A mere hour by horseback due east, another ducal breakfast was underway in Lowell Hall, very much later than that enjoyed by the denizens of Arcadia, as this couple looked to be continuing as they’d begun their married life, that is to say, by lingering abed. Well, the bride had; the groom had his duties as Alpha to see to and had only taken his seat when she came down.
Alfred rose as his blushing bride entered the room.
“Your Grace.” She curtsied, to the amusement of the footmen. “I do apologize for my lateness.” Mr. Coburn rushed to pull out a chair opposite Alfred, who shook his head and indicated the seat to his left.
“I had business in the farthest field,” Alfred said as she took her place. “I am only lately returned myself.”
The usual complement of footmen ringed the wall, and Coburn tended to the couple’s needs, freshening pots of tea and keeping a weather eye on the sideboard’s offerings, taking his responsibilities as ducal butler seriously indeed. As Alfred’s mate pushed eggs counterclockwise round her plate and failed to conceal another yawn, he opened a letter weighed down with royal seals and made himself familiar with its contents.
“Osborn has wed the Marchioness of Castleton,” he announced.
“Beatrice?” Felicity made to freshen her tea but was unequal to their butler’s attentiveness. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Coburn. I was unaware she was being courted.”
“No one knew I was courting you.” He smiled at her and leaned an elbow on the table to gaze at her. She reproved him with a mere glance, and he sat up properly.
“No less a personage than myself knew you were courting me,” she countered, and the footmen snickered. “Who is Osborn?”
“Still not up on your Debrett’s?” Alfred buttered half a scone and put it on her plate. “Arthur Humphries, Duke of. I knew him growing up, he lived in Court with Georgie, big lad, always on the fringes,” he said. “He was present at our nuptials.”
“I did not notice, I regret to say.” They exchanged a fulsome look, and Alfred considered convincing her to delay attendance upon her duties at Templeton Stud.
“Did you not? What held your attention, I wonder?” The footmen giggled, and even Coburn cast aside his dignity enough to crack a smile. “His Highness demanded Bates’s company once our vows were said,” he continued. “Perhaps he had been called upon to witness theirs. I, too, had my attention elsewhere.” He reached back to stroke the spot at the top of Felicity’s hip that carried his mating mark.
She batted him away with her napkin. “Does he enjoy a similar, er, status beyond his ducal duties?”
“He is an Alpha,” Alfred said. “Although he is not doing his duties. His father was challenged for primacy over their clan and lost. It is past time Osborn took up his mantle.”
“Challenged?” Felicity warmed up his tea and administered the requisite two spoonfuls of sugar.
“A usurper of his species fought for the right to command the Osborn holdings. It is an old, old custom of versipellian life. George’s great-great-grandfather upheld such hidebound notions, but they have largely been abolished.” Alfred waved away the kippers proffered by Coburn at his mate’s minute flinch.
“Largely?” Felicity added jam to the scone, cut it in half, and put the larger piece on Alfred’s plate.
“Most completely. As our kind have become civilized, so have many of our ways, but not all.” Alfred applied himself to his meal.
“I do not think Beatrice will countenance violence,” she said. “In fact, I know she will not. I am not apprised of the details, but I can say with confidence her first marriage was not harmonious.”
“I have no doubt it was not.” He knew only too well what marriage to Castleton would have entailed for the unlucky wife.
“If she were wed to such as he without being any the wiser…” Felicity worried her eggs with her fork.
“Humans have unknowingly wed Shifters and remained in ignorance for the whole of their lives,” Alfred said. “I am certain the new duchess is informed regarding our kind, however. As you are now aware, one can tell if one knows what to look for. She held herself aloof to all and sundry, but when sundry was versipellis, she was very much on her guard.”
He perused the rest of the letter. “Ah. Yes, here, Bates was likely required as a witness, for they were indeed wed directly after we were, in Carlton House.”
“Oh! But—” Felicity rose before a footman or three could pull out her chair. “This has every hallmark of an unwanted alliance. I shall write to her straightaway.” She threw her napkin down and then picked it up and folded it. How like her, ever striving to make less work for the staff. “Have you their direction?”
