Beatrice woke, light as air. It was a marked difference to any other waking she had ever experienced in her whole life. She woke, and the first thing on her mind was not her schedule of daily tasks. She woke alone and yet… She lifted the blanket and sniffed it, and it was as if Osborn had embedded himself in the fabric, a scent as brisk as midwinter wind and freshly turned earth and gingery biscuits. Was this what he referred to—was this his personal scent? It filled her up, that wind and earth and spice, like the very air in her lungs.
Was that why she was so light? She felt like one of Mr. Graham’s hot-air balloons. She imagined herself floating over Vauxhall Gardens and giggled. And then felt an utter fool for giggling. They were not young lovers at long last enjoying their wedding night. It had been very strange and not what she’d expected. Osborn had been cautious and gentle and appeared to be overcome toward the end as if it were not perfunctory, that bedding her was not an enormous sacrifice on his part.
She cuddled her face in the pillow imbued with the manly scents he used in his hair and on his body. He had been rather sweet, like the vaunted honey he suggested she employ. Playing with her hair, bringing the cloth…asking permission before each touch as if her preferences were of importance. And his—his member was rather an eye-opener, though she had not looked at it. She felt it, without doubt, and it was much, much larger than her previous experience had led her to expect. He didn’t—he was very—he was both masterful yet gentle with it? Oh dear, as though he was being very careful because she deserved care.
“Do not be ridiculous, Beatrice,” she rebuked herself. “He is a gentleman, no matter his shoddy manners. He does not care. It was without any romantic feeling you may wish to attach to it.” She dragged the sheets and blanket and wrapped them tight around her, as if the evidence of what they had done could be infused into her skin, to keep safe to think upon later.
At the scratch on the door and the sound of the turning knob, she leaped from the mattress to tear the coverings off the bed. If there was any evidence of her innocence, for surely that little pinch of pain was proof she had been untouched in the most crucial way, she would prefer the entire household be none the wiser. She would launder the linen herself, and no one would know they had lain together.
She bundled them as quickly as she could, for what use it was. Glynis’s eyes widened as she shuffled over with the morning’s cup of tepid tea. She set it on the dressing table and reached for the sheets Beatrice clutched to her chest. A slight tussle ensued, and Glynis’s heretofore unproven strength exerted itself as she removed the linens from Beatrice’s grasp with little effort. “There’s fresh sheets in the laundry. I’ll be back in a trice.” She giggled as she left.
Beatrice took refuge behind the screen and cleaned herself as dreamily as a milkmaid who dwelled on the attributes of her lover. Her languid movements stopped.
Osborn was not her lover. He was her husband, and with any luck, thanks to one of those gods he was forever invoking, he would be the father of their child. Her child. The child they made while making—
While doing their marital duties.
They had not made love.
This was a means to an end.
This was not love.
***
The wait for Madam to appear for breakfast was excruciating.
There was no reason it should be so. They had engaged upon sexual relations as any married couple might. Never mind that somehow Charlotte could tell, which he discerned from the giddy way she was whispering to Ben, which was winding up the children, who demanded to know what the secret was. Never mind that he only made it worse by announcing, “No teasing of Her Grace is permitted,” as it only encouraged the cubs to whine and shriek and insist upon the reasons why they should not tease if they did not know what not to tease about.
This edict included him: to call attention to what had happened between them was, for certain, the way to prevent it from happening again. And he wanted it to happen again. Would it?
The children were still bellowing; he made to scold them anew when Lady Frost entered the kitchen and quelled their racket in an instant. Arthur could discern the difference now, and it was very much that personage who sat down at table. She had set aside the informal dress she had sported while cleaning in favor of a very severe, dark dress with long sleeves and a high neck. Despite its plethora of ribbons banding the sleeves and the hem, it gave her the air of a governess out of a Gothic novel. His warnings against teasing were superfluous as Madam’s cool demeanor put them in their place.
No, not Madam. Madam was, now he considered it, leagues away from Lady Frost.
