The Dark One (6 page)

He would watch the situation, judge his first gut reaction, and see if, as usual, he was correct when it came to his intuitive feelings. And if Chapman laid another hand upon Rosalind, he'd be the sorry one.

Armond had to suddenly rein in his thoughts. He might have laughed at the absurdity of his notions. Him, protect Lady Rosalind? And again, he wasn't positive that she even needed his protection.

He should be more concerned about who would protect her from him. He'd nearly lost all control with her at the Greenleys' ball. He'd never been more attracted physically to a woman in his life. Already he was thinking about the short jaunt across the lawn that separated them. A pathetic boundary really—of little consequence to a man of his athletic ability.

Lady Rosalind had been considerably cooler in her manner toward him today. He wanted to feel her heat again,
to watch her eyes fill with desire, see her lips part in invitation. He wanted all they had shared the first night they met . . . and more. And he would go to her. He knew it as surely as he knew his future was damned. God help him, he could not resist.

Rosalind couldn't have been more relieved when Franklin returned to Lady Pratt's social tea and Armond Wulf did not. Something about Lord Wulf was irresistible. Well, she had to mentally correct, everything about him was irresistible. But she had to avoid him.

No sense in making Franklin angry over the matter. Although she couldn't help but wonder, as Lord Penmore approached her from across the room, why Armond Wulf couldn't be considered a good catch on the marriage market, instead of the disgusting man Franklin might force her into accepting.

“Lady Rosalind,” the viscount gushed, taking her hand and then proceeding to slobber all over it. “I am so pleased I didn't miss you in passing. I'm deplorably late.”

Deplorable
stuck in her head, but she managed to smile. “Nice to see you again, Lord Penmore.” Rosalind wrestled her hand from him and wiped it on her gown.

“Good afternoon, Penmore.” Franklin joined them. “I see that you are fashionably late,” he said drily. “Too bad you weren't here a moment earlier to chase the Wulf away.”

Penmore lifted a busy brow. “What wolf would that he?”

“Lord Armond Wulf,” Franklin drawled. “It seems he's taken an interest in my poor little sister.”

Rosalind was shocked that Franklin would so freely discuss the matter in front of the viscount. The shorter man huffed up like a toad.

“The cursed man has never shown an interest in one of our own before. Prostitutes are more to his liking.” He winked at Rosalind. She failed to see the humor in his statement.

“The woman found murdered on his property,” Franklin explained to her. “She was a prostitute.”

Rosalind still failed to see the humor. She fiddled with the folds of her gown. “I don't believe that either Lord Wulf or . . . women of that ilk is a proper topic for discussion between gentlemen and ladies.”

Both men cast her a dirty look, as if she had no right to an opinion. Finally Lord Penmore shrugged.

“Forgive our rude manners,” he said. “We can surely find a topic of discussion more pleasing than the Wulf brothers. You know about the curse that haunts them?”

Despite the fact that the subject had not changed, Rosalind was curious about the man. “Curse?”

“Insanity,” Lord Penmore said. “The father killed himself. The mother followed him to the grave shortly afterward, and she was crazy as a loon before she went. The sons, four of them, although I don't know what's become of the youngest one, are tainted with the same blood, and with it coming from both sides, well, there will be no escaping it. No decent woman would tie herself to a family with those faults. They have vowed, I believe, to never marry. A wise decision.”

“Perhaps we should indeed discuss something else,” Franklin cut in. “Will you visit the clubs once we leave this stuffy affair?”

Penmore nodded. “An excellent idea. You must join me, Chapman. Perhaps you can manage to win back even a little of the fortune you already owe me.”

Rosalind didn't miss Lord Penmore's reminder that Franklin was indebted to him, but she wasn't interested in the conversation. She was thinking about Armond Wulf. How horrible for him. To be cursed by insanity. Was he insane even now? She didn't think so. But surely if it ran in the blood of both his mother and his father, it would strike him down one day as well. Had he truly made a vow to remain unmarried? And was that even his decision? Perhaps society had decided the matter for him.

“Will you accompany us tomorrow?”

