Beatrice watched the children clatter and scamper down the stairs. “Tomorrow we shall learn how to descend with decorum.”
“Bernie was not wrong. I know little of proper manners.” Charlotte resumed her good-natured acceptance of her shortcomings. “I had no come-out nor a reason to prepare for one, and many of the finer points of civilized behavior are beyond me.”
“Charlie.” Beatrice stopped her mid-step. “Those children are loved and wanted and encouraged to be themselves with no thought but for what games they will play and how better to battle their mother in their bid never to consume a vegetable. They are free in ways that cannot be taken for granted.” Tarben threw himself over the banister.
“No!” Charlotte bellowed with an authority that would not be denied. Her son slid his leg back down and slipped back onto the stairs as if that had been his intention all along.
The moment lasted a little over a heartbeat, and yet it was a revelation. “Does it come naturally, being a…a mother?”
Charlotte slipped her arm through Beatrice’s. “It is not without its hesitations and fears, but you will be wonderful. You have clear authority and a warm heart.”
“It remains to be seen if I am indeed able.” She took a deep breath and dared a question. “Does the seed take at once, or does it require repeated attempts?”
“What did your husband say?”
Her husband. “That like many things in life it may require diligence and application.”
“Oh, diligence.” Charlotte giggled. “And application. Yes, indeed.”
They watched as Ursella wandered into the footstool room. “What Ursella said, about Castleton…”
“Not being your mate? Yes, she would know.”
“I do not understand how she might.”
“Omegas are precious amongst us,” Charlotte said. “You are aware of versipellian hierarchy?”
“I have heard the terms Beta and Gamma.” Bernadette and Tarben raced each other after their sister, and shouting commenced. Beatrice judged it harmless, as did Charlotte.
“The Omega was, in history, considered the least among us,” Charlotte explained. “They were perceived to be weak due to their quiet and self-effacing ways, which are contrary to versipellian nature. Yet the first clan that allowed its Omega’s gifts to develop prospered in ways unknown before. They have recourse to profound wisdom and an ability to calm and manage the emotions of a group without removing free will. They allow the clan to respond rather than react out of feral instinct and fear.”
“And to know what cannot be known?”
“To know what is rather than what is thought to be.” They paused in the foyer and watched the children wrestle one another off the footstool; even Ursella gave as good as she got.
A great clamor sounded from the back of the house and drew their attention as the women reached the foyer. “Come,” Beatrice said. “Let us see what the commotion is.”
***
If it was not one thing, it was another. Furious, Arthur turned in the hall to be greeted by two of the hardier footmen, the cubs and their mother, the duchess in the lead. Ben, arms full of trout, headed for the larder, Mrs. Porter on his tail.
“Madam.” The children rushed to stand before him and treated their uncle to a sardonic flurry of curtsying and one exceedingly condescending bow.
“Well done, children,” their instructor commended, her eyes smiling. “Yes, Osborn? Is aught amiss?”
He brandished the sticks he held. “I’ll have you know the kitchen garden is in rag order.”
“Is it?” Her skirts swirled as she turned for the kitchens, while the rest fell into place behind her like a brace of ducklings. “It ought not to be so, as Mr. Todd informed us this morning.”
She collected Glynis and Ciara in her wake as well as Brosnyn and three more Lowell footmen.
“This is true, he said as much at breakfast,” Charlotte insisted. Arthur joined his duchess—
Whose duchess? his bear wondered.
—joined Madam at the front of what appeared to be the majority of the household except for that bloody fox.
“Only see,” he said as they took in the devastation. The fence around the garden was little more than kindling. What had been neat furrows with pea sticks ready to train growing shoots was the picture of wanton destruction, the lengths of wood broken, the strings tangled, and the earth was churned as if there had been a great battle.
In the center of the chaos lay a dead deer: its neck was quite obviously broken and its belly a mass of blood and entrails.
“Children? Oh, where is your sister?” Madam turned to Bernadette and Tarben. “Do find her, if you will. And then back into the kitchen for refreshment, as your perfect application of my lesson earns you first choice of Ciara’s latest treats.”
They winkled their sister out of a hedge, and Tarben led them cheering to the house with Ciara in their wake. Charlotte followed them at a nod from Madam.
“A word of warning would not have gone amiss, Your Grace,” she said and turned to the nearest footman. “Coogan, if you would ask Mr. Todd to join me?” Brosnyn’s instructions ensued. “If the men who saw to this initially are not presently intent on a task, do summon them to set this to rights, with my apologies that their hard work was undone.” Arthur was next in line. “If you would grant me a moment of your time, Your Grace?”
