Breakfast was as energetic on the sixth day of the children’s arrival as it was from the start. The cubs refused to sit still and seemed to subsist on air, if the effort it took to make them eat was anything to go by. Tarben hopped around the table to the disapprobation of Bernadette, who was skilled in pushing her porridge about to appear she was eating it, which she was not. Ursella slid from her seat to take up residence beneath the table, a little hand waving for scraps of toast, only accepting them if they were free of jam. A pile of rejected slices sat on her chair.
Madam wished to willingly add to this chaos? Whatever her initial discomfort with the cubs, it was long gone as she managed to convince Tarben to return to his seat, encouraged Bernadette to finish her porridge, and ended up with Ursella on her lap, cajoling the child into consuming a rasher of bacon, one sliver at a time.
Arms around the child, she nevertheless had recourse to her inevitable pen and paper and informed the servants and Todd of their tasks on the schedule, or was it Schedule. She reviewed what had been achieved thus far, with great praise for all involved. Arthur noticed that Madam explicitly did not address the fact that workmen, from who knew where, swarmed the roof, and several within were tasked with re-plastering the walls. Nor did she call attention to the veritable army repairing the cottages that once housed the members of his—of his father’s sleuth.
Nor did she complain when the children began airing their preferences regarding their accommodation; in fact, she exacerbated their high spirits by transcribing their opinions.
“And have you discovered anything else lacking?” Madam treated this inquiry with the utmost gravity.
Bernadette concluded her long list of items necessary for bringing the schoolroom up to scratch, while Tarben’s imagination went in other directions. The absence of their parents allowed it to reach new heights of whimsicality.
“We require a giraffe!” his nephew cried.
“It would come in very handy for retrieving things from the highest shelves.” Madam made a note, and Tarben hooted with glee.
“Yes!” He cuddled into her side. “In my other aunt’s house, she had a stuffed giraffe.”
“Which is in very poor taste when one considers it.” Bernadette was truly a matron in the making. Arthur reached out to tickle her and was treated to reluctant giggles.
“We did not like it there,” Tarben chattered on. “We were to be seen and not heard. And then when we went to my other aunt’s, she did not even want to see us.”
“I did not like the beds there,” Bernadette added.
“And then at the other other aunt’s—”
“She was not our true aunt,” Bernadette cut across him. “She was a cousin of mum’s.”
“But we called her aunt.” Tarben’s voice was rising.
“Only because we could not call her cousin. She was a relic,” his sister answered, matching his volume.
“Children,” Charlotte scolded. They stopped bickering at one word from their mother. “What in the world!”
“We were telling Aunt Beezy about the giraffe and the meanest aunt,” Bernadette said.
“It was a giraffe giraffe,” Ben explained as he entered carrying two hammers and a bucket of nails. “Not our sort, should you fear as much.”
“And then I was going to say about that time we left in the night,” Tarben said. “Oh, Aunt Beezy, it was like out of a story of poor wee children escaping an evil sorcerer!”
Madam stilled, and Arthur looked at his brother. How long had they been drifting? And under what circumstances would they need to leave under the cover of night?
“I shall tell Aunt Beezy all about it, but first we must greet what appears to be the contingent from Lowell Hall.” Charlotte’s voice was light, if her expression was clouded. The children ran out to see.
Madam rose. “If I may have your attention.” Everyone in the room turned to her without hesitation. How flawlessly she did this, this managing and organizing and commanding respect. “Upon leaving my room this morning, I came upon a dead creature,” she began. The way her gaze passed over Glynis and Ciara encouraged them to infer it was a mouse. “I suspect it is the cat doing what cats do, but I prefer steps be taken to prevent this in future.” She waited for the nods of agreement that followed her order as naturally as night followed day. “Now. Come, let us see what the duke and duchess have sent us, shall we?”
The women shared a hand squeeze as Madam passed Charlotte. Ben led out Todd along with the kitchen staff; as was the case of late, Arthur found he must follow.
