Page 8 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

“I am not sure I like that much better,” Wolf grumbled.

“Lord John mentioned that Wolf is not your Christian name. It is just a diminutive of your title, correct? I do not believe I ever heard your Christian name before.”

Wolf felt his throat work with the urge to tell her as he offered a minute nod. He felt himself laid bare under the searching intensity of her gaze, much as if she were peeling back the very layers of his composure, leaving him profoundly exposed.

As if sensing his discomfort, Lady Petra deftly changed the subject before he told her his name. “Besides, I have not agreed to your scheme quite yet.”

“And yet, I think you have.”

“Have I?” she asked, staring down at her glass, the ghost of a smile emerging.

“You did the moment your father invited me to his box.”

Lady Petra’s lip ticked. “I suppose I shall allow it. Or at least the appearance of a courtship. I do not like to prevaricate.”

Wolf studied her as she focused again on the lemonade in her hand, taking a small, ladylike sip. Wolf perceived a certain kernel of truth in her utterance, despite the nagging conviction that some vital fragment remained obscured from his view. An indolent gentleman he might have been, yet even he possessed a profound and abiding distaste for the base utility of a falsehood. The truth of his own life, however, remained a source of infinite mystery: was it the man he had been during his first fourteen years, or the philosophy his father had instilled in him before his death?

“Just the appearance then, Lady Petra,” he quipped.

“So you do not mind having a pretend betrothed—” he chortled at her choice of words but she continued without acknowledging his interruption “—who may seek out more mystery from the Prince of Denmark but does not openly admit to having read a mystery?”

“If I were to recommend one,” he began, seized by an unbidden urgency to share his favorite author with her. Why he could not say. “Mystery, that is. Not for reading, of course, just suggesting to the ether.”

“Naturally.”

“There is an American author who died a few years ago. He had a short story called The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The story kept me guessing and the ending had me quite perplexed. He—” Wolf abruptly stopped speaking, struck by the profound impropriety of the book he was currently recommending. He was, after all, addressing a lady of the ton, the innocent daughter of a powerful peer. Ladies were not meant to read such dark and disturbing writing.

“Oh please, I beg you, do not tell me the ending!” At that moment, Lady Petra performed the first breach of propriety Wolf had ever known her to commit. She took her gloved hand and put a finger to his mouth, as if intent on silencing him from telling her the ending.

“I wasn’t going to spoil the ending.” Or he attempted to say that. His breath had stopped the second she touched his lips.

Lady Petra stared at her finger on his lips as if unsure what to do next, how to redress the situation. Her eyes darted around the room, then very slowly, she pulled her hand away, as if, by moving at that pace, no one would notice where her finger had just been. While he knew it was the right thing to do, something within Wolf willed her to keep her finger there.

“I believe Act Three is beginning shortly,” Petra said with complete composure, as though the previous moment had never happened.

She was not the only one who could recover quickly. “Then I shall escort you back to your father’s box.” Wolf held out his arm and she looped her arm around his, as if she had done so hundreds of times. Like the moment before, there was a certain rightness to that motion that set his teeth on edge. He needed a distraction.

“Courtship,” he blurted out and the lady’s gaze fixed upon him with a searching intensity.

“Pretend courtship,” he corrected smoothly, “should be undertaken before the Bromley ball, which I have on good authority, Lord John will attend. I believe we should take a phaeton ride through Hyde Park beforehand, my lady. To establish our courtship to Polite Society.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Petra lean her head to one side as if considering his proposition.

“You have a phaeton, my lord?”

“I do indeed. A park phaeton. It’s a sleek ride,” he said with pride. “Will your father be concerned?”

“Of me?” She peered up at him. “No, not in the way you might think. But he will not wish me to do anything to jeopardize a betrothal with Lord John. He is quite set on that course.”

Something acidic entered Wolf’s chest at her words, but he brushed it off as a feeling of protectiveness for John. “You can inform him of my intentions to hasten your nuptials. Your father will want to marry me himself for that.”

Petra’s lips spasmed very slightly as if she were trying to smile but the topic was not one that actually made her smile. “Then, yes, let us take a ride on your phaeton, Lord Wolfridge.” Returning to her father’s box, she started to withdraw her arm to reclaim her seat. However, she paused for a moment to study him. He who had previously been indifferent to any woman’s good opinion now found himself standing straighter under her gaze.

“I do not think I will ever be bored in this—” She dropped her voice, “Pretend courtship as it were.”

“I do not think I will either, Lady Petra,” he muttered to himself as she sat down.

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