Beauty and the Wolf (22 page)

C
ognizant of daybreak, Isabella opened her eyes and forced them to focus on the unfamiliar environment around her. Dark, velvet curtains framed a pair of tiny windows. A disheveled pile of tarot cards sat next to an ominous crystal ball on a small table. Dangling from the walls were carcasses of miniature animals.

She was lying on a cot inside a Gypsy’s wagon.

Isabella raised a hand to her aching forehead and massaged her temples. Still fatigued, she let her head fall back against the pillow.

Her physical state told her otherwise. Her chest stung from the scratches inflicted by the tree branches and Draven’s blood had dried in clumps on her dress. Close to tears, she knew the image of Morton dead on the ground would be forever etched in her memory. She had killed her own uncle. Worse yet, what had become of Draven?

A woman’s face hovered over her. Deep lines creased comfortably around a pair of black eyes—eyes that matched Draven’s in their shape and color. A scarf splattered with every hue of the rainbow encircled the Gypsy’s head and when she moved, the coins sewn to her skirt jingled softly.

“You must be exhausted, my dear,” the woman said.

It was the voice Isabella had heard the other day—when she stole close to the caravan of wagons. She met the woman’s words with a nod.

“Would you care for something to eat, my child?”

“No, thank you. I’m afraid I don’t feel very well.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened last night?” The woman remained standing. She folded her hands together patiently.

“Well”—Isabella scrambled to gather her thoughts—“it all seems a bit hazy, but I do know that my blackhearted uncle is dead. And my husband—”

“—is right here.” A strong hand gripped hers.

She looked up and her heart skipped a beat. “Draven! I thought I’d never see you again. The mob was coming.”

“It never found me.” His pallor and dark-rimmed eyes told Isabella he’d touched the depths of hell and had barely lived to talk about it. “I wasn’t under the power of the curse anymore, which meant the villagers could have killed me. So I ran.”

Wearing a sling around his injured arm, he knelt beside the cot. Marga placed a hand on his back and he looked up at her.

“You believed it was Isabella’s destiny to shoot you, my lord,” the old woman said, “but the vision I saw was that of her pulling the trigger to kill her uncle.”

He squeezed Isabella’s hand tighter. “Thank God the Egyptian bracelet severed my spell.”

Marga shook her head. “That is not what ended your curse. You see, I knew all along that my vision involved Isabella killing her uncle. The moment you realized that you loved Isabella more than you loved yourself, the wolf’s spell was severed. And when you planned your own death, you proved that you valued someone else’s life more than you valued your own. No one was required to shoot you at all, Lord Winthrop.”

His eyes widened. “I wasn’t going to change into the black wolf?”

“No,” Marga replied. “You finally convinced the dark forces that you’ve learned the meaning of love.”

“I have,” he said, turning back to Isabella. “I love
you,
heart and soul.”

Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.

“I had to protect you when you blacked out, Bella,” Draven said. “I carried you here to this camp—as far away from the mob as possible. The villagers think the Gypsies hate me, so they would never have thought to look here.”

Isabella felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted. She reached over and traced the curve of her husband’s rough cheek. He looked shattered.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For excluding me from your curse’s revocation.”

“I could never harm you.” He inhaled a shaky breath. “It is I who should thank you for finding the strength to resist the amulet’s prophecy.”

She smiled ruefully.

“It’s over,” said Marga as she made her way out of the wagon. “My lord, your curse has been lifted forever.”

Draven sat beside Isabella. He pressed her open palm to his face and closed his eyes. “As it should have, the spell left me a better person. Remorse is a terrible burden to carry, but I know I deserved the punishment I was given.”

Isabella shifted against the strength of his chest. “It couldn’t have been easy for you all these years.”

“It wasn’t. But if it hadn’t been for you, I would have never changed. You saved me, Bella.”

“I think you had the capacity to change all the while,” she said softly. “We just helped each other along.”

“How have I helped you?” Draven asked.

“You taught me that life is too precious to take so seriously.”

He drew her close.

Isabella’s next question was a provocative one. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive your grandmother for casting the spell in the first place?”

“I believe I can,” he said. “We all have things in our past we regret. For me, I regret killing that girl. I also regret the way I treated you. I promise that spite, hatred, and deception will never cloud my life again.”

“You mean, you have forgiven Helena?”

“Yes. It wasn’t easy, but she is the only link I have to my father.”

“I have no family left,” Isabella said. She sat up and gazed into his fathomless eyes.

Draven stroked her cheek. “You have me.”

Her stomach dropped. Was he going to utter the words she desperately wanted to hear?

“Now that my curse has been severed,” he said, “we can have as many children as we wish.”

Warm tears spilled down Isabella’s cheeks. She nodded.

As a broad grin stretched across Draven’s face, he dipped forward to catch her mouth with a kiss. Isabella surged against him and she realized that all the barriers between them had been dissolved.

Still smiling, Draven took her hand and led her to where Marga Yavidovich was waiting. The Gypsy woman placed a gnarled hand on his arm. “May you two live in peace.”

“Thank you, Marga, for showing me the way,” Draven said.

The Gypsy gave him a caring nod and disappeared into her wagon again.

He encircled an arm around Isabella’s waist and urged her closer. “You make me the happiest man on Earth.”

“And I am the happiest woman,” she said through a grin. “Perhaps you and I can enjoy a proper honeymoon now.”

“Don’t you remember?” he teased her softly before pulling her into a kiss. “‘Proper’ is a formality I threw out the window long ago.”

A
satisfying chain of events took place in the months that followed Morton Farrington’s death.