***
A cavalcade of carriages and carts rolled up the drive, the Lowell insignia polished to a shine on every conveyance down to the lowly donkey cart. The drivers brought their teams to a halt, and the doors to the vehicles opened simultaneously. Beatrice could feel Osborn’s eyes rolling at the demonstration. She thought her heart was going to burst with delight.
No fewer than fifteen men decanted from the carriages, not counting the outriders who joined them as they lined up before her. They ranged from her not-great height to somewhat shorter than Ben. None looked in ill health or in any way deserving of the term runt. They stood at attention and vibrated with readiness. She had written to ask for ten and in return received twenty-five, dressed soberly in dark olive and gray, in livery style but not that of the Lowell holding.
How clever of the duchess, dressing them as though she did not expect them to return.
A thunderous growling rumbled behind her, and she turned to see both Osborn and Ben step forward to scent the air.
“What is it?” she asked even as the duke took her in his arms from behind and turned her away from the footmen. Charlotte widened her eyes at them and then wrapped her arms around herself.
“I expect you have discerned the scent signature of the Duke of Llewellyn.” A barrel-chested footman stepped forward. He was on the shorter end of the spectrum and boasted parallel stripes of white in his ink-black hair. “Your Graces, I assure you he is not here,” he continued after he proffered the usual obeisance.
“He had better not be,” Osborn spat. “I cannot have one of his sort running loose on my land. Nor near the duchess.”
“How is it you can scent him if he is not here?” Beatrice tried to wriggle out of the duke’s grasp, which resulted in her bum wiggling against him, which created an immediate and unexpected tautness in his falls. It called to mind moments from more than one improper turn around the floor at Almack’s, before a patroness could descend to put paid to the unacceptable proximity. She maneuvered again and found herself clutched closer and thrust away and then pulled closer still.
“He is one of the highest predators of our kind,” Ben snarled, matching his brother’s tone, “and as such his signature is strong.”
“He is in residence on Lowell lands,” the footman reported. “There is a letter from our Alpha explaining the state of things regarding the Duke of Llewelyn’s circumstances, as well as ours.” He handed the missive to Conlon, whose confusion over whether to hand it to His or Her Grace was solved by Ben’s taking it. “I am Brosnyn, head footman of this complement, who are entirely at your disposal.”
“More fine men to dispose of.” Arthur relaxed his hold, and Beatrice gave one more wiggle before stepping around to stand before him.
“On behalf of His Grace, you are very welcome to Arcadia,” she said as they gave their obeisance as one. “Brosnyn, Mr. Conlon is butler here, and I will require you to convene with him in all things. This is Mr. Todd.” She indicated the prince’s factotum. The company assessed him with more than one nose aloft; he returned the favor. “He is here at His Highness, the prince regent’s, behest. Mr. Brosnyn, should you or the men have any queries, do direct them to Mr. Todd or me.
“His Grace and I,” she continued, “are grateful to the Duke and Duchess of Lowell for sending you here and hope you will find true fulfillment for your talents in Arcadia.”
“Where we are going to accommodate these souls is as good a question as any,” Osborn groused.
“I have only to consult with you on that matter, and it shall be done according to your will,” Beatrice replied without missing a beat. She laid a hand on his arm, appearing amenable and waiting for his law to be handed down.
***
To any who did not know Madam, she would look to be the picture of deference. Ha! “You wish to consult with me about such matters?” Arthur snorted. “That horse has long since bolted.”
“Your Grace.” He fought a smile as he could feel Madam’s nails digging into his forearm. Why he should smile when his salty little lemon cake was veritably sinking her claws in him—
Whose salty cake? his bear wondered.
“Madam?” He looked at her expectantly and took her hand, raising it to his lips.
That’s new! his creature chortled.
His lips touched the back of her hand. And Lady Frost blushed.
She slipped her hand from his grasp with less alacrity than he would have expected. “Speaking of horses bolting, I daresay your brother, Lord Swinburn, would not hesitate to welcome your help with his tasks.”
