Chapter Twenty-Two
BROOKE SHOULD HAVE HAD lunch first. She should have refrained from finding out why Dominic’s door had been left open. That reason was eyeing her curiously. The young woman sitting on the edge of Dominic’s bed with his arm around her was beautiful, elegant, and had a worldly air. Brooke felt as if she were fresh out of the schoolroom, and in fact she was. And out of her depth.
“You must be Brooke Whitworth?” the young woman said. “I’d heard Robert had a sister who would be enjoying her first Season in London this year, but this is a far cry from London, isn’t it?”
“You know my brother?”
“Who doesn’t know your brother? Such a handsome young man, quite dashing, though he’s considered a bit of a rakehell.”
Brooke was surprised to hear that, but not by Dominic’s scowl when he corrected the lady, “A blackguard is all he is.”
“Yes, yes, your sentiments are well-known”—the woman patted his cheek—“but the mystery is why? Why do you harbor such virulent antipathy toward Robert Whitworth?” She glanced at Brooke again. “Do you know why?”
Brooke didn’t know the full story, but even if she did, she wouldn’t reveal it to this young woman, and Brooke’s expression must have confirmed that because the lady sighed before offering Brooke a bright smile. “But how forgetful of me! I’m Lady Priscilla Highley of York. We would have met in London if you had gotten that far, but you’ve come here instead. What a marvelous tidbit to share when I reach—”
“Must you, Cilla?” Dominic cut in.
“Oh, indeed, I must, darling.”
“I would as soon not be gossiped about,” Brooke said coldly as she crossed the room to grab the herb pouch. “And unless you would like to tend to his wound instead . . . ?” She gestured toward the door, not caring how rude she was being. Dominic could wait until after he was healed before he romped with his mistress. She almost said so. Almost.
“Goodness, no!” Priscilla laughed, then whispered to Dominic as Brooke marched to the bathing room, “She already treats you like a wife? Lucky you.”
Bristling over that whispered remark that she couldn’t help hearing, Brooke put a little more of the herbal dust in the bowl this time than she ought to. It was going to sting him. She knew it would, but she didn’t start a new batch. It only occurred to her belatedly that she had no right to evict anyone from his room.
Returning to the bedroom, she gazed around the entire area to make sure the woman had left. Everyone had left, even Carl. Only the dog remained, curled before the fireplace.
She wasn’t going to apologize for her rudeness. Dominic shouldn’t have received that woman in his bedroom no matter what she was to him, not when his soon-to-be-bride was in the house. If he thought she would tolerate . . . Her emotions spiraled down until only despondency remained. What choice did she have in the matter? None.
“Jealous?”
Her eyes snapped to his, and she couldn’t stop the words that came out of her mouth. “Of a gossiping harlot? Hardly.”
She lifted the sheet off his leg, relieved to see that his wound was still easy to get at and not covered by the pants he’d donned. If she’d had to stand there and wait for him to remove his trousers . . .
Some pink rose up her cheeks. She might have seen a lot of his skin since she’d arrived at Rothdale, but watching him undress would be her undoing. He was watching her, though, too closely as usual. It was unnerving how his eyes rarely left her when she was in his room. Was he gauging reactions? Searching for something to use against her?
“I notice I didn’t have to yell today,” he pointed out.
“What?”
“You can hear again?”
“My hearing was only mildly impaired, but, yes, I have recovered,” she replied without blushing.
“Priscilla is quite sympathetic to my plight,” he remarked casually.
Did he really think she wanted to hear about his mistress? “So am I, though I do pity myself more’n you. You’ll just go on as you did before, doing whatever it is you do. What is that, actually?”
He began unwrapping his bandage for her. “Aside from meeting with my managers who handle the many enterprises my ancestors dabbled in, I breed horses for the continental army, for officers to be precise.”
“So no thoroughbreds for the common solders?”
“Your tone implies you don’t like discrimination?”
“I don’t.”
“And I don’t stipulate who can ride the animals I send to the army. I’m even tasked occasionally with purchasing larger herds for special units. But the common soldiers aren’t given mounts of any sort. They walk. That’s one of the reasons why it’s taking us so bloody long to wrap up the war.”
Brooke was pleased to see that a scab had formed over his wound and there were no signs of inflammation. Alfreda’s treatment had worked. He had to be feeling much better now. So why hadn’t he said so? Because he didn’t want her to stop visiting him? More likely he didn’t want to have to thank her and Alfreda for helping him.
She probably wouldn’t have used this herbal salve today if his damn mistress hadn’t shown up. She heard the hiss of his breath as she applied the extra-strong mixture, but he said nothing and she refused to glance up at his face as she gently rubbed the salve over and around his wound. She wished she hadn’t been so thin-skinned and pretended to have an earache the last two days, because although she was spending so much time in proximity to him, they were no closer to getting along than they had been the day she’d arrived. Now, more than ever, after reading those few lines in Ella’s diary, she wanted to talk to him about Robert and Ella, and the baby, and find out how Ella had died. But knowing how the subject of his sister enraged him, she decided to start out with a less offensive line of conversation.
Before she could do so and not realizing she’d absentmindedly applied more salve than was necessary, he asked, “Will you miss rubbing my thigh once I’ve healed? You seem to be enjoying it today.”
Brooke snatched her hand away. “My mind was wandering for a moment.”
“Thinking of other parts of my body you’d like to soothe?”
Brooke gritted her teeth, forcing herself not to take the bait and get angry. “I was wondering about what sorts of family enterprises you were referring to earlier.”
