. We should make sure all windows are latched when we return to the house.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Here it is.” Mora halted before a wooden door that lay upon the ground. “Look,” she breathed, nodding toward the door.
Deep claw marks marred the old wood, as if something had been digging at it. Amelia shuddered again. Wulf studied the door.
“I see no way to secure it from the outside. I'll bring up whatever you think we will need, Mora; then I'll secure the door leading to the cellar closed from the house.”
“You sound as if we must make the house a fortress,” Amelia commented.
“Yes,” he answered. “At least until we decide to do something different.”
A thought occurred to Amelia. One that raised her hopes. “Surely someone will come along …”
Wulf glanced up at her. He seemed to weigh his words; finally he shook his head. “I feel I must be honest. Both Collingsworth Manor and Wulfglen are quite isolated. And with you being on your honeymoon, I doubt anyone would think to intrude upon your privacy.”
Damn all considerate people, Amelia thought. “We weren't to return to London for a month. My parents expected us to stay with them until our ship set sail for abroad. An extended honeymoon. We won't even be missed for that long.”
“Don't know that we have supplies to last us a month,” Mora worried. “The servants took most with them when they fled.”
“No need to worry just yet,” Wulf warned the girl. “We are not even certain exactly what the threat is.”
“Of course, my lord,” Mora apologized.
Amelia had a nettling suspicion that Wulf was trying to protect her from the truth of their situation, even if he'd said he had to be honest with her earlier. The reason was obvious. He didn't believe she could handle the truth. And yet, upstairs, he had kissed her. He had wanted her. That, she supposed, made him no different from most men. Always looking at the outside of a woman and judging. Oddly, it had never bothered her before that her face and figure alone attracted men to her. It bothered her now.
Something bothered her worse. Staring out into the woods, she thought she saw a shadow move. And then another.
“Come, ladies,” Wulf clipped, and glancing at him, Amelia saw that he had seen them, too. “We must return to the house and spend the day preparing.”
He ushered Amelia and Mora toward the front of the house. One weapon. Very little in the way of food supplies. “Preparing for what exactly?” she asked.
He was silent for a moment. Then he answered, “For the night. And whatever it brings.”
Amelia had checked and double-checked the windows
upstairs. Mora and Gabriel had fetched necessities from the root cellar and Gabriel had barred the door. They all now sat in the parlor as day turned to night. A cheery fire burned in the grate. Gabriel had nodded off once Mora checked his wounds. Amelia imagined the man was exhausted. The girl, too, had leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Amelia was too keyed up to rest. Besides, someone needed to maintain a vigil, and it seemed she was the one.
Up until her marriage to Lord Robert Collingsworth, Amelia's duties in life had been rather nonexistent, with the exception of finding a suitable match. She'd never had to wonder if she might starve because the pantries were not well stocked or fear for her very life. She had never had to question what was real and what was imagined. She'd never looked in the shadows and felt threatened by what she saw or didn't see.
All of that had changed on her wedding day. The absurdity of her situation made her fidget nervously. She wished she'd been practicing her needlepoint when she'd been a gangly girl instead of trying to show her
younger brother up at one masculine sport after another. Then she could possibly sit and stitch to give herself something to do.
Tea sounded heavenly and she almost leaned across the settee to nudge Mora awake and ask her to prepare her a cup. Amelia stopped herself, realizing that it was time she learned to do for herself. At least until they were safely away from Collingsworth Manor. Fixing tea wasn't so very difficult. Amelia felt certain she could manage.
She ignored the fact that earlier she thought she could dress herself without help, as well. Besides being humiliating, the memory was laced with thoughts of Lord Gabriel. The feel of his warm hands against her skin, the thrill of having him kiss her, of having him desire her. And as he had said, whatever happened in that brief moment of insanity, it was wrong. Wickedly, deliciously, wrong.
Amelia rose from the settee. She moved toward the parlor door but stopped before Gabriel. In sleep, his features relaxed, he resembled more the young man in the portrait that hung in the parlor of the Wulf townhome. A lock of hair hung over one eye and she was tempted to reach out and push it aside. Why these tender feelings for a stranger? Why couldn't she have felt them for poor Robert?
What she needed was a distraction. Tea, she recalled, and made her way through the house to the kitchen. The stove was still stoked from the modest dinner Mora had prepared earlier. A kettle already sat upon the stove. Amelia touched the lid and jerked her hand back. She stuck her burning finger into her
mouth. She glanced outside and marveled at how bright the moon shone down and how well she could see in the darkness. As she recalled the shadows she'd seen earlier, her gaze scanned the tree line closest to the house.
