Guardian of Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy) (6 page)

He seemed to be deep in thought for a moment
, and Phil tried to digest what he was telling her. It was all just a jumble of information. The only part of the story that stood out with any clarity was that her father had been one of these monsters.

'My father was a Werewolf
,' she murmured in dawning horror. She came to Byron’s side, so she could look up into his troubled eyes, and read the truth there.

‘Yes
. Except for Jamey and myself, everyone who lives here, or has ever lived here, is a Werewolf. Your father and his network were able to bring others like him from all over the Empire to this sanctuary. Those who could pay for their place did so. Those who couldn’t became servants of the household, to pay their way.'

'But i
f you are not one of them, why do you stay here?' she asked in utter bemusement.

'
Because I am needed. As I said, in the early days there were escapes. People died, and more werewolves were created from those who managed to survive an attack. It is not enough to have cells to lock them away. It requires someone, who is not one of them, to lock them in and keep watch, in case of breakouts. I was assigned the task nine years ago. Young Jamie will soon be old enough to replace me. His father is one of our inmates. Jamie chose to join him here, when the rest of his family turned against his father.

'You have to understand. These are all people like you and I for nine tenths of their life. They are not to blame for what they became
. But not one of them believes that. The self-loathing experienced by these people is pitiful.'

Phil reached over
, and took one of Byron’s hands, drawing his attention back from whatever hell he was reliving. She stroked the long square tipped fingers with care. Her admiration for what he had chosen to do with his life knew no bounds. To choose to imprison himself with these monsters, to care for them... it was so selfless as to be saintly.

The bud of love she felt for him began to open its petals a little more. But what good would such feelings be? He had committed himself to this monstrous place
, and she could never do the same. How could her father ever think to bring her here? Knowing what these people were, how could he put her in this kind of danger?

Byron gently extracted his hand from hers. His sadness was so complete she felt like crying for him. But the more she allowed herself to feel for him, the harder it would be to leave this place. And the harder it would be for him to let her go. He knew that.

'I'll leave you to think on what I've told you. I have a letter from your father. He asked me to give it to you when I thought the time was right. I think this is that time. When you are ready to face more, come down to the study. I will await you there.'

Phil was sure she hear
d resignation in his tone. He expected her to leave now. And he was right. How could anyone, who had discovered what she had discovered in the last few hours, consider staying here?

She
wished she had never come to Breckenhill Keep, had never found out her father had not died a hero in the war. She could have lived her quiet little life as a governess, safe in a world she understood and accepted.

If that life was
a colourless existence, it would at least have been ‘normal’. In just a few short hours, everything she had ever believed to be ‘normal’ had changed forever. She would never be able to see the world in exactly the same way again. And if all her senses were now on high alert, if the world seemed oddly more real, even while it bordered on the surreal and fantastic, it was not the kind of reality she wanted. Not even if that meant having the pleasure being in Byron Carstairs’ arms could bring.

She did not doubt anything that Byron had told her. That her father had become this monster
, and showed compassion for others who suffered his plight, made her strangely proud. She understood now why he might not have wanted his wife and child to know what he had become.

A small part of her regretted
not being given the chance to choose. It felt like he had stolen something from her. Monster or not, she suddenly realised that she would have loved to have known her father better.

And there was still a way to know a little more about him. His letter would give her the
missing insights she needed.

Rising
slowly, she made her way out of the room and down to the lower floor of the Keep, where the study was located. Here, she knew, the enigmatic guardian awaited her, with the answers to the last of her questions. Why had her father brought her here now, after protecting her from this nightmare for so long? He could so easily have left her inheritance to her, without the stipulation to stay here for three months. She would never have had to know.

The man who had set up this com
passionate haven for these creatures like himself was not a man of cruelty, she now knew. There was something else he had in mind by forcing her hand.

