Silently, Joshua handed the other man the doctor’s report.
The grim expression on the doctor’s face was eerily familiar. He’d worn the same look when he’d covered up Joshua’s killing all those years ago. His words were burned indelibly in Joshua’s memory.
“The man was wanted for murder and you’ve done the world a favor. But I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself if you don’t learn to control the creature.”
Joshua had carried in his heart the knowledge that he had murdered another man. The guilt had almost destroyed him. The very reason he’d run from England, from his home, from the woman he loved, had come to pass. He’d married Elizabeth because he’d been selfish. He’d left her to save her from himself. But selfishly, he’d left his familial responsibilities in her hands.
How she must hate him.
Another reason to stay away from the innocent woman he’d dragged into his personal nightmare. Now wounds similar to the ones he’d inflicted on his own victim appeared on a body apparently deposited on his wife’s doorstep.
Dr. Sutter glanced up from the letter. “Your brother?”
“I don’t know. I thought—I’d hoped—that I was the only…anomaly in my family. It seems I may have hoped in vain.” Joshua gritted his teeth. Was it possible? Could Perry have killed this man?
Pipe smoke filled his nostrils, a smell that reminded him of his father. Comac Sutter had become a father figure, a friend, when Joshua had believed he was better off dead.
“Perhaps you shouldnae have run away,” Comac commented.
“Perhaps,” Joshua repeated bitterly. “At the time, it seemed the only choice.”
Comac nodded. “For your lady wife, I know. But the wolf needs his mate.” The man flopped into a seat and Joshua’s servant, Aina, appeared.
“Avez-vous besoin de quelque chose à boire, Maître?”
“Apportez-moi et mon hôte un peu de rhum de ma cave personnelle,
” Joshua answered the maid, then turned to Comac. “You will enjoy my rum, Comac. Since I left the slavery business I have begun to distill my own. It’s quite good.”
The slavery business had been a dirty, ugly thing. Another strike against him. Yet he had to hope that his adamant changes had improved his chances of avoiding hell. Damaged beyond repair, he could not go home and claim the rights of a husband when he had long since lost his humanity. Yet he
had
to go home, to face those he’d left.
The maid brought two glasses. “I won’t say no.” Dr. Sutter grinned at him. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I hope you’re right,” Joshua said seriously. “Because if I have to go home, I will need all my wits.”
“You’ll need more than that, my friend,” his companion said dryly. He drank the rum and nodded at the glass. “Ten years ago, you left a little lass in charge of a household in chaos. You might consider the possibility she’s not going to welcome you home.” The doctor rose. “There’s more than a murder to deal with at Arundale Hall.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Dr. Sutter grinned. “Keep me informed, laddie. I’ll be interested to know how Lady Arundale takes to your ‘handling’.” The man climbed back onto his horse and waved farewell.
The thought that Elizabeth might hate him made his belly ache. She had always been the only one who understood him, comforted him, sometimes with her silence. He’d fallen in love with her the minute she’d scrambled from a tree, caught apple-stealing on his land. She’d paid for that apple with a kiss.
At twelve, he’d inherited his father’s land and position. And his curse. With both his mother and father dead, the task of raising him and Perry had fallen to his grandmother, a bitter woman with a vicious hatred of all things Arundale. Perry had suffered more under her than Joshua had.
The Beast had appeared on his fourteenth birthday. It had frightened him, driven him onto the moor to howl his fear and anguish. There was no one to tell him what had happened, why he became this horrific monster whenever his passions got away from him.
He stared out across the veranda to the sugar cane fields that stretched for miles. A wolf. For the most part, Joshua was a man, fully capable and in control. But under great stress or arousal, he changed. Hair sprang from his skin and his spine lengthened, his jaw thickened. His eyes changed from their customary calm gray to a bright, animalistic blue. If he could have passed for one of the animals in the forest, he might have been camouflaged forever. Instead, the Beast was half-man, half-wolf, bi-pedal and tall.
Here in the Jamaican landscape, where a strange creature would be just another tale told by natives, it could be hidden. But in England? He shook his head. From what Jaimison told him, however, Joshua suspected Perry had inherited the curse. Probably he’d been as confused by it as Joshua had been. Where had Joshua been when Perry had turned fourteen?
