Chapter 11 #2
Verity drew her cloak closer, heart unsteady.
She had found it.
And yet?—
He was not there.
But his scent that arrested her, that rich, masculine fragrance she had come to associate with Lucien himself. Woodsmoke and leather and something deeper, something wild that made her pulse quicken in ways she did not entirely understand.
But the room … the room was empty. The realization brought disappointment crashing down upon her, heavier than she had expected. She had not known how much she was hoping to find him until the hope was dashed.
She ought to leave. She knew that. And yet she found herself moving deeper into the chamber instead, drawn by that intoxicating scent and by her own foolish curiosity.
His dressing table held a leather-backed brush, a leather case that probably contained his shaving implements, a small portrait in a gilt frame that she could not quite make out in the darkness.
His wardrobe was nearby and she could not refrain from opening it to reveal row upon row of finely tailored coats and waistcoats.
She ran her fingers across the sleeve of one jacket, imagining she could feel the warmth of his body lingering in the fabric.
The intimacy of the gesture made her cheeks flush with shame and with something else entirely.
Her gaze drifted to the enormous bed with its dark velvet hangings, and she wondered, despite herself, what it would be like to share this chamber with him.
To fall asleep in that bed and wake to find him beside her.
The fantasy was dangerous, and she knew it. She was a companion, a woman of reduced circumstances living under a false name. She had no business dreaming of marriage to an earl, no matter what had transpired between them.
A sound from the adjoining room made her freeze. Footsteps. Heavy footsteps moving toward the connecting door.
Lucien? Or the valet?
Panic seized her. She could not be found here, alone in Lucien’s bedchamber in the middle of the night. Whatever remained of her reputation would be destroyed beyond any hope of salvage.
She pressed her eye to the keyhole, straining to see into the darkness of the adjoining room. A male, portly figure moved there, definitely not Lucien. The valet, preparing his master’s things for the morning, perhaps, or simply making a final check before retiring.
Verity did not wait to find out. She fled the chamber as silently as she had entered, pulling the door closed behind her and pressing herself into the shadows of the corridor until her racing heart began to slow.
She had not been thinking. That was the problem. When it came to Lucien, rational thought seemed to desert her entirely, leaving only instinct and desire in its wake.
She made her way downstairs, abandoning the search for his chambers in favor of more public spaces. The study. The library. The various drawing rooms that dotted the ground floor like islands in a sea of stone and shadow.
All empty. All silent. All cold.
But the countess had said he would be near the stables when the moon was bright. Verity had dismissed the remark as confusion, but perhaps there was truth in it after all.
She found herself in the kitchens before she had consciously decided to go there.
The great hearth had been banked for the night, but a few embers still glowed beneath the ashes, providing just enough light to see by.
A row of lanterns hung on hooks near the door, and she selected one, fumbling with flint and steel until a flame caught and steadied.
Unlocking the door, Verity hesitated on the threshold, the lantern casting a pool of golden light around her feet. The night air was frigid, carrying the sharp bite of winter, and the full moon hung overhead like a great silver eye watching her every move.
This is madness. I should go to bed.
But she had come this far. And some stubborn part of her refused to abandon the search until she had exhausted every possibility.
She stepped out into the night.
The cold hit her immediately, cutting through her cloak as if the garment were made of paper rather than wool.
Her breath misted before her face, and the snow beneath her half boots crunched with each step.
The stables were perhaps a hundred yards distant, a dark bulk against the moonlit sky, silent and seemingly deserted.
She had taken perhaps a dozen steps when she heard it. Heavy paws, striking the frozen ground at a rapid pace. Something large was running toward her through the darkness.
It must be one of the wolfhounds, she reasoned, and the thought brought relief rather than fear. Lucien’s dogs had accepted her, after all. They would not harm her. And if one of them was about, perhaps Lucien himself was not far behind.
She turned, raising the lantern to cast its light in the direction of the approaching animal, a smile already forming on her lips.
The smile died instantly.
It was not one of the wolfhounds.
The creature that emerged from the darkness was a massive, barrel-chested British mastiff, its jaws hanging open to reveal gleaming teeth.
Verity inhaled in horror. She knew this dog.
She knew it with a certainty that turned her blood to ice, because this was the animal that had sunk those very teeth into her wrist all those weeks ago in Somerset.
Robert Fynn’s mastiff.
Verity screamed, stumbling backward and nearly dropping the lantern. Her wrist throbbed with phantom pain, the scar tissue seeming to burn as if the wound were fresh. She waved the lantern at the beast, desperate to keep it at bay, her voice emerging as something between a shriek and a sob.
“Get away! Get away from me!”
The mastiff halted, its massive head swinging from side to side as it regarded her with small piglike eyes. It did not attack, but neither did it retreat. It simply stood there, blocking her path to the stables, its breath steaming in the frigid air.
In the distance, from somewhere within the castle or perhaps beyond it, a wolfhound’s bark split the silence. A single sharp sound quickly swallowed by the night. But it gave her hope. Lucien’s dogs were nearby. Perhaps they would come to her aid.
“Braccus!” she called, her voice cracking with fear.
“Is Braccus your new paramour?”
The voice came from behind her. It was a voice she had hoped never to hear again. Verity spun around, the lantern’s light swinging wildly, and there he was.
Robert Fynn stepped out of the shadows, an evil grin spreading across his features like oil across water. He was dressed for travel, his greatcoat dusted with snow, his boots mud-spattered. But his cold, calculating eyes were exactly as she remembered them.
“I knew it,” he said, his grin widening. “Abigail Pike. Did you really think you could escape me?”
Verity’s heart hammered against her ribs. “What are you doing here? Why did you?—”
“Find you?” He laughed, the sound devoid of warmth. “It was not difficult. A newspaper advertisement, a few questions to your pathetic aunt, and here I am. Though I must say, you have done well for yourself. A paid companion to a countess. Living in an earl’s household.” His expression darkened.
In typical absorption of self, he had misunderstood her question, preferring to brag about his intellectual prowess in tracking her down. She already knew how, she wanted to know why.
“You need to leave,” Verity said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Lord Blackfen will not tolerate your presence here. He knows the truth about what happened in Somerset. He knows what you did.”
“What I did?” Robert’s eyes widened in mock innocence.
“My dear Abigail, I did nothing except offer my affections to a willing young woman who later chose to cry foul when she feared for her reputation. And now I find that same young woman has installed herself in a nobleman’s household under a false name, no doubt plying her charms to achieve the position she could not acquire honestly. ”
“That is a lie and you know it.”
“Do I?” He took a step closer, and the mastiff growled low in its throat, as if responding to its master’s shifting mood. “I think we have unfinished business, you and I. Business that was interrupted by your cowardly flight from Somerset.”
Verity backed away, her eyes darting between Robert and his dog, searching for an escape route.
The stables were behind her now, blocked by the mastiff.
The kitchen door seemed impossibly far. And Robert was advancing with the slow, deliberate pace of a predator who knew his prey had nowhere to run.
“Think of me as the big bad wolf,” he said, his voice dropping to something almost like a purr. “And I intend to eat you for dinner.”
He lunged.
Verity screamed and tried to dodge, but his hand caught her arm with bruising force.
The lantern flew from her grip, striking the snow and rolling to cast wild shadows across the courtyard.
She kicked at him, clawed at his face, fighting with every ounce of strength she possessed, but he was larger, stronger, and he had clearly anticipated her resistance.
“Braccus!” she screamed, praying the wolfhounds could hear her, praying someone would come to her aid. “Help me! Please!”