not be returning to your suite, but that other wolf surely will, and it will kill you, Sara, just as it killed Nell."

"Why couldn't you have told me all this from the start?" she moaned.

"Would you have believed me, if I had?"

She hesitated. "No," she said low-voiced. "Probably not then. I don't even know what to believe now.

This is preposterous!"

"Well, there it is," he said, the words slumping his body. "I didn't tell you, because I didn't want to lose

you."

"That is unfortunate. You should have trusted me enough to take the chance," she said, rising from the lounge. Dawn was breaking. The first bleak ribbons of a cottony fog were pressed up against the

windowpanes, throwing a distorted shaft of light on the floor between them. "The storm is over," she observed. "The vicar is coming this morning for the burial, and then the guards will doubtless return to finish searching the house and grounds for... Nero, the mad dog they think has killed her!"

"Sara..."

"Not now, Nicholas," she murmured. "I need time to sort all this out. We must see to Nell first. We owe her that much... / owe her that much."

"Will you promise me that you'll lock your door until the other wolf is found... and dealt with?"

Sara nodded.

"Nero gave him a few more wounds just now. That will only serve to rile him more than he is already. I will be in the green suite each night until this is resolved, and I will be armed."

When she started to move past him, he took her in his arms, but she held him at bay with both her tiny hands pressed against his breast, and would not look him in the eyes.

"Not now, Nicholas," she said. "Please... don't! I need time to think."

Nicholas hung his head. "Of course," he said. The words tasted of bile. The worst of it was, she was right: He should have trusted her. He should have taken the chance. Even Mills had said as much.

"I love you, Sara," he said. "I don't want you to leave me, but you are not a prisoner here. I told you that at the start. If you cannot accept this situation-accept me, and our arrangement under these circumstances-I shall use my connections to petition the proper authority to release you from your vows. Either way, it will be a lengthy process. I shan't lie to you; it could take years. I'm not trying to persuade you, only to make you aware, but you needn't be cast upon poor relations if it comes to that. I have other estates, where you could be housed in comfort pending resolution. In return, I ask only that you not betray my secret. I shouldn't want this bruited about, or I will likely be hunted down like the animal... that I am."

Sara made no reply. She burst into deep, wracking sobs, broke free of his embrace, and fled.

Chapter Twenty-six.

Nicholas moved through the motions of the burial with a close eye upon Sara, who gave him no opportunity to continue their conversation. He would not press her. He watched in rapt amazement as she stood at the graveside, consoling the servants, taking matters in hand in a way that he himself never could have done, as though nothing had happened between them, though she would not meet his eyes. It was just as well. She had been crying. Despite a liberal application of talc, her fair skin was painted with blotches, and her eyes were nearly swollen shut. It seemed natural enough, considering the solemnity of the funeral rites amongst a collection of grieving servants beneath a dreary watercolor sky all shades of gray. But if she had dosed him with her teary-eyed gaze, he would have been hard-pressed to meet it, knowing that he had put the tears on those soft rose-petal cheeks.

Anticipation of the guards descending upon Ravencliff had everyone on edge. As the day wore on and they didn't come, Nicholas took matters into his own hands. Wearing a caped greatcoat, and armed with a pair of Harcourt flintlock dueling pistols in his pockets, he set out to comb the manor from top to bottom, and every inch of the grounds. Stopping first at the tapestry suite, he knocked and waited, encouraged that the door was closed, and reassured when Sara threw the bolt, barely cracking it open.

"I told you I needed time, Nicholas," she said, opening the door a little wider, but not wide enough to admit him.

"I haven't come for your answer," he said. "I've come to give you this." He exhibited the pocket pistol he'd been carrying all along. "And to show you how to use it."

"I don't want that, Nicholas."

"It's no longer a matter of what we want, Sara. You need to be protected. Just be certain before you shoot. Nero will never menace you." He shoved it through the door. "Here, take it. Be careful. It's loaded."

Sara hesitated. "I... I don't like guns," she said.

"Take it!" he insisted, "and this." He handed her a small case lined in burgundy baize. "The implements and ammunition you need to reload are inside. Do you see this key? It fits into the tool that allows you to remove the barrel for loading and cleaning. Here, let me show you."

"I know how to load a pocket pistol, Nicholas," she snapped. "My father was a military man, remember? I even carried a muff pistol once, on a journey from Nottingham to London. Father insisted, because of the highwaymen who frequented that quarter."

