“But death happens, whether by accident or illness.”
Dominic gave her an odd look. “Of course. Our family certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on death, and we’ve lost other members prematurely who weren’t firstborns. If the Wolfes are cursed with anything, it’s bad luck.”
“If Cornelius’s mistress’s curse was as broad as you said it was, and Cornelius’s firstborn died as a baby, how did the ‘twenty-fifth year’ get added to the rumor?”
“Another mystery, considering only three of my ancestors died at the age of twenty-five, my father being one of them. So it’s more that we aren’t expected to survive beyond that year and no firstborn ever has.”
“Not one?”
“Not one.”
“How did your father die?”
“He and my mother were at the orchard. He climbed an apple tree to pick one for her and fell. It wasn’t a tall tree, but the fall still broke his neck. She had the orchard burned after the funeral. It wasn’t replanted until after her mourning period.”
“I’m sorry.”
“As you said, accidents happen.”
“Have you read all the journals?”
“No. One is written in Latin, a few in French. I was too impatient to learn those languages.”
“I know French. I could teach you—or read the French journals to you.”
“You think you will be here to do that?”
She made a face. He didn’t notice because he was putting the covers back over the paintings. She stepped out of the room ahead of him. She still had to convince him to let her new friend stay, but had to prepare herself for failure. He’d shown her that painting of the two wolves to convince her that keeping a pet like that was foolhardy, and maybe it was, despite how tame that beautiful animal seemed. She was surprised Dominic had even made the effort to convince her the animal was a wolf when he didn’t have to.
So she was incredulous when he stepped out of the tower, locked the door, and said, “I will have an abode built for her behind the hedges on the east lawn, away from the horses. But if she spooks the herd, or if a single animal dies, she will have to go. I do this against my better judgment. It will not take much for me to change my mind.”
She wanted to thank him effusively, but if he knew just how grateful she was, he might change his mind. So she just nodded and hurried back upstairs to make sure Wolf had survived the meeting with his mother, if indeed she’d guessed correctly about their relationship. It could merely be that Wolf recognized a more formidable opponent and had acted accordingly—which was sort of what she’d been doing with the wolf she was to marry.
Chapter Thirty-Two
BROOKE GOT SO INVOLVED with the two dogs, wolves, whatever they were, that she lost track of the time that day. She decided to call her friend Storm in honor of how they met. And she supervised the building of Storm’s abode herself, insisting not only on a shed where she could get out of the rain, but also a hole dug in the ground, which might be the kind of shelter she was more used to. Dominic tried to enclose the small area with a six-foot-high fence, but he had it torn down before it was finished when Wolf almost hurt himself trying to jump over it.
From the moment the two animals met, they were nearly inseparable. They romped across the moors like puppies. They both accompanied her when she exercised Rebel, and the mare didn’t seem to mind them. However, Royal did when Dominic tried to join them. Dominic wasn’t all that pleased that his pet preferred to stay outdoors near Storm than in the house with him. But he didn’t force the issue. He solved it instead by letting both animals in the house that night. The staff wasn’t happy about that. Brooke was. But Storm behaved like a dog, not a wolf. So the staff would get used to her in time. If there was time . . .
The marriage banns were read again the next day, her second Sunday at Rothdale. Only one more week until she and Dominic would be out of time. She realized that if he did figure out a way for them to avoid getting married and she went home without bedlam hanging over her head, her parents would never let her keep Storm—she knew them too well—and she would be heartbroken. So there was one more reason why she wanted to marry Dominic—one more reason for her to make him love her. Eventually.
His tactics to get her to flee seemed to have been put on hold after their night in the ruins. It might have been because of the dogs. She’d spent most of her time with them yesterday and again today, but so did he, so she hadn’t needed to find an excuse to seek him out. Yesterday he’d even said he expected her to join him for dinner. He might have thought that would annoy her so she didn’t let him know that she looked forward to those meals with him.
And she kept it to herself that, in letting her keep an animal he thought was a wolf, he’d completely won her over. Of course, he might be hoping that the wolf would take care of his problem for him, but she honestly didn’t think so. What happened that night, though, made her think that he might be getting desperate with only one week left before the nuptials. But it was only a small kernel of doubt. She didn’t think he could really fake the panic, and it did seem to be panic, that came over him when a letter from London was delivered to him at dinner.
He stood up immediately. “My mother has taken ill. Pack a valise tonight and go to bed early. We will be on the road by dawn. The coach takes too long to reach the coast. We can get to Scarborough before noon tomorrow if we ride.”
“I could follow you in the coach.”
“No, you come with me.”
“But—”
“You come with me. Rise before dawn so you have time to eat before we depart. I apologize for such haste, but she’s the only family I have left.”
He gave her further instructions before he left the dining room. She hurried upstairs to tell Alfreda. The maid wasn’t happy with Dominic’s plan for getting to London in the fastest way possible, especially since it didn’t include her.
