With a roar of outrage from being threatened by two women, Franklin reached behind him, managed to get a grasp on Rosalind's hair, and pulled her off of him. She landed hard against the floor, her scalp stinging from where Franklin had yanked at her hair. Suddenly he loomed over her and the rage in his eyes told her he would not defile her. He was past the patience of prolonging her death. He bent and put his hands around her neck, closing off her air.
Rosalind clawed at his hands. She gasped, but no air would fill her lungs. The sound of breaking glass turned Franklin's head toward her balcony doors. He loosened his grip, and Rosalind gulped in deep gasps of air. Through her watering eyes she saw a man rise from the floor. A tall man, his blond hair wild around his shoulders. He wore an open coat that was too small for him, his broad chest bare beneath. He looked like a pirate. He looked half-crazed, and she was never happier to see him in her life.
“Wulf,” Franklin breathed. He scrambled up off of Rosalind, facing Armond.
“I told you if you ever touched her again, I would kill you,” Armond said. “Consider yourself dead.”
“Y-you were a wolf,” Franklin stammered. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And now I am a man.” Armond stalked toward her stepbrother. “A man who is going to make certain you never threaten Rosalind again.”
Franklin tried to run. Armond was on him in a heartbeat. Her husband might be a man this morning rather than a beast, but he showed no mercy. He punched Franklin so hard the man crumpled to the ground; then Armond reached down, hauled him up, and hit him again. Rosalind had no doubts as to Franklin's fate. She scrambled on her hands and knees toward the duchess, who still lay upon the floor.
“Your Grace,” she sobbed, cradling her stepmother's head in her lap. “Are you all right?”
The lady opened her eyes. “Forgive me, Rosalind,” she begged. “Forgive me for being the instrument Franklin used to trap you in this house. My heart broke when I left your father, and when I left you. I still foolishly believed I could help my sonâthat I could shape his characterâbut it was twisted long ago by violence.”
“Shush,” Rosalind whispered. “You mustn't blame yourself. You were kind to me once, loving and, for as long as I had you, the mother I had longed for all of my life. I would never hold you to blame for Franklin's cruelty toward me. I will take you away from this house.”
The lady closed her eyes as if in pain. She gripped Rosalind's hand. “My time is over. Your time has just begun.”
Tears ran down Rosalind's cheeks. She feared the duchess was dying. Judging from the sounds of Armond's fists smashing into Franklin, he would soon be dead as well. She had to get her stepmother help.
“Armond! We must fetch a doctor for Her Grace!”
Her husband seemed oblivious to her pleas, so focused
he was on killing Franklin, on beating him to death. Her stepbrother looked unconscious. Rosalind rose from the floor and ran to Armond. She grabbed the fist he pulled back to deliver another blow.
“Armond!” she shouted to penetrate the fog of rage obviously clouding his brain. “My stepmother! She's dying. We must get her help!”
For a moment, Armond merely looked at Rosalind, as if his focus could not shift long enough for him to understand what she said to him. Finally, his fist fell to his side. He let Franklin slide to the floor. She pulled Armond to where the lady lay. He bent before her, Rosalind alongside him.
“Franklin dealt her a deadly blow,” she explained to her husband. “I fear she will not survive it.”
“Your Grace?” Armond asked gently. “Can you hear me? You must stay with us.”
The woman opened her eyes again and looked at Armond. “I know you,” she whispered. “You're from next door. I've heard things about you, but if Rosalind loves you, you must have a good heart. Take care of her.”
“No!” Rosalind's voice broke. “Don't leave me, Your Grace! Everyone I have ever loved has left me.”
“You must both go.” Her stepmother suddenly struggled with a frail attempt to rouse herself. “I didn't want this business to follow Rosalind. I've set the upstairs on fire.”
Rosalind had been too involved with what was taking place to notice the smell of smoke. She noticed it now. “We must get her out,” she said frantically to Armond.
He nodded and quickly moved around to lift the duchess's shoulders. Rosalind wondered why the lady stared past her. Why her eyes suddenly widened. She turned to see Franklin, bloody and beaten, looming over her, the poker from her hearth raised above her back.
