Make Me Love You (5 page)

Brooke was scowling but she wanted to know what else Alfreda had heard about the Wolfes. “Was anything said about Dominic in particular?”

“He’s young. No one gave an age, but obviously he’s not twenty-five yet.”

Brooke rolled her eyes and accused, “You
do
believe in curses!”

“No, just a little levity on my part that obviously failed abysmally.”

“Robert mentioned that Lord Wolfe had a sister who died. The wolf might not even be the firstborn of his generation.”

“Which might be good news if we believed in curses, but a death is never good news. He could have other siblings your brother doesn’t know about.”

“Or be the last of his line and determined to get himself killed in a duel. I
wish
we knew more about him.”

“Well, there is another rumor, one even more absurd. They say he prowls the moors as a real wolf and his howls are the proof of it.”

Brooke’s mouth dropped open before she demanded, “Tell me that’s more levity?”

Alfreda grinned. “No, but you know how rumors get embellished every time they are passed along. They end up being so far from the truth that they are no more than wives’ tales.”

“Well,
that
rumor is obviously superstitious nonsense. A wolf man? Maybe they have an ogre living in a tower, too.”

Alfreda chuckled. “I don’t think anything would surprise me at this point. But there must be something unusual about the Wolfe family for these rumors to have started in the first place.”

“And aren’t wolves extinct in England now?”

“Indeed.”

“But they weren’t centuries ago when superstitious people started these ridiculous rumors,” Brooke said with a nod, making her point.

“I’m not arguing with you, poppet. However, because wolves are extinct, no one would believe they hear a
real
wolf, only an unnatural one. But if people really have heard howling, it’s no doubt just the cries of a long-snouted dog.”

Brooke huffed. “Well, you found out more about the Wolfes than I wanted to know. I think I will be most disagreeable when I arrive so I
do
get turned away at his door.”

D
OMINIC STOOD AT THE
window in his bedroom watching the coach moving along the winding road in the distance. Sweat beaded his brow and dampened his hair. His whole body ached so it was hard to distinguish if his wound did. He’d been informed last night that a Whitworth had stopped at an inn only hours away. The message had passed through four people before it reached him, so which Whitworth it was didn’t survive the repeating. He hoped it was Robert Whitworth, come to finish this, but he doubted it. The man Prince George had sent had assured him that the Whitworths would comply with the Regent’s suggestion. Suggestion!

His blood still boiled at the manner in which that suggestion had been relayed and the blatant threats that had followed it. Yet the Regent’s emissary had been so disinterested. He didn’t seem to care how his words were received or what disastrous outcome would follow them; he was only doing his duty.

Gabriel Biscane stood beside him, not watching the coach approach, but frowning at Dominic instead. Not quite as tall
as Dominic’s six feet, Gabriel, blond and blue eyed, was more than a servant and often took advantage of his status.

The viscount and the butler’s son had grown up together in this house. They were the same age and enjoyed the same things. No one was surprised that they became friends before their disparate social stations prevented it from happening. Dominic’s father might have broken up that friendship if he had lived beyond Dominic’s fifth year. His mother didn’t care. And Gabriel’s father didn’t dare. So Dominic and Gabriel now had a unique relationship that defied class distinctions.

“You need to get back in bed,” Gabriel was bold enough to mention.

“You need to stop giving me orders because you think I am presently weak. Did you send that letter off to my mother? I’d prefer that she hear about the Regent’s abominable demand from me and not the gossips, should word of it leak out.”

“Of course. This very morning.” Gabriel was supposed to be the valet, yet he had audaciously hired another valet for Dominic, leaving himself underfoot with no specific duties. Dominic had offered his friend other jobs that he might prefer, but Gabriel had done none of those, either. Gabriel finally said he would be a jack-of-all-trades, a servant of none. He didn’t actually give his current job a name, but he promised to be available for anything Dominic needed and expected a wage for that. And got one. Though Dominic had fired Gabe a number of times, Dominic knew he would have missed him if his friend had actually taken him seriously and left.

Gabriel shook his head. “I give good advice, not orders, so it wouldn’t hurt you to pay heed from time to time. Just don’t expect me to get your naked body back to bed if you collapse. I’ll fetch footmen to do it—”

“I’m not so weak I can’t cuff you.”

Gabriel sidestepped before he replied, “You are, but I won’t say another word, so don’t feel you need to prove otherwise—though truly, when you can’t get your own pants on . . .”

Sometimes it was just easier to ignore his friend, Dominic decided. Gabriel usually kept him in top form, with verbal and physical sparring, and Dominic usually welcomed both, just not since he’d come home with this particular wound. The last one had been a scratch. This one was going from bad to worse.

He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that. He knew very well he wasn’t healing as he should be. He’d just regained some strength after losing a lot of blood when the fever started and was steadily sapping it again.

He had been a fool to come home to Yorkshire this time. He should have stayed at his London town house to recover after the last duel with Robert Whitworth. But he hadn’t wanted his mother to know how seriously wounded he was or for word to spread of how close Robert had come to killing him. He didn’t want
Whitworth
to know. He’d rather die than give him that satisfaction. Which could still happen. He still
felt
half-dead, but only because of the damned fever that he couldn’t shake off.

