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“Lady Jemima Coleman, late of Berwick-Upon-Tweed in Northumberland, resident in London since 1814,” Bates recited. “Daughter of the Earl of Crawford and the Countess Margaret, née Lauder, of the Marches. The lady’s arrival in Town, without fanfare, hints at obloquy, but my usual sources are coming up with nothing. She resides in Grosvenor Square with an aunt of similar breeding who does not often go about in society. Thus the lady and Miss Templeton were well met at entertainments, both all but abandoned by their families. Her aunt’s garden is of the usual Mayfair standard, spacious and ample, and Lady Coleman has a workshop tucked away at the bottom. No one knows it is there. Well, I found it,” he finished, cheeks tinted the faintest of pinks. “The lady was absent when I ran to Town. I left a note.” He hunched his shoulders and found something of interest on the carpet at his feet.
Alfred regarded him beneath lowered lids. “I believe you have the right of it, O’Mara.” They exchanged a look, buoyant and merry. “Do fetch the lady, and her creations, with the usual precautions taken.”
“As you wish, Alpha.” O’Mara uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “Your Grace,” she began. Both Alfred and his wolf sat up at that. She rarely, if ever, used his honorific. “I beg that you enlighten Her Gr—Miss Templeton—as to our situation here. She is of such fierce constitution and has such fortitude, I would not be surprised if she fought this to the last because she does not know what she is fighting against. You disagree”—she turned to Bates—“but it is your own prejudice that is informing your opinions.”
“Myprejudice?” Bates surged to his feet, and Alfred followed, prepared to intervene. “You speak of my prejudice against the race that seeks to annihilate anything and anyone that differs from them in the slightest regard? That is outrageous, O’Mara, even coming from you.”
“Even coming from me?” Icy cold, O’Mara joined them on her feet. “Do you refer to my Goddess-given talents with regards to emotion and their management within the pack?”
“Anyone’s emotions but your own,” Bates spat.
“Tread with caution, wolf.” O’Mara’s voice took on a low-pitched, wuffling tone, and her nostrils flared.
“With all due respect,” he retorted, “I suggest you do the same—”
“Silence!” Alfred tore off his jacket and dispensed with his waistcoat. His steward and chamberlain assumed full obeisance, necks aslant, bowed down on one knee. “I will leave you to sort out your differences, but know this: I have chosen. Nothing will alter that fact. My wolf has chosen. That is inviolate.” Bates and O’Mara nodded to one another, which was all it took to regain equilibrium. They rose, and their Alpha accepted their unspoken apologies.
“I must Change. I cannot wait.” He shrugged out of his shirt. “I am for the meadow.”
“Her Gr—Miss Temple—I wish to resolve this if only to settle on her address,” O’Mara said. “She is out on the land this hour.”
“Marshall has been instructed to recommend she remain on the bridle route,” Bates said.
“I exhort you to caution, Alpha,” O’Mara began.
“It must be now.” He threw open a window, the remainder of his garments shredding as he Changed and was away.
Ten
After a thorough search of the park’s nearest borders, Felicity took one look at the bridle path, winding decorously on its way, and chose instead to make for the meadow.
She galloped off the frustration of not finding a way safely through the thickets and brambles to freedom. She would not risk Jupiter’s well-being by crashing through underbrush that might conceal any manner of ditches or drops. She doubted she would get three strides down the drive before someone came to prevent her departure. She galloped off the relief that she was here for at least another day…or night…and galloped off her incredulity at herself for not fighting her fate with greater fervor.
She spurred the hearty gelding on, thrilled to ride astride as she hadn’t since she was a girl, thrilled that she had been offered a proper saddle. Was it to do with the trousers? Did they convey authority in her as they did in a man? Or was it her status as presumptive duchess? She’d been greeted with deference at every turn, even from those irrepressible stable lads. She did not discern even the most subtle of sly looks from any of the duke’s staff; the farther up the heraldic chain they served, many domestics became as high in the instep as their employers, and she was amazed to be accepted in such a heartfelt fashion. No one treated her as a fallen woman, as a trollop, as though she were ruined. They embraced her, and she found herself willing to be embraced.
Was this how life would unfold, were she Duchess of Lowell? Even when Mama had been making up fantastical stories of her debut, even she had not reached so high. Despite being an honorable and having expected to make some class of aristocratic marriage, she would never have dared to aspire to a duke. She would have been happy enough with a viscount or even their village’s gentle vicar. Her mother had always thought anything was possible and used to wax eloquent on all the lovely choices her daughter would have.