“No!” Armond shouted, but before he could release the duchess and lunge at the man, a shot rang out. A small hole appeared in Franklin's forehead; then he fell backward. Rosalind jerked her head around to look at Armond. He didn't hold the pistol. The duchess had managed to lift it and kill her son. Pain flashed across her face; then her eyes focused upon Rosalind, and she saw the light of life fading from them.
“Be happy,” she whispered before she went limp in Armond's arms, her eyes sightlessly staring ahead.
“Your Grace!” Rosalind covered her face with her hands. She felt Armond's hands on her shoulders a second later.
“She's gone, Rosalind. We have to get out. Now!”
The smoke began to choke her. She coughed. The next thing she knew, Armond gathered her in his arms and he was racing down the hallway toward the stairs leading down to the first-floor landing. She clung to him, her lungs stinging as smoke started to drift down to the first floor. He set her down in front of the door, hurrying with the locks. He flung the door wide, took her hand, and pulled her outside. He picked her up in his arms and raced across the lawn.
At the stable, he paused to shout for his grooms to gather the horses and move them. He carried her up the rocky path and cursed when Hawkins didn't get the door, having to put her down in order to do the task himself. Rosalind rushed in ahead of him.
“Hawkins!” Armond shouted.
The man came running.
“The house next door is ablaze. Keep your eyes peeled. The fire may spread.”
“Very well, my lord,” Hawkins said, then hurried outside.
Taking her hand, Armond led Rosalind upstairs.
Once in his room, he began stripping off his ill-fitting clothes. Rosalind realized why. They were Penmore's clothes. Once Armond had stripped and thrown the clothes in a pile, he said, “Burn them, Rosalind.”
He started dragging clothes from his wardrobe. Rosalind realized she was still in shock, for she could do nothing but stand and watch him as he hurriedly dressed.
“I'll have my coachman take you to the dowager's,” he said, pulling a shirt over his head. “You are to tell everyone that once I saw you to safety, I went back, hoping to rescue your stepbrother and your stepmother. You never saw me again, understand?”
She blinked at him. “What? No, I do not understand.”
He wouldn't come close to her. “It is best this way, Rosalind. Now you know why I could not love you, why I could not give you children. The curse is passed from seed to seed. I would not bring that upon my sons. I would not bring that upon you.”
With all that happened, all she'd been forced to witness and forced to endure, she still did not understand what he was saying to her. Then suddenly she did understand. “You are leaving me.”
“I am sparing you,” he corrected. “Gather what you need to take with you to the dowager's home. I have provided for you, Rosalind. You are free now. Penmore and Chapman can never threaten you again. You can have a life.”
“But not one with you,” she further understood.
He glanced away from her. She thought for a moment that she saw the moisture of tears in his eyes. “No. Not with me. Good-bye, Rosalind. Remember me as a man, and not the monster I have become.”
He turned away from her and left the room. Rosalind stood frozen. She had yet to fathom all that had happened since last night. Her mind had yet to accept things
she'd seen, the terror of being at Penmore's and Franklin's mercy, what had happened to Armond when he'd come to save her, the death of her stepmother. Still, there was one thing that Rosalind knew for certain. It could not end this way. She raced out of Armond's room to the top of the stairs.
“Armond!” she shouted, her voice raw with emotion.
He was gone.
“I am sorry, Rosalind, my dear,” the dowager said, patting her hand. “I met the duchess on several occasions years ago, and I quite liked her.”
Rosalind took a sip of tea the dowager had ordered prepared as soon as she'd arrived. “She was a lovely lady,” she responded as if automatically. Her emotions had gone from being raw to being numb.
“Your stepbrother, now I didn't know him well,” the dowager said cautiously.
“I do not grieve for him.” Rosalind took another sip of tea, grateful for the warmth spreading down her throat and into her stomach. “We shall not talk of him.”
A moment of silence followed. “Where is Armond, Rosalind?” the dowager asked. “Taking care of matters for you?”
She glanced down into her teacup, as if a suitable answer would appear there. “He says I am to tell everyone that he is dead.”
