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He kissed her forehead and rested his head against hers. “She dutifully wrote to me, her letters contained in my mother’s own missives to me, but she constructed an elaborate network to smuggle me her true thoughts.”
“So clever,” Felicity said. “Very resourceful.”
“You and she would get on well. Years passed, as they do, and I became a chess piece myself. It was time for me to mate, and my mother had several likely ladies in mind. Except I had decided I would not settle for less than myvera amoris. I was also a young buck and was in no rush.”
Felicity leaned back. “How old are you, I’d like to know?”
“You have been told that we do not age as humans do?” She nodded. “I am eight hundred years old.”
“What!” Felicity shrieked.
“No, I’m only ninety-seven.”
“Are you joking?”
“It translates as thirty-two in human years.” He rolled until she was atop him. “May I continue?”
She propped her chin on her hands. “You may.”
“Elbows.” He pulled her up to set her head on his shoulder. “My parents, much like your uncle, disdained the Quality but clung to their aristocratic status and their aristocratic ways. They mocked my desire for myvera amoris, yet agreed to leave me be and let me believe they would allow Phoebe the same pleasure. They said there was no rush to wed either of us, and that I should be off again to sow my wild oats. I had done my duty, I had been fostered, I was building my inner circle, I had graduated from Oxford with a first in classics.”
“Classics! Unfair advantage,” Felicity murmured, rubbing her hand over his heart.
“I was about to head off for India.” The whole of his body quivered with suppressed rage. “Phoebe had warned me that something dire was brewing, but I was certain I had succeeded in negotiating with my parents. They would give me one more year, and Phoebe would not be bartered off to a disgusting lord of our kind who had been through four wives already—given our longevity, you cannot even fathom how old he was. He was also from that generation which did not think beyond keeping the lines pure. He was as good as feral, and he was to take my sister next.
“A letter caught up to me midway back to Dover, thanks to a tireless kestrel. The betrothal had been announced, my parents had declared themvera amorumto all and sundry, the contracts were drawn up, and all that remained was the meeting at the conclave rock.”
“They lied to you.”
“They lied to us both. They lied to our upper echelon, one of whom you may have met at our wedding. I made it to the conclave stone in the very nick of time. I invoked thedisputatione, which was my right as a family member to object to the pairing, giving Phoebe a chance to deny the mating and refute that they were true mates. Those highly placed individuals who were present went on a rampage. It is against our laws to force a mating on any who do not wish it, even by their guardians.”
“Unlike our human society,” Felicity observed.
“And due to said rampage, my parents were removed from their position of power and sent to Australia. It’s the usual place we banish our less-than-savory characters.”
“Let us hope they never meet my cousin.” She sat up. “And Phoebe?”
Alfred took a fortifying breath of Felicity’s fragrance. “Did what many a maiden who has been brought to the altar and declined must do. She, too, had to emigrate, thus America, to keep up appearances before the human members of theton, to appear to be ashamed of having led on one of their number. Her only recourse was to stay with human acquaintances when she found the society of the local pack unacceptable. This is not ideal in countless ways, for wolves cannot survive for long without the security of the pack, and I cannot think how she is able to Change under such circumstances—”
“Can we not bring her home, Alfred?”
His eyes glistened, and her heart trembled. The strength of emotion that would bring a being such as he to show his tears humbled her. “We can,” he said. “It is time to fetch her home.”
“You will set Mr. Bates on it, of course,” she said. “He could find a needle in a haystack.”
“Enough about him,” Alfred growled. “Let us see about creating the first Baroness Templeton, shall we?”
She wiggled against his unyielding flesh. “Mrs. Birks said—”
“No. Your propensity for invoking our pack mates at inopportune times is dismaying.”
“She said we can have as many babies, er, pups, as we wish.” She looked worried. “I am not young.”
“Iam not young. I’m two thousand and three, if you’ll recall.” He lifted himself off her. He pulled away the covers and considered her body. “Now where shall we…” She felt an instant of self-consciousness that fled when she met his gaze, the intensity of it revealing the depths of his desire. “Shall I let you choose?”
“Where you will take your bite? But Mrs. Birks said Alfie must choose.”
He blinked at her. “You did not tell Mrs. Birks you call him Alfie.”