The anger wasn’t helping. Having to deal with the Regent’s threat and the enemy’s showing up at his door when he wasn’t at his best just infuriated him more.

Dominic told his friend, “Put her in one of the towers when she gets here, until I decide what to do with her.”

“I believe the decree given you was—marry her,” Gabriel said drily.

“Like hell I will.”

Gabriel lifted a golden brow. “So you’re going to refuse her?”

“I won’t have to. She will go running back to her family posthaste. The Whitworths can deal with the consequences of her doing that.”

“And how are you going to make that happen?”

“There are ways to scare off virgins,” Dominic assured him with a dark look.

Gabriel raised a brow. “Very well, but do I need to remind you that you only have one tower left that is even remotely habitable?”

“Then you won’t have trouble finding it, will you,” Dominic managed just as drily.

Gabriel started to walk away, but swung back around to say in earnest this time, “I must point out that your war is not with this girl, but with her brother. Treating her ill will serve no purpose.”

“Actually, it serves a very important purpose. It will cause Robert Whitworth and his family to lose their lands and title.”

Gabriel’s eyes flared. “I’m reassured that there is method to your madness. Pardon me, I meant—logic.”

“This is
not
a good time to test my patience, Gabe,” Dominic warned, then yelled for his valet. “Andrew, bring my riding clothes. I’m not going to be in this house when the enemy knocks.”

Gabriel sighed in exasperation. “Dr. Bates ordered bed rest.”

“I’ll rest when I get back from riding off this rage.”

“You will need Bates again if you persist in doing that! Damnit, Dom, be reasonable. You’ll rip out your stitches if you ride. Royal won’t like the smell of blood.”

“My horse doesn’t like a lot of things, you included. How he will react to blood remains to be seen. Now enough dire predictions. For once, just do as you are told.”

Gabriel made a sound of pure frustration before he grumbled, “I’ll fetch Bates back here,
then
deal with your bride.”

Dominic started walking slowly toward his dressing room to meet Andrew halfway. “She’s not going to be my bride.”

Already heading to the door, Gabriel didn’t look back as he promised, “I will put her in the most inhospitable room you have.”

“The tower,” Dominic stressed.

“Certainly, even though it doesn’t have a bed.”

“She can sleep on the bloody floor!”

The door closed on that order.

“T
HERE
’
S ANOTHER ONE,
”
BROOKE
said, pointing out the coach window at the ruins of a small castle.

“Many of the smaller ones in Yorkshire were built to protect against incursions from Scotland. Yorkshire was meant to be a stalwart wall that would keep the Scottish armies from reaching the south.”

Brooke glanced at the maid and giggled. “You were listening to my history lessons, weren’t you?”

Alfreda nodded. “I had to. That tutor wasn’t supposed to be teaching you history. Your parents would have fired him if they’d found out. So I guarded the door. You don’t remember tempting him to lose his job with all your questions?”

“Vaguely.”

Looking out the window again, Brooke wondered if this small ruin was on Wolfe land. They should be on it by now unless the Wolfes didn’t actually own much land in Yorkshire.

“I wonder if we’ll be here long enough to see all this heather
bloom.” They’d been told it would flower in late summer. “It must be beautiful when it does, there’s so much of it.”

“The Yorkshire moors are quite striking, even without the heather in bloom. But I prefer more heavily forested terrain,” Alfreda replied.

The sky was cloudy this morning, and without the sun the landscape looked a bit bleak and gloomy to Brooke. She wondered if her thoughts were just coloring it so.

“Where the deuce
is
it?” she said impatiently, still looking out the window on her side of the coach.

Alfreda didn’t need to ask what Brooke was referring to. “On my side.”

Brooke gasped and quickly changed places with the maid, but she sighed dismally when she saw the house she’d been looking for. “I hope that’s not it.”

“I’ll wager it is.”

The façade of the three-story manor house was made of dark gray stone that looked almost black, though that might be because moss or ivy was covering it. It was hard to tell at this distance. Two corner towers rose above the massive rectangular edifice, giving it the appearance of a castle. A large tree stood in front of each tower. Both were in full bloom, obscuring her view of the rest of the manor.

“It looks forlorn, gloomy, forbidding.”

Alfreda laughed at that and stressed, “No, it does not. It would not appear that way to you if the sun would stop hiding from us. It’s going to rain soon. Let’s hope we get inside first.”

“If they let us in.”

“Stop it.” The maid loudly tsked. “If you are turned away at the door, I will spit on it. See how they like
my
curses added to theirs.”

Brooke couldn’t help laughing. Alfreda wasn’t a witch, but sometimes she liked to pretend she was. Alfreda swore that centuries ago the
t
had been removed from her surname Wichway. It was part of her mystique, which she cultivated with the villagers to keep them in awe of her, warning that she’d prove the
t
really belonged there if they told anyone where they got their potions.

Brooke spotted something else and exclaimed, “I see hedges behind the house, on this side of it at least, tall enough that I can’t see over them. D’you think he’s got a maze in there? Now that might be fun!”

“I know you were denied many things growing up, but mazes are something you should be glad to have missed out on. You can get lost in them.”