With the staggering fortune Cyril Winthrop had left his son, Draven promised to build the embankments Dunwich was so desperately in need of. He also lavished Thorncliff Towers with renovations while officially setting his shipbuilding business into motion at the same time.

Draven and Isabella bought another house close to Helena’s posh London mansion. Rogers, who claimed he was too old to tend to Draven anymore, opted not to go with them. Because Draven continued to have a soft spot for the elderly man, he presented Rogers with a hefty compensation for his faithful service—and for saving his life. Ironically, Rogers and the long-widowed Mrs. Tidwell married a few weeks after Draven and Isabella moved to London. After all, they had been having a torrid affair for years.

Isabella, who still mourned the loss of Gwyneth, had a statue erected in the garden of Thorncliff Towers in the abigail’s likeness. The household staff was grateful for the commemoration as it truly captured Gwyneth’s charm and resilience.

Because Draven had passionately planned and painstakingly implemented his new business, it was in fine enough shape for him to whisk Isabella away for an exotic trip cum delayed honeymoon.

Before she and Draven left on the exclusive ocean liner they had booked passage on, Isabella had searched for the Egyptian amulet without success. She was downhearted at losing it, but she agreed to Simon Collingsworth’s request that she add Amenhotep’s bracelet to the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum. She figured that her father would like to have seen at least one of his discoveries on display.

Subsequently, the remains of Sir Harris Farrington were buried next to Isabella’s mother in London’s Highgate Cemetery. The burial brought with it a much-needed sense of closure for Isabella.

On a wondrously warm April day, the S.S. Royal Legacy slipped through the glassy, languid waters off the coast of Cyprus. Enjoying the eighth week of her honeymoon, Isabella sat sprawled in the bed she and Draven left on rare occasions. She shifted her weight unconsciously with the rhythm of the elegant vessel and marveled that she hadn’t left her husband’s side during their trip abroad.

Draven slept beside her. She gently mussed his hair and admired the expanse of his shoulders as he lay on his abdomen with his elbows jutted out. Smiling, she raised that same hand in order to gaze upon her filigree wedding band with new meaning.

Draven stirred. Stretching, he turned on his back. His stomach gave a hungry gurgle. “Time for supper, darling.”

Isabella scrunched up her nose in refusal, a habit her husband apparently found charming. “I’m not hungry.”

He slid closer to her and plopped his head on her chest. He seductively raised his thick eyebrows up and down. “Oh, but I am.”

“You’re always hungry for
that,
” she giggled.

“You’re absolutely right.”

Urging her head forward with one hand, he caressed her lips with a kiss. She pulled away with a sigh and studied her handsome husband. “Actually, I’m feeling a bit ill lately.”

“Seasick?”

She shook her head as she trailed the masculine lines of his face. “I’ll be fine, but I’m anxious to return home. And you? How do you think your shipbuilders are getting along without you?”

“I hope they aren’t missing too many days of work while I’m gone,” he quipped. Reaching up, he slipped a finger through one of her auburn curls. “I, for one, am dreading going back to Thorncliff Towers. I know we agreed to divide our time between the bloody estate and our London house, but I feel as if bad memories await us on the coast.”

She smiled tenderly. “It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. Thorncliff Towers is a part of you, Draven. Besides, it’s a place I intend to freshen up with a more feminine style. I have excellent taste, you know.”

“I know. You married me, didn’t you?” His lips spread into a dazzling grin.

She swatted his arm.

“Very well.” He yawned lazily. “Change the damned place as much as you like.”

“I know the very room I’ll start with.” She squared her shoulders excitedly.

He supported his head with his hand. “Which would that be?”

She blushed. “My previous bedchamber. After all, in six months’ time we will need a nursery.”

“A nursery?” His pupils dilated. “We? Us? I mean, you and I are going to have a baby?”

“Yes.”

He sprang up with joy. “This is incredible!”

“It happened the night you sent me away from Thorncliff Towers. When your sheath broke . . .”

He scratched his head. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

“I wanted to be sure you truly wanted a child,” she said gently.

He leapt to his feet. “Do you feel all right, darling? Would you like an extra pillow?”

She grinned. “I’m very comfortable. I just want you to come here and hold me close.”

Draven did so with zealotry.

The light of a full moon streamed through the window and illuminated their tender lovemaking that night. Afterward, the redeemed nobleman fell asleep with one hand on his wife’s belly. At the same moment, the rosebush he’d planted with his own hands began to blossom in the garden at Thorncliff Towers. It signified the emergence of spring but more than that, it represented the beautiful baby girl he and Isabella had created.

Less than a mile from Thorncliff Towers, deep in the woods by the Gypsy camp, Marga Yavidovich came upon something shining on the ground. Smiling, she picked up the object and carried it to her wagon. After she locked it away, she hid the key in a secret place.

Tousret’s amulet would be safe with her. For the time being
.

I have always been fascinated with fairy tales, delightfully mesmerized by their timelessness and their magic. It seems that whether readers are young or old, they, too, never cease to be amazed by spells that seem unbreakable—and by the power of true love. I know that altering a classic fairy tale is a bold move, and that changing a “Prince Charming” into a tortured werewolf is even bolder, but I believe today’s romance readers are ready for their heroes to be less perfect and more flawed. Somehow it adds to their allure. Besides, turning a prince into a doomed immortal provides a chance for the princess to shine as the unexpected heroine.

If you liked
Beauty and the Wolf,
I hope you’ll look for
Snow White and the Vampire,
the next Cursed Princes romance, in December 2013.