Imprisoned at Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy) (14 page)

The hour was late and Fidelia was alone. She had sent Maude away an hour or two ago, and Philomena, exasperated with her unwillingness to talk to her, had at last left her in peace.

As she stared at her hands without seeing them, Fidelia
wondered why she could not lift herself out of the misery she felt. It was like a black cloud had descended on her and blocked everything else from sight. If she had any thoughts at all, it was of Jasper. She replayed their last meeting over and over again, the impossible ecstasy and wildness of those kisses, neither of them caring whether she was being put at risk or not, and then the utter confusion and misery that followed when Charlotte made her announcement.

She
never considered herself capable of such extremes of emotion. All her life she had been told what a calm and sweet-natured little thing she was. That such enormity of emotion could exist for all these years, unexperienced, seemed impossible. How could she not have known how pastel coloured her world had been? Until she’s seen it in vibrant sensual colours, like Rossetti's
Golden Water
, she had nothing to compare it with.

But now, after being awakened to such
intense sensation, it seemed her world would not revert to its previous pastel shades but, instead, had become a soul-numbing grey.

Fidelia
climbed to her feet and walked over to the full-length mirror that stood in the corner of her temporary bedroom. She studied the black-clothed doll before her. As soon as she had been able to remove the invaders from her room, she’d made Maude pull out a loose fitting gown for her to wear, one that didn’t require a corset. If Maude had been given her way several hours earlier, she would have been dressed in her nightgown now, tucked up for an early night. But she hadn’t been interested in sleeping then, nor was she interested in doing so now.

She
looked at herself more closely. In widow’s weeds, she looked as black and white as her world. Not even her eyes broke the stark monochrome of what she saw. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Fidelia began to remove her dress, tearing at the hooks in her impatience. Layer after layer of clothing fell to the floor until she stood before the mirror, naked.

Cocking her head to one side
, she studied the contours of her form. She didn't look so doll-like now. Her pale body, with its pink-tipped breasts, was gently curved and pleasing to the eye. It amazed her that she had never thought to look at herself like this before. 

What did Jasper see
when he looked at me?
She tried to remember just how much of her body had been revealed to him in those madly passionate moments they’d shared in the hotel at Harrogate. He would have seen her slight shoulders and her small breasts. He had certainly seemed to enjoy the feel and taste of those. But the rest of her had been covered, cinched into a torturous whalebone corset that made it impossible for her to feel his hands on her, or for his hands to feel her body.

Phil was right. What madness drove women to wear such diabolical under
-garments? In her case, it had nothing to do with appearing small-waisted. She
was
small-waisted. She did it because it was considered proper. Maybe she would take Phil's advice and stop following fashion. She was a widow now, after all. A mature woman. She could make her own choices.

Fighting down the thought of the angry rebuke her mother would give at such scandalous di
sregard for acceptable social mores, she noticed the colour rising in her cheeks.

She was bl
ushing! And not at the sight of her own nakedness. With fury. What an amazing experience. She felt furious with the silly world she lived in. How shocking was that! And not so very long ago, she had been furious with Phil and Jasper, too. So furious she had thrown them both out.

She laughed bitterly. Maybe she
was
turning into a werewolf. That might explain her vivid senses and her heightened emotional state. Werewolves were ferocious creatures in folklore. And her experience with Jasper in that form only supported that lore. She’d watched him tear Rathgart’s throat out and toss his body around like a rag.

Oh, good Lord
. What if I am a werewolf now?
She tried to imagine what that might be like. Would she look like Jasper, or would she be a much smaller creature to match her comparable human size? Did Jasper even think like a human when he was taken over by the beast, or did he become all instinct? But he had acted very human when he had cared for her that night in the snow. So maybe the human existed within the beast.

She knew so littl
e about these creatures and hadn’t allowed anyone to tell her more. Her reaction had been to close down and deny everything. But just as she had told Phil, it didn’t serve her not to know what she faced. So denying and rejecting what she had asked to be told only pointed to her contrariness and cowardice.

For a moment
, she considered her options. It was late. She had taken an early dinner in her room from a tray Maude brought to her. And now the house was quiet and still. Her maid would have taken to her bed too, by now.

But she had no desire to sleep. Her only burning thought was to find answers. If she was to become one of these creatures she needed to know what that entailed.
Hiding her head in a hole like she had heard ostriches in Africa did only made things worse.

Her mind turned to the one person who would be able to give her the kind of answers she required. Jasper. And if anyone owed her those answers
, it was him.

Before she could change her mind, Fide
lia hastily pulled on her satin robe and left her room. Sometime during the tour of the Keep, Phil mentioned which room Jasper had as his. She had noted it, not really considering ever having an opportunity to go there. It wasn’t appropriate for a woman to go to a man’s bedroom, after all. Not even a new widow such as herself. But she no longer thought about propriety. How appropriate was it to be a werewolf? The old rules no longer applied to her. No wonder they did not have class barriers here. They were all part of one class or designation – Monster.

Determined to know more about her possible condition, Fidelia hurried down the dark hallway, he
r bedroom lamp lighting her way as she searched for Jasper’s room. When she reached the door she thought was his, she didn’t bother knocking. Such a sound might disturb others sleeping nearby.

The door creaked loudly as she opened it, and when she closed it, the slight hollow thud it made had her certain the whole house would be roused. But after holding her breath for several long seconds, she heard no sounds to indica
te anyone else but she was up and around.