A second later her heart nearly stopped beating. There, among the thick vegetation, she made out the shape of a man. A moment later he staggered forth into the yard. She saw him quite clearly in the moonlight.
“Robert,” she breathed. “Wulf!” Amelia called. “Lord Gabriel!”
Gabriel was beside her in a heartbeat. “What?”
Amelia pointed. “Look, it's Robert.”
Robert stumbled into the yard. He went to his knees, holding out a hand as if beseeching Amelia.
“Stay here,” Lord Gabriel said, then he was gone.
Stay here? What if it really was Robert this time? Amelia had never seen his body. Maybe Lord Gabriel had been mistaken. Maybe Robert hadn't been dead. Amelia rushed after Gabriel. Mora had stirred and now stood at the door, her eyes wide.
“He told me to bolt the door behind him,” she said. “What is happening?”
“Stay here,” Amelia repeated Gabriel's instruction to her. “Keep watch for our return, but if you see anything or anyone else, bolt the door.”
Amelia rushed out. She ran around the house to see Lord Gabriel standing a few feet from the man, his pistol drawn.
“No!” she screamed. Amelia ran to Lord Gabriel and placed a hand upon his arm. “I believe it truly is Robert. He needs our help!”
“Get back to the house!” Wulf growled. “It is not Robert, Amelia. Robert is dead.”
How could he be so certain? The man looked like Robert to Amelia. Then he called to her.
“Amelia.”
Hackles rose on the back of her neck. It was the same voice she'd heard in the darkness upon her wedding night. Amelia stumbled back a step.
Gabriel cocked the pistol. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The man with Robert's face did not answer. His eyes glittered strangely in the darkness. Then he did speak, or rather, he peeled back his lips and growled. His coat gaped open and Amelia saw the blood that stained his shirt. Blood, she suspected, that came from the wound where Gabriel Wulf had shot him.
Before Amelia's eyes, the man began to shift. His features changed into those of another man … she recognized him now. He'd been tending the stable when they arrived. Then he began to shift into something else. Something inhuman. His teeth grew longer; hair sprouted from his body. His form began to twist and turn, to shrink. That was when Lord Gabriel shot him for the second time. The man, thing, whatever it was, jerked backward.
The howls began. All around them the sound echoed in the night. “Damn,” Wulf cursed. “He was meant to draw us out. Run, Amelia! Run to the house!”
She heard his instruction. She knew she must run, but it was if she were frozen. Frozen by fear and shock. Wulf cursed again; then he gathered her in his arms and raced toward the house.
Even in shock, Amelia heard the sound of tree branches snapping behind them. Whatever was in the woods, they were coming after her and Gabriel Wulf. She also realized how fast he moved, how effortlessly he carried her. How could a man with a wounded leg run so fast? How could any man run so fast?
They reached the door and he slammed against it with his shoulder, knocking Mora back in the process. He rushed inside and nearly threw Amelia at the startled girl. Amelia's knees were wobbly as a newborn foal, but she managed to stand, surprised that Mora had the strength to support her.
The girl looked like she'd weigh slightly more than a wet kitten. Wulf nearly had the door closed when something thudded against it. A hand reached inside. A hand that was neither human nor animal. A hand covered by thick fur, with long claws jutting from the fingertips.
Amelia screamed. Wulf slammed his body against the door, and whatever stood on the other side howled in pain, retracting its hand. Then Lord Gabriel had the door closed, throwing home the bolts. He stepped back and aimed his pistol at the door.
“Mora, get Lady Collingsworth into the parlor, away from any windows.”
Together, Mora and Amelia moved to the front parlor, where a cherry fire still burned, making a mockery of the nightmare without end. Amelia was in shock; she knew that. Her hands and feet were freezing. Mora helped her sit upon the settee and crouched down beside her, the girl's eyes large and frightened.
Through the doorway, Amelia saw that lamps were being extinguished. Soon the house was plunged into total darkness.
She heard nothing, nothing except the pounding of her heart. How long they sat waiting she couldn't say, but finally Gabriel entered the parlor.
“They are gone … for now.” He bent down before Amelia, took her cold hands in his, and began to rub.
“How do you know they are gone, my lord?” Mora whispered, her voice frightened.
Yes, Amelia's mind screamed, although she couldn't seem to speak. How did he know?
“Trust me,” he answered. “They've slunk back off into the woods. I don't see them anymore.”