“Come along, Arthur,” Ben said. “Let us leave this in your wife’s capable hands.”
Madam’s voice rose as she addressed the cohort, as confident as if she did this every day of her life. Perhaps she had; perhaps Castleton had given her authority over his lands and staff. He and his bear snorted in unison at this unlikely scenario. Given she had so many siblings, had she been put in charge of them? That was likely to happen to a girl. This house, as large as it was, burst at the seams with the addition of only three cubs; Goddess knew how thrice that number would fare. And how badly had Ben and Charlotte and the cubs fared over the last years? How much time passed since they’d left their residence in Court? Who had dared treat the cubs poorly?
“Was it Humbert?”
“Who, now?” Ben asked.
“Was it he from whom you escaped under cover of night?”
They reached the barn, big enough to shelter ten horses and sturdy enough, though it did appear to be sagging inward from the sides.
“Oh, Humbert. No, we had not got to that extremity.” Ben handed Arthur the hammer and nails as he turned to collect a massive ladder leaning against the main door; he tucked it under his arm with as much exertion as he would a cricket bat. “It doesn’t matter. We made a choice, as dramatic as it was, much to Tarben’s delight. Holy Freya, he is so like Charlie—”
“Do not turn the topic.” A pain in Arthur’s chest threatened to take over his entire body, to expand—explode—into the sentio. It urged him to offer comfort where it was needed, to shelter his family in its protective embrace. He fought it off as he would an invasive predator.
“Do not dwell on the past. Always your problem, so broody,” Ben chided and led the way into the barn. He turned with a grin. “Not that sort of broody, although Her Grace had a look in her eye the other evening. And this morning as well.”
“White marriage,” Arthur reminded him and cast an eye over the interior. The roof was in fair enough nick, but the beams appeared to be held up by wishful thinking and the inevitable cobwebs.
“Ah, yes, of course. For the best, I imagine.”
Now what was that supposed to mean? He was well able to turn a female head did he so choose. He attended every Season Georgie forced him to, shaking off the females if anyone was inquiring. Had they not made their pact, it would likely be the case with Madam as well. “It is, in fact, more in the order of a cordial affiliation.”
Ben headed for the furthest beam, which proved to be the most tenuous. “What’s that when it’s at home?”
“The exact terms are under negotiation, and I would not be so crude as to discuss them behind Madam’s back.” Arthur took off his coat and threw it unheeding to the ground.
“Ah, discretion, the better part of valor.” Ben set the ladder in place and handed Arthur one of the hammers. “Now. We’re to ensure the beams and such are secure, as there is concern for the barn’s denizens.”
The place was noticeably free of equine occupation. “You cannot mean the bloody cat.”
“Or cats,” Ben corrected. “She or they may be the culprits behind the offerings on your wife’s doorstep.”
“And so we are to make a palace for them out here?”
“We are indeed. Off you get, affiliate cordially with this hammer, if you please.” Ben laughed and ran up the ladder before Arthur could swat him as he deserved.
***
Footmen tended to the drive, raking the gravel and weeding the verge. They had come with every tool and implement necessary to resuscitate a crumbling manse, inside and out. Brosnyn supplied the names of those best placed to help in the house and was impeccably respectful of Mr. Conlon’s dignity. The entire cadre were eager to serve and in many cases suggested their tasks.
Beatrice turned from the window under the newly refurbished eaves, in what ought to be a maid’s room. “I hesitate to put either Ciara or Glynis up here,” she said, mindful of the many stairs.
“We shall call them the footmen’s rooms then,” Charlotte said as she ran a hand over the bed covers to settle them into shape. “I suspect the girls would not wish to be removed from the rooms they have made their homes.”