Arthur rose and took his vera amorum’s hand. “I suspect they have taken up residence in Arcadia, the Humphries homeplace.”
“Arcadia. How beautiful it sounds,” said Felicity as she ran her hand along his arm to stroke his biceps.
Alfred shrugged. “If it has been uninhabited since his father’s time,” he said as they left the room, “I suspect it is in a state far less beautiful than its name.”
***
“…and after the roof, we shall see to the securing and the cleaning of the glasshouse,” Beatrice said. “Although I do not know if there are any present able to take it in hand immediately.” Despite Osborn’s strictures, Beatrice intended to see the glasshouse firsthand. The sky was clear, and she needed exercise, but there was so much to accomplish indoors, not the least of which was writing a letter to Miss Templeton. No, she must address her as “Your Grace” now.
She turned to Mr. Todd. “I shall revise the schedule and plan for at least ten footmen from Lowell Hall.”
“Ten!” The duke left off his morose inspection of the bookcases.
“Too few, Your Grace?” Beatrice asked and was answered with an apoplectic glare. She turned back to Mr. Todd. “I shall require delivery of a letter to the Duchess of Lowell as soon as I have the writing of it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mr. Todd ran a finger along the edge of a bookcase much in the same way a smitten swain tickled his intended’s palm. “I will take it myself as I am able for this terrain and will be unremarkable as the night draws in.”
“Carrying it in your mouth like a lapdog?” Osborn sniped.
“I trust Mr. Todd will contrive to preserve his dignity.” Whatever species the prince’s factotum was, he was not making it known to her. Beatrice supposed he trusted her as reluctantly as she trusted him, but Mr. Todd was proving more of an ally in the resuscitation of Arcadia than was the duke, and she suspected she had a reward he would appreciate. Mr. Todd may know more than his fair share about flora, but it was here, at the heart of household order, he wished to be at home. “Please take the time to familiarize yourself with this room, the books and such, and perhaps begin going through the pigeonholes,” she said.
Osborn was muttering about cats that were not cats set amongst the pigeons when the clatter of a carriage sounded from the drive.
“Are you expecting visitors, Your Grace?” Who in the world would be calling upon them? Good Lord, she was as filthy as a chimney sweep and in no way disposed to greet guests.
Osborn shoved his way to the window. He cursed at what he saw and strode out of the room.
Beatrice and Mr. Todd followed him through the house and out to the forecourt as an aged coach rocked to a stop, an oversubscribed baggage cart halting behind.
There were no postillions; the coachman leaned over to spit in the gravel and made no move to descend from his seat. The door popped open, and a lanky man emerged. He beamed at Osborn, and a small woman, of a height and figure to Beatrice, although brunette rather than blonde, appeared in the doorway. The man swept her down to the ground with a spin and a flourish, which inspired Osborn to make one of his noises, this one akin to coal rattling around in a scuttle.
“Your drive could do with a good raking,” called the lady.
“What would you know about a good raking?” The man laughed and pinched her cheek, kissed her, and gave her his arm. Three small children tumbled out of the carriage and raced around in circles, exuberant in their freedom.
“Not that sort, you ridiculous beast,” the lady laughed.
“Brother,” said the man, voice full of emotion. He embraced Osborn, who returned it with reluctance. Now that Beatrice looked more closely, she could see the resemblance, despite the younger Humphries being leaner in body, brighter in aspect and minus the formidable coiffing of his elder. He laughed with joy as Osborn gave in and turned his face into his brother’s neck.
“Sister!” exclaimed the lady, and Beatrice found herself enfolded with surprising strength and rocked side to side. She wormed her way out of the embrace and stood, fingers locked together at her waist to hide her shaking hands. The children joined them and gaped at her with awe, as if she was a foreigner from an exotic land.
“Your Grace,” Osborn growled, once he was free from his brother’s grasp. “May I make known to you my brother, Garben, and his wife, Charlotte, who have deigned to surprise us with a visit.” Charlotte bobbed a belated curtsy, and one of the girls looked mortified.
