The Wolf of Haskell Hall Read online

  His smile only deepened as he nodded that arrogant dark head. “Be my guest. I guarantee you’ll be surprised at what you find. But we might as well have truth between us, even from the beginning.”

  Lil almost ran up the rest of the stairs, holding her skirts high enough so that she didn’t trip, but still careful to leave her ankles covered.

  The room that came to life in the flare of the gas lamps she lit was unlike any she’d ever seen. Round, simple whitewashed stone. Again, spare, but the velvet bed hangings on the vast fourposter were burgundy, tied back with gold ropes. At the foot of the bed lay a bench, and upon the bench was a man’s silk dressing gown. It was fiery red, and it had something embroidered on the back, something she couldn’t quite make out. Her hands itched with the need to pick it up, but instinctively she knew not to.

  Touching his things would lead to touching his person.

  So she turned away, and it was then she noticed the easel and canvas set up beneath the enormous curving window. Next to it was a table and a sketchpad. Feeling as if she was finally finding some clue to his secretive personality, she walked toward the table. She was reaching out to pick up the pad when that voice spoke again, right over her shoulder this time.

  “Go ahead. Discharge me if you wish.”

  She started and whirled. How did he walk so silently?

  No smile upon that enigmatic face now as he said softly, “But you will still not be rid of me. Any more than I will be rid of you. The Haskell women and the Griffith men have been linked for centuries, Delilah. Your blood is as hot with the bond between us as my own.”

  Still holding her gaze, he reached around her for the sketchbook. He flipped it open and showed her the top picture, the next, and the next.

  Heat started at the top of her head and ran like magma to her toes. The images got progressively more sensual.

  And progressively more shocking.

  They were all of her. Face only, then bust, then from the waist up. Dressed lightly at first, then only in chemise and stockings. Finally….as he flipped through the sketchbook, he ended on a full length nude.

  Of herself. Her arms lifted wantonly toward her lover, her lips ripe with a sensual smile as she lay upon the very bed in this room. Wanting him.

  For she knew now, beyond doubt, that he had sketched them. And he had painted the landscape over the mantel. This driven, powerful man was an equally driven, powerful artist able to appease his own hunger with these wanton images. How had he been able to draw her so well? Even the shape of her breasts, the size of her nipples, the triangle between her legs.

  All the conflicting feelings troubling her for the past two weeks seemed to coalesce in her mind. Her senses narrowed to a minute speck, and then exploded outward in one glorious emotion.

  Fury. Before she put thought to action, her hand lashed out and slapped that arrogant face hard enough to jerk his head to the side.

  “You bounder! You have no right to even think of me so, much less–” She broke off with a gasp as he caught the back of her skull in both his powerful hands and tipped her head back. His touch swept through her stem to stern like a tidal wave.

  For a moment she was pristine, like a beach never stepped upon by human foot. And then he shoved her against the wall, pressing into her with his masculine frame that so strangely seemed to fit her own.

  And she was marked.

  Marked forever after, no matter what came of this night when it seemed only the two of them were awake in all the world. She felt the imprint of him, indelibly stamped through the shivering sands of pride and propriety straight to the bedrock of her soul.

  When he kissed her, she tipped her head back to meet him.

  And finally, she saw emotion in those strange amber eyes….

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lil had been kissed before, many times. Awkward kisses, earnest kisses, even a few experienced kisses. But this dark invader of her home, her mind and ultimately, she knew, of her body, by the simple brush of lip to lip, created his own lexicon. One her body interpreted even as her mind resisted.

  Those lips were as warm and unyielding as the rest of him. But the way they moved–tactile possession in their unhurried exploration. Leisurely he learned her. As if he’d always known her.

  Kiss? How banal.

  Invasion. Intimacy. Consummation. He’d barely touched her, yet already he’d filled her with his wild strength as surely as if he held her spread eagled to the bed.

  And Lil, stubborn as only one of Scots ancestry can be, tilted her head back to welcome the thrust of his tongue. He dipped, and danced, and tasted the rim of her teeth, lips suckling gently all the while. And she didn’t just allow him intimacies she’d allowed no other.