“Charlotte.” Beatrice sat on the bed, disrupting her sister-in-law’s work. “If it is not comfortable to discuss what the children were saying this morning, I understand. But if you would like to speak to another woman about it…”
Charlotte joined her. “These were relations on my side, part of a family group like ours, who had very high standards of behavior. I suspect it is where Bernadette gets it.” She laughed; it lacked her usual heartiness. “My children’s manners were the cynosure of very discerning eyes, as were my own. Ben came close to blows when I was taken to task before the whole family. We left under the cover of night because I was so afraid he would challenge the head of the house.”
“Challenging entails…” Beatrice did not like the sound of that.
“The death of he who is not the victor. At least according to those who abide by the old ways. As that branch of the family still do, given their great age. We ourselves do not.” Charlotte patted her hand. “We are adept at packing our bags and moving on, and we fled beneath the pall of my unladylike glory.”
“And yet only behold my good self, as little like a lady as you may ever see.” Beatrice stood and brandished her dusting cloth. “How the beau monde would gawk at Lady Frost now. I am positively melting from the exertion.”
“Your sobriquet earned admiration.” Charlotte rose and tugged the bed covers flat. “Society assumed it was an aspect gleaned from your years in Castleton’s—”
“Care?” Beatrice finished. “I do not think I need go any further in saying it was not care.”
“And yet you took your rightful place in society when the time came and faced them down.”
Beatrice looked around the room and considered it good. She led Charlotte to the stairs. They had accomplished what she’d designated for the day, and the footmen—dare she say her footmen—would be housed in comfort.
“I did, as was my right.” She wiped a cloth along the banister as they descended. “With little pleasure. One pined for the peace of the countryside after a Season of whispers, though I could never miss what I found in Adolphus Place.”
A footman stood at the door of the family reception room and, when requested, set off with alacrity to fetch their tea. The women took to the sofas.
Charlotte shuddered. “There are none among us who wish to imagine Castleton in the bedchamber.”
“It was—” Beatrice folded the cloth in her hands.
“Revolting? Horrendous?”
She looked up. “It was harrowing.”
Charlotte leapt from her seat and cuddled up to Beatrice’s side. “Oh, my dear.” She briskly rubbed a hand up and down the other woman’s arm.
“And at the end of the day, I…” If Beatrice could not ask Charlotte, she could ask no one. “I do not believe the act was done properly.” She worried at her wedding ring.
“If any were to be improper, I would think it he.”
“I am not conveying my meaning. I was, of course, raised in pastoral circumstances.” The footman returned, set down the service, and bowed. “Thank you, Brock.” He stepped out and pulled the door shut.
Beatrice poured out and tried again. “I have seen the animals. Oh, I mean no offense.”
Charlotte divided a scone among two plates. “Did your mum not take you into her confidence before your wedding night?”
“She did, in euphemistic terms. But I discerned the, the mechanics of the act from—”
“The natural world,” Charlotte supplied.
“The natural world. My expectation of translating such efforts into the human experience were not met.”
“I see.” Charlotte drank her tea.
“Do you?” This would be simpler than she’d thought.
Charlotte put down her cup and saucer. “I do not.”
Beatrice rent her half of the scone in two. “Mother said there would be blood.”
“Was there?” Beatrice shook her head and took a bite of scone. “Did he not breach your maidenhead?” Beatrice shook her head again and shrugged. Charlotte continued. “It is very likely, then, you are still an innocent.”
Beatrice scoffed, and to her horror, crumbs flew out of her mouth. “I can think of no one less innocent than I.”
“Untouched, then, in any way that signifies.”
“But there was… It was not, I cannot call it bed play, but he visited my rooms and came into the bed with me, and…” She could not go on.
“My dear, you are the epitome of refinement, and I shudder to lower the tone.” Charlotte took a deep breath and asked, “Did he put his cock in your cunny?”
Beatrice brushed at the crumbs in her lap. “There were, of course, attempts at entry. I do not believe he was successful.”
“You’d know for certain if he had.”
“There was a sensation of—”
“Of this?” Charlotte poked Beatrice in the fleshy part of her arm down to the bone.