“Call me Ben,” said her brother-in-law; he bowed and then leaned in to buss her on the cheek.
“You are beautiful,” Charlotte pronounced. “And your figure is delightful.”
“It is exactly as yours is, you cheeky thing.” Garben gestured to the children who had gathered around them. “These are Tarben, Bernadette, and Ursella.” Bernadette gave her best version of a curtsy and wobbled; Tarben chose not to bow and commenced hopping up and down on one leg.
The littlest of the three reached out a finger to touch Beatrice’s wedding ring and then leaned against her leg, small fingers bunching the apron and skirt.
“Oh, there now, Ursella’s seal of approval.” Charlotte beamed down at her daughter. “She’s a shy little bit, doesn’t take to many.”
“Is she fond of the chill of winter, then?” Charlotte gaped at the duke, and little Bernadette outright gasped. So. She was not alone in finding Osborn rough around the edges and prone to impulsive speech.
Beatrice ignored him and turned to his family. “I am sorry to have greeted you in such disorder and with no preparation.” Even to her ears this did not sound apologetic, but rather like she blamed her guests for their presence. The child’s fist burned like a brand. “I fear we…the nursery…is not… We have only wrestled one suite into usefulness. It will be a crush for your…your family.”
“We are well used to close quarters,” Ben said. “It is typical of our kind when the children are this age.”
“Then allow me to make you as comfortable as I may.” She gently worked her apron out of the little girl’s clutches and fled.
***
Arthur turned to his beaming brother and sighed at the look on his sister-in-law’s face.
“Charlie.”
“Artie. Felicitations upon your marriage.” Only Charlotte could infuse an anodyne tribute with grave censure. The things the woman could convey with a look and a pair of crossed arms. He was surrounded by diminutive women who wielded their gestures like swords.
“I’d no choice in the matter and no way to contact you,” he said. He crossed his own arms, which served to intimidate Charlotte not one jot. “And yet here you are, as if my efforts to supply news could ever exceed your ability to gain it.”
“How poorly you spoke in front of your wife.” That chin! It was like cannon on the fields of Waterloo. “Mannerless clod.”
He bent down so she may more easily clout him on the ear. The children shrieked with glee, the two eldest capering about their mother.
“Where did my auntie go?” Bernadette demanded.
“She’s my auntie as well!” Tarben was never one to be left out.
“Wherever aunties go when they are sorting out beds for their nieces and nephews,” said Ben.
Tarben fidgeted. “Will we sleep in these beds for long? Maybe?”
His brother’s family turned to Arthur, hope in the children’s eyes and wariness in the adults’. Was there a heart so like a stone to say them nay? Their worldly belongings were lashed on the cart, and while they were clean and pressed, there was an air about Ben’s family—his family—that spoke of weary rootlessness. What could he offer them that another’s roof could not? His roof was little more than a series of loosely joined holes! The place was in rag order, never mind how much Madam had accomplished in so little time. And yet a familiar roof, his brother’s childhood home, a sieve as it may be, must serve to provide better shelter than a strange place…
“In you get, and see what you’re asking for,” he said.
In his rush to the forecourt, he had failed to notice that the foyer was blessedly free of arachnid industry. Its black-and-white-tiled floor shone, the windows were well scrubbed, and the wooden paneling, depicting bears in every posture of hunt and play, gleamed like new.
Tarben eyed the banister, and Bernadette hung her bonnet from a hook on the freshly polished tallboy. Morag stood, hands on hips, in the corridor, and Arthur was surprised she’d not made more of the unexpected visitors. “Take the cubs to the kitchen for spoiling,” he directed her. Tarben cheered, Bernadette curtsied at him again, and Ursella… “Where is Ursella?”
She was crouched behind the open door, looking closely at a detail on one of the panels, of two bears fighting. Or at least he hoped they were fighting and not mating. “Up you get, petal,” Arthur said, “and off you go.”
“She’s forever going astray,” Charlotte said.
“You won’t thank me for ruining their supper,” said Arthur, as though it would make them think twice about staying.
