“I should have seen it coming,” he admitted, as if what he spoke of was simply an offense that required a slap on the wrist. “He knew you had no family except me and my mother, whom, by the way, I had to drug to keep silent. When she heard the news about the dead woman found next door, she knew I was responsible. She tried to get me to go to the authorities with the truth, to take responsibility for what I had done. I pretended to consider it, but only long enough to get her addicted to a special blend of tea I had made up for her. Tea laced with opium. You know the rest.”
“Why was Penmore willing to marry me?” she wanted to know.
“So he could have his cake and eat it, too, dear sister. A society miss he could treat like a whore, and who would come to your defense? Your mother and father are dead. You had no one, except me. I would have been the one to, no doubt, father your children, Rosalind. Penmore doesn't think even if he does manage the deed, his seed is strong enough to take root.”
She shivered with more than fear; she shivered with disgust. Rosalind was tempted to taunt Franklin with her knowledge of the doctored tea he served his mother, but then it would only endanger the duchess. “What are you going to do to me?” she repeated the question.
He bent beside her again. “Whatever we wish.”
She suddenly heard footsteps coming close to the room. Penmore stepped inside a moment later. He grinned broadly at her. “Lady Rosalind, oh,” he corrected, “Lady Wulf, so nice to see you this evening.”
“You can't get away with this,” Rosalind informed both men. “My husband knows what you're about. He knows about you being involved, too, Penmore.” She didn't know that for a fact, but she suspected Armond had figured out the truth.
“Your husband is quite a pest,” Penmore pouted. “And I will not forgive him for taking what by right belonged to me. He spoiled everything.”
“He'll kill you if either of you lay a hand on me,” she assured them.
The two men looked at each other and merely smiled. “The joke,” Penmore explained, “is that we plan to make it very obvious that he killed you. That he, in fact, killed all the women recently found murdered. You could have lived,” Penmore continued, his fishlike lips forming into another unattractive pout. “Had you just not married Wulf. Then you could have been my wife and simply been forced to entertain your stepbrother and me until we grew tired of
the game. Of course I don't expect we would have grown tired of it for a good long while. You're very beautiful, Rosalind.”
“And you're insane,” she bit out. “The both of you.”
“Get to it, Chapman,” Penmore suddenly ordered. “I grow weary of talk. I want to sample the lady's charms and need added stimulation.”
Franklin bent beside her. He stared into her eyes and she tried to appeal to him. “Franklin, please don't do this,” she whispered. “I am your stepsister. I am your kin.”
He looked saddened for a moment; then his dead eyes moved over her body. “I've been waiting for this for a good long while,” he confessed. “Do you remember that day when you were playing in the barn and I asked if you'd like to play a special game with me?”
She tried to remember. “No,” she answered.
“Well, your father would remember if he was still alive. I would have taken you then, but a stupid groom overheard our conversation and went racing to get your father. That is when he ordered me off of his estate and said he wished never to set eyes on me again.”
The admission sickened her. “I was a child, Franklin.”
“A very beautiful child,” he defended himself. “And an even lovelier woman. I'm going to enjoy this.”
He reached forward and ripped the bodice of her gown open. Rosalind gasped. She tried to struggle, but being tied thwarted her efforts. He pulled the torn edges of her gown aside, then removed a knife from his belt. She thought he meant to slit her throat and welcomed it over what he and Penmore had claimed they would do to her. Instead, Franklin began cutting the laces of her corset away; then he slid the knife through the thin straps of her chemise and cut them loose. She was bared to the waist in a matter of moments.
“Let me see her,” Penmore breathed. “I want to look at her.”
Humiliated, Rosalind saw Franklin move back so that Penmore could loom over her. Drool had pooled in the corner of his mouth, and his beady eyes roamed her nakedness. “Perfect,” he croaked. “Just as I knew she would be.”
Franklin reached out and cupped her breast. His painful squeeze made her gasp. He then took his knife and moved down, cutting the thin rope that tied her ankles together. Once free, she immediately kicked out at him. She managed to land a blow to his arm and the knife skittered out of his hand. He cursed and grasped her flailing legs, forcing them apart before he lunged on top of her.