The dowager's cup rattled against her saucer when she set it aside. “What is going on, Rosalind?”
Slowly, Rosalind lifted her gaze. “Armond is . . . he is not himself.”
“Oh dear,” the dowager said softly. “So it has happened. Just as he feared it would.”
Still cautious in what she said, Rosalind asked, “You know about him? About his family?”
The woman nodded her balding head. “Only what his mother told me in those dark days as she wasted away. A shocking tale. One would have had to believe her mad to say such things.”
“Only you knew that she wasn't mad,” Rosalind said. “Did she still love her husband?”
“Do you mean after the curse took him, or after he killed himself because of it?”
“After it took him,” Rosalind specified.
The dowager's sad smile touched Rosalind. “Oh yes. But he didn't give her time to tell him that it made no difference to her. He assumed the worst. And I think he feared that he might hurt her, and his children. He chose the simplest solution to his problem, as men often do.”
As Armond had obviously done as well. Rosalind had learned something during the past few months in London. Life was not so simple, and neither, it seemed, was love. She hadn't had time to fully absorb what had happened to Armond, and if it had changed her feelings toward him. It seemed ludicrous that it would not, and yet her heart ached far more than her bruised body. Her heart ached for Armond and the future that fate kept stealing away from them.
“You look ragged, dear,” the dowager said. “And bruised. And you smell of smoke. Allow me to have a nice bath prepared for you; then you must rest. I've had a guest room prepared for you.”
“I am tired,” Rosalind admitted. “And I appreciate your hospitality, Your Grace.”
“Armond was right to send you to me. Come along, dear.”
Rosalind set her teacup aside and rose. She wearily followed the dowager to a room upstairs. The bed beckoned
her, but she waited patiently while the dowager sent her servants scurrying to prepare Rosalind's bath and make her as comfortable as possible. A young maid attended her. It had been a long time, it seemed, since Rosalind had the luxury. Not since poor Lydia had died or, rather, been murdered by Rosalind's stepbrother.
She allowed herself to be pampered, to be undressed and helped into her bath. She'd changed her ruined gown and underclothes before she'd allowed Armond's coach to deliver her to the dowager. Now Rosalind stepped into a tub of soothing hot water and let the maid wash her from head to toe. Afterward, Rosalind climbed between the cool sheets of the bed. Exhaustion quickly claimed her.
She slept soundly as afternoon faded into evening. When she woke, she thought of Armond. What was he thinking? What was he doing? What should she think and do? Should she do as he had asked and tell everyone he had perished in the fire? Even though she knew it would be best if she could lie, at least best for her, Rosalind didn't know if she could forever sever the tie between her and Armond Wulf.
She had to see him again. If she saw him, her heart would speak for her. She had told her stepmother that everyone Rosalind loved left her. Now her husband wanted to leave her. Could she allow him to turn his back on her and the love he claimed to hold in his heart for her? Could she turn her back on him? Even with him cursed, could she walk away and never look back?
These were all questions she must answer. Questions Armond must answer as well. Rosalind rose and found her clothing laid out neatly at the end of the bed. She dressed quickly, then went downstairs to thank the dowager for her hospitality and ask for the use of her carriage.
“I forgot to tell you,” the dowager said as she walked her
out. “Yesterday when you missed your fitting appointment, I went ahead and chose a few styles and fabrics for you. I am a good guess at sizes and I hope you don't mind, but I thought you needed some things right away. They should be delivered in the next few days and I'll have them sent over to you as soon as possible.”
Nice gowns seemed less important to Rosalind now. She'd only wanted to look good for Armond. “Thank you, ma'am.”
“Are you sure you won't stay a while longer, maybe even just for the night?”
Rosalind shook her head. “I feel as if I should be home.”
The dowager touched Rosalind's arm. Her brow creased. “Are you certain you'll be safe there, Rosalind?”
Her first instinct was to say no, she wasn't certain, but deep in her heart, Rosalind knew that Armond, regardless of who or what he was, would never hurt her. “I'll be fine,” she tried to assure the dowager. “I'll call on you soon.”