Alanna (When Hearts Dare Series Book 2) (18 page)

She didn’t move.

“Now!”

“Wolf, please, don’t. I . . . I came to apologize for my father. It was the drink talking, not him. Mother is taking him home.”

“Your father doesn’t have to leave on my account. I’m the one leaving.”

“Mother desires him home regardless. He isn’t good at handling a great deal of alcohol.”

Wolf gritted his teeth. “Go back inside with your fiancé and his family.”

“But it’s you I want. And I know you want me. Isn’t that—”

“Stop it, Alanna.” He sucked in a breath, still staring into the night, still trying to control himself. He should have told her everything. He should have told her he was after Hemenway. But not now—what good would it do? Surely someone had realized she was missing and was looking for her. If anyone found them together, she’d be ruined. He had to get rid of her, for her own safety as well as his. “You have no idea what a life together would mean in the long run. It can’t work between us. Hemenway is a rotten choice and you can do far better, but I’m no choice at all.”

“But I could never desire anyone but you.”

Pain ground into his heart like gravel beneath his heels. “It’s even easier to fall in love with someone who can give you the security you need than it is to fall out of love with a vagabond once you’ve grown tired of his ways. I’m not sticking around here, Alanna. Once I finish with my business, you’ll never see me again. Don’t be a fool and jeopardize a secure future for yourself. Go back inside before someone catches you with me.”

She stepped closer, her voice shaking, but holding firm in her convictions. “Don’t patronize me. I
know
what I want. And I
know
what the depth of my wanting is.”

It was all he could do to get the words out. “Alanna, please. Go.”

“Not until you hear me out. I listened to you, now give me the same courtesy.” Alanna’s voice grew stronger. “Jonathan is graceless. His manner is pathetic, and commonplace. The others are just like him—cold Bostonians. How can a man give me a spit of joy when he can only speak of his work, or . . . or similar everyday things?”

“I would think a woman like you would have enough fire in her to make a man forget about his work.” Wolf heaved a sigh. What he’d just said probably cut deeper into him than into her.

“Men like him want me to be the same thing my father desires me to be—an obedient wife. They aren’t interested in a woman with fire in her veins. That would only complicate matters. So what is it you are telling me? That it’s my duty to
obey
someone like Jonathan?”

“Ask yourself this, Alanna—have you ever given it a try?” God, but he wanted to escape. He looked to the street again. Jumping simply wasn’t an option. He threw his head to the sky to fight for air. Anger and pain, and hatred of the circumstances overwhelmed him. “For the last time, get the hell away from me!”

Silence.

“Do you understand me? Back off!” His vehement words, the only way he knew to keep from desperately reaching for her, sliced through to his marrow. God, the pain.

“Wolf, look at me!” Panic sounded in her voice as she stepped forward, clutched his arm, and tried to pull him around.

With a hard jerk, he yanked his sleeve from her grip and swiped his hand across his face. “I
have
looked at you, Alanna. A thousand times. Now please—”

“Time to leave, darling.” A male voice, shards of ice, rose from the shadows behind Wolf. “Come along.”

Silence.

“
Now,
Alanna.” Hemenway’s words came low, menacing. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

Aw, hell! Protective urges fueled Wolf’s anger. He fought the fiery impulse to take the man down. Instead, he turned toward the two and leaned casually against the balcony’s rail.

Hemenway stood beside Alanna, his cold eyes unflinching, a predator before the strike.

Wolf crossed his arms over his chest. His deceiving air of conceit and smirking indifference were the only weapons he had to use in her defense. Slowly, he shook his head back and forth in ridicule and disgust at her antics.

Alanna retreated, her face set in disbelief, her fiancé’s hand straining at the bend of her arm.

The man sniffed.

Sniveling little bastard
. Wolf fought the urge to reach out and grab Hemenway by the throat and toss him over the rail. “Don’t make a scene, Alanna. Go.”