  She welcomed them.

  Curled her tongue shyly around his own, wondering why the moist heat didn’t disgust her as it had with the others. When she answered the sexual foreplay so explicitly, the tenor of his embrace changed. During that first kiss, his hands had touched only the back of her skull, cradling it not with tenderness but with surety. As if he knew she knew he had strength enough to crush it–but no need.

  He was already in her head.

  But when she kissed him back, inexperience made eloquent by passion as great as his own, a shudder ran through that strong frame.

  And Lil rejoiced. With a fierceness that almost frightened her. He was not so indomitable after all. He, too, had weaknesses. And he could not exploit hers without exposing his own.

  The primitive symmetry was so seductive that Lil pulled her hands free from the heated trap between their bodies. He broke the kiss, looking down at her curiously. He was so much taller that her hands had to trail up from his waist, past the strong chest, over the sturdy collar bones before she could finally clasp the back of his neck.

  His hands went slack upon her head and his eyes went strangely unfocussed. As if he needed the touch of her hands upon his flesh like he needed breath and water. And when she tugged his head down, tilting it to the side so she could kiss him, a stronger shudder racked him.

  The next thing she knew, her robe and night gown were open, and his rough palm learned the generous heft of her breast. Lil gasped into his consuming lips, but then his tongue thrust again, and the dark urges went wild within her. She thrust her breast into his hand. He sensed her need and circled her nipple gently with his thumb. She was already hard, and the grazing of that hard, callused thumb drew her upward for the first taste of his mouth.

  He took her in, suckling her nipple with nothing of the infant about him. He was all primitive male, tasting her, knowing her, completely.

  Almost….as if he took his birthright from the tip of her most vulnerable femininity.

  Reject him? Slap him? The thought never crossed what little mind she had left. She could only slump, weak over the strong support of his arm at her back, and feel her heart fly to meet the gentle suction.

  And then something curious happened. He rested his cheek against her left breast, eyes closed, long dark lashes shadows upon his face. As if he didn’t just listen to her heartbeat.

  He felt it.

  He hungered for it.

  He wanted to hold it in his hands and feel its vibrant life.

  His mouth opened. His tongue circled the rim of his teeth. Lil stared down at him, her own eyes dark with this desperate passion she could not control. For an instant, it seemed his canines grew to fangs. Still she could not move. She could only wait, helpless in his grip.

  But if she was a victim, so was he.

  A moan escaped him, high pitched, eerie, the sound of a wolf in pain. But when he turned his head to nuzzle between her clothes, the wool and silk dropped to her waist. Both her breasts were bare to him, high, round, firm and white. Capped by thrusting, blushing nipples pouting for his kiss.

  They were so much the essence of woman vulnerable to him, that he drew a deep, shuddery breath. The wildness that had almost overtaken him was buried under the needs of a man for a woman. His
expression grew tender. Gently kneading her flesh, he buried his face in her, drawing life, and strength and purity. And Lil was fed too from the bounty of the exchange.

  Unbearable hunger one breath, satiated the next. The need only became more acute when she lost, while he switched from one breast to the other, the feel of his mouth upon her flesh.

  The burning ache didn’t stop at her breast. It went from her torso, down her legs, to her very toes. And it was so shocking, so atavistically beyond her control, that sanity returned for a split second as that mesmerizing mouth drew away.

  For one sobering instant, Delilah, miner’s daughter, the doughty Scots heiress, looked down upon that wild black head so intimately placed at her bosom.

  With a cry of despair, she caught his thick hair in her hands and pulled his head away, squirming free. Pulling her clothes over her shamed flesh, she ran.

  Ran as she should have the minute he appeared.

  Down the spiral stairs, through the tower, all the long way from one wing to the next. Faster, faster–but far too slow. No matter how fleet her feet, her heart almost burst with the knowledge her mind refused to heed.

  Too late.

