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“Oh, no.” Felicity paused, mid-stair, aghast. “Bloody hell and the devil!”
It couldn’t be true. Could it? Had she been snatched up by the most eligible male of the season? She wandered up to the landing and braced herself against the marble-topped side table that stood there. Her mother had forever been putting furniture every which where, which made her father laugh and her mother blush, smiling yet adamant. Felicity thought it was a lovely quality, that smiling, blushing adamance, and decided to scatter little tables and lounge chairs in unlikely places in Lowell Hall to make it more like a home. Would it be a good home, a good life? Was it enough to go on, a few dizzying kisses and the adoration of the staff? And would she ever stop torturing herself with unanswerable questions?
“Buggery!” she bellowed. “Arsy bollocking bedamned devilment!”
A gurgling growl shocked her out of her foul-mouthed spree; she grabbed a candlestick from the side table and spun to see the big doggy glaring at her from the top of the stairs.
“Your Grace!” Felicity lowered the candlestick. “However did you find me here? Aren’t you a good boy? Aren’t you? But did I leave the door ajar? Come, we’ll shut it and then—” But the beast had barreled down the stairs and all but bowled her over in his eagerness to sniff at her trousers. “Are you glad to see me? Good boy, good boy…” and on and on, relieved at not being solitary anymore. “Come, let me show you something.” She turned to the next flight of stairs, and he followed close to her side.
“I grew up here,” she explained, “and lived here until my father…well, I told you all about my father.” The dog rubbed against her waist, offering comfort as they moved in sync up the stairs to the second floor. “I have discovered that the will he left was false, and all the plans I made could never have come good.” She paused at the top, and the dog whined. “I cannot dwell upon it, or I’ll go mad. I feel all aswirl inside, as if I would faint, which I never do, but even so. I have no notion as to what I will do, I have no one and nothing and—”
The dog started barking, howling in fact, and Felicity sat in the bergère that her mother had placed in the hall. “Hush, easy, hush, Your Grace. Be still!” The dog settled down somewhat, and she stroked his face. “I suppose I have you. Shall I hitch you to a pony cart and drive off into the sunset?” He snarled, and she laughed. “I agree, that is far beneath your dignity.”
She slumped back in the chair, and he laid his head in her lap. “Speaking of dignity, your namesake made less than an appropriate fist of asking me to marry him. Ha!” The beast winced, and were it possible, his expression was both incredulous and disgruntled. “He barked at me abouttonmarriages and held out a ring as though he were handing me a handkerchief and was astonished when I refused to accept it!” The dog tilted his head as though confused. “Oh, you’re all the same, you male creatures. Surely you can see my point of view, silly boy, silly boy.” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Come, enough about His Gracelessness. I’ve something in my rooms for Mary Mossett. And then…I’ll leave.”
She turned left at the head of the hall, the dog grumbling and growling all the way. The door to her suite was ajar, and she pushed it open.
“Oh.” Like the rest of the house, her suite of rooms had been pillaged. The bedding, the bedclothes, the curtains, all gone. The few paintings that had adorned the walls, the smaller bits of furniture, the bed tables: purloined. All that remained was the bed frame—which, listing to one side, looked as if an attempt was made upon it—and the two-seat divan, host to a lone ornamental cushion, that faced her hearth. The drawers of her dressing table hung out at drunken angles, and the doors of her wardrobe gaped open, revealing one lone slipper and a shawl she remembered had torn fringe. “It is just as well I did not escape on Jupiter that first day, Alfie. There is nothing for me here.”
She moved to stand at the bare window and looked out over the kitchen garden, which had been ravaged. “I expect the servants took whatever they could carry when they got their notice. I cannot begrudge them, though they were my uncle’s staff. I’m sure they were poorly paid and overworked.” The low growl from the center of the room made her smile. At least she had an ally. “Ah, well. I have a keepsake box hidden in the hayloft,” she said, “a few remembrances of my parents, so all is not lost. They are only silly things, as my uncle told me all my mother’s jewelry is gone.” The equanimity of her speech was ruined by the quiver in her voice at its conclusion. Alfie snarled, long and low. “If only I’d thought to fetch away that picture…” The big doggy cocked his head and huffed. “A painting of myself as a young child, little more than an infant, with my mother and father.” She tried to smile, failed. “All is not lost, Alfie. I shall call upon the Lowell influence to find it. Perhaps the duke will come in useful for something.”
