The Dark One (16 page)

Penmore's round face flushed and he quickly took a step back.

“Coward,” Franklin sneered at the viscount.

“He's as a big as tree. Chapman, you take him on.” Penmore hurried back to the coach, climbed inside, and slammed the door closed.

Further enraged by his companion's cowardice, Franklin reached inside of his coat and withdrew a nasty-looking pistol. Rosalind nearly screamed.

Behind her, she heard the sound of a pistol being cocked. She turned to see Hawkins holding a weapon trained on her stepbrother.

“I don't believe you are welcome here, sir,” the man said formally, but his usually bored expression had hardened into a mask of resolve. Rosalind had no doubt that Hawkins would shoot her stepbrother if it became necessary.

Franklin lowered his weapon; his cold eyes were alive with hate when he turned them upon Rosalind. “You've ruined everything,” he bit out. “But don't think you've won. The man you have married is a murderer. He'll kill
again; I feel certain of it. Next time, it might be you, little sister.”

“You are not to speak to my wife again,” Armond said. “You are not to so much as glance in her direction. I am not a murderer, but you tempt me to become one. Don't push me too far, Chapman.”

The glove had been tossed. Franklin backed toward the carriage—Penmore's, she recognized, because the matched set of grays was pulling it—then turned and climbed inside. Penmore shouted to his driver and the coach lumbered off. Rosalind breathed a sigh of relief. The first confrontation was over, and the coach did not take the direction of the house next door. She was free now to fetch her things and make a visit to her stepmother.

Armond still stood staring after the coach, his stance rigid. She moved forward and touched his arm. “He's gone,” she said softly.

“For now,” Armond agreed, still staring after the retreating coach. “But I don't think that's the end of it, Rosalind. Will you hate me if I end up killing him?”

He was perfectly serious, she realized. “I hope matters won't come to that,” she answered. “Maybe you've frightened him away.”

“His kind doesn't scare easily,” Armond commented. “He's not used to being thwarted. Don't ever lower your guard where he is concerned, Rosalind. Maybe where I am concerned, as well,” he added, turning to look at her.

This was yet another side to Armond she had not yet seen. A dangerous side, for she felt his barely pent-up anger. She felt his desire to go after Franklin, to finish what the two of them had started. And she had little doubt that they would clash again and perhaps again until one of them was dead.

“Is that the house?” Gabriel drew their attention. He nodded toward her stepmother's townhome.

“Yes,” Rosalind answered. “Let's go now while he's gone.”

Armond turned toward Hawkins. “Send a coach next door to collect Lady Wulf's trunks.” He turned back to Rosalind. “Will you walk with me? I have a need to burn off some of my energy.”

She nodded. Rosalind seemed to suddenly have an abundance of energy as well.

“I'll come along,” Gabriel decided. “You'll need a man at the door, watching.”

The three of them set off toward the house next door. Gabriel hung back behind them. Rosalind had trouble keeping up with Armond's long strides. He noticed and slowed his pace. She glanced sideways at him as they walked. His features were hard, his jaw muscle flexed. Danger radiated from his every pore, and to her surprise, she found that it excited her. He excited her. Not a coward, after all. Not by any means.

It had given her a great deal of satisfaction to see her stepbrother on the receiving end of Armond's fists. Franklin had terrorized her for three months and she'd been helpless against him. Now she had a protector. Rosalind didn't know why she felt moved to do what she did, but she slid her hand into Armond's as they walked. He glanced at her, and she felt the anger seeping from him, rising up to the sky to evaporate into the sunny air. He glanced away from her. But he did not remove his hand from hers, and as they neared the house next door he even gave her fingers a comforting squeeze.

Rosalind suspected were she to turn and look at Gabriel, she would find him frowning. Why did he dislike her? Why couldn't he be happy that Armond had married? Was it the curse? Now she recalled that all the brothers had vowed to remain unmarried.

She needed more information about this curse that
hung over the Wulf family. Had Armond's parents shown signs of madness long before the affliction had struck them both down? She would find out. If she and Armond eventually fell in love—and she hoped, since they had married, they would, despite Armond's claim to her—she wanted children. Blond little boys as handsome as their father.