Speaking of being put in one’s place, her attitude put the last evening’s events in perspective. What if he had thought practice might make perfection? Thank Freya she’d slept through his maundering following the sex act.
It was a sex act. It was not lovemaking.
It wasn’t—not with the awkwardness and the moratorium on kissing.
She wanted a child from him.
She did not want him.
“Tea, Madam?” he asked and gestured to Brosnyn.
“Thank you, Osborn,” she said, and despite her hauteur, she hesitated over his name. Then she blushed. Arthur saw Charlotte’s eyes widen; Ben knocked over the sugar bowl.
“Clumsy claws,” Charlotte scolded, and the children laughed, explosively out of proportion to the situation. They were roundly hushed.
“There are eggs as usual,” Arthur said, “and the blackberry jam you favor.”
“I would enjoy some jam,” Madam replied faintly as she helped herself to a slice of toast from the rack.
He leaped up from his chair and nearly knocked Conlon down in his fervor to get to the sideboard. “Allow me to dish you up a plate. Do you fancy a kipper?” he asked.
“Kipper? I don’t even know her,” Ben whispered to Charlotte, who in turn spewed her tea onto the cloth. One arch look from Madam quelled any potential escalation of hilarity.
Tarben took a huge mouthful of his milky tea.
“Master Humphries.” Madam very carefully set her cup in its saucer. “Whilst it is well of you to wish to emulate your honored mother in many things, this would not be one of them.”
The child swallowed, and Bernadette drew her attention. “Why did you call him Master Humphries?”
“It is the correct address.” Madam spread jam on her toast. “Your brother is Master Humphries, you are Miss Humphries, and your sister is Miss Ursella. I was Miss Fleetwood, and my sister—”
“Your sister?” Arthur asked.
“Was referred to by her given name with miss before it, as you would expect.” She sliced her toast in two. “Mr. Conlon, will you summon Mr. Todd?”
“If I may, Mr. Conlon?” Brosnyn stepped forward. “I believe he is in the steward’s study.”
“Off you get, young shanks,” the butler said and busied himself setting to rights what Arthur had left in a muddle.
Arthur watched the Lowell footman leave and could not deny the man was a natural diplomat. Only yesterday he’d smoothly evaded a direct query as to the provenance of the workmen on the roof, Brosnyn suggesting Arthur ask Todd without explicitly doing so. Those workmen also counted Lowell footmen among their number. Although what footmen were doing wielding hammers he’d like to know, much less the three hale fellows who now took over much of the maid’s work as far as cleaning and fetching and setting fires and beating rugs were concerned.
As the woodwork in the place started to gleam in the sunlight that was now able to cascade through the mended windows, far be it from he to judge who did what, if they went merrily about the business of it.
Quick as a wink Brosnyn returned with Todd in tow.
“Good morning, Mr. Todd.” Beatrice handed Conlon a scrap of paper; he in turn handed it to Brosnyn, who handed it to the prince’s factotum. “This is a notation on the specific skills of the footmen as yet unemployed with a task. I expect they will enjoy assisting in the work being done on the cottages.”
“Never let it be said the Lowell footmen did not enjoy their visit here,” Arthur said.
“Their visit?” He found himself on the business end of one of Madam’s pointed looks. “I comprehend you have not read the letter from His Grace?” she asked.
“I have not.”
“I recommend you make yourself the master of its contents,” Madam said. “At your earliest convenience, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” he huffed.
Madam held her peace until the fullness of his churlishness reverberated around the room and returned to the perusal of her Schedule. “Lady Swinburn and I shall proceed with the finishing touches on the nursery. There is a small drawing room on the ground floor that has been refurbished. It is next to the master’s study.”
Morag exchanged an empty pot of tea for a full one. “That’s no drawing room, that’s what was the Beta’s study.”
“Morag,” Arthur said. “Do you never speak unless it is out of turn?”
She appeared to give that her full consideration. “No.”