"I'd like to hear the whys and wherefores of that, by God, but it will have to wait for another time. Keep that pistol by you, and keep this door locked. I shall collect you at the dinner hour, and return you here afterward. Then, after my session with Dr. Breeden, I shall retire across the way in case you have need of me."

"You don't have to do that, Nicholas. I'm hardly a child," she snapped.

"It's that, or I post the hall boys outside your suite again. You decide."

Sara heaved a ragged sigh. "Do as you please," she said with a shrug.

"You realize, of course, that you cannot discuss the situation at table. You know how the servants eavesdrop in this house. The last thing we need here now is to have more tales circulating in the village."

"You needn't worry," she said. "I'll behave." She took his measure. "Where are you going now, with those?" she said, nodding toward the dueling pistols protruding from his pocket.

"Hunting. Now lock this door," he pronounced, and waited while she closed it and slid the bolt.

Nicholas searched until twilight deepened the shadows and he had to light a candlestick, but there was no sign of Mallory. Convinced that the wolf was hiding somewhere along the passageway in one of the secret chambers, he haunted the lower regions, and followed the tunnel to its end, to the dungeon, and the revolving panel that gave access to the granite apron that edged the cliff. Nero had used it many times to exit the house.

Nagging at the back of his mind was the recollection that Alex Mallory had always been fascinated by the intricacies of Ravencliff; its many hiding places, branched corridors, access doors, and false walls. The steward knew them all-but so did Nicholas, or at least he thought he did. Some he hadn't visited since a child, and others Nero frequented on a regular basis.

There was a way to lock the tunnel exit, though it hadn't been employed in years, a tongue-and-groove mechanism hewn into the top of the panel that, once activated, prevented the panel from swiveling. A man could work it, but a wolf could not. If he were to engage it, and the slabs meshed inside the wall, he would be locking the wolf either in, or out. He would also be depriving himself... or Nero of an exit route if the need should arise. He tried to put himself in the mind of the wolf, and gave it only passing thought, be-fore he tripped the mechanism. The grating rumble of stone against stone echoed along the corridor. It was a gamble, but unless he missed his guess, the wolf was somewhere in the house and would surface soon enough with his exit route removed. Counting upon his instincts not to play him false, he retraced his steps, but the lower regions were vacant.

A search of the grounds on the courtyard side yielded nothing either, and he dragged himself back to the house at the end of it, drenched with the evening mist, and chilled to the bone, as was often the way of it long into summer in soft weather on the Cornish coast.

There was no way to repair the damage before the evening meal, though he did opt for a change of clothes, and ordered the hearths lit again in the dining hall, and in the master, tapestry, and green suites. The house was dank and musty, the old walls bleeding with mildew and rising damp. That had never bothered him before. Somehow, everything bothered him now.

Sara accompanied him to the dining hall in silence. Her eyes were still puffy and red, but the blotches had either faded, or been doctored more expertly with talc. He suspected the latter. The conversation was congenial, though forced during the meal. Dr. Breeden watched Sara's every move just as he did, but she was the perfect hostess, above reproach, and Nicholas began to relax-as much as was possible under the enchantment of her closeness.

The low-cut decollete of her sprigged muslin gown drew his eyes. He'd already tasted with his lips what lay beneath. How sweet it was to suckle at those perfect breasts. How magical to feel the silky softness of her skin beneath his fingers, rough by contrast; to feel the tall rosebud nipples harden against his tongue. How well they fitted together, as if she were the missing part of him, without which he had never been whole. What ecstasy it would be to feel himself live inside the soft, moist warmth of her, filling her, moving to her rhythm. He'd imagined it a thousand times, but it could never be. His indigo breeches began to pinch, and he changed position in the chair. It didn't help. He was tight against the seam, and thankful that he was seated and would be for some time.

Her scent was all around him-in him-threading through his nostrils, the subtle sweetness of gillyflower and roses chasing the stink of damp and decay. He inhaled it in deep breaths disguised as stifled sighs. Soon, the roses would bloom in the gardens, and flood the house with their perfume as they always did in summer, but their scent would pale before hers now, and torment him forever if she were to leave.

After the meal, he returned her to her suite, and waited while she threw the bolt. No words passed between them, except for a strained "good night." Afterward, he dragged himself back up to the master suite sitting room, where Dr. Breeden had set up the armonica, and was waiting with his nightly cordial, while Mills and the footmen readied his bath.