  He had possessed her this night, in every way a man could. The intimate thrust of his manhood into her would be no more invasive or consuming than the feelings rioting through her from the wild tangle of blond hair to the tips of her tingling toes.

  The second she reached her room, Lil threw every bolt and lock on the door. A long chevre mirror mocked her, but she turned away, stripped off her clothing and threw the garments in the fire. Never again could she look at them.

  For thirty minutes she scrubbed at her torso, using strong lye soap, not the gentle French perfumed bar, until her skin was red and almost raw. If a hair shirt had been to hand she would have slept in it.

  Finally, the sky pink with dawn’s first blush, she pulled on her primmest night rail and climbed into her bed. Even then, she tossed and turned, chaotic images whirling through her confused mind.

  Ian, painting upon the moors.

  Ian, his lips curled back in a snarl as he listened to her beating heart.

  Ian, holding her with a tenderness no man had ever showed her, even her own father.

  And it was that last image that brought the tears to her eyes and made the burning ache he’d left in his wake all the more difficult to quell. He gave tenderness so awkwardly, so shyly.

  Like a man who’d known little in his own life.

  Lil had been attracted to men before, heavens, she’d even slept with one she’d thought herself in love with. But nothing, no sane counsel her father had ever given her, none of the manners that snooty Eastern finishing school had taught her, not even Jeremy’s salty oaths or Safira’s mysterious philosophies could quiet the torment in her mind and body.

  Ian Griffith frightened her.

  He thrilled her.

  He mystified her.

  And as certain as she breathed, the next time he crooked a finger at her, she’d come running.

  With a frustrated groan, she pulled the feather pillow over her foolish head.

  But still he lurked there, even to the edge of sleep.

  And doom….

  To her great relief, she didn’t have to see Ian for several days. As if to make up for her inner weaknesses, she grew firmer with her staff. When Jeremy came to her complaining about the lack of respect he was receiving from the butler, Lil pointed out, “It could be the man feels his dignity is a bit threatened when you persist in addressing him as ‘yer ruddy worship.’”

  Jeremy growled back, “Could be he deserves it. His brains be scrambled from the thin air up there upon his high horse.”

  “Then I suggest you learn to relate. Retire to the stables and study the equine version of dignity. It will come to you faster if you start with the hind end first.”

  Jeremy’s mouth dropped open as she turned on her heel and stalked off. He suspected she’d put him in his place, even if he wasn’t quite certain if she’d called him a horse’s ass or not.

  That very night, in the servants’ eating quarters, he glared over his Yorkshire pudding and Cornish pasty at Safira. “What the devil be wrong with Delilah?”

  Safira smiled mysteriously. “I fear her Samson has entered her life when she least expects it. But it will be her locks that are shorn.”

  Somewhere in his misspent childhood, Jeremy had spent a few Sundays restless upon his dear departed Ma’s knee while she read the Bible. “Samson….he’s that bloke in the lion’s den?”

  “No, Jeremy. That was Daniel. Samson’s the one who had great strength until wicked Delilah discovered the source of his power–his long hair. When it was shorn, he grew weak and the Philistines used him as a slave. But when his hair grew back–”

  “I remember now. He used a rock and a slingshot and defeated a giant–”

  Safira closed her eyes and muttered some heathen word Jeremy shrewdly figured it was just as well he didn’t understand. “No. That was David. When his hair grew back, Samson pulled down the temple of the false god and all the Philistines died.”

  “And Samson?”

  “He died too.”

  Jeremy stared down thoughtfully into his brown ale. “The bloke was barmey in his noodle, too, just like all them Hebrew Kings. Death before defeat. What twaddle! Him who lasts, lasts.” He was rather proud of his own profundity, but Safira apparently was less impressed. This time, her muttered oath became an incantation, but she broke off her tirade when Jeremy interrupted, “Anyways, what’s all this claptrap got to do with Delilah? Who’s a cuttin’ her hair?”