Now she would find out what.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A stony stranger met her when she opened the study door, the now familiar frown marring his broad forehead. Wordlessly, he offered her a linen envelope with her name engraved on it. It surprised her how shaky her hands were as she took, and opened it. A single sheet of folded linen paper was inside the envelope. It was covered on both sides with a shaky scrawl that took all her concentration, and the lamp Byron had lit, to help her decipher it.

My dearest Phillie

If you are reading this then you have come to Breckenhill Keep
, and found out my terrible secret. I am so sorry to have disillusioned you about your old father. While I lived, I fought long and hard over whether to contact you. I could not do it while your mother lived. She was a sweet woman, and I loved her dearly, but she was not made of sterner stuff.

An officer under fire learns to be a good judge of character. Learns to read the men he commands. His life, and those of his men
, depends on it. So I knew that my secret would destroy your mother. She was not strong enough to bear my burden. She was happier living her respectable life as the war hero's widow. I could not even give her money from an anonymous source, because her pride made her unable to accept charity.

When she died
, I made plans to contact you. I knew my beloved daughter had the makings of a hero, had she been a man. I knew that you might be capable of sharing my secret. But then my sources told me you had found a home with a good friend, and there was hope that a suitable husband would be found for you. I did not want to spoil your chances. I thought that you were better off making your way without me. And I lived on the hope that one day…

But time ran out for me. An injury I sustained while
in my other form became poisoned, and I now know I have not long to live. My beloved girl, I grieve to have not been brave enough to contact you earlier, to have trusted that you, once you knew me for who and what I was, would love me just the same.

You do not have to remain at Breckenhill Keep. But there was no other way of letting you fully see what my life wa
s like. What I had become. Nor was there another way for you to meet the young man I have come to love as a son.

I do not know what you will think of Byron. He is not every young lady's idea of the perfect man. He is arrogant and bad tempered. He says what he thinks
, and never sugar-coats his words for politeness sake. And yet, he is the kindest man I have ever known. His compassion for the plight of the monster who killed his parents marks him as someone very special. I could not die without giving you the opportunity of meeting him.

I do not see my role as match-maker. You are both strong enough characters to know your own minds and hearts. I can only hope that the two people I love
, more than any others, might find true happiness together. If not, then I ask that you leave the Keep in his capable hands, to continue our work. I have made a large bequest in his favour, and, added to his parent’s substantial wealth, he has the financial support to stay or go, as he sees fit. But I know in my heart of hearts that he will stay.

My dear
, darling daughter, do not think of me as a monster who deserted you. Remember me as the man you once knew – the loving father. For, no matter what destiny has made of me; that never changed.

My love always,

Father

Tears poured down Phil's face as she finished the letter. She looked up from the pages of scrawl, and met Byron's searching glare. Through her tears, she smiled sadly.

‘Do you know what this says?’ she asked.

‘No. It was sealed when he gave it to me, and your father did not tell me what he wrote.’

‘He called me a hero. Up until this moment
, my choices would have made mockery of such a belief. I wanted to run from this place, as fast as my legs would take me. I wanted to forget I had ever had a father.’

She stopped speaking
, and looked down at the single sheet of paper that had turned her life upside down again. This time, it felt like she was up the right way, for the first time since news of his death had devastated her world.

‘And now?’ She could hear the cautious hope in Byron’s voice. He wanted to believe in her, as her father had. He wanted her to stay.

‘And now I want to know my father and his legacy. I want to see value in what he was trying to do here. What you are trying to do here. It is hard for me to see these people as anything but monsters. But while ever I do, I have to see my father that way, too. And this,’ she held out the letter. ‘This shows me he was not a monster. He was a compassionate and brave man, struggling to make a worthwhile life for himself and those like him.’

‘So you will stay for three months
, as the Will required?’

‘Yes, I will. I want to fully understand what my choices will mean. If I run away now, I will never know.’

‘Good. That is good. I know your father would be very pleased by your decision.’ He allowed himself to smile just a little. She knew he was not letting himself get too optimistic. And he was right to do so.