"It's no use," Nicholas said, after half an hour of the doctor's treatments. "There's too much on my conscious mind for it to give way to my subconscious, I'm afraid. I'm sorry."

"Not to worry, my lord. We've plenty of time."

"That's just it, we don't," Nicholas said. "The baroness saw me transform last night. How she hasn't fled the place by now is a mystery, and a miracle. It may still happen. She hasn't given me her answer yet, but I'm afraid I know what it will be."

They hadn't had time to converse since it occurred, what with the funeral, and Dr. Breeden had been shut up in the herbarium half the day. Before long, Nicholas had told him everything that had transpired since he'd carried Sara up from the lower regions. When he finished, he raised his bowed head, his misty eyes pleading.

"What am I going to do, Dr. Breeden?" he asked.

"You need to consummate your marriage, my lord, if you mean to keep her."

"It nearly happened before all this. But now... I can't very well force her, and I haven't the right to stand in her way if she wants her freedom. She is young and vital... she deserves so much more than I have to give... than I can give under the circumstances."

"But you love her, my lord," said the doctor, "and she loves you, or she would be gone by now, I'll be bound. I saw her at table tonight. She's been crying. At first, I thought it was because of the abigail's death, but now I see it was quite something else."

"Marrying her... bringing her here was a mistake," said Nicholas. "I was a fool to think I could live some semblance of a normal life." He surged to his feet and began to pace the carpet. "The least I can do, is try to rectify it before..."

"Before what, my lord?" the doctor prompted. "If you were about to say 'before it's too late,' don't waste your breath."

"I shall wait for her decision, and act accordingly. There aren't grounds for a Parliamentary divorce. There's been no adultery, and I am not a fiend threatening her life. Besides, even if there were a way, it could take as long as a year. Parliament has to be sitting, for one thing, and its regular business concluded, before such an appeal could be addressed. The cutoff date for petitioning has already passed for this year. I would have to wait until the end of November to petition. An annulment might be arranged, and I have the connections to do it. I shall have to look into it. I must have been mad to let it go as far as it has between us. There's always the outside chance that I could transform right in the conjugal bed!"

"Not... necessarily now," said the doctor.

"Why, not now?"

"She knows," the doctor said flatly. "The fear that it might happen no longer exists. That alone may well keep you calm enough to make love to your bride."

"And you think I ought take that chance?" He stopped pacing, loosed a guttural chuckle, and shook his head. "I may be half mad with all of this, but I'm not addled."

"I think, my lord, that you might test the theory. She already knows. The worst that could happen is transformation, and you will have enough forewarning to spare her and yourself any embarrassment if it does happen."

"All well and good, but there is still the matter of passing the condition on, as my father passed it on to me, to be considered. I will not take that chance."

The doctor heaved a sigh. "Who told you the condition could be passed on through the blood, my lord?"

"Why, no one. I just assumed, because Father passed this on to me in that way-"

"There are no statistics on that, my lord," the doctor interrupted. "We do not even know if your particular condition can be passed on in that way, considering that it is a weaker strain, and something entirely different from that transmitted by the wolf that bit your father. Again we've got the cart before the horse, my lord. Those are gray areas."

"All the more reason to be wary," said Nicholas.

"Wary yes, but closed minded? Never! I am first and foremost a scientist, my lord. For the sake of argument, let's just suppose that-despite all possible precautions-conception occurred. We know that the shapeshifter's animal incarnation takes on the personality of its host-case in point, Nero: fiercely loyal, good natured, well mannered, nonviolent unless provoked. In short, a gentleman wolf, if you will allow, just as you are a gentleman, my lord. If the condition is transferable, the worst that could happen would be that your offspring would be as you are."

Nicholas shook his head in adamant disagreement. "With the same fears, the same restrictions?" he said. "Condemn it to a life of forced exile from the world, and all its joys and pleasures, when I have the right to spare it such a sentence? No-never!"

"But, do you really have that right?"

"Yes, I do," Nicholas snapped. "I would not wish this madness upon my worst enemy, let alone my own flesh and blood. I am not my father's son in that regard. I am not so blinded whoring after an heir that I cannot foresee the pitfalls of my actions."

"All right, then, that is your prerogative. There are other ways that cohabitation can be managed to your mutual satisfaction-age-old ways of addressing the problem with herbs that go back to Biblical times. That cordial there"-he nodded toward it-"already contains ingredients that will help, and her ladyship can be instructed in certain internal and external methods also."