“Of course you were,” he scoffed, but he deigned to answer her. “Coal mines, but after my grandfather expanded those, competition got rather fierce, so he built a fleet of ships, which enabled him to sell the coal abroad. The shipping business turned out to be quite profitable and now transports other commodities besides coal. And then there are tenant issues that I usually handle personally.”
“No sheep farms?” she asked, curious. “I saw so many sheep as we traveled through Yorkshire. I bet sheep love the heather, which grows here so abundantly. And wool is probably just as profitable as coal.”
“How would you know about sheep?”
“I don’t know much about them. My father owns sheep farms, but he certainly doesn’t run them.”
“I don’t want to hear about your family.”
She sighed to herself before she handed him the new bandage and went to wash the salve off her fingers. She had intended to offer to read to him today after discovering a wonderful collection of books in the library. But he would probably rather spend time with his harlot while she was here. Then Brooke blanched when it occurred to her that the woman might have been his fiancée instead of his mistress, in which case Brooke’s behavior went beyond the pale.
“Were you otherwise engaged?” she blurted out as she came back to his bedside.
“Engaged in what?”
“To marry someone else? Is that why you’re so dead set against us?”
“There is no ‘us.’ ”
If he prevaricated once more, she might growl in frustration. Being absolutely direct this time, she said, “Were you engaged to marry Lady Highley?”
“No, Priscilla likes London society too much to be a good wife for me. She’s just one of my many mistresses.”
“Many? How many do you keep at one time?”
He shrugged offhandedly. “However many it takes to satisfy me—usually two or three.”
Her mouth dropped open, but only for a moment. This was obviously just another of his attempts to scare her off—it better just be that. She decided to play along instead, pretending to be curious. “One at a time or all at once?”
He looked surprised, and also as if he might laugh, but didn’t. “That’s an interesting notion. But as to your original question, I wasn’t committed, but once I put your brother in the ground, I intended to begin courting my neighbor Elspeth Shaw.”
The sound of truth in that statement made Brooke feel horrible. She remembered that it had occurred to her in Leicestershire that he might be in love with someone else. Yet she remembered Gabriel’s telling her, too, that Dominic was the last Wolfe to carry the name and wanted to keep it that way. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t marry, only that he didn’t want to sire children. But if that was so, she had a right to know, didn’t she? Especially since she did want children eventually.
“So you intended to marry, but never to touch your wife?”
His brows snapped together. “Where the devil do you get such ideas?”
Her cheeks went a little pink. Had Gabriel lied to her? But she shouldn’t have asked! It implied that the thought of their never sharing a bed might worry her for reasons other than children.
She quickly explained, “It was a logical question. Gabriel told me that you wanted to be the last of your line.”
Dominic snorted. “That was a notion I shared with him one night long ago when I was deep in my cups. I wasn’t aware he thought I was serious.”
“Then you weren’t?”
“I was, but for barely a week. It was a silly notion, wrought from—”
She wondered why he didn’t finish, but guessed, “Because of the curse?”
He gave her a calculating look for a moment. “No, because of the ridicule those rumors generated after they reached London. The young bucks in that town found it amusing to howl like wolves whenever they passed me on the street. Didn’t know what you were actually marrying into, did you?”
He seemed pleased to be able to add that. She felt like snorting. One day she would laugh at the way he was drawing every card from the deck to push her away. She didn’t doubt he’d just told her an absurd whopper and decided to call him on it.
“No one would dare do that to you, as feral as you look when you’re angry. They’d be terrified you’d kill them on the spot. So what really made you want to end your line, even if you only felt that way for a mere week?”
He stared at her for a long moment. She did just call him a liar, she realized belatedly. Maybe she should be running from the room . . .
But then he admitted, “Because my sister had just died and I was full of despair, with no hope for the future. But now revenge against your brother brightens my future.”
Now that she could believe. She waited for him to ask her to leave again, because that would complete his revenge, stripping her family of everything. Or would only Robert’s death satisfy him?
But he didn’t say that, instead he fessed up. “The howling incidents did happen, but only twice and over the course of a few years, and it was just college pranks. Not that I wasn’t angry the first time it happened. But I caught one of the lads that day, and he was so terrified he blurted out that it was a dare that would have gotten him into a brotherhood at school—if I had just ignored them. The second and last time there was a larger group of young bucks, courage in numbers, I suppose, but I had two school friends with me that day, Benton Seamons and Archer Hamilton. Benton chased four of them down the street. The two remaining just stood there laughing at how quickly their friends were trying to get away—until Archer punched one and slapped his glove across the face of the other, getting the response ‘Don’t be a bloody ass,’ before that chap ran away, too. Archer wouldn’t really challenge the young buck to a duel over such nonsense, but it did give me a good laugh at the time.”
She was incredulous that he’d just shared that with her. There was a different man inside the wolf, one that she hadn’t met yet, one that she might be able to laugh with someday—one that she might be able to love. But then it occurred to her again that he’d had plans for his life, specific plans that were now ruined because of her—no, because of her brother. She could still only guess at what Robert had done to set these events in motion.
She was about to ask again, but bit the words back. That subject provoked nothing but rage in him. She’d pressed him enough for now. And he had a guest he’d probably rather spend time with.
“Don’t let your lady friend tire you today. Rest is your friend just now. I will return in the morning to check your wound.”
“You will return for dinner tonight as is your habit.”
She wasn’t going to argue or join him for dinner tonight if Priscilla Highley was still in the house. As if she didn’t know what he was up to, rubbing it in her face that he had and would continue to have mistresses, marriage or no.
“Unless you’ve finally decided to leave? In which case, you can give the salve to Cilla. She will take care of me tonight.”
Brooke didn’t answer, but she did slam the door shut on the way out.