Free Tempting the Wolf by Lois Greiman

mistress,” he said, “I believe an acquaintance of mine was here last eventide.”
    The old woman gave a jerk of her head, eyes bloodshot and beady in her creased face. “And who might you be?”
    He gave her a bow. “Me name be O’Banyon, lass, of the fighting Irish. ‘Tis pleased I am to meet ye. Do I have the proper house? Did a lady come by during the night just past? She is—”
    ” ‘E’s dead,” she croaked.
    O’Banyon felt the air escape his lungs. “Yer pardon, mistress.”
    “Cush is dead. Dead and gone. She’ll get nothing more from ‘im,” she said and closed the door in his face.

Chapter 7

     
    O’Banyon strode down the uneven street toward the livery. The stately stores that lined Cavendish Square were placid compared to the bustling open shops of Borough Market, but his mind was still whirling. What the devil was happening? Why had the countess visited the hovel in East End? What had she done there? He’d spent a poor night wondering just that… and dreaming, dreaming of an ethereal lass with sable-dark hair and fairy-green eyes. But well before dawn the apparition had changed into something horrible and beautiful. Something he could not fight, could not hope to conquer. And yet he
had
fought, had battled as if his very soul were at risk. For indeed, it was. He’d awakened in a cold sweat, breath rattling in his lungs, fingers clinging to his scattered bed sheets.
    It had taken him some time to calm his charging senses and realize all was well. He was whole. He was free, not forever trapped in ancient stone and misty shadows. Not doomed to an eternity of nothingness. But neither was he in his own time and place.
    Hiltsglen had been given a mission, a quest to right a supposed wrong done centuries past. And that quest had drawn him unscathed from dark curses cast long ago.
    But what of himself?
    Rising from bed, he had prowled the confines of his townhouse, his mind racing.
    Some hours later, striding past a plumassier’s shop, he was still plagued with questions.
    Why was he here? Oh, aye, he knew why he had been cursed; no woman likes to be turned aside— especially if she is powerful and vain and the
only
maid he had ever refused. Indeed, he knew why he had been
twice
cursed—bad luck there. He should not have been so close to Hiltsglen when the dark master sought revenge for the Celt’s betrayal.
    But why had he arisen from the darkness precisely when he had? Was his awakening simply in concert with Hiltsglen’s quest, or had he too been appointed a task?
    And what of the white countess? Why did she travel alone to dark sections of the city only to leave death behind? And why did she avoid his touch? ‘Twas unnatural. Oh aye, some would have said
he
was unnatural. Indeed,
all
would have said he was unnatural if they knew the truth of his strange double life, but even so, maids were still drawn to him.
    Why was she not? Why—
    Might she be the reason he had been called to the here and now? Black magic had brought him here. Mayhap it was his task to see that that same sorcery never harmed another. Could
she
be the quest? Might he have been brought here to prevent some terrible evil?
    Perhaps her bonny face hid a black soul. It had happened aplenty in years past. Indeed, he thought, but his troubled musings skittered to a halt as a narrow wisp of a girl flitted down the stone-laid walkway. Her frock was ragged, and a stubborn streak of dirt marred her cheek, but her eyes were gleaming as she slowed beside a nearby carriage. Stepping onto the busy thoroughfare, she approached the dark cob hitched to the conveyance, then opened her tiny hand to expose a plump root.
    The mare tilted her elegant head to gaze at the girl from behind rectangular blinkers then nipped the fat tuber from her shrinking palm. The child wrinkled her turned-up nose, and it was not until that moment that O’Banyon was sure of her identity, for none but wee Sibylla made him smile just to look at