  Safira wiped her mouth, rose, and straightened her turban. “Since I do not have the next twenty years for Biblical lessons, I will let you decide the matter for yourself.” And she stalked off, generous hips swaying.

  Jeremy scowled after her, but then he raised his tankard and slurped it dry. He eyed the stableboy and cook’s assistant who’d listened to the exchange. They looked every bit as confused as he was.

  His prickly pride a bit mollified, Jeremy filled his tankard again, opining, “Women. Arsk me to time the tides with the phases of the moon, aye. Arsk me to gut a mackerel in one stroke, or tie a half-hitch knot in a typhoon, Johnny on the spot I am! But make sense of a woman’s blather? I’d have a better chance of mendin’ a spinnaker in a spout with spit.”

  The cook’s assistant had attended the village school, and his eyes lit up. “Alliteration! Ye be an eloquent man for a sailor.”

  But Jeremy had had quite enough. Shoving his half-touched food to the side, he rose. “Ain’t nothin’ literal about this godforsaken place, ye arsk me, ‘cept that it’s a literal friggin’ bore!” And he stomped out.

  But he made sure he took his tankard with him.

  Over the next two days, Delilah managed to upset the French cook to the point of quitting, her maid to the point of tears, and Mrs. McCavity to the point of blushing. But when Safira pointed out that she was alienating the staff she needed to run this “great, crumbling pile of moldy stone” Lil sighed and collapsed onto a settee in the salon.

  “Oh Safira, what am I doing here? I…miss the mountains.” And Papa. And even Mama’s silly babble. But they were both lost to her forever. At least, until she departed this earthly vale to join them.

  But even as she said it, Lil found her gaze drawn to the enormous arched window that overlooked the moor. In the bright sunlight, Bodmin Moor looked almost as lovely and inviting as that picture Ian had painted. But Lil knew that, just as with Ian, its looks were deceiving.

  One unwary step…or kiss…and disaster would swallow her up.

  Or offer, finally, forgetfulness?

  Her mellow brown eyes intent upon Lil’s expression, Safira shook her head. “Ah, mistress, you do not know the power of what you tinker with. We should leave here with all haste while we can still walk.”

  Lil’s eyes snapped to her companion’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I hav
e read the bones, and they….”

  A chill crept up Lil’s spine. Safira, who had been educated by a Friends’ Society at a School for Immigrants, was never at a loss for words, and she always spoke her mind. Which was why Lil liked her company so much. “They what?”

  “He wants you, mistress. As badly as you want him. But some desires have more of the other world than this one in them. If you…lie with him, he will consume you, heart, body and soul.”

  Even as that chill spread to the marrow of her bones, Lil rose and scowled down at her companion. “This time, you read the bones wrong. Ian Griffith is nothing to me but a valuable employee.”

  “I said nothing of his name.”

  Lil pretended not to hear and swept out of the room.

  Alone inside the salon, Safira rocked back and forth and muttered an incantation to the good half of the spirit world. If she loved her mistress less, she’d run screaming from this cursed house on this cursed land in this cursed country.

  Late that afternoon, Lil was inspecting the polished silver, finding fault with tiny specks of discoloration, when a footman hurried into the pantry. “A Miss Shelly Holmes is here, madam. She says she was hired by the previous owner to run the stables and has just now become free of her former obligations. But she wishes to take up her new duties.”

  Lil glanced at Mrs. McCavity, who spread her hands helplessly. “I know nothing of this.”

  “Tell her I will be with her directly,” Lil replied. “Let her wait in the salon.”

  Before she went to the salon, Lil took time to wash her hands and be sure her new severe attire befitted the prim and proper heiress of Haskell Hall.

  Just over the threshold, she stopped. The woman who stood inside, feet spread, wore breeches of all things, and tapped a short quirt against her leg while she surveyed the room with piercing gray eyes. She was tall, blunt and unyielding as the mountains behind her in the distance. Lil guessed her age to be between forty and fifty. Her brown hair was braided and wrapped around her head, and her skin was far too brown for the milksop pale complexion so much the rage at Victoria’s court.