Guardian of Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy) Read online

  It was hard to believe that only a short time ago this man had kissed her in a way that had turned her world upside down. That kiss had made her feel alive and excited, vulnerable and needy, all at the same time. And she hadn’t wanted him to stop.

  But now he seemed like a stranger, a stony-faced stranger, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She realised that she didn’t know him at all.

  Suddenly there was a crash, and they both jerked around to see the door swing violently back on its hinges, and a young lad dash into the room. He was no more than fourteen, his light brown hair too long and unkempt for a gentleman. His blue eyes were wide with distress.

  ‘Thar’s been an attack. The constable from ‘Arrogate jus’ brought someun…’ The boy’s accent was broad and rough. Phil wasn’t sure she understood some of his words.

  Byron was on his feet and heading toward the doorway where Will and Jasper were now standing. He didn’t spare her a glance or an explanation.

  ‘With me,’ Byron said, as he passed the two men. Phil watched in utter bemusement as everyone, including the lad, raced toward the large entrance hall. She followed along behind, at a much slower pace, uncertain whether she would be welcome.

  Just inside the great oak doorway, a uniformed constable stood. At his feet lay an injured young man. Will was already bent over him, checking his wounds. She could hear the injured man groaning pitilessly.

  ‘He was attacked walking home from the Golden Hind last night. When they called me in, I recognised the wound, and brought him directly here, before anyone got a good look at it. Did you have any… problems here last night?’ The constable was saying.

  ‘No. But you were right to bring the lad here. We’ll take care of him. We’ll have to find whoever did this before they leave the area. There were no other reported attacks in the preceding nights?’ Byron sounded tense, but in control. This situation was not new to him, she could tell. Somewhere, there was a madman running loose, attacking people. And the police had known exactly where to come.

  ‘No, which probably means either the culprit is on the move, or he has companions who have kept him contained, up until last night.’ The constable removed his helmet, and ran his fingers through his greying ginger hair.

  Byron looked around, and saw her standing there. Then he took in the newly arrived maid and a large buxom woman, dressed as a cook, who seemed to have materialised out of thin air.

  ‘You two do what you can for the lad,’ he ordered the women, avoiding eye contact with Phil.

  ‘Will, get the horses. We have an investigation to carry out. Time is of the essence.’ Will was out the door before Byron’s last words were said.

  ‘We’ll ride back with you,’ Byron said to the constable, as he headed out the door with the discomforted man.

  Phil stood, undecided, as the people around her went into action. She felt as if she was a ghost. No one seemed to notice her presence. Each person seemed intent on carrying out their assigned task.

  ‘Infirmary,’ the cook directed, as Jasper and the little maid lifted the lad between them, and with their shoulders under his arms, dragged his barely conscious body through the foyer, toward the back of the Keep. The cook followed along in their wake, tutting loudly.

  With nothing else to occupy her, Phil followed along, too. She was curious about the lad’s wounds. What made them so obviously the work of a madman that the constable would recognise them immediately?

  At the end of the hall, young Jamey, who had been in the lead, opened the door to a small room not much larger than a cupboard. In it was a cot and shelves stacked with all manner of bottles and boxes.

  The room was too small for everyone to fit. Jamey, once he’d done his duty by opening the door, took one guilty look at Phil, bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and dashed away. Jasper lowered the injured lad onto the cot, and then backed out of the room, to leave his care to the two women.

  He stood with her at the door, watching the proceedings.

  ‘If you are squeamish, you might want to leave. This will not be pretty.’ Jasper looked at her with that raw pain in his eyes once again. What hell did this handsome young man live in, that his eyes contained such ever-present pain?

  ‘I’m not squeamish. I nursed my mother while she was dying of consumption.’

  His startling blue eyes became filled with compassion, and he nodded. ‘I am sorry you have had to suffer so.’

  ‘Everyone suffers.’ She smiled at him sadly, acknowledging her own pain, as well as his. She was rewarded with a sad smile in return.