“It's dark outside,” Mora said. “Maybe you just can't see them. Maybe they're still there.”
Gabriel glanced away from Amelia. He turned a stern look upon the girl. “No need to upset the lady further, Mora. They are gone. We are safe. I will make certain we remain safe. Understand?”
The girl ducked her head and nodded. Wulf's voice was gentler when he said, “Take a candle and light it from the fire. Go into the kitchen and fix Lady Collingsworth a cup of warm tea.”
Amelia's throat finally relaxed enough to allow her to speak. “Something stronger would be better,” she said.
“We've used all the brandy,” Mora responded softly.
Gabriel continued to rub Amelia's hands between his, and she felt his warmth spreading to her. “See what you can find,” he said to Mora. “Even cooking sherry will suffice, but bring the tea, too.”
The girl rose from her crouching position, took up a candle and lit it with the fire, then moved quietly as a mouse from the parlor.
“What are those things?” Amelia asked him. “How can they do what they do? How can they become beasts? How can they become someone else?”
 
Gabriel wasn't certain how to answer. Could men turn
into wolves? Yes, he knew that for a fact. He'd seen his father turn into one at dinner one night years ago. The Wulfs were cursed by a witch in a time long ago. The transformation had to do with a full moon and with a man's heart. But Gabriel had never heard of a creature taking on the likeness of another person.
“Gabriel?” Amelia repeated.
Her wide blue eyes held shock and fear, as they should. The same expression he would see in them if she knew that Gabriel was not a normal man, either. He was also part of the shadows.
“I don't know what they are,” he finally answered her. “But I do know that Robert is dead, Amelia. You must plant that fact firmly into your mind lest one of them tries to fool you again.”
Her perfect brows furrowed. “How do you know the man in the cellar was Robert at all? Maybe it was another impostor. Maybe Robert is still alive. Maybe he has gone for help.”
Explaining would be difficult, but Gabriel knew that he must. Amelia must understand once and for all her husband was dead and help would not be coming.
“All people have a scent. One that marks them,” he said. “I have an unusual ability to identify a person by
their scent. I knew it was Robert in the cellar. When we were boys, his scent had a certain … ill smell to it. He still carried it as a man.”
Amelia blinked down at him. “Do I have a scent that marks me?”
“Yes,” he answered, reaching down to pull her dainty slippers off. Just as he suspected, her feet were as chilled as her hands had been. He began rubbing them. “Although you mask it with sweet-smelling soaps and perfumes. Because of that, it is harder for me to pick up a woman's natural scent.”
“You have some rather extraordinary abilities,” she remarked. “Outside, I've never seen a man run as fast as you did, and carrying another person at the same time.”
Circumstances had forced him to rely on his odd abilities, and he wondered what else Amelia Collingsworth would discover about him. “I was scared,” he said.
When she didn't respond, he glanced up at her. Her blue eyes held his stare boldly. “I don't believe that you're afraid of anything,” she said.
Mora chose that moment to enter with a glass of red liquid. “Cooking sherry,” she proclaimed, and brought it to Gabriel.
“I'll fetch the tea now,” the girl said, and moved on.
Gabriel lifted the glass to Amelia's sweet lips. She drank the sherry down just as easily as she had the brandy the night before.
“I like brandy better,” she proclaimed. “Sherry is too sweet.”
He could not help but smile up at her. Lady Amelia was a most unconventional young woman. The more time he spent with her, the more he became aware of
her uniqueness. Still, this was no place for her. She belonged in London, in a ballroom, wearing a pretty dress and turning heads with a smile.
“What you said about people having particular scents,” she said, placing her glass aside. “I believe you're right. I might not have noticed that until today.”
He glanced up at her. “Why today and not yesterday?”
She moistened her lips. They were pink and plump and made him think of things best left alone. “Because you have one. A scent,” she clarified. “Upstairs earlier, when we, when you came to check on me, I smelled it. It made me feel odd.”
Gabriel glanced back down at her dainty feet. Any true explanation would make her distrust him, and he needed her to trust him right now. He needed to keep her safe. “I've heard that men can put off a scent at times that attracts women. Something in the sweat. At least that is what my brother Jackson told me once.”
“You were not sweating.”
He glanced back up at her. “Nor am I particularly clean right now,” he pointed out. “I haven't had a decent bath in a while.” He decided to try to lighten the mood, although that seemed rather impossible given the circumstances. “It must be the reason you were attracted to me upstairs earlier. I'm the ugly duckling of my family.”

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