Raising her hand to her nose, the smell of cinnamon clung stronger than her scent. How strange and too odd to think about. Her gaze shot to the closed door to the hall. In the faint light she counted eight thrown bolts. Exhaustion fluttered her eyelids shut, and she drifted into a strange and blissful sleep.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
“Ma’am. Ma’am.”
Jane woke with a start. Scrambling her body to the upright position, she stared at the door. She scrutinized the line of eight securely latched locks and then pinched the bridge of her nose. It had all been a dream.
“Ma’am, I have your laundered garments.”
“One moment.” She pushed off the bed and headed for the door. Sliding each latch open, she turned the knob. Surely a dream.
“Pardon, ma’am.” A hand thrust through the opening; it was holding her dark gray wool dress, stockings, petticoat, and corset. She clutched them. “Thank you.” Then she peeked her head through the crack in the door.
“Lord Tremarctos has been informed of your stay with us and wishes you to take breakfast with the family.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I will send Jerome up in a quarter of an hour to escort you to the hall.”
“Very well.” She shut the door and bolted the locks. All she wanted to do was depart and straighten out this whole day with Jonathan, but she would like to see the house in daylight. Leaving an hour later would not change the situation one whit. She frowned.
Turning back toward the bed, she gasped. Across the chair she had sat in the night before, a stunning pale green muslin dress lay. The color exactly matched her eyes. “Where did that come from?”
She raised her hand to touch the smooth, expensive fabric and noticed her hand wavering. She clenched her fingers into a fist. He had said he loved her eyes. It had been a dream, right? She turned away from the temptation and studied the room. No one could have gotten in. There was one door, and the window…
She rushed to the drapes and pulled them back. Rain came down steadily beyond the panes of clear glass, but the bolt remained latched. Certainly the dress had been there last night. How strange she had not noticed the garment. Then again, her mind had swum in other issues last night.
She glanced at the bed; the color of the linens shone a deep crimson in the daylight. The carvings entwining the posts depicted beautifully detailed bears.
Her fingers glided along the carved figure of one bear. Smooth and cool, the bear stood on its hind legs and fought with paws and mouth the next bear carved into the richly hued wood.
She bit her lip as her fingers stilled on the interlocking paws and mouth. Her stomach fluttered, and her other hand spread across the taut surface. How odd! Surely her stomach rumbled because of hunger. She needed to dress and feed her rumbling middle.
She gazed at the gray wool draped over her arm and then glanced longingly at the fine muslin stretched across the back of the chair. How silly to long for a piece of clothing. She had never owned such a fine-looking garment. Yet that dress pulled at her.
She wanted to put on the garment, to feel the slip of the fine fabric down her body. Would it be as smooth and as warm as the touch of her lover? She gasped and turned away from the dress. Nonsense, just nonsense.
“Bruno, are you sure she remained bolted in when you asked her to come to me this morning?” Lord Tremarctos shifted, agitated in his seat behind his desk.
“Yes, your grace. I heard the bolts slide. There is no way she could have faked it.”
Very interesting. His brows lowered, and the corner of his lip curved up in concentration. His boars were all on edge this sunrise. The disquiet surely came from the smell of a woman inside the walls of Tremarctos.
“Still, none of this sits well. Does it, Bruno?”
“No, your grace.”
With the torrential rain, she would not leave until the ill weather ceased. “Make sure all my boars are at breakfast. I don’t want one of them coming across her without the knowledge that she is our guest. Or for her to be caught off guard by one of us.” If we are all in the same room, the situation will arise without much prodding. Then he could decide what needed to be done.
“Yes, your grace. I will rouse them.”
Lord Tremarctos stared after Bruno as he shut the door to his study. His fist clenched, breaking his quill in half. Please let the knife in his gut be for sane reasons, not for the dread that came to him in his sleep last night. Oscar. His teeth clenched. No…they all would surely want to fuck her. Even if she was not a mate, the smell of innocence shed pulled at even him. Let his unease be only that. His fist hit the desk with a loud thud.
Ursus…please stay dormant—he squeezed his eyes shut—and let his sons choose a mate without the turmoil that had stayed with him for a lifetime.
3
Beautiful. Jane stepped across the threshold into a magnificent dining room. Along one wall stood large windows partially covered by thick black drapes. In the center of the room, a large black-stained wooden table stood polished to a slick shine, surrounded by substantial black and gray upholstered chairs. She could see the dinner guests, in their fancy dresses, sitting in the large chairs. They laughed and sipped spiced wine. Sweet mother! The room glittered with the polish and sophistication of the moneyed.
With not a sound in the room, her slippers echoed throughout on the black polished floor. She glanced down at her gray wool once again and cringed. She looked frumpy and so out of place in such surroundings. Jerome, who escorted her, held out a seat for her halfway down the table. She smiled and sat. “Thank you,” she whispered, afraid to break the tranquil atmosphere.
“What do you take for repast?”
“Tea and something sweet—no, cinnamon, if you have it.” She could still smell the scent from her dream.
“Ma’am.” He scurried to the sideboard and brought her a teapot and cup. She picked up the pot and poured the steaming liquid. Setting the pot back on the table, she glanced down at her lap. My stars! The chair made her dainty, and she was far from small.
“Now behave.” A deep voice came from out in the hall, and her gaze shot to the door. An elegant, massive man paused at the doorway; then he entered the room with an air of control.
“Welcome to Tremarctos, ma’am.” He held up a hand. “Stay seated. I am Lord Tremarctos, and these are my boars.” The elegant, gray-haired man pointed to the door as man after large man entered the room behind him. All of them possessed something from the elder. Boars surely meant sons.
Boar? The word felt oddly familiar.
“What is Tremarctos?”
“Why, this place,” the youngest-looking one replied as he slid out the chair beside her. “Devon Ursus at your service, ma’am.”
His blond hair, pulled back from his face, displayed striking angles that lit up when he smiled. His icy blue eyes assessed her as if gazing straight through to her soul. Her blood heated with wicked sensations. He tore his gaze away, leaving a chill in her bones.
“And you are?”
Jane jumped and turned toward the voice that came from the other side of her. Another of the large men sat down, and awareness skittered through her body. “Oh, pardon…I am Miss Jane Milton.”
The heat of the two enormous male bodies surrounding her tangled her emotions. How she wanted one of them to touch her—yet she feared that touch at the same time. Any one of them could crush her like a fly.
“Miss Milton. I am Mac, and that rogue there,” he lifted his hand and pointed to his brother standing against the wall, “is Martin, my twin.”
They