Hemenway turned and disappeared with her in tow.

Wolf waited a few minutes, and then lost himself in the crowd while he located Thompson. “I’m getting the hell out of here. Malone and his future son-in-law are on a rampage.”

“We’ll get our things,” Thompson replied.

“No, I’d rather you didn’t. Besides, I could use the fresh air. I’ll hail a cab if I get chilled. Stick it out here, and don’t let on to Martha.” He turned on his heel and headed for the front door.

As Wolf descended the stairs, the cold night air and a line of elegant carriages parked at the curb greeted him. His long strides sent him beyond the mansion amid golden shafts of light that shone through the windows and striped the walkway.

Silent streets insulated in a thick layer of snow refreshed Wolf’s senses. Nonetheless, a vast melancholy filled him. The heavy weight in his chest that had gripped him at Malone’s assault had spread outward until it filled him entirely.

Living in reality could be harsh, he thought derisively, as he wandered through Boston’s cold, darkened streets toward Thompson’s home. No matter how much they tried to make him feel at home, he was still only their guest. And no matter how much he desired Alanna, or she him, her future had already drawn tight around her neck, like a hangman’s noose before sunrise.

She belonged here.

He didn’t.

The loud crunch of his feet hitting the hard pack of snow was the only sound to break the hollow silence, touching a mournful chord in him. He trudged along the darkened streets, gazed into the occasional undraped window filled with cozy scenes of Christmas trees, candles burning brightly, fireplaces ablaze—and families.

A lost sob within his own emptiness echoed his loneliness. He hurt again, for everything he’d lost, and for the things he could not have.

A strange chill suddenly coursed through him.

He shivered, pulled up his collar and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. He thrust his head to the sky to try to bring the cold air deeper into his tight chest.

The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He stopped in his tracks, as though his feet heard it first.

Silence.

He tilted his head to listen harder.

Only a shadow in the soundless night?

A flicker of coldness traced the column of his spine. He stood perfectly still.

Nothing.

He cocked his head at another angle.

Sudden suspicion.

His survival instincts were years strong—something lurked in the darkness.

Then he heard a soft thud.

Something
accompanied him in the dark of the night.

Stalked him.

A long moment of silence dragged past as he inched his hand inside his coat to a knife hidden there. The cold steel of another strapped near his ankle buzzed up his leg.

A bulky form materialized out of the corner of his right eye.

Another dark shadow to his left.

For a brief, agonizing moment, chagrin melted into rapid shock as the horrible dawning came—they surrounded him.

The hair stood up at his nape again as a sinister presence slid into place behind him. A silhouette appeared directly ahead.

Dead calm, the only saving grace of his sixth sense, descended on him. As he let his instincts take over, he gave up looking for a way out. Whoever
they
were, they were out to get him, not to frighten him—and they knew the city and its warren of streets. He didn’t.

His only hope for survival was to know which of them to concentrate on first—and where the first thrust of his knife should strike.

The click of a gun’s hammer from behind gave him the answer. By the sound of it, the man behind him was right-handed.

With a sudden roll of his left shoulder, he turned and released the knife toward where he’d heard the snap of the hammer.

A soft grunt.

The thud of the gun hitting the frozen ground.

And then a sickening crack, wood to bone at the base of his skull, and his own grunt as a blast of hot pain exploded inside his head. He grappled for the small knife strapped to his leg.

A tangle of muscled arms seized him, held him fast to the cold ground. The nauseating stench of sweat and whiskey filled his nostrils.

A shadowed figure rose in the air above him. As if in slow motion, it seemed to float downward until it covered him in black shadow.

He heard the crisp snap of his own ribs and a raspy guffaw. A fist pummeled his face. Merciless hands dug into him, squeezed the length of his legs and body—searching. Someone snatched the chain holding his mother’s earring from around his neck. Another wrenched the knife from his calf.