What were her choices now? A little voice in her head told her she was fooling herself in her obstinacy: if she did not marry the duke, she could never appear in society again. As much as that did not pain her, it was still daunting, to think of being shunned by thebeau monde, though her welcome had bordered upon glacial. What difference would marriage to the duke make? She was a nobody, and it was doubtful she would make much of a duchess; from what she had seen, Lowell was not much of a duke, with his growling and his odd retainers and his…his kissing.
She sat back, and Jupiter transitioned down into a trot, then a walk. She gave him a loose rein and let him pick his way toward a grove of willows that swayed over Edenbrook. As she moved in perfect time with the horse’s gait, she remembered the duke’s face lowering to hers, that first light touch of his mouth upon hers, his tongue touching hers so gently, too gently, and she reddened at the memory of how she’d grabbed his face and, andlickedhis lip—oh, help!
Dismounting, she stretched. “It has been ages, Jupiter, since I’ve had a run of so high a standard. My sincere thanks. Thank you, good boy, oh, you are such a good boy.” She fed him slices of apple from her pockets. Pockets were the most glorious things!
Up to now, kisses had been nowhere near as glorious as pockets. Despite not having taken, like any young lady out in the world, she’d suffered through her fair share of stolen, sweaty embraces, had the teeth of more than one callow lad scraping her lips, the hands of said lads roaming far too close to her bodice, or worse, her bum, but the sensations she experienced at the hands of the duke were incomparable. She had nothing to truly compare them to, and as such, suspected she might be exaggerating his charms. “No,” she scolded herself aloud. Jupiter looked over his shoulder. “Not you, darling, I’m talking to myself. Which is only somewhat madder than talking to a horse. Well, my fine fellow, given your namesake, I wonder if you can help me?” She stroked the gelding’s neck. He reached down and rubbed his nose on her knee. “I’d thought I’d been kissed before, but I find that I have not. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill, or was that something extraordinary?”
She loosened his girth a notch and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Come, you would know. Jupiter was rather a rake, was he not?” She ran a hand down his mane. “What if I took the duke as a, a lover? What think you of that, my fine friend?” Jupiter looked dubious. “My reputation is already in shreds, the whole world likely thinks it is a foregone conclusion, so what matter if I took on His Grace as a… What is the masculine version of a bit o’ muslin? Bit o’ trousers?” She laughed, and Jupiter shook off a fly, as he wasn’t shaking his head in disagreement. Was he?
“Jemima’s novels say a lady is permitted to ‘investigate the mysterious matters of the flesh’ only with her husband, but…” But? She kept the rest of her thoughts to herself as they were too bold to speak aloud, even to a horse. She was not so sheltered, not after five years amongst theton; did any of the men of Quality learn of the audacious chitchat indulged by the fairer sex, even those behind the palms, they would likely collapse in shock. Women took lovers every day—every night, more like. If she chose Lowell as a lover, she’d be in excellent hands. She sighed, remembering his tongue tangling with hers, the heavy weight of his hand on her breast, and oh, when he squeezed that part of her near her hip, right above her fundament. It had been glorious.
“Those books fail to instruct as regardamours, as you can well imagine.” Jupiter lowered his head to crop at the grass that grew near the brook. Felicity ran her hand up and down his neck. One needed emotional distance, she reckoned, when conducting a clandestine coupling, and since His Grace was occupied by his own concerns, she would have ample opportunity to keep herself at a remove. But how, when in his company, would she guard her heart? If she were to fall in love with anyone, let herself be quite honest, there was no one better—or was it worse—than Alfred, Duke of Lowell. “In truth, Jupiter, what female is safe from his charms?” She said this as a joke but feared she meant it. One lusty kiss and she was ready to tip head over heels. She could not take him as a lover and wave him off with aplomb.
She turned to retrieve the satchel she’d hooked to the cantle; all at once, Jupiter stiffened and bunched; as she reached for the reins, he reared and spun and galloped away. She turned to see what he saw: a massive creature emerged from the willow fronds near the bank. His coat was pitch-black, from snout to tail, without relief. His ears pricked, and despite his clear dominance over her frail femininity, he looked hesitant, his bright-blue eyes wary. It could not be, but he looked like—he looked like a wolf.
She opened her mouth and drew a deep breath—
He tensed—
“Blast! And damn. That horse—my sketchbook. Don’t move!”