Madam sailed on without acknowledging them. “Let us serve preprandial drinks in that room, Mr. Conlon, if you please. We shall see if formal gathering is its best use. Next, the kitchen garden is ready for sowing. Mr. Todd, were you to oversee this?”
“I was, ma’am,” he said. “Four of the Lowell footmen have undertaken its tending and await your verdict.”
“It is unfortunate we have missed Disting,” Arthur began and then gulped his tea.
“Disting?” Madam asked, her face the very picture of polite inquiry.
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose so high they were in danger of sliding round the back of her head. “It is a feast, Beezy,” she said, “observed by our kind at this time of year.”
“It means ‘the charming of the plough’ and is a high holiday, as we observe the Nordic pantheon,” Ben added. “The word is from an old northern tongue—”
“Do you wish to keep the use of your own old tongue?” Arthur threatened his brother.
“Whose tongue had it tripped off first, so trippingly?” Charlotte asked.
“Nordic?” Madam inquired. “Is that not where reindeer originate?”
Arthur turned to her. “I do hope I misunderstand your implication.”
“I would, of course, have no way of knowing whether you are of cervine persuasion,” Madam resumed, ignoring him as the children snickered. “Thank you, Mr. Todd. Now then, on to the morning room,” Madam began and parceled out the remaining tasks for the day.
***
The nursery was in order but for several small details and who was to be in charge of the children. They were quite taken with two of the footmen; would it be too odd to give them into their keeping? Beatrice had heard of no such thing in her life, men minding the young, but the lads were keen and patient and amusing as well as amused by the three, as evidenced by the clapping game they were conducting over in the corner. They would simply refer to Bernard and Christopher as the “children’s footmen.” Or perhaps the “footmaids.” “Nursemen”?
She huffed to herself, which Charlotte misinterpreted as they worked together, folding freshly laundered sheets.
“I do apologize, Beezy,” Charlotte said, for once looking truly regretful. “Ben and I tend to joke as children do.”
“I am unused to such behavior at table,” Beatrice replied. It was a wonder she could not see her breath before her, her tone was so cold. “My own behavior has always been above reproach, offering a reflection of good manners for my siblings that they may follow suit.”
“And look how happy it has made you.” Charlotte set aside the cloth they’d finished folding.
Beatrice sank onto the window seat. “I was expected to exhibit immaculate behavior and never betray the slightest emotion while my brothers sprawled about the place like a litter of mongrels.” She hid her face in her hands. “Oh, I am one grievance away from being no better than a tabbie or a dragon. I swore when I was naught but a green girl, I would never become like them.”
“There’s never been a society lass I’ve envied.” Charlotte sat beside her. “But for their embellishments, perhaps.” She reached out and touched one of the ribbons on Beatrice’s sleeve. “I grew up allowed to run wild in Court and often feel the coarser for it.”
“Is there no possibility of balance?” Beatrice tweaked Charlotte’s apron so it lay flat upon her lap. “I envy your laughter with Garben. Laughing with a husband! Whoever considered such a thing.”
“It is not all fun and games,” Charlotte promised.
“I envy your bond with him. That you made a love match.”
“There’s no saying that a love match can’t be made over time.”
“That is not possible.”
“Did it go so poorly last night?”
Oh, the questions she wished to put to her sister-in-law! But the thought of formulating into words what had occurred… No, it would be best if she and Osborn did the bed things again so she may be less overwhelmed and better able to understand what had transpired. “It was rather odd, but I would not be averse to doing it again,” Beatrice allowed herself to admit. “It was unexpectedly not terrible.”
“Rousing praise.” Charlotte’s eyes gleamed with devilment.
Beatrice grabbed her by the hand. “Do not tease him with that, Charlie, please do not.”
Her sister-in-law laced their fingers and squeezed her hand. “You called me Charlie, at long last, so I shall honor your request.” Beatrice suspected there was a caveat in there somewhere, she knew not why. “I do fear for the children’s manners. I want them to be free and play but also to be somewhat civilized.”
“A governess would fulfill those requirements.”