Her tone boded ill. “Come, let us repair to the footstool room.” Arthur offered her his arm, which she eschewed. “It has been set aside for disputations, has it not?”
Madam led the way, past feasting children and gleaming wainscoting. “We shall paint it your favorite color, you have only to say so,” she said.
The sunlight from the sparkling-clean windows of the foyer shone upon her hair. “Golden, perhaps?”
“Golden is not a color.” She stopped to straighten a painting.
Arthur rolled his eyes, safely behind her back. “By all means, let us argue about what constitutes a color.”
Down the hall they proceeded and into the room, which was still lacking the door. She stood next to the footstool and folded her hands at her waist. “I must insist if you have an issue with the work, you apply to me directly and in private.”
“Apply to you directly.”
“And in private. There was no need for the children to have seen that poor animal.”
Arthur scoffed. “The children have a better idea of the cycle of life than you imagine.”
“Nevertheless.” She stood before him and displayed no fear. “It was unnecessary, and in future—”
“In future!” He spat the word like an epithet. “What can the future hold if the simplest of tasks cannot be concluded successfully?”
“Osborn.” What had he said that softened her tone? At least she left off addressing him as the scathing “Your Grace.” “It is a minor setback, the fault of which can be laid at the door of the natural world.”
He swept his arm in the general direction of the garden. “Nothing about that was natural.”
Madam searched his face as she would an encyclopedia from which she sought knowledge. “Shall we put the footmen on guard?”
“The footmen!” Alfred’s bloody letter! “I would like to know what Lowell was thinking, sending us so many mouths to feed.”
“It was the work of the duchess, as the letter informed us. Which I perceive remains unread.” He shrugged, recalled Ben’s words about being treated like a child and the inference he acted like one. Madam carried on. “I shudder to think what would become of Arcadia without them. They are integral to the reconstruction of your crumbling manse.”
“Our crumbling manse.” He looked at the ceiling, freshly plastered, at the curtains, cleaned and properly hung, everywhere but at her, as only then was he able to inquire: “I would assure myself of your ease after the events of last evening.”
“I am well.” Was she? Her cheeks were flushed. Would the room look absurd with blush-pink walls? It may be his new favorite color.
Madam cleared her throat. “And you?”
“I?” Of course he was well. Why would he not be well? Last night had gone…well. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“I am well.” They took a step forward toward one another and then backed away as from a hot stove. She pretended to inspect an impeachable swag of curtain, and he inspected her.
Would they lie together again, tonight? After the meal, after the children were put to bed, after gathering for tea and chitchat and Charlotte’s knowing glances and Ben’s smiling eyes and Madam’s nerves, nerves he could see roiling beneath the layer of frost even from across this room. Was that what the frost was for, to disguise the wealth of warmth the woman sought to hide from the ton? A wealth that had been thrown away by Castleton? A bounty of kindness that infused every compliment she paid to another on the successful completion of their task, that overflowed when she cuddled one of the cubs? The promise of progress every time she called him Osborn? The hope of growth that would, with careful sowing, produce so much more to be reaped—
Talk of reaping. “I would have an explanation regarding the destruction of the garden, Madam.” He brandished the sticks again.
“Why?” That arched brow!
“Why?” He looked at the sticks; they did not yield the answer. “Because I will not countenance such disruption of my land and of my…”
“Of your…?” A head tilt now accompanied the inquisitive brow.
Of his what? His authority? His peace of mind? He laid claim to neither. “To the so-called refurbishment of this place. A place that has known great chaos and ought to know no more. I will put a stop to it.” Arthur did not intend that to sound like a threat.
“Do you wish to frighten me?” Madam looked the opposite of frightened. She looked like she might spring claws from her fingertips and fangs from behind that rosebud mouth. “How far would you go to do so? Is it at your door I may lay those poor little creatures who did not deserve to die? If so, you are no better than Castleton, whose lands never played host to anything but predators such as he.”
“You may not, as I did no such thing. And do not compare me to that madman.”
“Then is it that you wish me to fail?” Arthur stood, struck dumb. She took his lack of answer to be proof enough. “It is well, therefore, I do not make these efforts to garner your favor. I do this because it must be done, and I am well able for it. I will not stand by and live under less than ideal circumstances, nor shall I allow any human or creature to live under anything less than the protection of a sound roof, in full cleanliness and comfort.”