He tightened his lips. Joshua had been planning his nuptials when Perry’s fourteenth birthday had come and gone. At eighteen he’d moved into Arundale Hall and away from his domineering and hostile grandmother.
It wasn’t until Joshua had married Elizabeth that he’d brought his brother to their old home. What damage had been done in his absence? Only three months after his marriage he’d run from England, from Arundale Hall, from the curse.
He’d been a fool. A cold fist of fear gripped his belly. Jaimison’s reports noting the places from which he’d retrieved Perry sounded eerily familiar. And this final crisis, the murder of a man, his heart torn out and missing, put an end to Joshua’s willful blindness. Could Perry turn on Elizabeth and hurt her? Was it a coincidence that the murder so closely resembled his own vicious action all those years ago? These killings were definitely the work of some animal, some wild beast. But could it be his brother?
And what if Perry tried to claim Elizabeth?
The wolf inside snarled and spat at the idea. Joshua took a deep breath. No. Elizabeth was marked by him. Even after ten years the mark would not fade. Even Elizabeth had no idea what it was, but if Perry was another like himself, Joshua knew his brother would never touch her, even though he had not claimed her fully.
She probably didn’t even remember when he’d marked her. It was one of Joshua’s cherished memories. Their wedding night, a night on which he’d had to cage his desire but wouldn’t allow hers to go unfulfilled. He’d taken possession of her clitoris with his mouth and driven her to orgasm, reveling in her broken, innocent cries of surprised release.
His sweet bride had been shuddering with pleasure when he’d bitten her just inside her thigh. Instinct had overtaken him and she’d bled from the wound he’d made. But one lick from his tongue and it had stopped.
Damn. Just the thought of his wife and the mark he’d left on her skin made him as hard as a rock. What was she like now? Ten years was a long time. Would she have put on weight? Or shriveled away to nothing? Was she still the pretty little thing who had driven him to distraction all those years ago?
He cursed and yanked out a piece of paper. His response to Jaimison would reach the man before he arrived on English soil. Of course, he didn’t have to request that Jaimison watch over Elizabeth. That had been their arrangement from the start.
The human side of him wondered what his reception would be. The Beast had only one thought.
My mate, my mate, my mate.
Chapter Three
Three weeks later
England. Home.
Joshua felt a surge of contentment when he spied familiar landscapes and paths.
One night in London had been enough. The gossip about Perry had been extensive and ugly. Some, Joshua was sure, exaggerated, but most probably did not. The gossip about his female cousin Melinda had been even less complimentary. The woman had actually sought, in his name, an audience with the court to dissolve Joshua’s marriage. Through several intricate channels, Melinda had enlisted her gullible male companions to seek a divorce for Joshua based on Elizabeth’s barren state and his absence. That she’d done this behind his back, using his patronage to do so, made him fume.
Had Elizabeth heard these rumors and believed him complicit? He gritted his teeth and hoped he hadn’t come home too late. The more he heard, the more discomfited he became. Always the same response to his return, emphasizing the questionability of the welcome he would get when he arrived at Arundale Hall. Men his father had known were sly in their insinuations about Joshua’s marital state. Most were convinced he had returned to seek permission to divorce Elizabeth.
The murder at Arundale Hall seemed to have caused little stir, the consensus being that some wild animal had killed a man. Gruesome but not interesting enough to hold the heartless attention of the London crowd.
Several of his father’s friends were at the inn where he stayed but his arrival had gone largely unnoticed, which he preferred. Though his return might cause speculation it seemed to create little sensation. Jaimison met Joshua at the inn the following morning with news and a horse.
They met in the small sitting room on the ground floor and Jaimison shook the dust from his dark-green canvas duster.
“My lord,” he said with a respectful bow. “I barely recognized you.” His bright-blue eyes were wide.
“Jaimison,” Joshua responded. “Well, I was barely past my eighteenth year when you saw me last,” he commented. He fingered his riding gloves. “Did you ride up today?”
“I did.” The man’s face was expressionless. “How was your return trip?”
“Uneventful. How did you leave my wife?” There was a definite edge to his tone that he couldn’t keep out.
The redheaded man lifted one eyebrow. “In good condition.”
