“And why not? You kept Wolf. Your pet was just as wild when you found him. He tried to eat you.”
“He didn’t know any better, now he does. But that”—Dominic stabbed a finger toward her majestic friend—“is a wild thing full grown.”
“How can you say that when she is calmly sitting there doing absolutely nothing threatening?”
“You can’t keep a real wolf indoors.”
“I disagree that it’s a wolf.”
He glanced at her sharply. “Oh,nowyou think they are extinct, when you have twice tried to convince me otherwise?”
She stuck her chin out. “She helped me. She called me back to the ruins during the rainstorm when I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. She knows people. She didn’t growl at me when I first saw her. She didn’t growl at Alfreda this morning. She’s not growling at you when you are threatening her. I want to keep her. She’s obviously not a wolf.”
In answer he took her hand and pulled her out of there and straight downstairs to the parlor. “What are you—?”
The question was answered when he dug a key out of his pocket and moved to the southeast corner of the large room where the tower wall curved into the house. She’d tried to get into the tower room while exploring the house on her own, but she’d found it locked.
She tensed when Dominic unlocked the door, thinking he intended to lock her up in the tower while he killed her pet. She was ready to fight him tooth and nail, but she was arrested by what she saw inside that room.
Chapter Thirty-One
ACHILL RAN DOWN BROOKE’Sback as she stepped into the gloomy room. Its curved walls were made of rough gray stone just like the floor. A few paintings covered with white cloths, probably to protect them from the dust, hung on the walls. An old chest rested on a low table in the middle of the room. Aside from that, Brooke couldn’t see much because the room had no windows. The only light came through the open doorway. Dust motes danced in the light, but she didn’t see any cobwebs like in the tower room upstairs.
That grim memory made her ask, “Do you know the condition of the upstairs tower room where you tried to put me when I arrived? It’s filled with cobwebs.”
“Is it? I haven’t been up there since I was a child. But you could have cleaned it. D’you think you’re going to just sit here and do nothing if you stay?”
He actually smiled when he said that! She clamped her mouth shut. Implying he would turn her into a servant when he had so many of them in the house was just another of his tactics to make her flee.
“One moment.” He left the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to hear the sound of the door closing, but he came back with a lit candle. She wished he hadn’t. His eyes glowed in the candlelight—like a wolf’s. It was no wonder the rumors about him flourished.
“What’s in the chest?” she asked when he set the candle down next to it.
“Trinkets, jewelry, favorite knickknacks, and journals that belonged to my ancestors.”
Journals? She wondered if the missing pages from Ella’s diary were locked in that chest. Did she dare to ask to see them?
“Each one left behind at least one item that is worth keeping. Some are too big to fit in the chest, like this painting. It’s two hundred years old.”
He took the cover off one of the paintings. She drew in her breath sharply. Two wolves, one pure white, the other solid gray. The animals were lean and predatory-looking with a ferocious gleam in their eyes. Apart from that it was uncanny how closely the white one resembled the dog she’d snuck into the house. No wonder Dominic had brought her here to see it.
“And this one is even older.”
He unveiled another painting, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the first one. One of the wolves sat as if ready to pounce; the other lay in front of it looking satisfied, as if it had just devoured a large meal. “Who painted this?”
“Cornelius Wolfe’s daughter, Cornelia.”
“She was able to get this close to the wolves?” Brooke asked incredulously.
“No, she recorded in her journal that she used a spyglass to observe them. There are a dozen more of her paintings in the attic, all of wolves. They obviously fascinated her. And while they might have been considered extinct in other parts of the Isle, they still lingered in the north country in her day. Is there now going to be another Wolfe fascinated by real wolves?”
Brooke was taken aback. Had he just acknowledged they were getting married? She was sure he was just teasing her, so she asked, “Why do you keep this one down here locked away?”
“It’s the only one that depicts the wolves close up. It’s a beautiful painting. I used to keep it in my bedroom, but when I turned eighteen, I considered it a bit childish and took it down.”
“And if the servants saw it in your room—no wonder that rumor about your being part wolf started.”
He raised a brow at her guess. “It’s a silly rumor that more likely started when I was a young boy and used to howl at school for fun, to frighten the younger boys. But Cornelius’s daughter nearly died finishing this one. Her other paintings are more distant views. But for this one she was determined to paint them as if they were right in front of her. It took her months to finish it, to find them in the same pose even though this pair were mates and often side by side.”
