Chapter Thirty-One
A CHILL RAN DOWN BROOKE’S back as she stepped into the gloomy room. Its curved walls were made of rough gray stone just like the floor. A few paintings covered with white cloths, probably to protect them from the dust, hung on the walls. An old chest rested on a low table in the middle of the room. Aside from that, Brooke couldn’t see much because the room had no windows. The only light came through the open doorway. Dust motes danced in the light, but she didn’t see any cobwebs like in the tower room upstairs.
That grim memory made her ask, “Do you know the condition of the upstairs tower room where you tried to put me when I arrived? It’s filled with cobwebs.”
“Is it? I haven’t been up there since I was a child. But you could have cleaned it. D’you think you’re going to just sit here and do nothing if you stay?”
He actually smiled when he said that! She clamped her mouth shut. Implying he would turn her into a servant when he had so many of them in the house was just another of his tactics to make her flee.
“One moment.” He left the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to hear the sound of the door closing, but he came back with a lit candle. She wished he hadn’t. His eyes glowed in the candlelight—like a wolf’s. It was no wonder the rumors about him flourished.
“What’s in the chest?” she asked when he set the candle down next to it.
“Trinkets, jewelry, favorite knickknacks, and journals that belonged to my ancestors.”
Journals? She wondered if the missing pages from Ella’s diary were locked in that chest. Did she dare to ask to see them?
“Each one left behind at least one item that is worth keeping. Some are too big to fit in the chest, like this painting. It’s two hundred years old.”
He took the cover off one of the paintings. She drew in her breath sharply. Two wolves, one pure white, the other solid gray. The animals were lean and predatory-looking with a ferocious gleam in their eyes. Apart from that it was uncanny how closely the white one resembled the dog she’d snuck into the house. No wonder Dominic had brought her here to see it.
“And this one is even older.”
He unveiled another painting, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the first one. One of the wolves sat as if ready to pounce; the other lay in front of it looking satisfied, as if it had just devoured a large meal. “Who painted this?”
“Cornelius Wolfe’s daughter, Cornelia.”
“She was able to get this close to the wolves?” Brooke asked incredulously.
“No, she recorded in her journal that she used a spyglass to observe them. There are a dozen more of her paintings in the attic, all of wolves. They obviously fascinated her. And while they might have been considered extinct in other parts of the Isle, they still lingered in the north country in her day. Is there now going to be another Wolfe fascinated by real wolves?”
Brooke was taken aback. Had he just acknowledged they were getting married? She was sure he was just teasing her, so she asked, “Why do you keep this one down here locked away?”
“It’s the only one that depicts the wolves close up. It’s a beautiful painting. I used to keep it in my bedroom, but when I turned eighteen, I considered it a bit childish and took it down.”
“And if the servants saw it in your room—no wonder that rumor about your being part wolf started.”
He raised a brow at her guess. “It’s a silly rumor that more likely started when I was a young boy and used to howl at school for fun, to frighten the younger boys. But Cornelius’s daughter nearly died finishing this one. Her other paintings are more distant views. But for this one she was determined to paint them as if they were right in front of her. It took her months to finish it, to find them in the same pose even though this pair were mates and often side by side.”
“How do you know all that?”
“She kept a journal. Many of my ancestors did. They wrote about the family curse and their opinions of it. Some were foolish enough to believe it. But they all blame these two for it.”
She finally glanced at the other painting he’d unveiled. It depicted a nobleman of the Elizabethan era dressed in full regalia and standing with his hand on the shoulder of a seated woman who was dressed just as grandly. The pose was typical for a married couple.
“Who are they?”
“That’s Cornelius Wolfe, the black sheep I told you about. He was newly titled when this was painted, master of Rothdale, and full of himself. She was his mistress. Some think she was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman in York, but most think she was one of the Rothdale villagers. But Cornelius raised her status, dressed her like a grand lady, treated her like one, even introduced her to his friends as one because it amused him to do so.”
“And gained your neighbors’ ridicule and enmity because of it?” Brooke guessed, thinking of the Shaws.
“Yes, but Cornelius didn’t care,” Dominic said disapprovingly. “As I said, he was a hedonist, entirely devoted to his own amusements. That’s all she was to him. When he had this portrait made of them, she was certain he would marry her, but when she suggested it, he laughed at her.”
“Not very—”
“Black sheep to the core.”
“Oh, I see, she cursed your family because he crushed her hopes?”
“Something like that. She left, damning him and his line to perdition. She actually died mysteriously that same day.”
“He killed her?!”
“No. There are two different versions of what befell her. According to one, she went home and killed herself; according to the other, she was accused of witchcraft by the village priest, a relative of hers, and was burned at the stake. But no other information about her survived, not even her name. The belief in witches was widespread back then, from the lowest born to the highest noble. It didn’t take much a’tall for someone to be accused of being one. People weren’t inclined to change their opinion of the woman when Cornelius married ten years later and his firstborn died at birth. That tragedy was attributed to that woman’s curse.”
“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.