“It’s not safe to ride that fast to the coast,” Alfreda warned. “You’ll be tired if you’re getting up that early. You could bloody well fall asleep in the saddle.”
Brooke grinned. “I don’t think that’s even possible. And he has a small sailboat that he keeps in Scarborough. It will get us to his mother’s side much, much faster than a coach. Besides, I’ve never been on a boat before. This could be fun.”
“Or you could get becalmed. Sailboats require one specific thing to move them, and it might not be blowing.”
There was that, but Dominic obviously didn’t think that would stop them or he would have said they would ride to London instead. “Considering how fast those boats can be, an hour or two becalmed won’t make that much difference.”
“Or you may never reach London. Have you even considered that? That the desperation you saw in him is about you, because he’s running out of time to get out of the marriage?”
“Stop it.” Brooke hurriedly changed out of her clothes into a nightgown. But she thought of the one thing that might ease Freda’s mind. “Do you like it here?”
“Yes.”
Did Freda just blush with that reply? Brooke rolled her eyes. Gabriel, of course. Maybe he’d been right in predicting Freda would love him.
“So do I, more than I thought I would. I want to stay. I want him to love me so I can. Going off with him alone could be a good thing.”
“Then take this with you.” Alfreda put a small vial in Brooke’s hand. “The right moment might arise in your journey, and now that you are certain that you want Lord Wolfe, you should use it.”
Brooke didn’t give the love potion back to the maid, but pointed out, “We’re going to be on a sailboat, but I’ll keep it in mind after we get to London. You’re to pack up the rest of my things and take them to London, since we won’t return here before the wedding. Gabriel is to ride with you.”
“Is he?”
“I hope you won’t kill him before you get there,” Brooke teased.
The maid huffed, “As worried as I’ll be about you on a tiny sailboat, I make no
promises.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE WIND COMING OFF the water threatened to blow Brooke’s bonnet off her head. She was glad she’d tied the ribbons tightly beneath her chin. “You have no cabin?” she said to Dominic as he helped her onto his boat.
“It’s a sailboat.”
“But—”
“It’s designed for short trips along the coast, though I’ve taken her to London more’n a few times, sailing by the stars.”
She had hoped the boat would have a cabin where she could get out of the wind for a while or maybe take another nap, since she didn’t get much sleep last night, as excited as she’d been. She’d dozed off on a sofa at Dominic’s house in Scarborough for about an hour, just long enough for him to get the boat cleaned, arrange for the horses to be taken back to Rothdale, and have bedding and food prepared for their trip. She supposed she could sleep on a sailboat if she’d slept on the floor of a castle’s ruins.
He had a full staff in the Scarborough house, which was lovely. The sitting room had large windows that overlooked the North Sea. It had been her first sight of a huge body of water. She’d be thrilled by this impromptu journey to London if she weren’t so concerned about Dominic’s preoccupied mood. He was worried about his mother. But Brooke didn’t know what exactly was wrong with his mother aside from her running a high fever, so she couldn’t reassure him.
The sailboat was at least twenty feet long, so Alfreda had been wrong in assuming it would be tiny. It had only one mainsail and one smaller sail at the front, both attached to a tall single pole. The floor space was ample, and benches were built into the sides of the boat. She sat down as they left the harbor. It was quite windy. She marveled at the speed they got up to as the boat cut through the blue-green water that sparkled with sunlight. The coast was receding behind them and she began to feel uneasy. She’d never been in a boat before and had never been so far away from land. She wished she knew how to swim. But then she laughed when a gust caught her bonnet and tossed it into the sea behind the boat.
She didn’t mention it to Dominic, who was adjusting the mainsail. She braided her hair instead, though it was quite a challenge in that strong wind. With the boat sailing south, she saw the thin green line of the coast to her right and the empty blue sea to her left, though she imagined ships were out there just beyond the horizon.
“D’you think we’ll see the English armada?” she wondered aloud.
“It controls these waters. We’ve already passed several English patrol ships.”
He tossed her his spyglass, but when she looked through it, she still saw nothing but sea and sky. “Are they fighting battles out there?”
“No, just guarding against blockade runners. They will fire on boats that try to break through the blockade. That strategy has worked. Since the war began, our fleet has doubled while the French fleet has shrunk in half. The blockade prevents Napoléon from getting the materials he needs to build more ships. He wouldn’t dare risk the ships he has left by waging a battle in these waters. Besides, his strength is on land, not on the sea.”
“Then who exactly is our armada firing on?”
He shrugged. “Ships trying to sneak in French spies, smugglers. The English are simply too fond of French brandy, even at exorbitant prices, for bold sailors, both French and English, not to be tempted to make a great deal of money by smuggling it in. But smugglers work at night, not in broad daylight. However, we’re hugging the coast to steer clear of any altercations between our navy and any blockade runners.”
A while later, she took a sandwich out of the picnic basket and devoured it. All this fresh air was making her hungry! Then she made her way unsteadily toward Dominic and put the basket by his feet so he could eat. He didn’t even look down at it, which made her wonder if it wouldn’t be safe for him to take his hands off the wheel.
