Page 5 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

And yet despite his renewed effort to learn everything he could about the business he had ignored these last five years, the one thought at the forefront of his mind had nothing to do with business. The one thought at the forefront of his mind was the constant reminder that he needed to convince Lady Petra to undertake their fake courtship before John left.

That thought stopped Wolf for a moment as he returned to his carriage for the day.

He had two futures to save.

Perhaps his friendship with John was not so one-sided after all.

Twin fonts of guilt and relief coursed through Wolf’s veins as he reclined into the velvet squab of his carriage. John had not requested he travel to Bristol. He noted this as his driver departed for Belgravia, glancing out the carriage window as the streets shifted away from the docks.

Aside from a few short missives here and there, he had hardly spoken to his aunt and uncle, the people who raised him, for years. They had appeared to have given up trying to write to him. Until recently. He had not one but two recent letters from them. Two unopened letters that he had attempted to shove to the back of his mind, just as they sat at the very bottom of his satchel.

At that moment, the carriage must have hit a dip in the cobblestones as it rattled loudly, shaking Wolf out of his guilty reverie. Glancing at his surroundings, he recognized he had been lost in his thoughts for longer than he was aware, oblivious to the shifting neighborhoods around him. The crowded, cacophonous streets that held just a hint of something floral in the air told him they were near Covent Garden.

Sitting at attention, he scanned the theatres before them. Although completely lacking in artistic skill or ability, he had always taken to the arts in a way John had taken to the sciences. He adored poetry, especially one rather macabre American author who he often read for his dark and mysterious yarns. Of course, not a soul alive knew of this love, other than his general artistic patronage as a gentleman, which was publicly known.

A lord can be a patron, he can dally with opera dancers, but he cannot actually be a poet. Byron would hardly have survived in the age of industry. His father’s voice rang in his ears, as if it were stating an incontrovertible fact. And yet, despite this advice, Wolf could not help sparing a second glance at a passing theatre whose foundation appeared to be sagging. Perhaps they were in need of a patron. That would be an appropriate role for a lord.

As he took in the crumbling columns passing slowly before him, his eyes fell upon two figures. One was tall and blond, wearing a plain black cloak and the vestiges of a lady’s maid. And the other…

“What the devil is she doing here?” Wolf said to himself. As he watched the small figure weaving amongst the crowd and headed away from the market, Wolf was overcome with a curiosity he rarely, if ever, indulged in. Wolf’s father had ingrained in him the world’s natural hierarchy when he pulled him from Bristol at fourteen: gentlemen occupied the highest order, with everything else rightly positioned beneath them. Though Wolf didn’t fully embrace this concept, his minor acts of rebellion were always within the bounds of what was deemed acceptable for a gentleman: gambling, drinking, and pursuing women.

And yet here was something outside of that schema of order within his mind. He had always believed John and Lady Petra did not suit because Lady Petra fell so keenly into this order. Her actions were always predictable. She attended a fete. She wore the perfectly appropriate en vogue gown, the color and cut neither shocking nor plain. She greeted everyone graciously and danced with whoever was appropriate as she was neither a wallflower nor a flirt. She watched the entrance for her supposed betrothed. Every single action was predictable, that which was expected of a lady, of the only child of one of the most powerful peers of the realm.

He had never expected to see Lady Petra doing anything so far outside the bounds of propriety, but there she was. Dressed in a simple gray bonnet and cloak, she hurried from Covent Garden with a companion who appeared to be part lady’s maid and part Viking warrior.

Absent-mindedly, Wolf tapped his walking stick up, signaling to the coachman that he wished to stop.

Stepping out from his carriage, his eyes sought the two figures, who were now at a rather great distance. Wolf surveyed the street before him, recognizing that he would have to move against the costermongers to track them.

“What the devil is she doing?” he repeated to himself, though this time, the question brought on a strange thrill. Something, nay, someone he thought he so thoroughly understood had presented him a new mystery, a new puzzle to solve.

To Wolf’s frustration, it was nigh impossible to move against the teeming crowd that day, as he possessed neither Lady Petra’s petite form nor her grace, and he was forced to give up his pursuit after several blocks of stepping through and around vendors, already tired from hawking their wares that morning.

He returned to his carriage somewhat defeated but infinitely intrigued. Perhaps this fake courtship would help him with this uselessness, this ennui he had been feeling of late.

And he was only slightly afraid of how.

Chapter Two

Petra adjusted the heavy veil of her bonnet, ensuring it draped to obscure her features from any inquisitive glance. While the act of walking in the company of her maid would scarcely invite the scrutiny of Polite Society, she was acutely aware that her choice of neighborhood would be noted with immediate interest should she be recognized.

“Are you quite well, Cecile?” Her lady’s maid was almost a foot taller than her and appeared to have greater difficulty moving against the crowd. A lifetime of governesses and avoiding her father’s traps when she could had led Petra toward a lightness of foot.

I would be a good spy, a self-satisfied voice within her crowed, and Petra almost rolled her eyes as the silly thought entered her mind. She pushed such fancies away as she took in Cecile’s countenance. The tall woman was almost out of breath, and from the way her eyes darted to all sides, Petra realized it was not due to any exertion but rather the circumstance.

“I am so sorry, Cecile, I did not think of how being jostled amongst so many may have caused you distress. Here, let us take some time to recover.” Petra led the taller woman off toward what appeared to be the alley of a lesser-known theatre, as Petra noted old sets of a royal court sitting outside in the alleyway, the vestiges of a previous production of perhaps a Shakespearean history.

How bird-brained could she be? Petra had found Cecile over a year earlier, scarred and nearly starving on the street. While she could not coax much out of Cecile initially, over time, Petra discerned that Cecile had come from some kind of circumstance where she had been forced to fight others for her survival. She never said where she was from, but her accent gave away some kind of Nordic background, as did her Viking-like height and blond hair.

While at first Petra’s father, Lord Kemberley, had objected to the woman training to be Petra’s lady’s maid, that was one of the few battles that Petra had won, given the unique agreement about hiring staff she held with her father.

Surveying the broken throne that sat in the alleyway, Petra led Cecile to sit as she examined her reticule for anything that could aid Cecile.

“Smelling salts? Megrim powder?” Petra offered as she realized how useless almost everything she had on her person was.

Cecile gave her a look that said that she would not be caught dead using smelling salts.

With an unladylike shrug she would never dream of showing her father, Petra joined her on the stage throne next to her and sighed. “I fear I did not think that through.”