Even after she had stayed her three months, the chances were
that she would leave this place forever. There was a whole world beyond the walls of Breckenhill Keep that she wanted to explore. She was not a self-sacrificing saint like Byron. She would not dedicate her life to the wellbeing of a group of people she didn’t much like. She would not imprison herself forever in the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors. Her father might want her to form an attachment to Byron, and stay, but that was impossible. No matter how much her heart cried out to the contrary.

‘So, did he give you a reason why he brought you here?’ Byron asked, coming to her side to take her arm.

‘He wanted me to know him and you.’ She let him direct her toward the study door. It was the first gentlemanly action she could remember him making.

‘Me?’

She looked up at him, and found she couldn’t hold back from him. Grinning cheekily, she tilted her head to a coquettish angle, and batted her eyelashes at him in an exaggerated parody of flirtation.

‘It would seem my father saw you as husband material, for all your arrogance and bad temper.’

He let out a loud and hearty laugh that made her grin more broadly. What was it about this man’s laugh that made her heart lift? How could they have formed such a symbiotic relationship so quickly, that meant his mood could so affect hers?

‘He brought you here for me? He must have been further gone in those last hours than I thought.’

‘You do not approve of his match-making?’ She batted her eyelashes again, and dimpled her cheeks. He roared with laughter.

Then he sobered
, and she felt the change in his mood, as surely as if it were her own. ‘He would know what a match between us would mean. I find it hard to imagine him wanting all this for you. If you were my daughter, I would want bright, glittering balls and handsome young men dancing attendance on you. I would want the richest and most titled suitor I could find for you, so that I knew that you would live the perfect life. I would never condemn you to Breckenhill Keep and someone like me.’

She turned so she could look up at him
, face to face. All silliness was forgotten. The world he wanted for her so matched her own desires that it hurt. The only difference for her would be him. There would be no need of a rich and titled beau for her. Byron Carstairs would be all she would ever want or need. But she couldn’t have him and that other world. The only way she could have him was to accept this nightmare as her own for a lifetime.

No romance was worth that.

CHAPTER NINE

Phil threw herself into the world of Breckenhill Keep with a vengeance. Now she knew who and what these people were, she was determined to assess their worth, as she would any person she became acquainted with. If her father saw something worth saving in these souls, then she would discover what that was for herself.

She first had to meet each of them
, and discover their place in the household. Byron made it his task to help her do this as quickly as possible. He declared a special welcome dinner in her honour the next night, where all those who lived and worked at the Keep would attend.

To help
alleviate some of Charlotte’s issues with her, Phil asked to be allocated her father’s room. In this way, she felt she could not only make peace with the girl, but get to know her father a little better. His room would be a reflection of him.

That his room was only half the size of the one Byron had given her
, was a bit of a shock. But, it did give her an insight into her father. He didn’t require luxurious surroundings. He was content with a soldier’s space. But Byron was not as willing for her to let go of the luxuries. From somewhere, he had a large down-filled mattress and four-poster, mahogany bed brought up to replace the flat, comfortless pallet her father had used.

He also made sure it was covered with the best linens and blankets the Keep had available. And he replaced the old leather chair that stood in front of the fireplace with a softer more comfortable piece of furniture. B
ut Phil wouldn’t let him take her father’s chair away. She had him set it over by the window, so that when she wanted to feel close to her father she could sit in it, and stare out at the wild moors that had been his home for the last ten years of his life.

As her new
room was being made ready for her, Phil had a chance to get to know Mary, her little maid. She was such a quiet little thing that it was easy to forget her existence. It was even harder to imagine her as a werewolf. Anyone less fierce she was yet to meet.

At first
, the girl kept her head down and her shoulders curved in, as if she protected her heart from attack. Any replies she made to Phil’s questions were in monosyllables. It was as if she was trying to keep distance between herself and her new mistress.

In the end Phil
sat the girl down, and spoke to her directly.

‘Mary,
you don’t know anything about me, so it is easy to think that I would be like any other upper-class lady you have known. I am not. I lived in genteel poverty for most of my life. My mother crocheted lace collars to make enough money for us to live. When she died, I became a governess – a servant just like you. I don’t want us to have class barriers between us. I would like to be your friend, if I may.’

