Chapter Thirteen
BROOKE WAS TOO UPSET to notice that Alfreda was in the group of people waiting outside the viscount’s door. She turned away from them and ran down the narrower corridor to that tower Gabriel had led her to earlier. She peeked into the dark stairwell and saw only a faint light emanating from above, but she mounted the stairs anyway. She wanted to see for herself exactly where the wolf had wanted to put her. When she reached the top of the stairs, she blanched. Nothing was in that circular tower room except cobwebs.
The windows were small and narrow, letting in only a few narrow sunbeams. This wasn’t a bedroom, it was a dismal cell.
“Well,” Alfreda huffed, coming to look over Brooke’s shoulder at the empty room. “Now we know.”
“And have Gabriel to thank for not making me sleep on the floor in here tonight.”
“Don’t you thank him. I will find some way to—if he ever stops annoying me.”
Brooke turned about and hugged Alfreda because she needed a hug just then. She didn’t want to stay in this house. She didn’t want to argue with Dominic Wolfe again. Even as sick and wounded as he was, he’d quickly lost his temper. God help her when he regained his full strength. If that happened. Maybe she shouldn’t ask Alfreda to intervene, should just let nature and one incompetent doctor take their course.
Rubbing Brooke’s back soothingly, Alfreda said, “If he’s not really a wolf, it will be all right.”
Since neither of them believed he was a real wolf, Brooke knew the remark was meant to lighten her mood. She appreciated Alfreda’s effort, but it didn’t work. She’d clung to a slim hope on the way to Viscount Rothdale’s estate that he and she might get along eventually—if he didn’t simply refuse to marry her. That hope was gone now that she knew how deep his antipathy ran for her whole family.
Such a dismal thought and such a shame. Had she met Dominic Wolfe under different circumstances, she could have been quite attracted to him. He was young and handsome, after all. A very different outcome might have been possible, even a courtship if her family had approved—no, that was only what should have happened, not what could have happened, not when he was only a viscount. Her father would have aimed higher, not for her, but for himself. Not that it mattered when Dominic despised her and was determined to make her despise him as well. He had made that abundantly clear.
Brooke turned toward the stairs, wanting to leave this horrid room, confessing, “The wolf hates me. He wants me to flee.”
“We anticipated this outcome.”
“I know. It was illogical to hope that he might like me and not immediately hate me because I’m Robert’s sister.”
“No, just optimistic. But it won’t be pleasant for you at home if you do flee.”
“My parents won’t have a home if I do.”
“Well then, we need to consider that there are ways to have a marriage that is not really a marriage.”
“To pretend?”
Alfreda paused at the bottom of the stairwell to clarify. “It’s probably too soon to consider this, but what I refer to is a mutual agreement not to live together intimately. You would be surprised how often such arrangements have been made over the centuries, when families, especially noble ones, joined for reasons that had nothing to do with love and esteem and everything to do with land, power, or wealth. An heir is usually needed first, but once that has been accomplished, the husband and the wife go about their own interests, even living in different households—if they can agree to such an arrangement.”
Brooke thought that sounded incredibly promising. “Is any of that actually true, or are you just trying to make me feel better?”
“Did it work?”
“So it’s not true?”
“It is. You have so very little knowledge of the ton because your parents socialized in London without you. But my mother worked in London before I came along and she moved back to the country. She was privy to a good deal of gossip in that big town and used to amuse me with tales of the inner workings of the nobility’s households.”
“So if such couples do hate each other, why wouldn’t they agree to such an arrangement?”
“Because the husband will do as he pleases anyway and might not care about his wife’s feelings—unless he is afraid of her family.”
Well, that was a brief hope, wasn’t it? It didn’t even last one minute.
Brooke sighed. “The wolf doesn’t fear my family, just the opposite. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to kill us all because of what my brother did.”
“Do we know yet what he did?”
“All I learned is that he blames Robert for the death of his sister. He got too angry for me to want to press for more information about it.”
“That’s a good reason for a duel, but it’s an even better reason to get your brother imprisoned or hung. I wonder why Lord Wolfe didn’t pursue that course of action.”
“Because he wants to be the one to kill Robert. Three duels definitely suggest that.”
“Possibly,” Alfreda conceded. “We can find out what really happened from the servants here.”
“I asked Gabriel, but he just said I should ask Dominic about it. I have the feeling no one here wants to talk about it.”
“To you, maybe. But servants will talk to other servants. Let me give it a try. . . . So, did you decide to be yourself with him?”
“I wasn’t going to, but he got me so angry, I’m afraid I couldn’t hide my true feelings.”
“He must have provoked you.”
“Deliberately.”
“Yes, but that wouldn’t tell him much about you, poppet, now would it? It wouldn’t reveal that you’re as quick to laugh, that you aren’t vindictive and wouldn’t seek revenge even if warranted, that you have a good, pure heart, despite the family you come from.”
Brooke sighed. “Suggesting a pretend marriage would probably just make him laugh because he would be the husband who would do as he pleases with no care a’tall for my feelings. Besides, he doesn’t want any marriage to me, he made that perfectly clear. All he wants is for me to leave, which I can’t do.”
“Would you like a love potion instead?”
Brooke blinked in surprise and choked back a laugh. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yet there are herbs—and I do have a tiny supply left—that will stimulate . . . Well, the villagers called the tonic I made from these herbs a love potion because it stimulates desire, and some people equate that with love. But if the wolf suddenly wants to bed you, then he will look more favorably on the marriage, and everything can go uphill from there.”
“He already kissed me.”
“Did he?”
“But it was just a ploy to frighten me off. He got quite angry when it didn’t work.”
Alfreda raised a brow. “Did you like the way he kissed?”
“I didn’t mind it. It was quite—surprising.”
Alfreda looked pleased. “That’s an excellent start, poppet.”
“For me, not for him. He’s certainly not repulsive. I wouldn’t mind a’tall having him for my husband—if he didn’t hate me.”
“You’ve only just met him. We’ve only been here a few hours. In time he won’t hate you.”
“That’s not a certainty, Freda. And, no, don’t give him one of those potions you mentioned. He’s got far too much rage in him right now for me to want him to want me. It could turn out much too unpleasantly.”
“We’ll just keep it in mind as a last resort then.” Alfreda winked.
Brooke rolled her eyes before she broached Dominic’s condition. “Speaking of your herbs, would you be willing to have a look at the wound Robert gave him? It’s not healing and his fever appears high.”
Alfreda snorted. “Just because you take pity on every sick dog you come across doesn’t mean you need to feel sorry for a wolf.”
“Pity is the last thing I feel for him right now.”
“Then why do we want to help him?”
“Because then he might be inclined to deal with me more reasonably and not see Robert whenever he looks at me.”
“Well, we’re going to have lunch first to give him a bit of time to take in his first glimpse of you and realize the remarkable favor the Prince Regent has done him.” Alfreda put her arm around Brooke’s waist to lead them back up the corridor. “Besides, we are not in a hurry to fix him after the insult he’s dealt you.”
“You were listening at the door!” Brooke accused, hearing Alfreda use the word fix and the same phrase she used with the wolf.
Alfreda didn’t admit whether she had, she just nodded toward the tower. “I’m talking about that room we just left. That was an insult, poppet, of the worst sort.”
Brooke agreed, but she still grinned. “Lunch sounds like a good idea. He’s not going to get worse in the next few hours—I don’t think.”