The picture that formed in her mind made her smile. Another thought chased her smile away. She'd almost forgotten that when she'd asked Armond about the curse, he'd said it was not what society believed it to be.

What was it then? He'd told her to pray she never found out. But she would find out. She was his wife, and if they were ever going to be happy with each other, she must know his fears, his doubts, his secrets. And she would discover them all, she silently vowed. And she hoped once she had, she could make him love her.

Once Rosalind and Mary packed her few belongings in trunks—for Rosalind refused to take any of the gowns Franklin had ordered made for her—she went downstairs to tell Armond to have the coachman come up and carry them down. She would go to her marriage with seemingly little, thanks to Franklin and his greed. She supposed it was in fact her own money that had paid for the gowns her stepbrother had ordered for her, but it was also his bad tastes that had dictated the styles and fabrics.

“I need to speak with the duchess before I go,” she told Armond, then headed back upstairs to meet Mary in the drab room on the third floor.

The duchess looked neither better nor worse. Rosalind bent before her, taking the lady's cold hands in hers. “I've married,” she told her stepmother. The news drew no response. “I won't be living here anymore, but I promise to visit you as often as I can.” Again no response. Rosalind sighed. She rose and turned toward Mary. “Mary, I would ask a favor of you.”

The housekeeper stood a short distance away, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “So sorry it's come to this,” the woman sniffed. “You forced into being that dark man's wife. No telling what will happen to you, my Lady.”

“I'll be fine,” she tried to assure the housekeeper. “But
I must continue my visits with Her Grace. She was once very kind to me. I know this is perhaps asking too much, but each day, could you let me know when Franklin leaves the house so that I may visit my stepmother?”

Mary took to wringing the handkerchief. “Do you mean come next door, my Lady? To the Wulfs' lair?”

Rosalind wasn't in the mood for Mary's nonsense. “You'll be perfectly safe. In fact, I'll tell my husband's man, Hawkins, to expect you. All you need do is instruct him to give me the message that your employer is out.”

“I don't know,” Mary fretted. “If Mr. Chapman finds out I'm going behind his back—”

“I have another idea,” Rosalind decided. “When Franklin is gone from the house, hang a sheet from the balcony of my former room. That will serve as a signal to me, and if my stepbrother should ever happen to spy it, you can simply say that you're airing the bedding.”

“I suppose I can do that,” Mary agreed. “I think the lady knows you're here, even if she doesn't show it by her expressions. I think you give her comfort.”

Rosalind walked back over and placed a hand upon her stepmother's shoulder. “I hope she knows I care for her,” she said. “Does Franklin ever visit her, Mary?”

“Rarely,” the woman answered. “Has me fix up her tea the way she likes it every day though, so I guess that's at least something.”

“I suppose,” Rosalind responded. “Lord knows she's given up enough for him. Her marriage to my father. Once he demanded that Franklin be sent away, she stood by her son and left the country house. I know it was a difficult decision for her. I hope my stepbrother realizes how devoted she is to him.”

Mary made a snorting noise. “Begging your pardon for saying so, but Mr. Chapman doesn't care about anyone but himself. But I guess you know that.”

A response wasn't necessary. Rosalind suspected Mary knew about Franklin's abuse of her. There was little that went on beneath a family's roof the servants did not know about. Of course sleeping in a room that adjoined the duchess's had no doubt spared Mary from knowing all that went on when night fell. Rosalind suddenly thought about Armond's suspicions regarding Bess O'Conner and Franklin.

“Mary, have you ever known suspicious events to take place in the house? Has Franklin ever brought women here?”

“He used to entertain more,” she confessed. “Before you came. He didn't like me here when he had his friends over. He'd send me off to spend the night with my daughter. I went, too, because that was back before the duchess fell ill.”

“When exactly did my stepmother first start to show signs of illness?”

Mary puckered her wrinkled brow. “Been a while now. She seemed odd before the sickness struck her. Nervous and upset about something. I remember she and her son argued a lot back then. I don't think she liked his friends, or his parties. But then, they never got on well.”

“Rosalind? Your trunks are loaded.”

