Insane: A Werewolf Keep Story Page 5

  ‘Who are you and what do you want at this time of night?’

  Phil saw the door fly open and heard the commanding male voice, but she could not see its owner. Her footman obviously could, because he was backing up fast, almost falling down the stone stairs in his haste to get away from whoever had addressed him.

  As it was clear that the footman was not going to make the announcement of her arrival, Phil stepped forward with her head held high. ‘It is the new mistress of this house, Philomena Davenport. We were delayed. Please be so kind as to have your people see to my needs. I am tired. It has been a long trip from London.’

  From the cavernous doorway stepped a tall figure. The moonlight provided only a silhouette of his shape, but it was enough to portray size, strength and vitality. This was a young man in his prime, and he was very angry.

  ‘Go back to the village and find shelter there for the night. We are not prepared for your arrival. Come again tomorrow at a civilized hour.’ The man’s voice was deep and gravelled, as if he suffered a sore throat. However, the volume made it apparent that there was nothing wrong with his windpipes. His voice was loud enough to echo off the stones around them and out onto the lonely moor.

  ‘How dare you speak to your new mistress in such a way! I am sorry that we must put you and the rest of the staff to inconvenience, but I am arrived and I will be staying.’ She wondered how she managed to put such steel into her tone when she felt like folding up like a stringless puppet and falling to the ground. However, the idea of getting back into the carriage and making her way back down the steep goat track that passed as a road, to the nearest village some miles away, was more than she was prepared to consider.

  ‘This is no place for you this night, madam,’ the tall silhouette ground out with bare civility. ‘I have no time to see to your needs. Go away!’ He stepped back into the Keep and made to close the great door.

  Without fully thinking it through, Phil bounded up the stairs, ignoring her heavy skirts, and managed to put her foot in the doorway before the door fully closed. She yelped in pain as the heavy door hit her booted foot, but she didn’t remove it.

  ‘Madam, you would test a saint, and I am not one. Take your foot away from the door and be gone! I have no time for your spoiled and brainless tantrums. There is danger here this night. Be gone!’

  For a moment, Phil was dumbstruck. The shock of his attack scattered all thoughts from her head. Then, a slow burn began to make its way up her neck, and with it came fury.

  ‘You think that what you have witnessed so far is a tantrum, sir? Do not push me or I will show you a tantrum; one that will bring an army to this door and have you thrown out on your high and mighty posterior!’ She spoke softly, and because of it, her words carried weight. ‘Open the door and let my people and I in, or there will be real danger here when I return. I am no brainless twit. This is my inheritance and you will not keep it from me, even for one night!’

  The door flew open once more, before the sound of her steely voice had died away, and Phil pulled her aching foot back beneath her. For the first time, she saw the arrogant bounder who stood gatekeeper to what was hers.

  She was not a short woman, but she felt tiny in comparison to the giant who towered over her. He reminded her of the Keep that surrounded them: big, roughly hewn, cold and forbidding. And, just as the Keep frightened her but would not put her off, neither would the man.

  He was dressed as a gentleman, if a rather dishevelled and unfashionable one. His hair was overly long, falling in curling waves to his shirt collar and looked black in the deep shadows that surrounded him. What she could see of his features in the moonlight was heavy and harshly defined, the nose jutting arrogantly from high cheekbones. Heavy brows shielded the caverns of his eyes. Several days’ growth bearded his cheeks. He was as tense as a tightly coiled spring, and tired, she realised with an unexpected pang of sympathy.

  ‘I am sorry for keeping you from your bed,’ she said more gently, now that she had gained the advantage.

  ‘There will be no bed for me this night. Nor will you find sleep within these walls if you are foolish enough to stay. I have warned you. Be it on your own head if you choose not to heed my warning.’

  With that final volley, the man retreated swiftly into the darkness. There wasn’t one taper lit in the huge entryway. How he made his way so smoothly without light was just another mystery amongst many.

  ‘Wait. Where are you going? You cannot just leave me here. You must send someone to show me to my bedchamber. Someone to accompany my men to the stables and find them a place for the night...’ Her voice petered out as she realized he was not going to stop or turn around. Her victory of the moment before seemed suddenly very hollow.

  What could she do? She didn’t know what lay beyond the door. She didn’t even have a lantern to light her path. This was madness!

  She turned back to the coach and her servants, newly hired in London using the travelling money her father’s solicitor had provided. They looked as confused and frightened as she felt.

  ‘Unload my bags please, put them inside and light me a lantern. Prudence will come with me and the two of you men will have to find what accommodation you can at the stable, which I assume will be around the back.’

  None of her words seemed to appeal to the three people waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘You can ‘ave your bags an’ a lantern, Miss, but no amounta’ coin’s gonna make me stay ‘ere this night. I’m takin’ the Master’s advice an’ goin’ back to the village. It’s not far,’ said the gruff coachman.

  Phelps nodded his head in agreement and, after a quick glance at the men, Prudence joined the revolution, too.

  ‘I’m not stayin’ ‘ere tonight, Miss. You seem a nice sort, really ya’ do, but I don’ like this place, not a bit. I don’ need the work enough to risk me neck.’

  ‘You’ll be risking far more than your neck by going back down that goat track in the dark. Don’t let that oaf put you off. We are perfectly safe here.’ Phil felt as if the ground beneath her feet had suddenly turned to quicksand. She fought the urge to panic. She had paid them all good money in advance. They couldn’t go off and leave her here alone, could they?

  But it seemed they could and would.

  After unpacking her new trunks from the top of the coach and lining them up just inside the door of the Keep, the men lit the gas lanterns on the side of the coach. The gruff coachman, gaze studiously avoiding hers, handed Phil the last lamp.

  Speechless, she watched them go about their preparation to desert her. In the gentle glow of the lantern, Phil studied her travel-soiled clothing and grimy kid gloves that had been brand new at the start of her journey. Her fears intensified. They were doing it. They were really going to go off and leave her here alone.

  She could change her mind; there was nothing keeping her here. She could give in gracefully and let them drive her back down the moor to a warm, comfortable bed in a village inn. She didn’t have to stand her ground.

  But she did. Because that was how her father raised her. If he could stand bravely against the marauding Russian enemy at Balaclava, then she could do the same here. This might not be the “Charge of the Light Brigade,” but there was no reason why she couldn’t show the same kind of bravery those men had done. She may only be a woman, but this was her land. Her father had left it to her. No one was going to drive her away from it, even for one night.

  With stubborn chin jutting, she watched the coach drive away into the night. The doorway yawned open, waiting to gobble her whole. She turned resolutely toward it and marched into the Keep.

 

 

 
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