She realized that Lord Penmore had asked her a question. “Beg your pardon?”

“I don't think it would be a good idea, all things considered,” Franklin answered for her.

“Oh, come now, Chapman, we'll be along with her. I'd like for Wulf to try something out of line. We could beat him to a bloody pulp.”

Franklin smiled obviously over the possibility, but Rosalind still wasn't certain what the men were discussing. “I'm sorry, I didn't hear where it is you'd like me to accompany you to, Viscount.”

“I'm thinking of purchasing a matched pair of horses for my carriage,” the man explained. “Wulf may be a murderer, and soon to be as insane as his cursed parents, but he does know how to breed horses. I thought you might come along with me and your stepbrother on the venture.”

Now Rosalind understood Lady Pratt's remark about the business of a horse. She could see Armond's residence from the balcony of her bedroom and had wondered why he had such a large stable for a townhome.

She'd rather not. “Horse business is better left up to men,” she said, although Rosalind didn't believe that for a moment. She was an accomplished horsewoman and knew how to judge an animal's quality.

“But I want you there.” Penmore pouted. He turned a more serious expression upon Franklin. “I want her there, Chapman.”

Her stepbrother stared the other man down for a moment, then shrugged. “I see no harm in taking her along with us. As you said, she will be protected.”

Rosalind understood that she had no further say in the matter when the two men went back to discussing the clubs and which they would visit after the tea ended. She tried to picture Franklin and Penmore getting the better of Armond Wulf in a fight. Regardless that she'd thought him a coward the night of the Greenleys' ball, she couldn't imagine Lord Wulf coming out the loser in a battle of fisticuffs. She would see him tomorrow. Her pulses raced with the thought.

“I'll have our driver take you home after the affair ends,” Franklin was saying to her. “I'll see you after I've enjoyed a few rounds of cards. We can talk about the incident in the hallway then.”

She'd been foolish to think that her stepbrother would let the matter drop. Would he strike her for simply having the misfortune of running into Lord Wulf in the hallway? Her stomach twisted at the thought. The afternoon promised to be a long one while she waited for Franklin's return—waited to see just what form of punishment he had in mind.

Pacing seemed to calm her nerves. Rosalind did so while Lydia, her personal maid, went about the business of changing her bed linens. Her opinion had not changed about
Lord Penmore. The man was as disgusting as she'd first found him. Her opinion had changed somewhat about Armond Wulf. She no longer thought he was a coward. She shouldn't think of him at all. And even as Rosalind told herself so, she moved to her balcony doors and stared outside toward the property next door.

“What am I going to do?”

“You should do what your stepbrother wants and find yourself a husband,” Lydia, the maid, answered, as if the question had been directed to her when, in fact, it had only been a thought that had escaped Rosalind's lips. “I've seen the way he looks at you when your head is turned the other direction. Won't be long until he'll be creeping in here during the night and climbing into your bed.”

“Lydia!” Rosalind was shocked. “You mustn't say such things.” The maid mostly shouldn't say such things because Rosalind didn't want to face the possibility that Franklin might lust after her. It was bad enough that he abused her. She'd allowed the maid too many liberties or Lydia would never have been brave enough to say as much to Rosalind. But the young woman was the only friend Rosalind had made, or was likely to make since Franklin had tricked her into traveling to London with him—since he'd trapped her in this house. Rosalind valued their friendship, even if the rest of society would frown upon such an affiliation.

Undaunted by the warning, Lydia shrugged. “Do you think I don't know about the master's appetites?” The maid visibly shuddered. “Takes what he wants, that one. Last time he ordered me to his bed, thought he'd kill me with his rough ways. Bled for a week, I did.”

Rosalind supposed her mouth dropped open. Her life in the country had been fairly sheltered. She'd certainly
heard her share of vulgar talk exchanged between the maids, but nothing like what Lydia had just insinuated.

“Lydia, are you telling me that Franklin . . . that he forced himself upon you?”

“Thinks no woman would say no to that handsome face of his.” Lydia looked up at Rosalind from plumping one of her pillows. “But we know he isn't so handsome on the inside, don't we, Lady Rosalind?”

