“So you were expecting us?” Brooke said.
“Not this soon, but you and your mother should come inside.”
Alfreda growled, “I’m not old enough to be her mother—well, I am, but I’m not, and if I catch you staring at her again like you just did, you’ll think I’myourmother, I’ll box your ears so hard.”
Alfreda was definitely annoyed by the welcome they were receiving from Gabriel Biscane. But he wasn’t the least bit cowed by her. With a wink he said to Alfreda, “See? You already love me.”
He stepped back from the doorway so they could enter the house. “Come along, then. I will show you to your room, though in my opinion it’s not a room. Very well, you might not think it a room either. Oh, bloody hell, it’s a tower.”
Brooke didn’t like the sound of that and reiterated Alfreda’s previous request. “Perhaps you should take me to Lord Wolfe?”
“I can’t do that. When he’s ready to see you, he will request your presence.”
“Today?”
“Possibly not.”
Another reprieve, and this one brought a sigh of relief, another smile to Brooke’s lips, and the last of the knots in her belly dissipated. He had to have been joking about the tower, she decided. But if he wasn’t, tower be damned, she wouldn’t mind it at all if it meant she wouldn’t have to deal with the lord of the manor anytime soon—well, as long as the tower had a bed. Surely it would have a bed. Alfreda was about to protest, though, but Brooke shook her head at the maid, who had done too much complaining already. And Mr. Biscane had already turned about and was heading down the hall.
As they walked past two Grecian columns that bordered the foyer, they entered a gray-marble-floored hallway that was two stories high. Oil paintings lined the white walls above the dark wood wainscoting. Brooke saw that they were portraits of men and women, a few of whom were wearing clothes that dated to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She assumed they were the viscount’s ancestors.
A large crystal chandelier was in the center of the hall, but so high up a servant would have to climb a tall ladder to light it, so she doubted it was used often. They passed several sets of double doors, which no doubt led to parlors and the dining room, before they came to the grand staircase.
Splashes of color on the white walls made her glance back at the foyer. The round stained-glass window above the front door threw beams of blue, red, and yellow light on the white walls. The window did indeed have a design—the head of a wolf baring its teeth. Brooke assumed the emblem was part of the family crest—the wolf’s head because of their name. But why had they chosen the image of a ferocious wolf? Perhaps the current Lord Wolfe had a sense of humor and had had the window made as a way of poking fun at the fanciful rumors. But, on second thought, she figured he probably didn’t like the rumor that he howled on the moors any more than he liked the one about his being cursed and doomed to die young.
At the top of the stairs, Gabriel Biscane led them to the right, down a wide carpeted hallway that had doors on only one side. These rooms would face the back of the property, Brooke realized. Soon they turned a corner and headed down another corridor that led back to the front of the house. Here a few of the doors on both sides of the corridor had been left open to let in light. The house certainly had many bedrooms and was bigger than it appeared from outside. At the end of the corridor, Gabriel stopped at a circular stairway. Brooke guessed it led to the tower room he’d mentioned. She hadn’t thought he was serious about putting her there until that moment.
She tensed, waiting, but he didn’t move, just stared at the dark winding stairs in front of them for a long moment. Then without a word he turned about and marched them back down the corridor and returned to the other. As he passed the door at the end, he glanced back at Brooke and Alfreda and put a finger to his lips, suggesting they needed to be quiet, and moved to the next door, just to the right of the stairs. Brooke was reminded of what had happened to her as a child when she’d disturbed her father’s solitude upstairs. She’d only done it once. Lessons had been learned quickly in that house.
Gabriel entered the room, walked across it, and opened the two windows to let in some fresh air. Brooke followed him, wanting to see the view. She’d been right. The tall hedges she’d seen from a distance surrounded a large parklike area behind the house with bright green lawns and pathways bordered by beds of roses and other pretty flowers. There were a few shade trees with benches beneath their leafy, green canopies and a tiny pond. Lampposts were placed here and there to light the way at night or just look pretty from the house. Right in the center was indeed a maze, not huge, but with hedges so tall she couldn’t see the pathways inside it from her window. Too bad. She would have liked to memorize them before venturing into it, and she would be doing that—if they were staying.
Before Gabriel left, he said in a whisper, “I will bear the brunt of his wrath for not putting you where he ordered, but I’d rather not wake him just yet, so do try to be as quiet as you can so he doesn’t hear you in here.”
Appalled that he hadn’t been joking about the tower, Brooke replied, “Please, I’d prefer another room not so close to his, even one in that tower.”
He smiled, apparently not as worried about the lord’s wrath as he’d sounded. “Nonsense. Most of the rooms up here aren’t cleaned regularly unless guests are staying in them. This is the only unoccupied room that is clean and doesn’t have a permanent ‘don’t use’ sign on the door.”
She hadn’t noticed any signs. “Why is Lord Wolfe sleeping in the middle of the day?”
“I’d be amazed if he is.” Gabriel was already heading briskly toward the door, adding without pause, “I will have your trunks sent up.”
Brooke might have thanked him if the door hadn’t closed so quickly and she weren’t wondering now if the wolf was as ill-tempered as her father, if he needed to be tiptoed around. And then she was staring at another door, one that could very well connect to Lord Wolfe’s room, and all sorts of alarming thoughts entered her head, the worst of which was that the wolf would have easy access to pounce on her while she slept!
Chapter Nine
GABRIEL ARRIVED JUST ASDr. Bates was leaving. Bates paused to give him the same instructions he’d given everyone else in the room. Dominic caught Gabe’s expression and might have laughed if it wouldn’t hurt, but it would. They’d all been right. He had ripped open his stitches and had been forced to cut short his ride. But the doctor’s embarrassing lecture had done what the ride was supposed to do—temporarily distract him from his anger.
Carl, the servant assigned to stay with him to fetch whatever he needed today, sat in a chair by the door. Carl had winced in sympathy when the doctor had given his instructions. Dominic’s valet, Andrew, was also in the suite, but he was busy in the dressing room.
Gabriel closed the door after the doctor left and approached the bed. “Leeches? Really?”
“Whatever you wrote in the message that summoned Bates here again apparently led him to bring bloodsuckers,” Dominic replied. “He warned he won’t be available for the next few days because he’s committed to visit patients up north, but he’s confident the leeches will soon bring down this fever. That is his opinion, not mine.”
With his wounded leg left bare on top of the bedsheet, the leeches by the restitched wound were quite visible. Gabriel refused to look at them and stared instead at Dominic’s dog sleeping on the foot of the bed.
After a moment Gabriel shook his head and picked up a tan hair off the sheet. “You shouldn’t allow that mutt in here, at least not while you are being leeched. He’s shedding. You don’t want dog hair in the wound, d’you?”
“Wolf is fine. He’s worried about me. He refused to leave when Carl tried to get him out. You can take a horse brush to him later if you’re worried about him shedding.” Then, turning to the matter uppermost on his mind, Dominic asked, “Was it the Whitworth’s daughter in that coach?”
