Make Me Love You (12 page)

O
UT OF SIGHT, OUT
of mind. How Brooke wished that were true! But Dominic Wolfe had used a single word that had eased some of her rage before she got to her room.
If.
He’d said,
If this marriage occurs
 . . . Was there still a possibility that he might do something to keep it from happening?

She found Alfreda collapsed in one of the reading chairs. The maid looked tired. She wasn’t any more used to nasty confrontations such as that than Brooke was.

Collapsing on the bed herself, leaving her lower legs to dangle over the side, she said, “He’s intolerable. We need to consider other options.”

“I wasn’t expecting him to be so handsome,” Alfreda remarked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, it does sort of make him tolerable, I would think, at least in your eyes.”

Brooke snorted.

“Or not. But we don’t know what he is really like yet. A man in pain is never at his best.”

Brooke was good at reading people, but the only thing she got out of the wolf was that he was despicable. “He’s not going to have a ‘best.’ ”

“Then you should wait to make sure of that. And what other options have we?”

Brooke was precariously close to tears. “I don’t know! There must be something—other than poisoning him as my brother wants me to do.”

“If we leave here, we won’t be able to go home.”

“I know.”

“They will just drag you back here.”

“I know!” And probably beat her, too. She wasn’t old enough for her “no” to matter at the altar if her parents were saying “yes.”

A long moment passed before Alfreda said determinedly, “Then we go somewhere else.”

Brooke latched on to that kernel of hope. “I speak fluent French.”

“We are at war with those people. We can’t go there. They’ll think we are spies and hang us.”

“Scotland isn’t far from here.”

“Exactly—it’s too close. We’d be found easily there.”

“We can catch a ship then. The coast can’t be too far from here.”

“A day or two, but did your mother give you enough money for a long voyage? And to survive wherever we end up long enough to figure out how to earn more money to live on?”

Brooke figured she had enough for passage, maybe, but not enough to survive on for long. The tears got closer.

But then Alfreda added, “Or we can sneak back to Leicestershire and fetch my money from the forest.”

Brooke let out a near-hysterical laugh. “You buried it?”

“Of course I did. I suspected we might not stay here. And even if we did, I suspected you might want to escape every so often and could use the excuse of visiting your parents to do so. In any case, I assumed we would return to Leicestershire at some point. But you realize, no matter where we go, we still might be found. Your parents have too much to lose. They will send an army of lackeys after you.”

“But it will be too late. The Regent will have taken what he will take.”

Alfreda raised a brow. “Do you really want to do that to them? To your mother?”

“She doesn’t care about me,” Brooke insisted. “Why should I care about her?”

“Because you do. And because she does. I know you don’t like to hear it, poppet, but she does. I don’t know why she’s chosen to hide it, but she must have good reason. Did you never consider it might be because of your father? When a man decides something has no value, everyone around him must agree with him or risk punishment.”

Brooke shook her head, unconvinced. The times Harriet had acted like a real mother were too few. Although she’d gotten quite involved in preparing for Brooke’s Season in London, almost as if she were looking forward to it more than Brooke, none of that made up for the years of neglect, never giving her a hug, never telling her “I love you.” Brooke couldn’t even eat dinner with her parents! But Robert certainly did. Still, Alfreda was right. She couldn’t do that to her mother. It would break her own heart.

Out of options, she sighed dismally. “I’ll move up to that tower room so I will be reminded every moment I’m in it that it’s where my future husband wanted me to be.”

Alfreda tsked. “We don’t pout.”

“You don’t. I might find it refreshing.”

“Pouting hurts you more’n it hurts anyone else. We don’t pout. But you can make him love you.”

Brooke sat up. Her mother had said the same thing.
Make him love you, precious. Make him fall deeply in love and you will have a good life with him.

“You suggested a pretend marriage earlier,” Brooke reminded Alfreda. “Love wouldn’t be a part of that.”

Alfreda shrugged. “You need to reach common ground with him so he stops pushing you away. He might find an arrangement or a bargain acceptable, and that might get you a truce. Then you can move in for the kill.”

Brooke burst out laughing. “I wouldn’t exactly call enticing him to love me moving in for the kill.”

“It’s his animosity you’ll be killing. Anything is possible after that.”

This interesting thought was a much more palatable option. She might indeed get the wolf to bargain with her if she convinced him she wasn’t going to leave no matter what. She just needed to figure out a bargain that would benefit him. It would be a way to become friends with him. Like before love. Friends before lovers. It would give her time to endear herself to him, time to get into his thoughts and then his heart. It would certainly be a challenge, probably the biggest of her life, but if she set her mind to it . . .

But one obstacle she might not be able to surmount. What if she couldn’t get past her dislike of him? Yet she was adept at hiding her feelings . . . well, she was before she came here! But she could get that under control. So as long as he didn’t guess that she didn’t like him. . . .

A
FTER ALFREDA HELPED BROOKE
out of her traveling garb and into a simple day dress, the maid immediately went off to her room in the servants’ wing to get the herbs they needed for Dominic.