Armond's voice drifted up the stairs. Fearing another confrontation with Franklin should they dally much longer, Rosalind reached down and took her stepmother's hand in hers again. She gave the woman's fingers a gentle squeeze.

“I won't abandon you, Your Grace. I'll come as often as I can. If I thought for one moment that Franklin would allow it, I'd have you moved from this house, from this room.” She glanced around at the shabby decor of her stepmother's prison. For that's what the room had become, she realized.

She couldn't be certain, but she thought for a brief
moment that, before she released the lady's hand, the woman had given her a weak squeeze in return. It gave Rosalind hope to believe so.

“You'd best be going before Mr. Chapman returns,” Mary warned.

Rosalind hugged the housekeeper before she left. She walked down the stairs to the second-floor landing and passed her former room without even a glance inside. She would miss nothing about this house except her visits with the duchess and Mary's kindness to her. It was as if she'd finally awoken from a nightmare. Armond stood waiting for her at the next landing leading downstairs.

He was so handsome he took her breath away. Was she insane to balk at what he could offer her and demand more? Certainly there were many marriages of convenience that took place yearly in London. Countless wives had gone to marriage beds with only duty in mind. But of course part of their duty was to provide their husbands with heirs. Rosalind had been given no such duty. She'd been given instead a choice.

A choice she had no doubt would weigh heavy upon her in the days to come beneath Armond Wulf's roof, sleeping in a room separated from his only by an unlocked door.

Once Armond escorted Rosalind home, knew that she would spend the afternoon unpacking her trunks, and had left strict instructions for Hawkins to keep a close eye on the lady, Armond and Gabriel set out in search of Jackson.

“Where do we begin to look?” Gabriel asked, saddling his horse.

“I'm surprised you ask,” Armond commented drily.

“I meant, which of the many brothels that litter London,” Gabriel specified.

Saddling the chestnut stallion for himself, Armond answered, “We both know that Jackson was once quite fond of Queenie's on the outskirts of the city. We'll begin there.”

“He's quite fond of several places,” Gabriel reminded his brother. “I don't understand him.”

Armond lifted a brow. “There's nothing wrong with tumbling a willing woman once in a while, Gabriel. I suppose there's nothing wrong with having an occasional drink, or playing an occasional game of cards.”

“But,” Gabriel said before Armond finished, “all things in moderation. Something Jackson can't seem to get the gist of.”

“Exactly,” Armond agreed.

Both men swung up onto their mounts and rode from the stable. Armond tried not to look at the place where a woman had recently been found dead. Although he hadn't known the woman, had barely glanced at her lifeless body, he felt a sense of outrage on her behalf and upon his own. The first woman, she might have been an accident, might have wandered into his stable trying to escape her attacker, but this last one, she was deliberately placed there to implicate him in her murder.

Chapman would have a reason to do such a thing. Just for spite, Armond supposed. But why would he do something so obvious, and upon the heels of the maid dying in his very home? He had to know such a thing would also draw attention to him. It didn't make sense.

“Your wife is nice,” Gabriel suddenly commented. “I would like her if not for the circumstances.”

“I would love her if not for the circumstances,” Armond commented in return.

Gabriel lifted a brow before he said, “The stepbrother, though, needs a sound thrashing, or better, a bullet between the eyes.”

Gabriel wore a perfectly serious expression. He liked to fight. He always had. He liked to fight and he liked to work, but he did not share Jackson's enthusiasm for whores. At least not to Armond's knowledge.

The brothers rode in silence. They soon entered the teeming streets of London.

“We're causing the usual stir,” Gabriel pointed out. “What do they expect? That we'll sprout fangs and claws and come after them?”

Armond glanced around the crowded streets. People stopped in their strolling, in their wagon-loading, in their onion-selling, to gape at them as they rode past. His gaze happened to land upon a young woman he'd seen Rosalind
conversing with at the LeGrandes' soiree. Lady Amelia Sinclair, he thought was her name. One of the titled's daughters. The young woman stared boldly at the two of them as they passed and received a cuff on the head from either her chaperone or her mother, Armond wasn't certain which.