The mouse-
like woman suddenly looked up at her, and met her gaze. Her pale blue eyes were anything but mousey. They burned with a hellish fire that took Phil’s breath away.

‘It ain’t class that separates us
, Miss, ‘tis the beast. You can’t know what it is to be one of us, even if you live here for the rest of your life. And monsters like us don’t have friends. Ever.’

Phil didn’t know what to say to that. She felt rejected
, as surely as if the woman had snubbed her in public. But it didn’t feel like the rejection was personal. It felt more like she was unable to imagine someone like herself having something as ordinary as friendship. As if she didn’t deserve it. That was so sad. She wondered what had happened to the girl to make her feel cut off from the rest of humanity this way. Other than the obvious.

Later in the afternoon, Byron stopped in to see how the settling in was progressing. Mary had gone back to her normal activities
by then, and Phil was busy sorting her books onto her father’s book case next to his desk.

‘Can you tell me a little about Mary
? She is so hard to get to know,’ she asked him as he hovered just inside the open doorway.

Byron frowned
, and closed the bedroom door behind him. Then he sat on her father’s chair, so he could look thoughtfully out the window at the world that was still wet and overcast.

Phil put down her books, tried to forget that Byron had sealed them into this room together, alone, and went to sit on her new chair by the low burning fire.

‘Mary came to us about three years ago. She was injured trying to save the child in her care from attack. It was winter, and Mary had stayed too long at the park with her charge. The beast toppled the child, mauling her to death, before Mary had a chance to do anything. When she did, the beast turned on her, and bit her hand. A constable shot the beast dead before it could do more harm.’

‘Do all of Her Majesty’s Constabulary know of the existence
of werewolves?’

‘No. There is a special task force spread thinly around the country
– a secret task force, made up of those who have had personal contact with werewolves. Their role is to follow up on any sightings, track down the beasts, and kill them, if they are an immediate threat to the populace.

‘They inform us of what has transpired. We step in where the person has returned to himself, and survived. And we take in those who have been turned. The Captain had tried to create a protocol where the beasts could be trapped
, rather than killed, during the full moon. But it was too dangerous. The slightest injury condemned a person to this living hell. The risk was too great.

‘We brought Mary to us a few days later, after she had recovered a little from the shock of what she had witnessed. She blames herself for the death of her charge. She hates the beast that killed that child, the beast that she now is
. Her self-loathing and guilt are common amongst the residents.’

Phil sat quietly
, turning over what she had learned. It seemed so unfair that someone as brave as Mary obviously was, should be condemned to life as one of these loathed beasts.

‘One thing you need to know about the werewolf. It attacks only those that are wounded or
are, in some other way, defenceless. Like children. That is why a battlefield is sure place to find them.’

‘I have seen no children living here. Except Jamey
, of course.’

‘Children never survive an attack.’

Phil fell silent again, as she tried to digest this horrifying piece of news. No wonder these people felt such self-loathing. To think that they were capable of killing helpless children… it was awful.

‘So, do not expect to make a fr
iend of Mary. She is closest to Charlotte, because she feels sorry for her, and Cook, because they see themselves as servants.  But Mary has no real friends.’

‘Was Will turned in the Crimea
too?’

‘No, Will returned home unscathed. He became a professional pugilist, and after one particularly vicious fight he wa
s on his way home when he came upon a wolf attacking a drunk. He drove the beast off, but not before the drunk was dead. As far as he remembers, the beast didn’t bite or scratch him, but his open wounds from the fight probably allowed the contagion to enter his system. He continued to fight, and it wasn’t until after his first full moon that he had a sense of what had happened to him.

‘What you must understand is that when they are in werewolf form, they have no sense of themselves as human. When they return, there is usually no memory of what it was to be in beast form
, either. Sometimes there are flashes, sensory images, mainly. Waking up naked in an alley, a bullet in his shoulder, and a memory of knocking a drunk to the ground, was all Will had of his first night. The special task force found him, had his injury tended, and imprisoned him through the two subsequent nights of his first full moon. Then he was brought here. That was seven years ago.’