“I do not—” What did he “not”? Did he not deserve this bollocking from his tiny wife? Did he not wish for the comfort of his people?
Whose people? his bear wondered.
“Be silent,” he snarled and then caught himself, chagrined to have spoken aloud. “Madam, that command was not intended for you.”
“No?” Lady Frost was now in full possession of the conversation. “Was it to your creature you spoke so? I wonder what he said to deserve your censure. He may be the wiser of the two.”
The beast preened like a debutante. “I did not mean to offend you. I am merely…” Worried about your welfare, of the welfare of all here. Concerned the changes being wrought are even greater than they appear. Uneasy that you may have fallen pregnant. Anxious you may have not. Distraught you will not welcome me into your bed again, no matter your desire for a child. “I am merely—”
A knock on the corridor wall interrupted his morose monologue. “It is I, ma’am,” came the voice of the fox. “I understand there was a disturbance in the garden.”
“If you would excuse me, Your Grace.” It was not a request.
Your Grace. That likely answered his question as to whether they would lie together again that night.
***
The children were abed, none the worse for seeing the destruction visited upon that innocent creature, and the adults gathered in the family reception room. They must devise a less cumbersome name for it. Charlotte and Ben were battling out a game of draughts with subdued hilarity. Osborn had been his usual taciturn self throughout the evening meal. And it was Beatrice’s turn to be looked at.
She had been aware of her frostiness upon entering the kitchens that morning and had been powerless to curtail it. She wanted nothing more than to melt at the sight of his eyes, those warm brown eyes fixing on her the moment she entered; the way he stood big as a mountain, the way his hands brushed down his front, his front that had been pressed up against her front… He had gained pleasure from it, had he not? Their argument in the footstool room had been fraught with more than a dispute over the ruined garden. Ought she to have given in to the silly argument? She would not take on fault that was not hers, even if it meant he would not lie with her again. That was no way to go on.
She could not face him if she thought he did not wish to retire with her again.
Would he wish to do that again, tonight?
When he was not pacing around the edges of the room and interfering with Charlotte’s moves on the board, Osborn lounged in the chair set catercorner with the bookcase, a chair that had been sitting alongside the chaise longue, which itself had been moved over to the window. Every time Beatrice visited this room, it reorganized itself by some means, which she supposed to be Charlotte or the children. Would she remark upon it? If a sofa was set in place, that was where the sofa remained. Was it a custom of their kind? She thought to ask him, but he was sitting with such…aggression, if that were possible. His legs stretched out before him, trousers taut on his thighs, ankles crossed, one hand propped against his chin, that fat curl lying on his brow.
Looking at her.
“Thank you, Corvus,” she said as the tea tray was set before her. She set about doling out treats and tea, Charlotte and Ben abandoning their match for sustenance.
“Ciara has made the lemon cake you prefer, Osborn,” she said as she put two slices on a plate and set it down on the tea table. He rose and took it and did not take his eyes off her as he bit into a slice and licked his lips.
Charlotte, her back to Osborn, took her cup as well as Ben’s; before she turned away, she made a show of licking her lips as the duke had.
Beatrice took a sip of her tea and gasped. Osborn rushed to her side and dropped his plate as he did so; it fell facedown on the rug.
“What is amiss? Has the milk gone off?” He loomed over her like an angel of retribution. “Show me your tongue.”
Across from her, Charlotte almost treated them to a reprise of her tea-spewing antics.
“I am well, Osborn. It is only that the tea is hot.” She selected two more slices of cake and put them on another plate. “I had forgotten it would be so, thanks to our new footmen, rather than the cooler temperatures I have become accustomed to.”
“Said the actress to the bishop,” Ben muttered, and Charlotte made the least graceful noise Beatrice had ever heard, a cross between a giggle and snort and a bark. It was so rude, it made her want to laugh herself.
“Do not tease,” Osborn scolded them. “There is no end of harm that might result from a mouthful of hot liquid.”
Charlotte and Ben collapsed onto one another and snorted into one another’s shoulders. Beatrice felt a hysterical giggle burgeon behind her breastbone.
“I am sure my tongue has suffered worse, Osborn,” she began, which prompted Ben to fold over in half and Charlotte to fall onto his back, both roaring with laughter.
“Compose yourselves!” Osborn demanded. “You guttersnipes, shut your mouths.”
“Said the bishop to the actress,” Charlotte squeaked, kicking out her feet and knocking over the teapot.
“Thou cream-faced loons,” Osborn muttered. To cover her incipient delirium, Beatrice rose to ring for another pot as the duke took out his choler by prodding at the fire.