His Grace let off a flurry of barks that most would find intimidating, if not terrifying, but Felicity was comforted. He bounded to her side and herded her over to stand by the mantelpiece. “There is no one to spy me at the window,” she laughed and made to move to the wardrobe to see if that shawl was redeemable. He cut her off and pawed at her feet, making her skip back into place. “I’ll stand here then, shall I? Very well, if you so desire. Have you something to bring me? Have you something to show me?”
He leapt over the divan and disappeared behind it. His head popped up once, and she raised her hands to signal her compliance.
Later, when she thought about what happened next, she would attempt to separate the myriad sounds and sensations that followed. There was great oppression of air, like the coming of a storm, then a swirling of energy like a driving wind, but how could there be a wind in her plundered rooms? It was a rush, like a hurricane, and yet nothing fluttered, not her hair nor her jacket; it was a gathering, as though everything flew together toward a center she could not identify, and all in a matter of seconds. The rush was accompanied by a growl, followed by a crack!—sudden, like the collapse of a burning log, and then—
And then His Grace—the duke, not the dog—rose from behind the divan, his nakedness shielded less than adequately by the small sofa.
Seventeen
“Do not faint,” he ordered, snatching up the cushion to cover his nether parts.
Felicity’s first thought was:Thank Go—galoshes they left a cushion.Not: The beast has transformed into a man. Not: His Grace is His Grace! No, simple gratitude that the desperate servants hadn’t denuded her suite in its entirety.Denuded? She’d never used that word in her life! She blushed.
“You will recall, I do not faint,” she said, belatedly.
“I beg to differ.”
“Beg all you wish, Your Grace, but as you see, I am standing.”Although I am weaving about inside.
Silence followed her pronouncement. Must it be she who was meant to initiate whatever conversation was to follow this extraordinary event? She looked at him expectantly, and if she said so herself, with an inordinate amount of aplomb. If she was not mistaken, a large beast had just transformed into…another large beast. On top of all of that, she was mesmerized by all the ducal flesh on display. To see That Chest bared was enough, but the arms, the shoulders, the dark mat of hair that dwindled down in a line that lead—to his—oh, help, help!
The duke cleared his throat, sounding quite like the big doggy. “There is an explanation,” he began.
Felicity exploded. “Wonderful! Finally!” She flung her hands about like a lunatic. “How unlike other men I thought you, Your Grace, as you eschewed explanations left, right, and center. How surprised I was, as there is always some godforsaken reason for every outrage when it comes to men, much more so for titled men.”
“I am more than a titled man—”
“Evidently.” She breathed in deeply, once, twice. “In Jemima’s novel, the Count Woldolpho was a were…were…werewolf.”A ravenous horror whose only goal was to bite helpless young women and turn them into monsters, she added to herself, taking a step away. And then another step. Her vision came over all in sparkles around the edges, and she wobbled on her feet. Before she even thought to right herself, he was there, grasping her shoulders, squeezing them…with both hands? She shut her eyes tight, and she was certain she heard him chuckle.
“Do not chuckle,” she managed. “How dare you laugh at my distress. This could be considered the shock of a lifetime for Go—for galoshes’ sake.” Even to herself she sounded peevish. Peevish? Was that the strongest emotion she called to the fore? Should she not be insensible with terror? How was it she was not in a state of nervous collapse? How could she even summon such dispassionate thoughts?
“Breathe,” he instructed. “Lean.” He propped her up against the wall by the window. He opened it, and a cool breeze soon wafted over her face. She sensed him rush away again to retrieve his cushion. He returned and gripped her with only one hand. She breathed and leaned, and as her eyes closed, her other senses opened. She perceived a hint of fur in the air, a blast of heat emanating from his body, as warm as a hearth fire, and it wrapped around her, soothing what little distress she was experiencing. So calming in fact, she had the desire to demand he transform again, so she would know for sure it had occurred.
She stood, and that hand stroked down to her elbow, a sensation of peace following in its wake. Eyes still shut, she said, “Please return to the divan.”
He started to chuckle and swallowed it. She intuited when it was safe to open her eyes. She met his, and he looked—he looked proud of her.