  A loud cry of agony had Phil refocusing on the wounded man on the cot. The cook was cutting the clothes from his torso, and gently pulling it away. But the dried and congealed blood tore at the wound, and fresh blood started to seep from the gashes across his belly.

  While the maid selected items from the shelves, the cook worked on. Then Jamey was back with a jug of hot water, and he passed it to the maid, who then poured it into a tin bowl. She poured carbolic acid into the water, a sweet tarry smell that was both familiar and unexpected. As far as she knew, few people knew of the importance of disinfecting wounds properly.

  ‘Cook was one of Nightingale’s nurses in the Crimea. She is a stickler for cleanliness. She’s saved more than one poor soul’s life,’ Jasper said softly, noting her interest in the proceedings.

  ‘Ah, that explains much. Carbolic is still uncommon, outside of larger hospitals.’

  ‘Really? I know little about medicine. I am a philosopher.’ Jasper smiled cynically, demeaning his chosen career by his tone.

  Another cry of pain had Phil’s focus returning to the patient. Cook was bathing the wounds clean of blood and dirt. She could now clearly see the gouges. They were three long, deep cuts that reminded her of a cat’s scratches. But no cat was big enough to inflict such a wound, unless it was a tiger or lion, and no one had spoken about an escaped circus animal in the area. Could a man have drawn a blade repeatedly across this man’s belly, to create such a wound? It seemed unlikely.

  Cook gave her patient a piece of leather to bite down on as she sutured the wound. Her competence was inspiring. No doctor could have done better, to Phil’s mind. Then she applied a salve and bandaged the wound with clean cloth.

  ‘What could make a wound like that? It was like he was clawed,’ she asked.

  ‘Byron will explain,’ Jasper replied stiffly.

  ‘But he has gone to investigate. He may be gone for some hours. You all seem to know what is happening here. Can no one enlighten me?’ She was growing more and more exasperated by the mystery that surrounded her.

  ‘Miss Davenport, I know we must appear impolite and unwelcoming, but ours is not a civilized existence. You will understand, once Byron has explained all this to you. Until then, be patient. I must go, please feel free to take in the gardens, the library or the study, while you await Byron’s return.’

  With that, Jasper gave a little bow, and turned on his heel to leave. Phil was left staring at his broad shouldered back, her next words left unspoken. For all his civility, Jasper was not going to bend to her wishes. Whatever the secret the Keep held, she was not going to find it out from him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Phil wandered out into the garden, at a loss what to do with herself until Byron returned. She would have liked to get settled in, but as she was not sure whether she would be keeping the room he’d allocated her the night before, or whether it would have to be given back to the harridan, Charlotte, because she was paying for it, she wasn’t sure. Better if she just busied herself getting familiar with her surroundings.

  The gardens would have formed the centre of the Keep’s grounds if the structure still stood as it had hundreds of years before. Instead, it had become a walled garden, the tumbled down stones used to form a barrier to keep the moorland sheep out of the vegetables and flowers.

  This was no pretty manicured garden, but a well laid out multi-purpose horticultural domain. In one corner, there
was a large vegetable patch, where the rough workman she had seen at breakfast was busy hoeing.

  Next to it was an herb garden where a plethora of different culinary and medicinal herbs were growing in lush abandon. She was surprised to see plants that came from more temperate climates planted in with the more hardy local herbs. There was a fleshy cactus, with broad flat leaves that she guessed must be an aloe plant. She had read that they were good for healing.

  In a long border closest to the Keep, were beds of roses. There were so many varieties she was at a loss to name them all, and their smell was intoxicating. She wandered amongst the bushes, stopping to smell the prettiest blooms. They reminded her of the rose water she had bathed with only a few short hours before.

  ‘This is my garden. You are not welcome here,’ declared a shrill female voice behind her, as Phil bent over one glorious golden bloom. She stood up, and turned resolutely to greet Charlotte.