As the flames rose in the chimney, the room filled with smoke. The hilarity met its end at his bellow, and Ben and Charlotte rushed to open the windows. The heat dislodged a deluge of branches and along with them a dead creature, falling into the flames, only serving to increase the conflagration. Beatrice yanked on the bell pull, and once again it fell onto her head.
Osborn roared; there was no other word for it. He roared and thrust the poker at Ben, who took responsibility for the fire. He roared again, and Brosnyn, Corvus, and three more footmen rushed in, with Mr. Todd close behind. Osborn took the bell pull out of her hand and, much like the sticks from the garden, shook it in his fist.
“Was this not on Madam’s schedule to be repaired?” the duke demanded. “And what of the state of the chimney? I distinctly recall it was to be swept.”
“It appears a dead animali puri played a part in the obstruction,” Ben said.
“Who is doing this to defenseless animals?” Osborn sounded apoplectic.
More Lowell footmen poured into the room, Conlon directing their movements in such a way as resulted in them colliding with one another. Charlotte voiced opinions that were going unheard due to the confusion, and Ben waded into the mix with orders that only served to discombobulate the footmen further. Mr. Todd was slinking around the edges of the room and ignoring His Grace at his peril until—
Osborn invoked his dominatum.
How curious. Beatrice watched as every being in the room, in particular Mr. Todd, froze in place. She of course recalled Castleton using it, how Georgie’s was stronger than his ever was, and how both had affected her, and yet Osborn’s did not trouble her in the least. She could feel it pressing, could see its effect on the others, on even Ben and Charlotte, but to her it was not debilitating. It was, in its way, protective, and she was relaxed enough to demand, “Osborn, desist,” and clutch his arm.
His arm, banded around her waist. Osborn embraced her, a shield protecting her from nascent peril, and he stroked her head as though she’d been brained by a boulder rather than a bell pull. She petted him on his forearm in appeasement as his whole body shuddered; he released the oppressive atmosphere. It was subtle, less than a shiver of gooseflesh, but given their proximity, there was no overlooking it. The dominatum must take something out of him in turn.
“Osborn,” she repeated, now clinging to his arm. He took another breath, his chest expanding against her back, his hand stilled on her head. Charlotte took one look at them and commenced herding the footmen out of the room. Mr. Todd eyed the door, and Ben, now sober as a judge, looked to be awaiting instruction. “Mr. Todd, I expect you have some explaining to do,” Beatrice said.
“Ma’am,” he said, cricking his neck.
She waited for further elucidation; none followed. Osborn made a noise like a rushing river about to crash its banks. “In the morning, after the household breaks its fast, you shall join us in the master’s study.”
Ben cleared his throat. “It is the Alpha’s study, Be—Beatrice.”
“The Alpha’s study,” she repeated, to another rumble from Osborn. She trained her attention on Mr. Todd. “I trust you will present yourself. And you as well, Ben, thank you.”
“Ma’am.” Mr. Todd bowed and left, Ben on his heels after showing his neck to her, an unusual act on her brother-in-law’s part; she did not dwell upon it.
It was tempting to remain in Osborn’s arms, even if he was not holding her like a—a lover. The strength of his embrace and his warmth made her knees wobble. Had the chaos ruined her chances of a marital visitation? She found it had had the opposite effect on her; she was rather invigorated. “Mr. Todd could tutor one in how to concede without appearing to do so.”
“The Alpha’s study?” He released her, and she took the bell rope from him to lay aside.
“Yes. I imagine you know where it is.”
“Do not patronize me, Madam. I know where it is, in my own house. My own house which persists in falling around your ears and now attempts to set itself on fire.” He went to jab at what was left of the blaze, clearly not having learned his lesson. Beatrice took away the poker. She stopped and saw the creature in the ash was a squirrel.
“Oh. Oh, no.” It could be any one of its kind, it did not have to be the one with which she conversed the other night.
Osborn selected a particularly ominous growl from his lexicon. “This was not my work.”
“As you have said. I was not about to accuse you.” Would she embarrass herself by weeping over a squirrel? “We shall get to the bottom of the matter.”
“Then I shall leave you to it.” Osborn took the poker back and threw it in with the andirons. He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaled. “And we…” He dropped his hand and turned to her. “We shall convene in the morning as you have decreed.”
He opened the door and paused with his back to her. “Sweet dreams,” he bid her, grudgingly, and away he went.
Thus Beatrice’s question as to whether they would lie together again that night was answered.