“That’s what uncles are for.” Ben clapped him on the shoulder. “It will be second nature once the sleuth establishes again.”
“We are not—” Arthur began and chivvied them into the reception room. The door was still leaning against the wall, and the footstool remained the lone occupant, but the wood of the floor was newly polished to a shine. There were two sofas up in the attics that would look well in here, as would the large mirror Madam had nearly pulled down on herself.
“Have you taken against furnishings?” Charlotte asked.
“There’s any number of chairs and such, er…” Ben trailed off.
Arthur bared his teeth. “Was it you, then, stuffing the attics full of the old things?”
“I did what I could when it could be overlooked.” Ben was every inch a stubborn Humphries. “I know I had no right in law to be here, but the usurper did nothing more than destroy what offended him before he disappeared.”
“Hallbjorn never gathered a sleuth, Arthur,” Charlotte said. “Nor did he mate, nor did he produce young. His time is past. He remained on the fringes here for years, and now none know where he abides. Were he to die without issue, we would be free to do as we wish. If you were to make a challenge—”
“There will be no challenge.” Arthur cut off her tirade. “The prince regent has decreed.”
“Oh, Georgie,” Charlotte scoffed. “Well, if he upholds his decree, then all to the good. Nothing stands in your way. We shall be a sleuth—”
“There will be no sleuth.”
“Won’t there?” Charlotte mused, and Ben rocked on his heels. “And what thinks your wife? I know she is Castleton’s widow, but what does she truly know about us?”
“She knows what we are, in essence, but not in species, and I forbid you to tell her.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Charlotte said, notably minus the usual obeisance, and then sighed. “Only think to whom she was wed previously. For the love of Freya, she can have no good opinion of our kind.”
“I must ask…” Ben chewed on his lip. “Is it usual for homo plenii to lack a scent signature?”
“We have not mingled amongst them very much since the children have grown,” Charlotte said.
“Is it a product of her humanity?” Ben wondered and then shook his head. “I am sure I recall humans in Court having at least one top note.”
“Pardon me.” Beatrice stood in the hall, Ursella at her side. “The child was climbing the stairs, and they are not so safe that she can be left unsupervised.” She cleared her throat. “We have the ducal suite prepared. Your Grace, if you and your brother would lend Mr. Todd a hand with the beds, then we can carry on tomorrow outfitting it more fully.”
“Am I to be demoted to footman?” Arthur could not stop goading her.
“Should it be so beneath your lofty dignity to ensure your family feel at home, they may sleep on the floor,” Madam riposted. “Or pile in with me in the stillroom, as I inhabit it alone.” She gently extricated her hand from the child’s grip and left the room.
Salty little cake with claws—and fangs. Arthur would not be drawn, not by his brother’s dismay nor by Charlotte’s glare. He would be discreet. His spat with Madam was none of their concern. They need not know—
“We are engaged in a white marriage.”
“Are you, now.” Charlotte’s brow did not arch as elegantly as Madam’s, but the effect was the same.
“Why would you presume otherwise? We met a mere sennight ago and married under duress due to Georgie’s threats.”
“What threats?” Ben let his claws down.
“None of your concern. None of this is your concern.” Arthur waved his arms about, encompassing the house and the land and the wife. “Whether or not Hallbjorn failed in his quest to hold this area, it is no longer ours. We are here on our regent’s sufferance and no more.”
“Nevertheless,” Charlotte insisted. Odin’s ravens, she was relentless. “There is no call to leave it looking abandoned and derelict.”
“She intends to fix this place,” Arthur allowed. “She said she’ll be about getting in some of Lowell’s footmen.”
“‘She’ is Her Grace, you lout,” Charlotte admonished, and Arthur leaned down for another smack of her little paw.
“We are wed, not bonded.”
“Your wife is not ‘she’ to anyone, ever. Where are your manners?” Charlotte demanded. “And as to that, are you considering her humanity? You may not be administering the bite or even a scent-marking, but I do hope,” and this was delivered in a tone that said she severely doubted such an eventuality, “you are at the very least offering your wife the respect due her in front of others not in the family.”