Bernadette ran over and threw herself across Beatrice’s lap. “I would welcome a governess,” she said. As ever, her brother was not far behind.
“Would you?” Beatrice gave her a tentative hug. “A governess would urge you to sit beside me like a young lady.”
Bernadette wedged herself in between Beatrice and her mother. “I would like to learn more things and also proper manners. I would like to be Miss Humphries.”
“Have I not taught you proper manners?” Charlotte sounded cross indeed, but Beatrice saw the twinkle in her eye.
Tarben mimed spewing tea, and the footmen grinned.
“You have taught them many wonderful things, Charlotte,” Beatrice said, “primary among them that they are well loved and need not stand on ceremony with their mother and father.” Tarben looked relieved Aunt Beezy had not rung a peal over his head. “This is a precious thing, my dears. However, there are a variety of situations in which society may call upon you to behave impeccably.” She rose and stood in the middle of the room. “For instance, it is vital to master the appropriate form of greeting your monarch, and I believe I can aid you in this.”
“Have you curtsied to the prince regent himself, Aunt Beezy?” Bernadette asked, struck with awe. Ursella appeared as if from the ether and joined her siblings in ranging before their aunt.
“Oh, I have, Bernadette.” Beatrice smoothed down her skirts. “I have, indeed, and I would be honored to instruct you.”
***
With nothing better to do and no task given him explicitly, he followed after Ben and thus found himself in the grove, irritated beyond words. How had Madam known this place existed? He knew she had not wandered this far, and yet Ben had been given the job of tidying the clearing. She could not know what it meant, nor that its disuse was meaningful. Had Ben volunteered to take it on? Did no one think to ask him his opinion?
Hypocrite, his bear snorted.
Your vocabulary broadens apace, Arthur huffed.
“Are you well, brother?” Ben lifted a fallen tree trunk with ease. The central area for the fire was cluttered with piles of ash; trees torn from their roots littered its circumference. “Thought you’d be in better spirits this morning.”
He did not miss the lack of privacy that came with living in a—in a not-sleuth. His bear rolled his eyes and then his entire body. “I was only doing my duty,” he began.
“Better late than never.” Ben tossed the stump onto a pile of others.
“She—Her Grace—wants a cub.”
“And when the cub comes?” His brother took up a branch and used it to rake up the smaller branches. “You’ll still carry on like this? Without a sentio, without the comforts of a sleuth?”
“This,” Arthur snarled, “is the only way to keep us safe.”
“It keeps us apart, for certain.”
“You were there, Ben, when our father was slaughtered. How can you expect me to behave any differently?”
“I expect you to do exactly that.” Ben gave him his back, a taunt to Arthur’s essential self, showing his lack of fear of the great predator Arthur was. “To embrace your destiny, to stand for your family, to fall in love with your wife.”
“To endanger each and every one of you.” Arthur bent and tossed a clutch of twigs onto the pile.
“We are in greater danger without you.”
How could that be? Should they become as strong as they once were, they may fall prey to another challenger, and then what? What if Arthur lost as his father had lost? At least it would not be due to grief, as the wife such as he had would not grieve him but for lack of progeny. As to that, need he dance around a flame like a heathen to call the child down? He dare not ask Ben; he’d never hear the end of it. And why was Ben so keen to have the sleuth reform? Did he wish only for a place to stow his family? He would not stoop so low as to follow the old ways—
“Do not dare to tell me you are looking for a reason to leave,” he snarled.
Ben looked up from sweeping ashes. “What?”
“As the males do in a sleuth. Seeing to the succession and then wandering far and wide in search of fresher game?” How dare his brother! “Are you looking to play away?”
As a rule, Ben was slow to anger; when he did choose to express his rage, he did it in an instant. He exploded out of his clothes and into his bear, Arthur a heartbeat behind. Down on their fours, they faced off, rumbling with rage, and threw themselves at each other.
In the shadows, a creature lurked and bared its teeth in glee.
