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“As for the gewgaws, they are all gone. Sold to pay off your father’s debts, perhaps? Drank them away, did he? The diamonds, the pearls?” Her uncle never looked more porcine than when he smiled, as he did now. “Your father, it would appear, lied to your mother.”
“He would never.” Could a man who gambled and drank himself to death be trusted to do what was right?
“He has done. He has sealed your fate—no husband and children for you, as there is no portion to attract a suitor, my dear.” Her uncle made the endearment sound like a curse.
“My father loved my mother and would not insult her memory through me.” Would he not? He had certainly insulted that memory through his behavior upon her death.
Uncle Ezra sighed, the exhalation sarcastic. “We will never know. All we know is that he has pledged the entirety of his goods and chattels and income to you, a mere female, should younotmarry. Is there logic to this? There is, if he expected that your expectations would be nil. It is a terrible thing, for one of your station, is it not? Consignment to spinsterhood?”
“Yes, Uncle. Any debutante would think it a fate worse than death.” Felicity lowered her gaze, hoping she appeared abject. Inside, exultation rushed up her spine. She kept her eyes on her toes, and her breathing became labored; he might interpret it as panic rather than excitement. To be left dowerless by one’s father implied a lack of worth even beneath the general low value women held in society. Her mother had been certain of the terms of her jointure; had her father changed his mind?
And yet… Was there a gift hidden in her father’s apparent betrayal? For no matter how she’d done her sums, her little legacy would not stretch to fund her dream and keep her from penury—or at least beans on toast for the next twenty years. If she gave up the increasingly remote dream of husband and children for the sake of the vision of her breeding farm, she’d be able to achieve something in her life.
“I cannot believe this of my father.”
“Can you not?” Her uncle snorted and leaned on the desk. “Can you not believe it of a feckless, intemperate gamester who stole my sister from the bosom of her family by dangling a title before her besotted eyes? A man who could not even bring forth a son, who could only produce one unnatural female? Bah!” His choler rose, and Felicity tore a handkerchief from her sleeve, holding it to her face, as much to avoid the spittle that flew in the air due to his outrage as to shield her emotions.
Uncle Ezra shuffled some papers, peered at them, and slid them into a battered portfolio. “The terms are quite clear. Should you remain unwed upon your twenty-fifth birthday, you will come into a substantial competence. Should you prove immensely popular following this event, all proceeds will, of course, revert to your husband. Your husband, who I am sure was so overwhelmed by your grace and beauty he could not speak for you before you were made solvent.” He chuckled again, and Felicity feared she might do him an injury did he not cease making that horrible sound.
A sensible part of Felicity’s brain warned her this was all too good to be true. Would a father who had all but forgotten his daughter was alive bequeath her such largess? And who was to say that, like her mother’s jewels, he hadn’t run through the entirety of their wealth? “I—there must be—this cannot be correct or, or legal, or…”
“I might be able to discern whether or not it is,” her uncle mused, and she peeked out from her hankie. He was smiling again, never a favorable sign. “Were I to seek to investigate the document. Which I will not. It is a foolish will made by a foolish man, and I would dishonor his memory if did I not abide by his foolish wishes. Now, begone, and think upon your fate.”
Felicity rushed from the room, her uncle’s satisfaction palpable. She continued to clutch her hankie to her face, but if only he’d seen the gleam of triumph in her eyes…if only he’d understood that her sobs were in fact suppressed, giddy laughter—
* * *
She woke with a start. Over the past five years, her thoughts had gone again and again to that moment, the moment her girlish dreams of hearth and husband had been put aside in exchange for womanly plans and actions. After that horrible interview, her ambitions had taken flight. She would have the funds to establish a breeding farm that would become known for its sound, safe mounts and its superior bloodlines. Or so she would have done, until this debacle with the duke.
She snuggled against the cushion under her head. What would happen to her band of mares, to Himself? She thought it unlikely that any of the missives from her head lads that had been snuck into Finsbury Square would follow her to…Lowell Hall, she presumed. And as adept and reliable as both lads were, neither got on with Himself to any greater degree than did her beautiful ladies. Aherne and Bailey were nigh on otherworldly when it came to horsemanship and husbandry, but they and the stallion had been at daggers drawn from the start. It was a mystery, as both Aherne and Himself were Irish, after all. But how silly to think nationality crossed species… Felicity struggled to contain a yawn and then thought,The devil with it, and allowed herself to yawn with relish.