Brooke hadn’t expected her first day at Rothdale to be so trying and fraught with unpleasantness, surprises, and anger. She supposed there were a few bright spots, though. The greenhouse was not being used, so she and Alfreda could cultivate their herb garden there. She had a pretty bedroom and no one had yet come to tell her to get out of it. She walked over to a window. She found the views of the lovely park and the two horse pastures soothing. Oh, and she’d gotten in the wolf’s door. All in all, she’d made her escape from her unloving family. She really ought to keep that in mind and do everything possible to get along with Dominic Wolfe, at least until he and she could come to some sort of special marriage arrangement.

She turned away from the window when Alfreda returned and handed Brooke two colored pouches and a small potion
bottle. “The herbs in the red pouch will draw out the poisons that are causing the inflammation. Mix them with water and make a paste, and apply it to the wound three times a day until the redness is gone. Then use the herbs in the blue pouch. They will make the wound close more quickly and form a scab. The potion will help him to sleep more soundly, which will also aid the healing, but you might want to explain that to him before you offer it.” Then Alfreda added stubbornly, “I’m never going back in that room. I don’t care if he’s taking his last few breaths.”

Brooke nodded. She didn’t blame Alfreda for feeling that way. She also knew Alfreda didn’t mean what she’d said. The maid wouldn’t ignore someone close to dying, no matter how she felt about the person. But the wolf probably wouldn’t die now, so Alfreda was no longer obliged to deal with him.

Brooke concurred, “I’m not going back in there either. We’ve done more’n enough for him when we shouldn’t have helped him a’tall.”

Alfreda tsked, giving Brooke a look of disapproval before reminding her, “We settled on a plan. The more you help him, the more his heart will open to you. When he’s better, he will remember what you did for him and start to love you.”

Brooke sighed. “Very well.”

“Be pleasant.”

“I doubt that’s possible.”

“Be soothing,”

“I know that’s not possible.”

“Then just be yourself.”

Brooke laughed. “I think I’ve been doing just that!”

She knew Alfreda had given her sound advice so she
decided to at least try a combination of all three. If she didn’t lose her temper again. If she could ignore his surliness.

Gabriel answered Brooke’s knock and let her into Dominic’s room, even though he whispered, “He’s sleeping.”

“No, I’m not” came from the bed.

He had keen hearing like a wolf—that was an unnerving thought. But approaching that bed again was even more unnerving because his long, muscular bare leg was still on top of the sheet, not beneath it.

She tsked when she saw that the leeches were back on his leg.

He admitted in a somewhat normal tone, “I assumed you were done helping me.”

“Did you? You were half-correct.” She set the medicine on his nightstand. “These leeches will have to come off. The sooner I apply the salve, the sooner you will start to heal.”

“A servant can do that.”

“A servant will not know how.”

“Your maid does—”

“You’ve offended her. She won’t be back.”

“She’s offended—”

“I was present. I know exactly who got offended. But as your soon-to-be-wife, it’s my duty to assist you, and it is your duty to be grateful for it.”

He stared at her incredulously. “You overstep. And you aren’t even correct. I have no duty to you.”

“Well, I will still honor my duty to you.”

She removed the leeches carefully, picked up the red pouch, and went to find water. She walked through the sitting room, which contained a few reading chairs that matched the one
next to the wolf’s bed, and a small dining table, to the two other rooms in the suite, which she’d caught a glimpse of when she’d stormed out of here earlier. She saw the valet in one of them folding clothes. She guessed the other was the bathing room.

She was surprised to find a second fireplace inside the bathing room. It wasn’t as grand and ornamental as the one that heated the main room of the viscount’s suite, but it certainly was useful for warming up the room in cold weather and for heating water for baths. A metal bucket of water currently hung over a low fire. And what a tub! A long porcelain tub that had to have been specially made for his size dominated the room. The wolf certainly liked his luxuries.

She went over to a large cabinet with glass doors that contained stacks of towels and an assortment of items, including a supply of clean shaving cups.

She grabbed one and poured water from a pitcher in it, just a tiny bit, then sprinkled some of the powdered herbs in to make the paste. She stirred it with a clean spoon she found in the cabinet and washed her hands.

When she returned to the main room, the wolf was eyeing her and the cup in her hand suspiciously.

“This will only sting for a moment, then you won’t notice it.” She’d dipped her finger in the paste so she could dab it on his wound.

He grabbed her wrist when she leaned toward him, demanding, “Only sting? If it does worse, you may not like the consequences.”

“How much more unpleasant can you be?” she countered, then reprimanded herself. She had to stop reacting to his surliness. “You were shot. Nothing I do will equal the pain of that.”

He let go of her wrist without further comment. Without the leeches on his thigh distracting her, she was suddenly too aware of his body, all of it, and how close she was to such a big, strapping
handsome
man—fully naked under that sheet. And his wound was so close to his . . .

Her cheeks suddenly too hot, she tried not to think about where she was touching him and quickly applied the salve, saying, “Perhaps I’ll have dinner here with you tonight?” Without waiting for his permission, she glanced up and gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes, that’s a splendid idea, since I will need to apply the salve again come evening. We may even see some improvement by then.” And less churlishness, she added hopefully to herself.

“That soon?”