Beatrice gasped at the sharp pain. “Something like, but with far less energy.”
“Sweet Freya, did it go in or did it not?”
“His part?”
“Yes.”
“No…?”
Charlotte rose and looked about the room. “I would be happy to illustrate the correct effect, only to a certain extent, of course…ah!” She dragged Beatrice off the sofa and over to the mantelpiece to take a candle out of its holder. “Here. Feel this. It is like to as firm as a cock ought to be.”
Beatrice grasped the candlestick at the exact moment Ben and Osborn walked in. She dropped it; Charlotte howled with laughter and ran from the room, collecting Ben on her way. The sound of her mirth could be heard diminishing up the flight of stairs.
“Dare I ask?” Osborn’s habitual glower lightened.
“You may, of course,” she replied. “Nevertheless, I do not recommend it.”
“How curious.” His voice, always so resonant, achieved a note so plangent it threatened to undo her garters.
“It was such as killed the cat, and you have assured me you are not one.” Osborn had brought half the dirt of the barn in with him. She reached out and brushed the arm of his coat. His arm, which was in the sleeve. An arm as solid as an oak, as unyielding as that mighty tree. And yet it was warm, so warm, and it twitched beneath her touch. She ran her hand up and down, up and down…
She ought to stop petting him.
Beatrice buttoned him up instead, her fingers passing over his belly as she did so, causing him to inhale, sharply, and to radiate even more heat than before.
What would it be like if they lay together? She peeked up at him under her lashes; neither moved as she ran her hands over his lapels. She had never willingly put her hands on a man, and it was rather instructive that her touch might cause him to tremble. Additionally, she was not in any way put off by him, which boded well.
Beatrice quivered as he lowered his head to, to kiss her?
No. To sniff her.
“Your Grace,” she began.
“Do not scold me, it is what we do.” He dipped his head once more. “I do not understand—”
“That I may not enjoy being smelled at?”
“It is what we do,” he reiterated. “We can tell our mates from the first fragrance. You do not have one.”
She resisted sniffing her wrist. “I am deficient in a new way.”
“It is not a deficiency. It is not that you have no scent but rather one that is…” He huffed. “It is not…consistent.”
“There are any number of factors that may influence this, such as clothes drying in the sun as opposed to the laundry room, and the amount of exertion a person may undertake in a day’s work.” This was only common sense, was it not?
“But there is an underlying essence we perceive, much the way one recognizes the color of hair or eyes,” he said. Neither had stepped away. “It is like one’s characteristics, quick to anger or to blush, for example.” His finger lightly touched her cheek. “One may embody an essence as tangible as the sea at dawn or of a Burgundy rose in midsummer or even something as mundane yet homely as…” He spotted the candle on the floor and stepped away to pick it up. “As candle wax.”
Her face bloomed scarlet. “Give that here,” she said and fumbled it back into its holder.
“You have gone from having no fragrance to speak of to something I cannot fix on.”
“I find these comments about the state of my person to be less than gracious.”
“They are facts, not judgments, Madam.” Why did her skin shiver so when he called her Madam in that tone? Did he mean it to sound like an endearment?
“I must ask if this lack is influencing your decision regarding the child.” Beatrice set about rearranging the mantelpiece despite it requiring her to handle the candlestick holders.
“As to that—”
Tarben bolted into the room as though shot from a bow. “Uncle Arthur! Papa requires you in the kitchens, but Mum says to leave you and Aunt Beezy alone, but he asked first, and I think I ought to obey things in the order I receive them, what think you?”
The look Osborn gave her was…fraught. Fraught with humor, with warmth, with a world of potential. He took his nephew’s hand in his great grasp, and the reluctance in the gaze that passed from the child to her spoke volumes that even in her hopes she hesitated to fully read.
“I have orders to help my nephew fulfill, Madam.” He allowed Tarben to drag him out of the room. “We shall consult in due course.”