How long until her uncle heard the news? Would it make any difference? He might exult in her downfall and use it as the justification he needed to cut her from his life, once and for all. Would he demand recompense for her tainted reputation, and by extension, his? Would he come to her rescue, taking it as an opportunity to prevent another society marriage occurring in their family line? One would assume so, but Felicity failed, time and again, to comprehend the way his mind worked. He shifted and changed like a will-o’-the-wisp, never predictable—never logical, if it came down to it.
If only her father’s solicitor had answered her queries. It occurred to her that the letters had gone astray since it was her uncle through whom the letters were posted, yet even the missives she’d entrusted to Jemima had been met with silence. Perhaps now that she was social anathema, she could present herself at the address. She would, of course, have to escape the duke first, make her way back to London, sneak into her uncle’s town house, change out of her ball gown, pack only what she could carry… With that exhausting rumination, she allowed her eyes to close once more. Between the lateness of the hour, the rocking of the carriage, and the uncharacteristic expenditure of temper, she yawned with abandon; something heavy wrapped around her shoulders; cuddling up against something warm and strong, she succumbed to a dreamless slumber.
* * *
Silence reigned. Neither Alfred’s steward nor his chamberlain required the repressive look he directed at them. They were four hours distant from the estate, and nothing would disturb the rest of hisvera amoris, rest he suspected was much needed, were she in truth a horsewoman. Early hours and late nights were the lot of those who tended toanimalis puraof that species; figure in the entertainments that carried on until dawn during the Season, and it was no wonder his mate was exhausted.
His mate! He inhaled again of her heady elixir. Beneath his euphoria, however, he experienced a frisson of unease. Were sheversipellisas was he, instinct would prevail and they would be pledged and bonded and marked before sunrise. Since she washomo plenus, this was out of the question, and he found himself unsure how to proceed, a circumstance he had not foreseen in all his years of yearning. If only he’d thought to quiz the few Alphas he’d met who had mated humans as to how they’d managed to reveal their secrets to them. Perhaps Bates could be sent abroad to gather information? He negated that notion as soon as it formed; he could not spare him, not at this vital juncture.
He considered his Beta, who reclined against the cushions, eyes shut, arms crossed; Alfred knew Matthias shielded his thoughts from him in this manner—or thought he did so; having been friends since they were pups, Alfred could intuit his Second’s mental perambulations. To wit: How could ahomo plenusbe not only their duchess but also their Alpha female? How would she react when it became apparent that all was not as it seemed in Lowell Hall? That its inhabitants were not astheyseemed? How would they guard against the sort of exposure that had sent their French compatriots to the guillotine at the end of last century?
“You will have your hands full courting her,” said Bates, his eyes remaining closed.
“She will see all she is to be mistress of, receive the warmest welcome she has ever known, and the battle will be half won,” Alfred retorted.
Bates scoffed, and Alfred sent him a wave of suppression, out of spite. No one knew quite how to wind him up as did his oldest friend. Matthias shuddered but did not open his eyes.
“Miss Templeton’s friend…” Alfred began and was surprised to see a ruddy hue overtake his Beta’s cheeks.
“I will set out to discover who she is,” Bates mumbled.We already knowwhatshe is, thought Alfred,and it is not solely human.“Would she have disclosed the truth of her dual identity, do you suppose? As one bosom friend to another?”
Bates opened his eyes. Their green depths darkened; he was ever conscious of holding to the laws of their kind. “Only if she sought to be kicked out of the nest.” He grimaced. “If she has not been already. If she is what I think she is. And I am always correct.” Alfred counted on the fact that Bates’s native curiosity—which made him perfect for his role as the pack’s hunter and gatherer of knowledge—would not let him rest until he had all his ducks in a row.
The coach trundled on, and Alfred nodded to O’Mara, who rapped the roof with her walking stick. Their pace increased to find a compromise between the hell-for-leather pace with which they had set out and the little-better-than-a-crawl that his duchess had insisted upon.
His duchess. He took a deep, exultant breath and saw O’Mara do the same, as she perceived the joy taking root in his being, the first spark of elation and security that would spread through the pack like wildfire. When his people pledged their allegiance to him as Alpha, he pledged himself in return, opening a conduit of energy, known as thesentio, between them. In this fashion, he stayed apprised of the robustness or otherwise of the pack, and the pack was secure in the knowledge of his presence. When his feelings for his mate began to flow, it would fall to O’Mara to regulate it, to find the balance between the much-needed hope and relief and the passion igniting within him that was private and his alone.
