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Charlotte kicked her toes against his shins. “I never thought to admit this aloud in my life, but I think Georgie knew what he was about.”
“Oh, now, Charlie,” Arthur moaned and tore at the lavender again.
“Never mind the indolence and profligacy he plays at, we both know he is fit to rule. He strives to changeversipellianways for the better. I believe he was not mistaken in his matchmaking.”
“There is no way he could have known we would suit so well.”
The smile that spread on Charlotte’s face was equal parts joyful and devilish. “Do you and Beezy suit? So well? So very well?”
“Say nothing!” His bear was capering in his aura like a foolursus puriin Phineas Drake’s Equestrian Spectacular and Exotic Traveling Menagerie. “Charlie, do not, do not say I said that. She and I, we have agreed upon a cordial affiliation—”
“Is that where that came from? The children loathe it!” Charlotte shrieked. She left off kicking him but reached up to tousle his hair as she would Tarben’s. “I shall keep my peace. On one condition.”
He had dreadful memories of such as she’d wrung out of him in the past. “Go on.”
“Tell Beezy what happened.”
“Charlie—”
“Tell her.” Her hand gave his hair one last, fond scrubbing, and she sat back. “She has known sorrow and fear. She will understand.”
Arthur smoothed his hair back into place and rose. He held out a hand, which Charlotte took with great gravity, and he pulled her into a hug. He took her basket and turned them toward the house. “I am going to have to thank Georgie, aren’t I.” It was not a question.
“Do not lose your sense entirely, Artie.” The children, who had been “helping” the gardening footmen, raced to meet them, Ursella predictably distracted along the way. Charlotte pulled him to a halt and into another hug, one of her special ones, the very embodiment of home and safe harbor. “We are only as content as our unhappiest heart,” she began, and to Arthur it felt like an arrow had pierced his own. “When we arrived, it was Beatrice’s, so like an ember gone cold. It took a falling-down house and friendship and unruly cubs to fan it to flame. And perhaps a certain duke.”
Arthur sighed. “My turn then, is it?”
“Mum, Uncle Artie, I planted one hundred tomatoes!” Bernadette exclaimed as the children danced around the both of them.
“I planted two hundred!” shouted Tarben.
“Your uncle needs a squish,” Charlotte said, and his niece and nephew turned on him with the same look of devilish joyfulness he’d seen on the face of their mother. Each child grabbed a leg, and Freya bless them, they wereverispellischildren so there was some strength in it. With a theatrical groan, he tumbled them to the ground, the basket spilling its contents onto their heads to shrieks of joy and even stronger squeezes. Ursella turned up as unexpectedly as ever, seemingly from nowhere, and twined her little arms around his neck in a delicate yet inexorable hold. He embraced her in turn, light but steadfast, rolling on his back to amuse her siblings, and let them all sneak into his heart that bit further, deeper and stronger, to the point of no return.
***
As Beatrice oversaw the removal of the paintings in the Long Gallery—one of the footmen was of artistic bent and assured her they needed to be cleaned and restored—she decided she wanted her way. In all things.
It had been enough, or so she thought, to take charge of the improvements to Arcadia. It gave her such satisfaction to use the money from her first abominable marriage to the benefit of her second and in the fortification of a place she knew would make Castleton spin in his grave.
On from that, it was eminently satisfactory to take on the builders who had no badness in them, just an occupational drive to undermine her schedule and cut corners where they may. Defending Arcadia and herself and their future tenants sent vitality humming down her veins. She garnered respect due to her perspicacity and reveled in it.
Then, standing in the Alpha’s study… Managing that undertaking had transcended everything she had done to this stage. If it didn’t sound utterly mad, a winding flow of knowing had coursed between her and Osborn and Ben. It was akin to the sensation of words being on the tip of her tongue, of catching sight of something out of the corner of her eye. It was both tangible and etheric, known in both the body and the mind. She knew without question the decisions she made were correct despite Osborn’s sullenness.
As she looked out one of the windows, watched Charlotte and Arthur chat in the rose arcade, watched the children hug him and roll around on the lawn, she wanted all of it. The child, the home…
The husband. A true husband. One thrust upon her by fate and Georgie, it was true, but one who might transcend their cordial affiliation and become everything to her. Lover, father… She thought of Ben and Charlotte: and friend. She had more love than she knew what to do with when she thought of having a child of her own, of their own. She had so much already overflowing when it came to Osborn’s nieces and nephew—her nieces, her nephew. Would love follow naturally should they make a child? Would they make a family?
While he spoke to Charlotte, he had run a gamut of emotions: despair, laughter, disgruntlement, and pain. She could see the pain he suffered even from her distant vantage. How deep must it run; was it why Arcadia had been in ruins? If only she had the vaunted senses of aversipellis, she would have earwigged on Arthur and Charlotte’s conversation without compunction.
Was this the first time she thoughtversipellisrather than creature or beast? It must be.
Progress, then, she thought and stood at the window until they were long gone, until the sun set.
She crept down to the stillroom, hoping to raid the pantry after the rest had eaten. At the foot of the stair waited Ursella, who took her by the hand and led her toward the kitchen.
Fifteen
“Ursella!” Charlotte called from the end of the hall. “Oh, there you are. Bringing us your Aunt Beezy. Good girl.”