Pain was no longer a part of him. It was as though he’d stepped outside of his own body and hovered nearby. No longer was he a participant in the killing taking place—he was merely a detached observer to his own death.

He watched as his own knife plunged deep into a writhing, bloody form—his own. The body twitched and then lay still.

Suddenly he was back inside his body.

Wasn’t he?

Another black shadow appeared from nowhere—only this one floated silently through the air above him and attacked the others. Did this one actually smell clean?

As Wolf sank into welcoming velvet darkness, the world he knew had been entirely recast. It was now peopled by inky, scattering shadows.

Alanna wanted to bolt out the door after Wolf. She’d be damned if he’d get away with so rudely casting her off. And with his back turned to her no less. Distancing herself from Jonathan was easy enough—when he joined a group of cronies and left her standing on the sidelines like a witless subservient, she simply wandered off. She located her mother near the refreshment table. “I’m leaving. Old Chinese can see me home in a cab.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” A faint, humorless smile meant for any onlookers touched her mother’s lips.

“Think, Mother. Since you can’t talk Father into leaving, and since my engagement was announced tonight, would it do to have me trail after a man deep in his cups? Give Jonathan and his parents my regards.”

Her mother’s indrawn breath sounded more like a hiss. “Don’t think this is the last you’ll hear of what you did tonight.”

“Spare me.” Alanna turned to leave and then paused. “We can speak in the morning, once you’ve had time to justify Father’s behavior. That should keep me abed most of the day.” She made her way to the cloakroom, collected her fur-lined cape, and slipped outside, her focus back on finding Wolf. Either his eyes had lied while they’d danced, or damn him, he was double-dealing on the balcony. Let him explain
that
to her face.

Blast it! Old Chinese wasn’t cooling his heels in the family barouche. If he didn’t show himself in five minutes, she’d steal around the corner and walk to the damn hotel by herself. Surely Wolf would have made his way to his rooms by now.

She pulled her cloak tight against the cold and surveyed her surroundings. Where the devil was Old Chinese? She spied the Thompsons heading for their carriage and hurried toward them. “Would you mind seeing me home? My parents wish to remain, and I’m a bit fatigued.” She made certain to speak loudly enough that any eavesdroppers would overhear. One never knew.

Of course they agreed, and once inside, Alanna waited until the rockaway pulled past the line of waiting carriages before she spoke. “You can let me off in front of the Tremont House Hotel.”

Martha gasped.

Thompson’s brows furrowed. “Why the devil a hotel?”

Alanna lifted her chin. “That’s likely where I’ll find Wolf. He has some explaining to do.”

Martha and Thompson exchanged speaking glances.

“What?”

Thompson heaved a sigh. “He’s our guest.”

Despite the hurt still running rampant in Alanna, her heart skipped a beat. She lifted her chin and folded her hands in her lap. “Well, then.”

Thompson removed his top hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think coming home with us is such a good idea after what happened tonight.”

Martha leaned forward and touched her husband’s knee. “I doubt you’ll convince her otherwise, Captain.” She slid her other hand over a cloud of silk skirts and squeezed Alanna’s clasped fingers. “You know how willful our Alanna can be. I’ll not have her ruin her beautiful gown by using other means to gain entry.”

Thompson set his mouth in a grim line. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

A lone gas lamp lit the entrance beneath the porte cochère. At their entry into the home, a familiar incense touched Alanna’s nostrils. Cold slid down her spine and her trained senses snapped to full alert. She backed up, pulling Martha with her. “Something’s terribly wrong,” she whispered.

Old Chinese stepped from the shadows. “Wolf has met with an accident.”

Alanna’s heart shuddered as fear replaced anger. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs. Winston sneaked him in through a rear cellar window.” Old Chinese turned to Thompson. “We placed him in the room you had locked off rather than the one he’d been assigned. It’s best if nosy servants aren’t aware of his presence. He was attacked by several men, and my warriors are making certain all traces of what occurred have been swept away.”

