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Arthur went, without shame, to hide in the rose arcade. He kicked a pile of deadheaded blooms and then guiltily piled them back up again. The place had been his mother’s pride and joy; walking down the aisle, he sat on one of the two facing benches she had placed at the end of the path among a cluster of lavender bushes that were on the verge of wholesale rebellion. Charlotte came from the direction of the glasshouse with a basket full of Freya knew what. She caught sight of him and sat on the opposite bench.
“Moping?”
“Why ought I be?”
“Only because Beezy behaved with protocol, unaware she did so.”
Beezy, his bear crooned. “Beezy,” he scoffed. “That name is apt enough, for she is like a grist of wasps when her choler rises. How thetondubbed her Lady Frost I do not know.”
“Do you not?” The benches were close enough to allow Charlotte to set her little slippered feet over the toes of his enormous boots.
“It was Lady Frost who sent me out from underfoot, lest I interfere in the running of my own—”
“Your own?”
“This place.” Arthur tugged at a lavender bush, wrenched a handful of the herb, and ran it through his fingers. “This godforsaken place. I never wanted to see it again, I vowed I would not, and if not for Georgie and his threats and his machinations, I would not have done.”
“What happened to your father was horrendous, Artie.” Charlotte’s voice was a soothing balm and yet resonant with her own grief. “And I know you think it was your fault.”
“I failed.” He leaned over and scattered the heads of the lavender into the trug. Elbows on his knees, head hanging, he let out a breath. “I failed to save us.”
“It was not your fault.” Her tone brooked no argument. “You were a child.”
“I was an Alpha.”
“You were a six-year-old child, not yet in full harmony with his creature. Imagine Tarben in your place and tell me you believe him able to take on a full-grown male.” A small hand patted his head, and fingers ran through his hair. “You cannot hold yourself responsible for what happened then, only what is happening now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he groused. Much the way a six-year-old might.
“That child witnessed the most horrific thing imaginable. You must truly grieve it to become the Alpha you are meant to be. That you already are. The fate the Norns wrought was a desperate, terrible thing, and yet here we are, Ben and I and the children, you and Arcadia and Beatrice—”
“Beatrice.” He said her proper name for the first time. “Who thinks I am a clod and of no use and an obstacle.”
“If the boot fits,” she chirped. Arthur glared up at her. “What would happen should you cease to be an obstacle?”
“She will not take care!” He sat up and was aware he gestured melodramatically, like a lesser player in an entr’acte. “She goes hither and yon with no thought to her safety. She will face down any creature with no thought to their essential selves and what harm they may wreak. Freya only knows what she was like with Castleton. She defied Georgie to his face and then curtsied with such scorn! I have never seen such a disdainful thing.” He laughed and rubbed his hands over his sideburns. “I have never seen such a thing in my life.”
“It sounds as though you admire her.”
“Do not put words in my mouth.” His mouth, which he wanted to put on Beatrice’s mouth, an unlikely and unwelcome impulse that was visited upon him as she stood beside him in the Alpha’s study, having woven into asentiothat did not exist. Her lips: a darker pink than her blush, akin to the blooms lining the bottom of the arcade, the tea roses that were easily overlooked but were the hardiest of the lot.
“What thinks your bear?”
A yearning growl as he had never sounded in the whole of his life tore from him without volition on his part. Charlotte beamed and tip-tapped her feet against his toes. “Well then,” she said and reached out to grasp his hands, which he was by no means wringing like a dithering maiden. “There is no accounting for taste, but I think she fancies your cloddish ways and rather looked forward to furthering your intimacies.”
His head came up. “What said she?”
“It is not so much what she said but how she watches you,” her voice came over singsongy, “and how she buttons your coat and calls you ‘Osborn’ when she is pleased and ‘Your Grace’ when she is cross and orders everyone about for the restoration of your home.”
His blood thrilled in his veins. “None of that means anything.”
“It means more than you can imagine, you numpty.” He tilted his head so she could pull his ear. “Your duchess came to you after years of horror. It is a miracle she allowed you to touch her at all.”
“‘Though she be but little she is fierce,’” Arthur quoted.
“Do not babble Marlowe at me,” Charlotte said.
“It is Shakespeare, you barbarian.” They shared a smile at this old joke between them.