A warm little flame lit under his heart. “You have not changed since the day you were born.”
Charlotte blushed. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fears none,” Ben said, proud as punch.
“And is Bernadette or Ursella like you?” Arthur asked.
“Tarben is like me, thank you very much,” Charlotte said, “and Bernadette is her own creature entirely. Very high in the instep for one so young.”
“Ursella is as shy as the day is long,” Ben said, “but she is stubborn. We are hoping she may present as an Omega. What a blessing that would be for our sleuth.”
“We are not a sleuth.” Arthur suspected this would become a daily refrain.
“What would your favorite playwright have to say about protesting too much? Come, Ben, let us go see how plump our children have become, gorging on biscuits.” Charlotte poked Arthur in the belly, did the thing women did with their skirts to convey scorn, and made her way to the back of the house.
***
How unlike me, Beatrice thought, to be so openly spiteful.
Oh, she knew spite like she knew the palm of her hand, thanks to the antipathy of the beau monde and the dishonesty of their social interactions. When she greeted insincere behavior with her characteristic dispassion and an unflinching stare, she found their thinly veiled malice quailed in the face of her implacability; her entire reputation relied upon her ability to repel the slings and arrows of tittle-tattle and importunate suitors.
Yet there she had been, insulted before strangers, nothing new, and she had…lashed out. What an uncivilized impression to make. But it did not matter what Osborn’s family thought of her or that she might cause him to lose face before them down to an insult or two falling from his lips.
His lips. Had that happened only hours ago? Up in the attic, he’d held her close, as though she had been in need of comfort and protection. She’d found both in his embrace; his nose had fit so oddly and yet so well behind her ear, and those lips had brushed against her hair…
Let her not think of his lips.
Let her instead address what was clearly the master’s study.
Against all odds, the door that lead from the steward’s office to this larger room opened unhindered by eccentric deficiency. Like the ducal suite, this room was untouched, the stoppage of time betrayed by an abandoned tea service and the omnipresent dust. Arthur’s Alpha, presumably his father, had for the most part kept things to a standard Beatrice admired: books were shelved, drawers were shut, and the arrangement of quill, ink, and paper on the large desk was precise. However, there were signs something ill had occurred: she collected the few pieces of parchment that littered the floor, righted an overturned teacup, reset the fire irons that had fallen in…a rush to leave?
What had happened here?
Lacking anything better to hand, she took off her apron and dusted the desk and then the chair and sat. The letter she had written to Felicity was on its way thanks to the mysterious ways of Mr. Todd. (Was he an owl, to be so confident under the cover of night?) She had not found time to walk the grounds. The ducal suite had been made as accommodating as possible for the family, and their possessions had been brought in. Beatrice wondered if there was anything in the attics Charlotte would find comfortable or if toys for the children might be hidden in a nook or a cranny. She reached for a piece of paper out of habit and found it beyond her grasp. The acreage of the desk was of a sudden too great, and she rose hastily from the chair. It was not her place.
Beatrice did not feel the familiar despair of being in the wrong place. It simply was not hers. She stood to the left of the desk, and there the paper and pen were waiting for her hand. She shook her head at her foolishness and yet—
And yet. She was comfortable standing in that place. Near to what was naturally Arthur’s seat of power.
The ink had dried in the well. She went to retrieve more from the steward’s office when a knock sounded. She closed the door to the master’s study behind her; her instincts told her it was not time for the room to be open to the rest of the household.
“Yes, enter.”
Ciara popped her head in. “You’ve missed your tea, ma’am,” she scolded. “We’ve a cold collation if you’ll come along.”
She could not face the Humphries en masse. “Thank you, Ciara. Has the family been apprised?”
“They are tired from the journey so have taken trays in their rooms.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “How thoughtless of me to leave them fending for themselves.”
“They are at home here,” Ciara said. “As is only right.”
“I shall take a tray in my room, then.” Why should she feel so solitary? It was what she wanted, after all.
“Leave it to me, ma’am.” Before Beatrice could protest otherwise, Ciara shut the door behind her.