His weight forced the breath from her. He didn't try to kiss her. He didn't try to fondle her breasts or behave in any way as if there were emotions tied to his desires other than a lust to demean her, to rape her and exercise his power over her. He lifted his weight only long enough to shove her gown up around her waist; then he tore at the tapes of her drawers. Her arms ached with his added weight pressing her down against them. The pain became less important when he managed to get her tapes free and tried to pull her drawers down her hips. She bucked against him.
“Be still, damn you!” he shouted down at her.
“Hit her,” Penmore encouraged from his position above them. “Punish her like all good little society whores deserve to be punished.”
Franklin drew back his fists. She squeezed her eyes closed.
“Hit her and I'll only make you suffer more before I kill you.”
Rosalind felt Franklin freeze. She opened her eyes to see Penmore also standing above them as if frozen in
place. Her heart lurched inside of her chest. Armond had come. Armond would save her. She nearly fainted with the relief of hearing his voice.
“Get off of my wife, Chapman,” Armond ordered. “I'd hate for the pistol I have aimed at your head to go off and splatter blood all over her.”
Franklin eased his weight off of her.
“Penmore, you and Chapman move over there to the corner and stand still,” Armond instructed.
“There's a knife somewhere on the floor,” Rosalind warned her husband. “I kicked it out of Franklin's hand.”
“And I'm sure either one or both of you have a pistol concealed on your person somewhere,” Armond drawled. “Open your coats.”
Both men did as instructed. Penmore had a pistol. Her husband ordered him to remove it from his waistband and lay it on the floor, then kick it toward Armond. He soon had the weapon; then Armond walked over, never taking his pistol off the two men, and bent to the floor. He came up with the knife. Only then did he glance at Rosalind. Rage flared in his eyes when he saw her lying on the floor, her breasts exposed and her gown up around her waist.
He moved beside her and bent, his gaze still trained on the two men in the corner. Armond flipped her gown down over her knees. He laid the knife beside her, then carefully removed his coat, draping it against her nakedness before he pulled her up to a sitting position.
“How did you find me?” she wondered.
“I bought this house today. It wasn't so difficult to convince the broker to tell me what property Penmore was most recently interested in. It took buying the house for two times what it was worth.”
Franklin glanced accusingly at Penmore, obviously for
not foreseeing this possible development, then took a brave step toward them. Armond lifted his pistol.
“I'd love for either of you to try something while I cut the rope off of my wife's wrists,” he said. “It's all I can do to keep from killing you now, but I won't force Rosalind to witness your deaths.”
“Allow me to fetch a constable, Armond,” Rosalind said. “I won't have their blood on your hands.”
He gazed into her eyes for a moment, and she noticed the sweat on his brow, noticed also that the hand he used to cut the ropes wound around her wrists trembled. He looked ill.
“I could allow you to do that,” he agreed before he turned his gaze back on Franklin and Penmore. “Your mother is feeling much better, Chapman. Rosalind realized that you were drugging her and has had the housekeeper stop her rations of tea. She told me that you had my wife.”
Rosalind felt a moment of deep satisfaction when Franklin's face paled and his jaw muscle began to jump inside his cheek.
“Franklin told me about Bess O'Conner,” Rosalind said to Armond, feeling the blood rush to her hands when he finally got the ropes off of her wrists. She turned her back to the two men while she shrugged into Armond's coat. “He told me about Penmore's involvement, too. They killed Lydia.” Her voice broke.
“I want you to get out of here,” Armond said. “Take my horse and go.”
“To find the authorities?” she wanted to confirm.
“No,” he said softly. “Go to your stepmother's home and watch over her. She's there alone. I'll join you shortly.”
He was going to kill Franklin and Penmore. He was going to kill them because of her. Could she have their
deaths on her conscience? Could she have their blood on her husband's hands? She hated them, Franklin much more so than Penmore. But to kill them. . .
“Armond,” she whispered, placing a hand on his arm. “This will follow us the rest of our lives. Let the courts decide their punishment.”