***
“…and then slide your left leg out slowly—very good, Tarben—and if you can touch your forehead to your knee? Well done!” Having never executed a full court bow, Beatrice gave instruction as best she could by recalling those which she had received. “Oh! And rotate your right wrist, as you would stir a pot of soup.”
The girls had taken to defiant curtsying like birds to the air, with Ursella surpassing her sister in execution. This lit a fire in Bernadette, whose stubbornness called Arthur to mind.
“In future, Tarben, we shall supply you with an excessively lacy handkerchief. It makes the wrist twirling far more effective. Now rise, slowly, slowly… It is equally important to show that you rise at your leisure. Oh, children, I am so very impressed.” Red-faced, they beamed up at her and then treated her to a battery of hugs. “Charlotte, will you not try?”
“Far be it from me to rob you of your signature move,” she said over the cries of her children’s insistence. “I suppose it is of your devising.”
“Oh yes,” Beatrice said. “It was a way to yield without yielding during my first marriage. Or at least in my mind.”
“I do not understand.” Bernadette frowned.
Beatrice looked to Charlotte, who nodded. How to explain this to a child, to be truthful without being too explicit? “Once upon a time, a young lady was married to a not-very-nice man,” Beatrice began.
“A beast even as we would deem him,” Charlotte interjected.
“It was not entirely clever of her to be so bold,” Beatrice continued, “but the young lady discovered that if she gave excessive tribute, she defied him by appearing to be very obedient. There was none to gainsay her nor to criticize such deference, and so the lady won a small victory each time.”
“The lady ought to have called upon a knight to rescue her!” Tarben stabbed the air with an imaginary sword.
Beatrice stroked a hand over his head. “Even I as a human was aware none may separate a woman from her mate.”
“He was not your mate,” whispered Ursella.
***
The men’s hard work went undone as the bears fought. Ben’s creature was smaller than Arthur’s but rangy, and a history of fraternal fracas kept him canny. The trunks of the fallen trees scattered once more as they wrestled over the ground, the smaller branches flinging about like shrapnel. Fresh scars were slashed on the standing trees, and several shrubs fell foul of their battle until Arthur pinned Ben, teeth gently closing over his throat.
Ben yielded but was a past master at doing so falsely. He relaxed enough to convince Arthur he was done fighting and then threw his weight up and around until they rolled through the underbrush to the nearby brook. A mighty splash and Arthur drew on his dominatum and both Changed back to their manskins.
They sat in the shallow water in silence until they broke into a fierce spate of splashing each other. The sun ducked behind a cloud, and they desisted at once.
“Holy Odin, this is freezing.” Arthur contemplated Changing back into his fur.
“You say that every time we land up in here.” Ben looked cheerful enough about it, considering what had led them there.
That was his brother through and through, never one to hold a grudge. Unlike… “Do you recall—”
“When you chased Charlie into this stream?” Ben roared with laughter.
“I’ve still got the gouge she gave me, I vow.” Arthur rubbed his earlobe. “Does it not weary you? The battling and the fighting.”
“This is play, brother.” Ben splashed him once more. “It is our custom to express our essential selves in such a way.”
“It is not all play,” Arthur insisted. “It has ever been the hallmark of our world, challenges and bloodshed.”
Ben sighed. “None of our generation conform to the old ways. The few elders who do see their power wane with every passing day.” Arthur had no answer for that. “Has it occurred to you that Georgie may know what he’s doing?” Ben asked. “He is not the fribble the world may like to think him.”
“Not always,” Arthur allowed.
“What was his approach that night he bid you wed Beezy? Languid wrist twirling or that awful stillness?”
“Awful stillness, mainly.” Arthur slapped the water around him. “But he was wearing one of those coats of his. It was embroidered with capering bunnies.”
“Jemima’s work.”
“She was at Lowell’s wedding. Bosom friend of the new Duchess of Lowell.”
“Ah.” Ben nodded as if it was all the answer he needed.
“Ah?”