Rosalind walked across the room to join the maid. “Why didn't you tell someone, Lydia? Why did you stay here if you were subjected to acts against your will?”

The maid shrugged again. “Don't have any family; you know that. And I need this job. The master said if I didn't do as I was told, he'd make sure I got no good reference from him. He may not be as upper-crust as you are, Lady Rosalind, but he can make my life harder than it already is.”

Rosalind brought a trembling hand to her temple and rubbed. “This is unacceptable behavior. He can't get away with treating you as if you had no say regarding an intimate decision. As if you are only an object put on God's green earth to do his bidding, no matter how foul you find your duties.”

Lydia placed a hand upon Rosalind's shoulder. “He has gotten away with it. And I fear for you beneath his roof. Do as he asks and save yourself while you still can. If he calls me to his bed again, I swear I'll jump from yonder balcony before I let him tear me up like he did the last time. No woman should be forced to suffer that humiliation.”

Rosalind's gaze strayed toward her balcony, as she wondered if she wouldn't rather jump than live in fear over what Franklin might do to her next or marry Lord Penmore. Like poor Lydia, she had no family. No doting
uncle to come to her rescue, no cousins whom she might seek shelter with. She was alone in the world, the same as the maid.

“I'm sorry, Lydia,” she said softly. “Sorry for your shame and your suffering. I will speak about it to Franklin, you can be sure.”

“No, milady,” Lydia whispered. “If he knows I've been telling tales, he'll only hurt me worse. Don't go against him. Not for the likes of me.”

Rosalind opened her mouth to argue, but a short knock sounded upon her door, and speak of the devil, he entered. Lydia quickly lowered her gaze and slunk toward the door. Rosalind was left to face Franklin alone.

“We must talk, little sister.”

Still battling her outrage about Lydia's confession, and debating whether to call him to account over the matter regardless of Lydia's request, she keep silent, Rosalind instead found herself immediately on the defensive.

“It was by accident that I ran into Lord Wulf in the hallway at Lady Pratt's tea,” she said. “I would have certainly never purposely sought him out after the warning you issued.”

Franklin lifted a brow. She knew that even if he didn't show it on the outside, he was secretly pleased to walk into a room and immediately have her babbling about her innocence like a spineless ninny. Fear had turned her into a coward. But Rosalind couldn't keep silent regarding the maid.

“And . . . and you mustn't touch Lydia again.”

Her demand wiped the smug expression from her stepbrother's face. “What has that little whore been telling you?”

Rosalind unconsciously took a step back when he approached. “She- I—that is . . . ” She forced herself to stand still. “She accidentally let it slip that you had
demanded rights from her that are not yours to demand, Franklin. She said that she was unwilling and that you forced her.”

He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, digging his strong fingers into her flesh. Rosalind winced, but she refused to cower.

“The servants in this house are none of your affair,” he bit out. “Are you going to take the word of a maid, a whore, over my word? I can tell you now that she came sneaking into my bed, hoping to earn a few more coins. I took nothing that she wasn't willing to give. How dare you confront me on such an issue! You have no say here, Rosalind, not beneath my roof!”

The harder his fingers dug into her skin, the harder it was for Rosalind to remain strong in the face of her enemy. And Franklin was her enemy. She had no doubts about that. His fingers dug deeper, and Rosalind couldn't stop the moan that escaped her lips. “I understand,” she whispered. “Please, Franklin, you're hurting me.”

As if it took almost more will than he possessed, Franklin released her and turned his back. “You sorely try my temper. You keep forgetting that you are in a circumstance far different from the one you once knew. Your father threw me out, you know? I rather like the idea of being able to throw you out, or to the dogs, or to do anything I damn well please.”

“That was a long time ago,” Rosalind reminded him, rubbing the stinging places on her shoulders. “I was a child; you were a young man barely out of short pants. I had nothing to do with you and your mother leaving. In fact, I cried when the duchess told me she had to go. I've held a fondness for your mother all these years. That's why I came with you, remember, to see her?”