‘Did he kill
the drunk he attacked?’

‘Supposedly not, nor did he injure him. The constable giving chase shot him
before he did more than knock him down. Then he escaped, injured, into the back alleys of Whitechapel.’

‘He seems feral, even in human f
orm.’ Phil couldn’t help saying.

‘Will has a wild streak that the wolf has
exaggerated. But he was a disciplined soldier, and he is someone I would trust with my life. He is the only resident who accepts what he is. Your father had come to terms with the beast, over the years, too. But now Will alone has that gift. You will come to understand what I mean, the longer you interact with them.’

‘Are they very ugly?’

Byron grunted a laugh. ‘Of all the concerns I would expect you to have – their appearance wasn’t one of them. But to answer your question – no, not ugly. They resemble a large, muscular wolf. They vary in size, depending on their gender and physicality in human form, but most stand about the size of a Shetland pony. They are fierce and frightening, but not unattractive.’ 

‘How does it happen? Here. What do you do?’ Her curiosity was now fully engaged
, and she wanted to know more about these people she now shared her life with, if only for the next few months.

‘As it approaches dark
, on the first night of the full moon, they all move down to the cells. We get the furnace going, so the air is not too cold for them, as they must remove their clothes before the change. That is why there is a male and female wing. They are naked before and after the change. Once in wolf form, they don’t feel the cold, but for those ten or fifteen minutes at either end, being naked down there is very uncomfortable.’

Phil tried to hide her shock at the idea of women standing naked in those cells she had seen the day before. It seemed a cruel thing to do to them.

‘Why must they be naked?’

‘Because the change tears the fabric from their bodies.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘No. It is a painless morphing. They usually drop into un
consciousness for the few minutes before the shift, and again when they come back. It is fascinating to watch.’

Phil felt her face fire up at the thought of Byron watching Charlotte shift from naked
, beautiful woman into her wolf form. She also felt the first stabs of jealousy follow quickly on that thought.

‘Surely a gentleman wouldn’t watch…’

‘Not the women. No, of course not. But I have witnessed the males change, more than once. You cannot help it. Some go through the shift faster than others. My task is to secure all the cages, and take the clothes from the men. The women are forced to push their clothes out into the walkway. If the beast can get to them, it will tear fabric to shreds. That’s why there is no bedding down there, either. They take out their frustration with being caged by shredding anything they can get their teeth into.’

‘
I cannot imagine what it must be like. And to go through it, every month for a lifetime.’

‘Yes. For most of them, it is a fate worse than death. There are less residents
now, than there have been in the past. Many take their own lives, when the weight of their burden becomes too great.’

‘Oh Heavens, that is terrible!’

‘Yes. That is what the man who killed my parents did. He was the officer whose parents financed this sanctuary. He lived here with your father and several others for a year, until that fateful night when he escaped. When he came back to himself, and found out what he had done. He hung himself. I was the one who found him. In a way, I blame myself. Having me around, knowing he was responsible for my grief and pain, finally made it too much for him to bear.’

‘
I wondered who had taken your parents. I was afraid to ask, in case it turned out to be my father.’

‘The Captain wouldn’t tell me who the culprit was until after he had taken his own life. Up until then
, I did wonder if it was your father. But he had been the first on the scene the next morning, in full military regalia. It didn’t seem logical that he could have returned to the Keep in time to make the change, and come looking for me.’

‘I am glad it wasn’t my father, anyway.’

‘So am I.’

‘Are you ready to go down to your welcome dinner? It is growing late
, and we eat early here.’

‘Certainly. I am looking forward to meeting everyone properly and all in one place.’ And although it was partly politeness that made her say that, there was an element of truth
, too. She did want to get to know these strange, tortured souls her father had cared for. Even after only a day, they had stopped being monsters to her.