"What sort of 'methods'?"

"For example, French prostitutes have used a sponge affair for years, my lord. The same method is used here now by prostitutes and courtesans, and those whose health is too fragile to survive childbirth. You mentioned once that light-skirts and courtesans usually take care of such matters. Trust them to know how. They've been at it since time out of mind. Treated with certain herbs, the sponge I mentioned can be quite effective. A salve made of the herbs themselves is another alternative. Believe me, my lord, the situation is far from hopeless. I can have what's needed sent from London. She will, however, not be able to use either the first time."

"Nothing can be done until the baroness decides," said Nicholas.

"Would it help if I were to speak to her about your condition?" said Breeden. "Perhaps coming from me ..."

"No," Nicholas responded. "It must be her decision and hers alone. I won't have her swayed. There's no need of convincing. She saw. Now it's a matter of her being able to live with what she saw."

"As you wish, my lord, but if you should change your mind, I would be only too glad to rise to the occasion. Meanwhile, with your kind permission, I shall have one of your staff send word on to London for some supplies I have need of, and the article I described to you for my lady, in anticipation of a happy outcome to all this, eh?"

"In anticipation," Nicholas mused. The poor man was doing his best, after all. The least he could do was humor him. "Well, then," he said, gesturing toward the armonica. "Shall we try again?"

Though they did try, again and again, nothing significant was gained that Nicholas could see, and nothing would be, as far as he was concerned, until Alexander Mallory was found in one incarnation or another, and justice was meted out accordingly.

For the next three days, foul weather prevented the guards from returning, and Nicholas haunted the convoluted corridors and passageways of the old house armed with loaded pistols. By night he kept his vigil over Sara, wide-eyed from the green suite across from her own until dawn, catching only brief snatches of sleep when it overpowered him. Still, she had not given him her decision. She hadn't spoken alone with him, for that matter. Why hadn't she decided? Was her hesitation a good sign, or a bad one? Could she be waiting for the situation with Alex Mallory to be resolved before she committed to belief in what he'd told her? Was it proof she wanted? There was no way to tell, and his brain hurt from trying to make sense of it.

Calm, he had to stay calm. That was becoming harder and harder to do as the tensions mounted from all directions. He dared not transform with the whole house gunning for Nero, but now Sara knew. With that obstacle removed, while Nero was still being hunted, he could at least cancel the search for Alex Mallory in his human form. Dr. Breeden was in accord that it wasn't likely Mallory would transform if he hadn't by now, and Nicholas decided to spread the tale that the steward had reappeared and been sacked. If he did change back and surface afterward, it could always be said that he'd sneaked back in via one of the smugglers' entrances he was so fond of. It was a gamble, but there was no other alternative. He would just have to deal with that if it occurred.

On the morning of the fourth day after the funeral, Smythe presented himself on the study threshold. From the look on the butler's grim face, Nicholas was loath to bid him enter.

"What is it, Smythe?" he said.

"Begging your pardon, my lord," the butler said. "I've come to voice some concerns from below stairs."

Nicholas set his quill down with painstaking control, and folded his hands atop the ledger he was working in.

"Concerns?" he parroted.

"Yes, my lord," said the butler. "The truth of it is we're all afraid below stairs... of the dog... of Nero... after what's happened to Nell."

Nicholas wanted to blurt out: Nero wouldn't harm a hair on any of your heads, you nodcock! Though he should, judging from some of the tidbits he's discovered spying on you lot below stairs. He took a less inflammatory tack.

"Have you seen the animal since, Smythe?" he said. The servants' quarters were the only area in the house he hadn't searched.

"That's just it, my lord, we haven't, but the food keeps disappearing."

"Food? What food? Don't tell me you've been setting food out for that animal?" He surged to his feet. He was well aware that Sara had been feeding it, but all that ceased after he told her the truth, and he'd been hoping hunger would drive it into the open. His blood was boiling.

"Y-yes, my lord," said the butler, taking a step back from him. "We always left food out for him in the past, you know that. Then, after what happened to Nell, we stopped, but food went missing from the larder-meat, and fowl mostly, a good deal of it, so we started leaving food out for him again, for fear we'd be next if we didn't. He made a fine mess below, my lord."

"And you're just coming to me with it now?" Nicholas thundered.