“Oh, my God!” Frantic, Alanna started past Old Chinese, but he grabbed her arm. “He’s in no shape to be seen. Dr. Choate and my team are tending to him.”

She gasped. This had to be bad. Very bad. The physician worked clandestinely with Old Chinese. Lord, he was never called into service unless things were extremely serious. She tried to shake off Old Chinese’s steel grip, but he held firm. “Let go.... Wolf needs me.”

“Alanna—” Thompson reached for her other arm.

Martha stepped forward. “She’s right. If that were you, no one would stop me.”

Thompson dropped his hand and nodded. “I’ll come along as well. Martha, you stay—”

Martha lifted her skirts and fell into place behind the others. “What makes you think I would cower in another room?”

When they reached the top of the stairs, Old Chinese handed a lantern to one of his students and told him to trace a lighted path to the Thompson bedchamber at the front of the house. “Make it appear as if they are retiring in case anyone is prowling around outside.”

When Alanna stepped through the door, her knees buckled. Wolf’s battered and bloodied body, naked except for one corner of a sheet drawn between his legs, lay deathly still on a bed centered in the room.

The once elaborate bedroom had been transformed into a brightly lit surgery. Gas lamps blazed; whale oil lamps and candles had been pressed into service and hung or set around the bed on tables or chairs. Mirrors, large and small, had been collected from other rooms and set at every imaginable angle, multiplying the light shining around the bed until the center of the room blazed as if the sun itself hovered over Wolf’s unmoving form.

Heavy blankets had been tacked to the windows to prevent telltale light from escaping. A drape hung across the bedroom door, further preventing any spillage down the corridor, and keeping curious servants at bay.

Alanna made her way to the foot of the bed. Someone pressed a chair to the back of her knees. She waved off whoever it was. A ragged sob escaped her lips when Thompson slipped an arm around her shoulders.

Old Chinese was clearly in charge of the skilled team he’d trained for such an emergency. Dr. Choate responded quickly and efficiently to little more than a brief nod or a slight glance from Old Chinese.

He and the doctor cleaned the gaping wound on Wolf’s right side while two students worked on the remaining lesions. They labored swiftly, using squares of white cloth saturated in a pungent-smelling liquid that wafted under Alanna’s nose and stole her breath.

Winston, sitting on a chair at the foot of the bed, worked in the same meticulous and calm manner as did the others. He pierced Wolf’s lower limbs with thread-thin needles that protruded from his flesh like miniature spears.

Another student stepped forward with a large bowl holding an opalescent liquid that carried the same acrid odor as the soaked cloths. Dr. Choate dipped his hands into the solution, staining it pink from Wolf’s blood. And then the doctor plunged his hand into Wolf’s gaping wound. Alanna gasped at the grotesque rolling about of Wolf’s belly.

The doctor removed his hand from inside Wolf’s flesh. “A knife lacerated his liver. We’ve cleaned the injury as best we can, but now he needs the natural flow of his own blood to flush the wound clean. In a moment, I’ll ask Winston to remove a few needles and a good deal of bleeding will result. This is our intention, so do not be alarmed.”

Why hadn’t Alanna realized this? Because most of his body resembled raw meat, that was why. God, she wished this were a bad dream. An ugly thought crawled beneath her skin and snaked down her spine. Could this have been her fault—because of what happened at the ball? Jonathan’s doing? Her father’s?

The doctor nodded to Winston, who removed some of the needles piercing Wolf’s flesh. A gush of bright red spewed onto a stack of towels tucked against his side. A scarlet halo soaking the pillow beneath his head inched wider.

Dear Lord! Alanna’s hand flailed out behind her, grasping nothing but air. The chair she’d earlier refused tapped at her knees. She sank into it, close to where a composed Winston worked intently.

“You need to calm yourself,” Winston said quietly.

