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“I am well, Osborn. It is only that the tea is hot.” She selected two more slices of cake and put them on another plate. “I had forgotten it would be so, thanks to our new footmen, rather than the cooler temperatures I have become accustomed to.”
“Said the actress to the bishop,” Ben muttered, and Charlotte made the least graceful noise Beatrice had ever heard, a cross between a giggle and snort and a bark. It was so rude, it made her want to laugh herself.
“Do not tease,” Osborn scolded them. “There is no end of harm that might result from a mouthful of hot liquid.”
Charlotte and Ben collapsed onto one another and snorted into one another’s shoulders. Beatrice felt a hysterical giggle burgeon behind her breastbone.
“I am sure my tongue has suffered worse, Osborn,” she began, which prompted Ben to fold over in half and Charlotte to fall onto his back, both roaring with laughter.
“Compose yourselves!” Osborn demanded. “You guttersnipes, shut your mouths.”
“Said the bishop to the actress,” Charlotte squeaked, kicking out her feet and knocking over the teapot.
“Thou cream-faced loons,” Osborn muttered. To cover her incipient delirium, Beatrice rose to ring for another pot as the duke took out his choler by prodding at the fire.
As the flames rose in the chimney, the room filled with smoke. The hilarity met its end at his bellow, and Ben and Charlotte rushed to open the windows. The heat dislodged a deluge of branches and along with them a dead creature, falling into the flames, only serving to increase the conflagration. Beatrice yanked on the bell pull, and once again it fell onto her head.
Osborn roared; there was no other word for it. He roared and thrust the poker at Ben, who took responsibility for the fire. He roared again, and Brosnyn, Corvus, and three more footmen rushed in, with Mr. Todd close behind. Osborn took the bell pull out of her hand and, much like the sticks from the garden, shook it in his fist.
“Was this not on Madam’s schedule to be repaired?” the duke demanded. “And what of the state of the chimney? I distinctly recall it was to be swept.”
“It appears a deadanimali puriplayed a part in the obstruction,” Ben said.
“Who is doing this to defenseless animals?” Osborn sounded apoplectic.
More Lowell footmen poured into the room, Conlon directing their movements in such a way as resulted in them colliding with one another. Charlotte voiced opinions that were going unheard due to the confusion, and Ben waded into the mix with orders that only served to discombobulate the footmen further. Mr. Todd was slinking around the edges of the room and ignoring His Grace at his peril until—
Osborn invoked hisdominatum.
How curious. Beatrice watched as every being in the room, in particular Mr. Todd, froze in place. She of course recalled Castleton using it, how Georgie’s was stronger than his ever was, and how both had affected her, and yet Osborn’s did not trouble her in the least. She could feel it pressing, could see its effect on the others, on even Ben and Charlotte, but to her it was not debilitating. It was, in its way, protective, and she was relaxed enough to demand, “Osborn, desist,” and clutch his arm.
His arm, banded around her waist. Osborn embraced her, a shield protecting her from nascent peril, and he stroked her head as though she’d been brained by a boulder rather than a bell pull. She petted him on his forearm in appeasement as his whole body shuddered; he released the oppressive atmosphere. It was subtle, less than a shiver of gooseflesh, but given their proximity, there was no overlooking it. Thedominatummust take something out of him in turn.
“Osborn,” she repeated, now clinging to his arm. He took another breath, his chest expanding against her back, his hand stilled on her head. Charlotte took one look at them and commenced herding the footmen out of the room. Mr. Todd eyed the door, and Ben, now sober as a judge, looked to be awaiting instruction. “Mr. Todd, I expect you have some explaining to do,” Beatrice said.
“Ma’am,” he said, cricking his neck.
She waited for further elucidation; none followed. Osborn made a noise like a rushing river about to crash its banks. “In the morning, after the household breaks its fast, you shall join us in the master’s study.”
Ben cleared his throat. “It is the Alpha’s study, Be—Beatrice.”
“The Alpha’s study,” she repeated, to another rumble from Osborn. She trained her attention on Mr. Todd. “I trust you will present yourself. And you as well, Ben, thank you.”
“Ma’am.” Mr. Todd bowed and left, Ben on his heels after showing his neck to her, an unusual act on her brother-in-law’s part; she did not dwell upon it.
It was tempting to remain in Osborn’s arms, even if he was not holding her like a—a lover. The strength of his embrace and his warmth made her knees wobble. Had the chaos ruined her chances of a marital visitation? She found it had had the opposite effect on her; she was rather invigorated. “Mr. Todd could tutor one in how to concede without appearing to do so.”
“The Alpha’s study?” He released her, and she took the bell rope from him to lay aside.
“Yes. I imagine you know where it is.”
“Do not patronize me, Madam. I know where it is, in my own house. My own house which persists in falling around your ears and now attempts to set itself on fire.” He went to jab at what was left of the blaze, clearly not having learned his lesson. Beatrice took away the poker. She stopped and saw the creature in the ash was a squirrel.
“Oh. Oh, no.” It could be any one of its kind, it did not have to be the one with which she conversed the other night.
Osborn selected a particularly ominous growl from his lexicon. “This was not my work.”
“As you have said. I was not about to accuse you.” Would she embarrass herself by weeping over a squirrel? “We shall get to the bottom of the matter.”
