Wolves. So bloody dramatic.
Arthur Humphries, Duke of Osborn, leaned against a silk-covered wall in the Viscount Montague’s ballroom. He was present under extreme duress, thanks to a strongly worded missive from his cousin, and now the evening wanted only this: an eruption of romance from Alfred, Duke of Lowell. Rumors had reached even him, in his ambulatory rustication, of His Grace’s abduction of the Honorable Felicity Templeton. Those who knew that Lowell was a versipellis, a Shapeshifter, realized the duke had finally found his fated mate and reeled with the news she was homo plenus—a human. The majority of society were appalled that the peer had run off with an utter nobody rather than snatching up a diamond of the first water or, at the very least, a female of better breeding than Baron Templeton’s only offspring.
When he heard of the scandal surrounding the freshly dubbed “Fallen Felicity,” Arthur had dismissed it as fourth-hand tittle-tattle with no truth in it. On the contrary: it appeared to be much ado about something, and the drama would play out before the entire world.
The lady’s entrance had been sensational enough, with her arrival so late as to challenge fashionability; added to that, her presence devolved into a confrontation with an uncle regarding a dispute about a will. Arthur rubbed his shoulder against the wall as Alfred blathered on about legacies and titles and Odin knew what, but he had to admit to admiration for Lowell’s control. Here, in a mansion full of humans, a wolf dared to show his temper and managed to hold his essential self at bay. Nary a claw edged his fingertips; not a sight of his scruff threatened to unfurl.
Miss Templeton turned to face her uncle and the onlookers; in so doing she gave the duke her back. She must know what he is and yet she shows no fear, Arthur thought. Brave little human. Standing up to loathsome relations as well as holding her own with a powerful Shapeshifter? She would make a fine Alpha female, human or not.
Upon a further outbreak of choler over some title or other, the King’s guard entered without fanfare and laid hands on the lady’s uncle; a smattering of applause accompanied the snarling and shouting of the man as he was forcibly escorted out.
That was that, then. Thrilling in its way, Arthur supposed, and rather more gripping than the current bill at Covent Garden. The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green had nothing on the Alpha Duke of Lowell Hall. Nevertheless, Arthur could not comprehend why George had demanded his attendance when the prince himself was nowhere to be seen. Had the Regent appeared at what even Arthur knew was a middling ball, it would set an alarming precedent.
Arthur’s presence was sensational in its own right, enough to send the matchmaking mamas into the boughs. No duke of the realm was safe from those trading on the Marriage Mart, not even when the holder of such an august title was as large and rough around the edges as himself. His attire was not in the first stare, as his love of tailors was nonexistent; he could not say how old his coat was nor his trousers, only that they had taken as many a turn around a ballroom as he. Turn was overstating the matter: more like held up as many a wall.
A mama determined upon a coronet for her offspring would discount his costume as a rectifiable deficiency, but only the hardiest of matchmakers would overlook his idiosyncratic coiffure. His hair was styled after Brummell’s Brutus but was infinitely richer in density and perfectly complemented his meticulously tended sideburns. A dollop of pomade de nerole—its bitter orange scent a familiar comfort—kept his unruly curls in control.
It was a pity a beard was so far out of fashion that even Arthur was clean-shaven, and yet he often toyed with the idea of cultivating the appearance of a Hussar. Had he been a second son—and a human, Freya forbid—he would have leapt at a commission, at the chance to live off the King’s shilling, released from the albatross of his title, a woman in every port…no, that was the Navy. The Navy then, sailing the high seas, at the mercy of the elements, free of the land and his ties to it, of the responsibilities that loomed in his consciousness, that he denied, even though doing so left him so, so—
Alone, his bear muttered.
Hush, Arthur scolded. He pushed himself away from the wall and wandered the edges of the throng. He noticed his customary cultivars of scuttlebutt were poking at the hot coals of this latest spectacle and hoped the imminent Duchess of Lowell had the emotional fortitude to outlast the relentless judgment of these biddies. He himself was at his happiest far from London, away from the endless scrutiny and the machinations of the beau monde. Once Ben and Charlotte had wed, he’d begun his social hibernation, nipping in the bud the notion of reestablishing the Osborn sleuth. He was doing them a service. There were more than a few of the old guard near enough to their homeplace to provide his brother’s growing family with hearth and home.
Did his brother go about? He felt a pinch in his chest at the thought of Ben moving through society, the cheeky Charlotte at his side, winkling out the ton’s deepest secrets with no effort at all. Arthur breathed in sharply—they were not here this evening, were they? He would not put it past Georgie to orchestrate some sort of reunion, where Arthur could not in good conscience flee in an instant. His long-ago oath was secure in his self-made aloofness, and he would not rescind it. Tonight’s event would come to a close, and he would return to his natural habitat.
Not natural, chided his bear.
Chosen habitat, Arthur retorted.
Wretched choice. The bear rolled in his aura and showed Arthur his back.
It is the choice our kind have made for eons. Why he quarreled with his creature he did not know. He would like to offer this as an example to any human who thought animals were easily led or lesser in reasoning. His essential self was able to argue with the best. A male bear does not remain with his sleuth, and that is that.
Animali puris ways are not our ways, the bear countered. The new generation has put them aside. Even though the humans in his vicinity could not hear his bear growl, they obeyed an unconscious atavistic instinct and hurried away.
Arguing logic with his essential self was a losing game, and yet he continued: My father observed the law. You were not there.
I was yet to be roused, but I was there. The bear rubbed up against him, nosed him in the aura around his head, for comfort, in sorrow. I am here now. The time has come.
Never, Arthur retorted.
Now, his creature murmured.
Both he and his bear were rendered speechless as Lowell went down on one knee. Holy Freya and all her Valkyries, never say he was going to—yes, there it was, a ring and a plea. The females as one looked about to swoon and the males as though they’d cheerfully run the duke through, hanging be damned.
Mate, his bear sighed.
With a human? Arthur scoffed. Surely that was not possible.
His bear insisted: They are mates.
You needn’t be getting any ideas.
Want ours.
Was there anything worse than ursine obstinance? No human female would have us, you great hairy numpty, Arthur said. We are landless, homeless—
We are none of that, his bear snarled. For you have only to embrace the legacy of our parents—
Arthur growled and set loose a flurry of debutantes. You know nothing of what you speak—
He turned to leave, uncertain of his ability to hold to his manskin, and nearly plowed down a footman decked out in royal livery.
“Your Grace.” The servant bowed. “His Highness desires your presence.”
“Does he indeed?” So George was here, then. The footman gestured, and Arthur sighed. “Lead on.”