A few brief notes and there was nothing left but to leave the safety of the office and venture forth. The zest Arthur’s family infused in the atmosphere skittered along her skin, a tangible thing, little brushes of vitality. She was so consumed by this, by the life suddenly pulsing around her, she could not be faulted for startling when something brushed against her ankles.
It was a cat. It ceased its ribboning around her feet and leapt up onto an occasional table set against the wall. They regarded one another.
“A cat may look at a duchess as well as look at a king,” Beatrice said, and it blinked. “Have you found your way down from the barn? I am not surprised to discover you making free of the main house given the faultiness of its doors.”
Beatrice turned toward the kitchen, and the cat hopped down to follow.
“I have put the refurbishment of the nursery at the top of the schedule as it is in a woeful state at best.” She looked down at the tabby and found it attending her every word. “Is your lineage as undersubscribed as that of my first husband or even my second?”
“This cat is not your husband,” rumbled That Voice. Osborn appeared from who knew where. Why he wandered the halls rather than barricade himself in a study or office like every other peer in creation she did not know. “And if she is anything like her antecedents, she is well able to litter.” He and the cat exchanged a glance, and the feline scampered off in the opposite direction.
“A pity then that cat is not your wife.” So waspish! Beatrice made to move past him, and he reached out and took her wrist. No matter that his grasp was light and there was no rage pumping off him; she could not help but recoil.
Osborn released his hold without hesitation. “I was not in want of a wife, you or anyone else—”
“It is fortunate I shall not take that to heart,” she sniped. Sniped! “Consider me no more or less than a chamberlain—”
“—and yet you insist on acting in a wifely manner.”
“Is it the masculine term that offends you?” She resumed her walk down the corridor. “Chatelaine, then. Shall we deem that my role rather than wife?”
He followed her, relentless. “The children were asking for their aunt.”
“Have they none that I am such a novelty?”
“None that they come by through their favorite uncle.”
“Ah, you enjoy that distinction. Are you their only?” She paused at the green baize door.
“I comprehend what you have done there,” Osborn said. He reached up to run a hand over his hair, putting order on curls that routinely threatened to spring free, a habit that made her petticoats feel oppressively tight, which was an impossibility. He considered her and ran his hand over his lush hair slowly. He sniffed and shook his head, confused. “Have you taken to using a new perfume?”
“I am using the soap as supplied by your staff.”
“Our staff,” he corrected absently. He reached for her wrist again and ran his fingers over her pulse, which skipped like stones over a lake. Which he felt. Which made him squint. “No, this is not mint nor jasmine. This is rather…” He drifted off, lost for words. For once.
“I hazard it is thanks to the lack of mold and mildew,” Beatrice said, mesmerized by the fingers stroking her wrist.
“No, it is nothing to do with the house.” He stepped closer, and she did not step away.
He tilted his head and stuck out his nose.
He tilted it back again, and she struggled to hold his gaze.
The tip of his tongue appeared between his lips.
She backed up a step and swayed forward two.
He reached out and ran a finger behind her ear.
He rubbed his thumb against a forefinger and then leaned forward, nose very close to her jaw. Now that she was close to him, the scent of citrus was detectable; she recalled overhearing what Ben had said about humans and scents and top notes and wondered if this flood of orange was his or merely his pomade. “What have your relations to say about, about our—this union?” Beatrice stepped back as His Grace seemed content to muse upon her jaw forever.
“They are thrilled beyond expression,” Osborn said, readopting his customary scowl. “They anticipate the growth of our family posthaste despite my protestations otherwise.”
“We have agreed upon a white marriage.” The reminder of this covenant seemed necessary to invoke at this juncture.
“We have.” He sniffed her again. “And yet there is no reason to eschew a cordial affiliation.”
“A cordial affiliation?” Beatrice asked, incredulous. “What does that entail, I must ask?”
He opened his mouth to explain and once again seemed bereft of words. “It wants careful thought ere I speak further.”
Does it? She suspected he hadn’t a notion what he was talking about. “Then I can do nothing but await further intelligence, Your Grace.” Beatrice sank into one of her defiant curtsies and swished away.