Jane Feather - Vixen

Impatiently, he swung away from the instrument, picking up his glass. He didn't think he'd ever played it for her anyway. He drained the contents of the glass and refilled it.

His love for Stephen's wife had been a secret he'd kept from everyone but Elizabeth… a secret that the infatuated stripling both nurtured and fed upon during the two years he'd known her. They had never consummated their love. It would have been unthinkable for Elizabeth to have done so, and, despite the gnawing need he had suffered, he had enjoyed the purity of his feelings for her. It was such a contrast to the sewage in which he'd been wallowing.

He remembered the first time he'd met her as if it were yesterday. She had said almost nothing the entire weekend, but he'd been haunted by her beauty, by the shadows in her blue eyes, by the sense of her fragility- and the longing to be of service to her, to rescue her from whatever was causing her such unhappiness, had become an obsession.

It was just after his induction into the Congregation of Eden, as they called themselves, and a meeting was being held at Gresham Hall in Shipton. The society had been founded by Stephen and two of his cronies, and through his son, Jasper, its membership had quickly spread to the younger segment of London's aristocracy, bored with the endless round of pointless pleasures, seeking experiences that would take them beyond the boundaries of the commonplace world.

Hugo had just lost his father when he fell under the spell of the Greshams. Only seven miles separated Den-holm and Shipton, and he'd known them slightly all his life. A motherless only child, lonely and directionless, he had eagerly accepted Jasper's overtures after his father's death, and came to see him almost as an older brother, and Stephen… not as a father, certainly, but the attention of such a worldly sophisticate, such a prominent member of Society, had flattered his youth and inexperience and compensated in some fashion for the loss of his father.

Under Stephen Gresham's leadership, nothing was forbidden the members of the Congregation; there were no risks that couldn't be taken; there were substances that altered the mind… that could as easily create a wondrous world as one so terrifying, it drove a man crazy; there was gaming for stakes that rapidly exhausted a moderate fortune; and there were the women.

He had assumed the women who participated in the orgies in the crypt were willing. Some of them were Society women whom he'd believed to be as eager for the sensual thrills as any of the men. He knew now that not all of them fell into that category; Stephen was not averse to blackmail. The other women were whores, paid more for their participation in one evening than they would make in a month on the streets. Drink and the strange herbal substances that were always in ample supply soon banished any inhibitions.

Until the night Stephen had brought Elizabeth to the crypt…

The tall clock in the library struck two. The dog's howling filled the night. Hugo swore and drank deeply from his recharged glass. For some reason, the brandy wasn't taking effect. He was as far from oblivion as ever, and his thoughts were as raw. But perhaps it wasn't surprising, with Elizabeth's daughter asleep under his roof. And that damned mournful mongrel didn't help either.

He went back to the pianoforte, trying to drown out the desolate sound by concentrating on his music. Abruptly, he stopped, listening, wondering what he'd heard. Some tiny sound from the hall. He shrugged. He hadn't heard anything. How could he have over that racket?

And then miraculously the howling ceased. The silence filled his head and he could hear the sounds of the slumbering house, the creaks and shifts of the oak floors, the slight rattle of the casement in the night breeze.

He went into the hall. The door to the courtyard was unlatched. He could think of only one explanation. Presumably, Chloe was intending to smuggle the dog upstairs.

He opened the door. The sky was cloudless and the summer night was bright with stars shining down onto the deserted courtyard. He decided to wait in the hall for her. If he gave her a fright, she had only herself to blame. However, after fifteen minutes there was no sign of either his ward or the dog. And there was no sound from the stables either.

Curious now, he lit a lantern and went out into the courtyard, crossing to the stables where the miserable Dante had been confined. His footsteps were muffled by the littering straw and he lifted the latch on the stable door with exaggerated care. At first he could see nothing and held the lantern high. A puddle of golden light fell on a corner of an open stall. A small, white-clad figure was curled against the dog in the straw, her arm around his neck, her head resting on his flank.

"Hell and the devil," Hugo muttered with a surge of irritation. She was sleeping like the dead. Dante cocked a benign eye at the intruder and his tail thumped in greeting. Obviously, he didn't know at whose orders he was being made miserable.

Hugo set down the lantern and bent over Chloe. "Wake up," he said, shaking her shoulder. "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

Chloe woke, blinking and bemused. "What… where… oh, I remember." She sat up. "Since you won't let Dante into the house, I had to come to him. I couldn't let him go on howling like that."

"I have never heard such nonsense," he said. "Go up to bed at once."

"Not without Dante," she said flatly. "I haven't slept a wink, it's impossible with him howling. I can't imagine anyone sleeping through it. And now I'm so tired, I'd as soon sleep here as anywhere."

"You are not sleeping in a stable," he stated, standing over her, rocking lightly on the balls of his feet, his hands on his hips.

Chloe regarded him steadily, assessing the strength of his determination, testing it against her own. He'd warned her against challenging him, but this time she had a master card up her sleeve. "Good night," she said with a sweet smile, and by down again.

"You stubborn little brat!" Furious now, he bent, caught her around the waist, and lifted her into the air. Two things happened very quickly. The feel of her skin beneath the thin cambric of her nightgown, the fragrance of her hair, the burning imprint of her body in his hands, set his head spinning in a way that brandy never did, and as he struggled to control his reeling senses, Dante rose, snarling in a flurry of fur and straw, and sank his teeth into Hugo's calf.

Hugo yelled, kicking backward as Chloe slipped from his slackened grasp to the floor.

"Drop."

Chloe's quiet one-word command had an immediate effect. Dante released his grip, but his snarls continued as he watched Hugo with bared teeth.

"Goddammit!" Hugo swore, bending to examine his bleeding leg.

"Oh, dear, I didn't think he would bite you." Chloe knelt down. "I knew he would protect me but…" She bent over the wound. "It's deep."

"I know it's deep! Protect you from what, may I ask?"

Sitting back on her heels, she looked up at him and said simply, "From you forcing me to do something I didn't want to do."

"If you think for one minute that I am going to be intimidated by that damn mongrel in my dealings with you, Miss Gresham, you had better think again," he stated, glaring down at her.

It seemed sensible to back away from further confrontation at this point. Rubbing in her guardian's present disadvantage wouldn't be tactful. "I can't imagine your being intimidated by anything," she said truthfully, standing up. "We'd better go to the kitchen and I'll dress the wound. It probably should be cauterized." She picked up the lantern. "Can you walk? Shall I find you a stick?"

"I can walk," he said curtly, hobbling to the stable door.

Dante bounded ahead of them across the courtyard, up the stairs to the open door, where he paused expectantly, waiting for his companions, whose progress was considerably slower. His tail wagged furiously and one would be hard pressed to recognize the ferocious animal of a few minutes earlier.