Then the enormity of wh
at she had done came home. She had closed herself in with a werewolf. A beast who made no effort to hide his desire for her. What was she doing, coming here like this, naked beneath the satin robe like some man’s mistress? Jasper wouldn’t understand. He would misinterpret her reason for being here.

But even as she contemplated reaching for the door
handle again, her need for answers overcame her reticence. She had come to this room in the middle of the night for answers, and she would not leave until she had them.

With more determination now, she crept across the room to the bed. The f
ire in the grate burned low and gave off little light or warmth. Jasper’s room was largely in darkness, except for the glow given off by her own lamp. It was, therefore, understandable that she didn’t see him until she was almost directly above him.

Jasper lay face down on the bed, still fully clothed
, right down to his boots. His overlong hair fell across his face, and Fidelia was sure she could smell alcohol on him. Was he drunk? She had never considered that such an upright man as Jasper Horton might be a drunkard.

Tentatively
, she touched his shoulder, aware of the size and muscular strength of it beneath the starched cloth. Nothing happened. She shook his arm this time, trying to rouse him.

‘Lord Jasper, wake up,’ she said as loudly as she could without risking waking others in the rooms nearby. He didn’t move, nor even made a sound.

He couldn’t be dead could he? She had blamed him for her possible condition. She had rejected him most unkindly. If he had taken it badly, might he have chosen to do what others of his kind had done – taken his own life?

The thought of him dead made her stomach turn over. Fighting down panic,
she put the lamp on the side-table and shook his arm with even more energy. She had to wake him up. He couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t allow him to be dead. Not because of her!

When he finally moved
, it was a sudden and shocking action. He flipped over onto his back and grabbed her painfully by the arm, yanking her down on top of him.

As he came fully awake, his grip eased and he became more confused than angry. ‘Dee? Dee
, is that you? What are you doing here?’

She felt herself blushing. How she had envied Phil her ability to blush. Now she regretted those feelings.
Blushing only added further mortification to her embarrassment. Where was her cool calm exterior when she needed it?

‘I came to talk to you,’ she finally found her voice to reply. It sounded croaky and she was embarrassed even more by the sound.

‘What? What time is it? You should not be here.’ His voice was also croaky from sleep.

‘It is late. Everyone is abed. I could not wai
t until morning for answers. My questions are driving me mad. I have to know
now
. I have to understand what I can expect
now
.’ She sounded vehement and a little hysterical, even to her own ears.

Jasper groaned and rubbed his forehead. A fresh wave of alcoholic fumes hit her as he exhaled. It was not unpleasant
, but it was strong.

‘You should not be here,’ he said again.

‘And you should not have let your wolf loose on me. We have both done the wrong thing, have we not?’

‘I did not let
my wolf loose on you, as you put it. I came to save you. I should have left it to others. I know that now. But I could not. The idea of you being in the clutches of that bounder was more than I could bear. I could not think straight.’

She sat down on the
edge of the bed and looked down at him. Even sleep-tousled, the man was a god. Her breath caught in her throat and she looked away, desperate to keep her sudden arousal a secret from him. How could she feel drawn to him like this when he was a danger to her; when he had put her at risk, without letting her know what might happen to her?

But she knew now, didn’t she? And yet she was here, feeling her blood singing in her veins, feeling her head becoming light and a little dizzy, as if it was she who had drunk too much wine. He was right
, of course; she shouldn’t be here.

‘I deserve answers. You…Y
ou have placed me in this predicament. The least you can do is explain to me what I can expect.’ Where her arrogance came from, she didn’t quite know. This was not her usual behaviour. Maybe it was the werewolf taking her over.

Jasper dragged himself up into a seated position and
tried to straighten his clothing. Then he eased himself off the bed and drew her off it, too. It was clear from the glances he cast her way that having her on his bed, even just sitting there, was pushing his control to the limit.

He spra
wled out on his small chaise longe, leaving the wing-backed smoking chair for her. She took it, folding her robe around her naked legs with as much decorum as she could muster.

‘What do you want to know?’ he finally asked, dragging his eyes from her naked feet that were le
ft exposed by the length of robe. Her feet were cold as ice, but she didn’t attempt to cover them and attract more attention to her state of undress.

‘Everything. When will I know if I have been turned? What is it like? Will I be as big as your wolf?’

He groaned and cleared his throat. ‘As in folklore, a werewolf assumes that form only for three nights a month, during the full moon. So if you have been turned, which I doubt very much, it will happen in twenty-four days. Here at the Keep, we have dungeons set aside for us during that period. They are rudimentary, but do the job of keeping us safely locked away during that time. If we were to roam…Well, the number of us that exist speaks to what happens when we are free to roam.’

‘If you are locked away, how did you get to Harrogate that night, or to Rathgart?’

‘We are locked in. But the second night of this last full moon, I could not bear to be imprisoned. I felt an even stronger drive than normal to be free…to find you. So I hid the key to my cell and made sure it was unlocked before I turned. I was just lucky the door at the top of the stairs was left ajar that night. It is not usual, although mistakes happen. I had also left the French windows in the dining room slightly ajar.

‘
As to last night, I left here as soon as we had word that you had been taken. Byron would have tried to stop me, but I am superhumanly strong, and in that moment I was mad with worry for you. Will could have stopped me, but for some reason, he stayed out of it. In the end, ‘Ron wisely chose not to hold me back. Instead, he and Phil followed in my wake. I assume they hoped to stop me if my wolf tried to harm you. But once night fell and I changed, I moved much faster than any horse could, through rough hilly terrain. Certainly faster than a carriage and four using the icy roads. I must have overtaken the carriage. I do not remember much of that night. I never do.’