“Lowell’s human duchess who is also acquainted with your new human duchess, who I daresay is not unknown to one of our childhood friends who is versipellis. There may be a greater plan that Georgie weaves.”
“A spider in his web.”
“As is any Alpha, no matter his species.”
“We are reducing their number in these parts. Spiders, that is.”
“But what selfless work they do, showing us where we have not taken care.” He turned and swam for the wider, deeper stretch of the water, and Arthur followed.
Even in their human form, there were no better fishermen than those of ursine lineage. With their bare hands, the brothers scooped up trout as easily as picking daisies. A respectable pile of fish flopped upon the bank until they flopped no more.
“Do you remember when we were young, living in Court, and that sleuth from Denmark came calling?” Ben tossed one last piscis puris on the bank and floated, face to the sun, which had pushed aside the clouds once again. Arthur had to admit it was peaceful and idyllic there and lovely to spend time with his brother, to tussle and fish.
“With the view to overthrowing the king? Or forcing Georgie to marry one of them?”
“He was ten years of age and terrifying with it. And he was stronger with us at his back.”
“Father had none at his back because of the bond breaking his heart.”
“No, Arthur.” Ben gave a mighty splash, and Arthur inhaled more than his fair share of brook. “Because he adhered to the old way of ruling, not of mating. How dare you blame Mother!”
“I do not blame Mum. Why in the world should I blame her? I blame the hunters who had strayed where they ought not and took her from us. I blame the worthless cadre Father had assembled, his useless Beta and his feckless Gamma.”
“The Beta’s mate is the only reason we are alive. She brought us to George and thus to Court and safety.” Neither wanted to think what would have become of them had the usurper gotten them in his clutches.
And yet. “That Beta,” Arthur said, “who was out and about, engaged upon challenging for his own sleuth.”
“He was no Alpha. He was incapable of holding the sentio, never mind there were fewer and fewer of us to fight.” Ben sank to his shoulders. “Only look at me. I have no role beyond father to provide safety for my children. It is not my place to give them the comfort and protection of a sleuth.”
“Guilt, now.” Arthur considered splashing to turn the topic.
“Well you should feel it.” Ben was calm and yet fierce. “As should all who have treated you as a cub still wet behind the ears. You had no guidance in childhood and were given too free a rein as you approached your maturity. Yes, very well you should be guilty, and further, well you should be grateful for the woman up at that house who is devoting herself to making you a home, you ungrateful, stubborn ass.” Ben swam onward again with rather more kicking than necessary.
Arthur admitted to stubbornness, one of his mother’s trenchant qualities. He would allow for ingratitude, if he remembered his paternal grandfather correctly. Water was never wet enough for that old goat. He took for granted the assets of character he’d inherited from Papa as well as his erstwhile Alpha’s laissez-faire approach to dress. If there was one thing his father never took for granted, it was his bond with Mum. Yet how could it be worth the pain that followed when she was slain? How could it be worth it, opening the door to his brother and his family? As if he could stand to let them wander the earth looking for home when it was—
“Here. You will stay here. At Arcadia.” Arthur floated over to join Ben at the curve in the stream.
The sunlight reflected from the water onto Ben’s face, his eyes glowing yellow as his brother’s bear pinned him in his gaze. “The common mistake that is made regarding Alphas is that they are all-powerful,” he said, and Arthur waited for his brother’s non sequitur to reveal its meaning. “They are, in their way, yet they require a balance of power given into the correct hands, to form the order required for a healthy hierarchy. Every soul is needed, from Alpha through to Omega.”
“Were I to pledge a Beta, Ben—”
“It is not I,” Ben said, gentle as the breeze that brushed their skin. “Despite my nickname, it is no mistake I was called Garben. When the time comes, I will be your Gamma.”
“Well, who, then?” Arthur kicked at the bed of the stream and stubbed his toe on a larger-than-expected stone. “That fox? Not bloody likely.”
Ben pulled himself up onto the bank and backtracked to gather up as much fish as he could carry. “I suggest,” he muttered, “looking directly beneath your nose.”