  She found the dark haired beauty staring daggers at her again, fists on hips.

  ‘I am sorry you are having trouble accepting my presence at the Keep, Charlotte. But this was my father’s property, and he has left it to me. That means I have every right to walk these gardens. They do not belong to you.’

  ‘I knew you were a bitch the moment I laid eyes on you. And this place is only yours if you stay here for three months. We all know the stipulations in the will. You will not make it that long. You will turn tail and run, before the next full moon. I know your type.’ The girl sashayed forward, and plucked the rose Phil had just been smelling from the bush. She made much of breathing in the scent, appreciatively.

  ‘But I am afraid I have never met your type before. That may simply be because I have only associated with ladies in the past.’ Phil gained inordinate satisfaction from the look of stunned affront on Charlotte’s face.

  ‘Be careful, your ladyship, it is unwise to cross us. We are dangerous.’

  ‘Charlotte, keep your threats to yourself,’ Jasper intruded, coming up behind Phil to stand at her side. For one insane moment, she had thought the woman meant to physically attack her again. Jasper’s presence provided her with the safety she needed.

  But that was insane. Charlotte couldn’t mean to carry through with her threat, could she? Although her behaviour that morning had been that of a madwoman, she seemed perfectly sane now. Sane people didn’t threaten the safety of competitors. Did they?

  Charlotte huffed loudly, turned on her heels, and stormed away, her long black curls bobbing in her wake.

  ‘Be very careful around Charlotte. She feels threatened by your arrival. She could harm you.’

  ‘If she is that dangerous, maybe she would be better off in a more safeguarded institution.’

  ‘There is nowhere else for someone like Charlotte. For any of us. This place is unique.’

  ‘All the same, having someone here who could turn violent at any moment is not a good idea.’

  ‘You will understand…’

  ‘I know,’ she interrupted him with a huff, ‘when Byron gets back.’

  ‘Yes. Enjoy the fresh air. The weather will change shortly. A storm is coming.’

  She looked out on the horizon, but could see nothing but bright blue sky. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I have an instinct for such things,’ he replied enigmatically, before giving her another little bow, and striding off toward what she thought must be the stables beyond the wall.

  Looking up at the sun again, she wondered at his prediction. He was such an unusual young man. At once, he seemed the perfect gentleman, refined and perfectly polished in appearance and manner, but at the same time, he seemed wild and unpredictable, as if his civility was only skin deep. If Charlotte was dangerous, then so was he. In fact, she was starting to wonder if she was surrounded by an unknown danger from all of the people she had met, so far that day.

  Except Byron. She felt no threat from Byron. Even at his most intimidating, the night before, she had not felt the chilling disquiet the rest of the denizens of the Keep made her feel. He gave her a sense of safety and protection. Even when his kiss reduced her to needy vulnerability, she did not question her safety with him. But the others… they were a worry.

  She wandered back inside and, after browsing the library shelves for some time, she then went to explore further. At the back of the building, not far from the kitchen, she found a set of stone steps that led into a cellar. Thinking this might be the wine cellar, and it might be nice to choose a good bottle of wine for their evening meal, Phil looked around for a lamp that could light her way. After locating one in the kitchen, she started down the stairs.

  The deeper she went, the colder it became. The stairs were slippery with damp, and there was a feral odour in the air. The hairs on the back of her arms stood up, and she couldn’t control the shiver that ran down her spine.

  She moved deeper into the bowels of the castle. Her lamp provided just enough light to navigate the stairs. Beyond its halo there was only damp, musty darkness.

  At the bottom, she found herself standing on white marble floors. They were so out of keeping with their setting that she had to lean down to check she was seeing correctly. Sure enough, they were the same quality marble as that in the foyer upstairs. Odd.