She’d offer to help him, but she had a feeling he’d decline if not outright laugh at the suggestion. Yet she knew from Ella’s diary that he’d taught his sister to sail. Maybe it wasn’t that hard. Maybe he wouldn’t laugh.
“I could relieve you for a bit. Would it take long to give me a few lessons?”
“Have you ever been in a boat this size before?”
“Well, no, no boat of any size actually.”
“Sailing is rather complicated. You’d have to spend weeks out on the water to learn—”
“But you taught your sister—”
He glanced at her sharply. “How do you know that?”
She wasn’t about to get Gabriel in trouble for letting her into Ella’s locked room, so she said defensively, “You wouldn’t tell me anything about her, not even how she died, so I asked the servants. They didn’t want to talk about her either, but someone mentioned that she loved to sail by herself after you taught her how.”
He was no longer looking at Brooke. His gaze was directed straight ahead. She didn’t think he was going to reply, but then she heard, “She was only eighteen when she died nearly two years ago. She’d had a thrilling first Season in London but hadn’t accepted a proposal. She had so many suitors my mother couldn’t keep track of them all. I was with them in London for the first few weeks, enjoyed seeing my sister so exhilarated by the social whirl, but my work for the military intervened. The army sent me an urgent request for more horses than I could supply, and a long list of horse farms where I could obtain them, most of them in Ireland. The number they needed for a high-priority mission was staggering. I suspected it would take me months to round up the herd, and it did, so I missed the rest of Ella’s Season. I even missed her funeral!”
Brooke drew in her breath. His anger was back. She heard it, saw it, and guessed he wouldn’t say any more now. Yet he hadn’t told her what she wanted to know.
She tried to encourage him to continue by asking, “Couldn’t anyone else have bought those horses so you wouldn’t have had to leave your sister at such an important time in her life?”
“I suppose so, but my contact in the army was used to working with me and trusted me to get them the fastest mounts available. I wasn’t told why, but I guessed the animals were for an important new network of spies or scouts on the Continent. In any case, it was stressed that nothing else could take precedence over that mission.”
Brooke cringed slightly as she summoned up her courage. “How did your sister die that year?”
“It was early fall. Two of Ella’s suitors had followed her to Rothdale after the Season to continue courting her, but Ella didn’t favor them and asked Mother to take her to Scarborough for a few weeks before the weather turned nippy, hoping the young lords would leave before she and my mother returned to Rothdale.
“But while they were in Scarborough, she recklessly went sailing by herself on a day that suddenly turned stormy. My mother was frantic with worry when she didn’t return after a few hours, the whole town was, nearly every ship and boat in the harbor was sent out to look for her.”
“Was she—ever found?”
“Yes. Two days later her body washed up on the shore, miles down the coast. It was so disfigured and battered by the surf by then that my mother couldn’t bear to look at it. But there was a locket that was handed to her that confirmed it was Ella. I’d given it to her on her sixteenth birthday and had inscribed on the back, ‘Wild one.’ It made her laugh and she always wore it with her day dresses. As you can imagine, my mother was grief stricken, and not knowing how to contact me, she had no choice but to hold the funeral a week later.
“When I returned to Yorkshire and learned the devastating news that Ella had died, my mother and I lamented her reckless nature and her bad luck to have been caught in a sudden storm. I blamed myself for not curbing that recklessness. My mother blamed herself for taking Ella to Scarborough. She cried the entire time she told me about the funeral. Some of Ella’s girlfriends were there and mentioned they were looking forward to seeing Ella before Christmas at a house party Ella said she planned to attend. A few of her suitors were there and
appeared heartbroken. All of the servants from both households were present. Everyone loved Ella. The only odd occurrence on the day Ella died at sea was the hasty departure of her personal maid from the Scarborough house. Later my mother discovered that most of Ella’s jewelry was missing. Mother believed the young maid had taken advantage of the worried, distracted atmosphere in the house when Ella didn’t return after the storm started to steal a king’s ransom of jewelry. The local authorities looked for the girl but she was never found.”
Brooke didn’t see how any of that series of heartbreaking events related to her brother. In addition to feeling sad, she felt more confused than ever. She didn’t dare mention the diary she had secretly read or the damning words she’d found on the last page.
But she could say what she felt in her heart. “I’m sorry your sister didn’t make it out of that storm.”
“She could have,” he said tonelessly. “She didn’t want to. But I didn’t know that right away. It wasn’t until six months after the yearlong mourning period that I thought one night that I could enter her favorite place, her old playroom in the west tower, without dwelling on her death. I picked up her old diary. It was filled with her childhood experiences, some of which included me. But I was stunned to find more recent entries that dated from her Season in London and her return to Yorkshire afterward.”
Brooke wondered if the missing pages had still been in the diary when he read it. Or just those last two lines? But those were damning enough. He probably wouldn’t have needed any more than that to want to kill her brother. And no wonder he burned that tower. His rage must have started that very night.