Joshua glared at him. “Don’t press me, Jaimison. How close did the killer have to get to deposit that body?”
Stone would have had more movement than Jaimison’s face. “Too close.”
“True,” Joshua snapped. “We had an agreement.”
Silence stretched between them. Joshua studied the man’s face. Had the honorable man fallen for Joshua’s wife? Why not? Joshua had. Why should this man be any different? And he had been here, in England, while Joshua had been thousands of miles away.
“I…miscalculated.”
“Is my brother the killer?” Joshua demanded. Did he want to know?
“He was unconscious when my men and I left Arundale Hall, my lord,” Jaimison met Joshua’s gaze. “I do not believe he is the killer, but I cannot be sure.”
“You’ve had to watch my brother for ten years, Jaimison. Is he…much like my father?” It took every single ounce of Joshua’s strength to ask the question.
Jaimison’s stare was steady. “He is much like your father.” The answer, like Joshua’s question, seemed to hold more than the words. For a moment Joshua had a mixture of emotions. Fear that Jaimison knew what the Arundale men were and relief that another human being bore the secret. Yet Joshua still couldn’t bring himself to be direct, to discuss openly the curse that shadowed his family.
The rumors about his wife, however, he had to ask about. “I hear whispers that my wife spends many hours with you, that she depends on you.” He had no right to ask but he needed to know.
A muscle moved in Jaimison’s jaw and his eyes narrowed. “I would leave her out of it if I could, my lord. She insists on retrieving your brother herself. Therefore, I am her servant when she requires me. That is all.” He straightened his spine. “To imply anything else would be disrespectful to your wife.”
“My neglected wife, you mean,” Joshua snapped.
“Your loyal wife.” Jaimison’s clear gaze held his. “Lord Arundale, my father was once your father’s man. He was entrusted with many of the family’s secrets.”
Joshua’s stomach clenched. “And you now intend to blackmail me with them?”
Surprise widened the other man’s eyes. “No. Never,” he said passionately. “But I know full well why you left.”
Joshua’s resistance collapsed and he sat abruptly in one of the parlor chairs. “Then you know I can’t stay.” Agony shredded his chest and he tightened his jaw against it. “You know why these killings must stop.”
“My lord,” the man said calmly. “I think you need to come home. Face the storm. Your wife has remained faithful and stalwart but her strength is giving way to despair. Without hope, no human being can withstand the battering and bruising of life’s torments.”
As if Joshua didn’t know that. He smiled without humor. “You seem to have a great interest in her well-being.”
“When you left, my lord, I was not just a man-about-town for you. I was by way of being your friend.” Jaimison’s low tone, as well as the words, made Joshua wince. Yes, the man had been more than a servant, more than someone he paid for services rendered. But ten years was a long time.
“A man’s mind conjures up many errant visions, Jaimison. Especially when he’s isolated from the woman he loves.” Joshua rubbed his nose with his hand. “I’m afraid jealousy of those who have the confidence of my wife, when I do not, has been my close companion.”
“That is understandable my lord, but let me reassure you that your wife is, in every way, still your wife.”
Relief rolled through Joshua. Some of the tension he’d carried during his trip home bled away. He rose and held out his hand. “I offer my apologies for my behavior.”
Jaimison took it. “As a man, you could feel no less. To convince me that you love your wife is no hard task, my friend. To convince Lady Arundale?” He stopped for a moment and shook his head. “I don’t envy you, sir.”
Joshua straightened his shoulders. “Well, lead on, Jaimison. If I’m to be tormented by my wife, by all means let’s start it as soon as possible.” The Beast beneath howled silently in triumph.
Home. Arundale. Mate.
*
“This cannot be correct,” Elizabeth stated out loud. She stared at the delivered note again.
Lord Arundale arrived in London today and will arrive home by Saturday evening.
Jaimison’s terse letter, delivered by one of his men, implied that the man must have known Joshua was coming back for weeks. Her irritation over Jaimison’s silence was overwhelmed by the shock of her husband’s impending arrival. It couldn’t be. He was coming home? But why? She swayed, suddenly dizzy, and sat down behind her desk. Gerry came to stand beside her. “Are you all right, Aunt Elizabeth?”