  She held the lamp up higher, almost touching the ceiling above her, as she surveyed her surroundings. It was too large for a wine cellar, and there seemed to be a large furnace set into the wall that had recently gone out. As she went to explore it more closely, she noticed tunnels leading off to the right and left. The only sound she could hear was the tap tap tap of her slippers on the marble floor and her own heartbeat, as she set out to find where the tunnels led.

  At the end of the short tunnel to the right, she found a large cavern hollowed out of the rock. The space was separated by heavy, iron bars into about ten or more cells. Each cell contained a stone bench carved out of the cavern floor itself. What was this place? A dungeon? Was this where the medieval lords kept their prisoners? Did they torture them here too?

  Yet, this place didn’t seem that old. At least the bars of the cages were not rusted and aged. And the locks on each cell seemed remarkable modern, their keys sitting securely in their places.

  This was a prison. Not an ancient dungeon, but a modern prison. Her mind flashed back to the howls that had echoed up from the bowels of the earth the night before. Could those howls have come from down here? Had Byron locked those people, the residents of this asylum, in these cells all night? That was inhuman! Not even the dangerous Charlotte deserved to be treated like that.

  What had Byron said… ‘Except for Jamey, we were the only people here last night.’ She had let that one pass. She hadn’t wanted an explanation of that strange anomaly – a house full of people, who were suddenly gone and then returned; inhuman howling; and a sense of ominous danger impregnating the very stone walls around her.

  Terror clawed at her throat, as the image of the injured man’s wound came to mind. The constable had come here with his charge. It was many miles to Harrogate, she knew. Why would he come out of his way to deliver a wounded man to this Keep? Surely a doctor in town could have patched him up well enough.

  What had he said? ‘Any problems here last night?’ What had he meant by that? Did it have something to do with the howls and the claw marks? Did Byron keep hounds as protection? Were they known to escape, and rampage around the countryside? They would have to be huge hounds with long claws to do that kind of damage.

  Where were those hounds now? Not down here. There was nothing down here but damp stone and iron bars. Suddenly the walls seemed to close in on her. She dashed down the short tunnel, back the way she had come. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to get her breath.

  That’s when she saw him, standing in the dark on the very last step.

  ‘Byron, what is this place?’ She hurried toward him, trying to read his expression in the lamplight. It reminded her of the way he had looked the night before in the doorway – cold
and daunting.

  ‘Come away from here. This is no place for you.’ His voice was hoarse with controlled emotion. The gravelled sound set her inner alarms ringing even louder.

  ‘What is this place? There are cells back there. Do you lock those people up in them? Are you a prison warden? Why would my father condone such behaviour?’ Her voice was high and shrill, and she knew it bordered on hysterical. But her terror and confusion was a palpable thing. And now, not even Byron seemed safe.

  He reached out to take her hand, and she drew back in fear.

  ‘I will explain it all upstairs. Come away from this place. You should never have come down here.’

  ‘Why not? What don’t you want me to know? Why did that man have claw marks across his belly? Why did the constable bring him here at all? What was that howling last night?’

  He stepped down the last stair suddenly, and pulled her into his arms, pressing her against his warm, solid body, as he took the lamp from her shaking hand. For all her fear, the press of his body against hers instantly calmed her. It was as if her body knew better than her mind did, where safety lay.

  She breathed him in, the familiar scent of man and spice, overlayed now with horse and leather from his journey. Despite herself, she moaned. It was enough. Before she knew what was happening, his mouth had found hers, and he was kissing her with the same fevered intensity as before. And she was responding, opening herself to him, hungrily demanding more. In the dark, womblike cellar, it was as if they were the only people alive. And the dark passion, which they had ignited earlier in the day, now flared to life again, sending them spiralling off into a world that was pure sensation.

  The lamp light wavered, as Byron tried to hold it steady while he ran his other hand up and down her back. But it began to flicker wildly against the cellar walls, threatening to overturn, the more intense the embrace became. With a disgusted oath, he pulled away from her, and gasped in air.