“I will decide their punishment!” he snapped at her. He turned to look at her and she gasped. His eyes now held a blue glow. When he had spoken, she saw that his eyeteeth were longer and more pointed.
“Armond,” she whispered. “What's wrong with you?”
He suddenly doubled over in pain. He gasped and tried to straighten. He shoved both pistols into her hands, picked up the knife, and flung it across the room.
“Go now!”
Franklin made a move toward them. Rosalind saw him from the corner of her eye and jerked around to face him, both pistols pointed at Penmore and her stepbrother. She knew about pistols because her father had taught her to use them. She cocked first one and then the other. “Stay back,” she warned.
“Go, Rosalind!” Armond ordered, but then he doubled over again, obviously in great pain.
“I will not go,” she said, her gaze darting back and forth between her husband and the two men who would kill them both if they got a chance. “I will not leave you here while you're ill!”
He gasped in pain, but he managed to glance up at her. For a moment his eyes cleared. “I love you, Rosalind. I always have. The curse has found me now. Please go.”
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back in order to keep Franklin and Penmore in her line of vision. The curse? She remembered the few lines she'd read of the poem. Something about the moon transforming him, and a beast. Did she believe in such things?
Rosalind felt as if they were both too vulnerable, she sitting on the mattress and Armond hunkered down close to the floor. She scooted off the mattress and stood, her pistols still trained on Penmore and Franklin, who both watched her husband like vultures waiting to pounce upon a dying animal.
Suddenly Armond's body convulsed. He moaned, closed his eyes, and began ripping at his clothing. Only then did she see his handsâsee that his fingernails now jutted from his fingertips like claws. She gasped and moved to the corner but still held the pistols trained on her would-be killers.
“What the hell is happening to him?” Penmore asked.
Franklin was obviously too stunned to answer. Rosalind watched in horror as something took hold of her husband. He writhed upon the floor. His body seemed to change shape. His hair grew longer before her very eyesâgrew until it covered his body. He had gone to the floor a man, but when he rose on all fours, he was a wolf.
A wolf with glowing blue eyes and long fangs that it displayed by growling at Franklin and Penmore.
“Shoot it, Rosalind!” Franklin yelled.
The pistol in one hand swung toward the growling beast. The wolf stopped long enough to swing its head toward her. She stared deep into the wolf's eyes, and somewhere in the body of the beast she knew that Armond still lived. Trapped. Cursed. Good Lord, she feared she might faint. But she couldn't faint. She swung the pistol back toward Franklin.
“No,” she whispered. “I won't kill him.”
Penmore made a run for the doorway. The beast leaped, pouncing upon him. His screams echoed in the empty house. Franklin was suddenly upon Rosalind, trying to wrestle one of the pistols from her hand. She knew if he managed, he'd shoot the wolf, kill it, and Armond along with it. Her strength surprised her. Adrenaline raced through her and she tried to bring the other pistol around and shoot Franklin. He knocked the pistol from her hand, she feared breaking her wrist in the process. She moaned with the pain but kicked out at him.
He slapped her and knocked her back against the wall. The other pistol fell from her hand. Franklin started to bend to get it, but suddenly the wolf was there, growling low in its throat, the iridescent blue of its eyes focused upon Franklin.
Instead of reaching for the pistol, Franklin reached for Rosalind and pulled her in front of him. She came face-to-face with the beast. The growling immediately stopped. She stared into the wolf's eyes. “Armond,” she whispered. “Don't kill me.”
Her gaze was drawn to Penmore, struggling to crawl along the floor. The man had his hand clutched to his throat; blood gushed from a wound there. Bile rose in her
throat, and her gaze returned to the wolf. It looked past her at Franklin, curling back its lips to expose its deadly fangs.
Franklin used Rosalind as a shield, keeping her between himself and the beast as he inched their way toward the doorway leading out of the room. The wolf growled low in its throat, following but not attacking. The animal would have to get past Rosalind to reach Franklin, and as terrified as she was, she realized it was not going to attack her. Penmore made strangling sounds and tried to crawl toward them.