Alanna conjured up everything Old Chinese had taught her. After a moment, her panic slipped away, replaced by an urge to connect with Wolf. With a small nod, Winston motioned for her to touch the top of Wolf’s foot.

Her fingers quivered so much, she couldn’t weave them through the delicate needles, and her eyes were too moist to see her way clearly. Winston reached out and gently guided her hand.

Her head snapped up. She looked from Winston, to Old Chinese, to the doctor and students. She
felt
them—every single one of them who now touched Wolf. She distinctly
felt
their life force coursing through him, keeping him alive.

In the midst of Wolf’s hell, Alanna took in the quiet scene before her, her fingers still on his warm flesh.
He couldn’t be in better hands.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but when the team completed all that could be done, Old Chinese addressed Thompson. “Until we know what this is about and who is involved, we need to keep Wolf’s presence a secret.”

Thompson nodded. “I’ve already thought of that. I’ll accelerate the countless Christmas activities around here—create a hectic pace so that a stream of visitors will leave the servants with little time to tend to anything other than their own frenzied duties. They won’t pay any attention to how many are being fed or where each member of the family is at any given time. I must keep my youngest daughter in the dark as well.”

“I’ll see to her,” Martha said.

Alanna fought to control her voice. “What about me?”

Old Chinese regarded her. “It’s nearly dawn. You should leave now. I’ll fill you in on Wolf’s condition as I come and go. Except for two who will remain with me, it’s time for the team to vanish, back the way we came. Winston will see you home in the way he knows how.”

Alanna stood over Wolf for as long as she dared. When she gathered enough strength to leave, she was painfully aware that Old Chinese never mentioned the fact that Wolf had not regained consciousness. The thought that perhaps he never would was too painful even to consider.

 

 

Old Chinese appeared and disappeared at will, bringing reports to Alanna, who spent her days in her room, refusing to speak to her parents. On the fifth day, Old Chinese brought her back to Wolf.

Naked beneath a light blanket, his body bruised and swollen, he looked even worse than he had the night of the attack. His chest was tightly bound to hold his broken bones in place. A pillow, constructed with a hollowed-out center, held his head in place, but allowed the gash at the base of his skull to heal. Purple bruises marred his face, and his split and swollen lips sent a shaft of pain through her. He had yet to awaken.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!” A jerk of her body was the only notice Alanna had before her legs gave out from under her. She slid halfway down Old Chinese’s side before he caught her.

And then the tears fell. From the very depths of her soul, they came. The utter and gripping pain drove her to incoherency.

Old Chinese swept her into his arms and carried her to a wingback chair. She curled into his lap, little different from when she’d been a small girl. She buried her head against his chest and swallowed cries that exploded in the back of her throat.

Her hair, wrenched loose from the knot at the back of her head, streamed about her face and shoulders. Gently, he tucked the tumbled locks into place. His sad eyes, unfocused and unblinking, stared out the window at the gray sky. Suddenly, he looked so very old.

When she finally collected herself, she slipped from his lap and made her way back to Wolf’s bedside. “I would never have recognized him. How can we humans do such terrible things to one another?”

“Once the swelling goes down, he won’t look quite so bad,” Old Chinese said. “Nothing in his face is broken, and with time, perhaps the scars will fade.”

Alanna reached out and touched her fingers to Wolf’s hair. “Can I have him to myself for a bit?”

Once alone, she found a small space on his cheek where her lips could touch his skin. As a multitude of foreign emotions invaded her, a tear splashed down her cheek and a kind of panic set in. “It’s been five days, Wolf. Wake up.”

He lay before her, pale as death. She noticed a hand mirror on a table next to the bed. She knew what that mirror was for, but she couldn’t bring herself to set it near his nose and mouth and look for the telltale mist of his breath against the glass. A ragged sob escaped her.

“Don’t you dare leave me. Can you hear me? Don’t you ever leave me!” And then her voice softened, quivered as she begged. “Please, Wolf. I would perish without you.”