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Beatrice found herself bundled back into strong arms and deposited on her windowsill well before the moon set. She stole another kiss to add to her store, an infinite space larger even than Arcadia’s attics.
“So,” Arthur said once his breath had returned. He laid his forehead on hers, and she played with the lock of hair she claimed for her own.
“So?” Beatrice prodded. “Are we to cavort around a fire at dawn?”
“Not as such. But we are to meet at dawn, and there will be a fire. You need your rest.”
“Will you not stay?”
“I cannot.” He took her hand in his and stroked his thumb over the topaz in her ring. “For I have a request to put to you and would leave you to think on it.”
Twenty-two
Beatrice stood in the grove beside a bonfire, unlit torch in hand, waiting for the correct moment to set it aflame. The night was at its greatest depth, and the whole world held its breath before the rising of the sun. When Arthur had described what she needed to do, in the warmth of his embrace and after hours of lovemaking, it had promised to be exhilarating. Now, in the darkest moments before the dawn and despite the roaring bonfire, waiting proved lonely, and her mind raced.
She stood, clothed in yet another new garment, a gown in the Osborn colors like the livery the footmen sported thanks to Lady Coleman. Arthur had truly seen to that task. She could cross it off the schedule.
Her schedule was the least of her worries as she waited to be welcomed into the sleuth, as its Alpha female and its—
Would they come? Or would she be left here to stand alone, alone as always? She told herself the sleuth would welcome her, despite her humanity, despite her taking on a role that set her over them. It seemed they had already done so, but would this ceremony only serve to point up her frailty as ahomo plenus? And thus, as a consequence, reject her appointment as—
It was too good to be true, too much to be believed.
And yet she must believe. She must trust. She wished to serve as Arthur asked her to serve. She had already proven she was worthy and able. But were her directives to the staff followed out of fear or out of respect? She was certain she had not done anything to inspire trepidation despite her lofty title. Had anyone asked her if she had garnered the household’s good opinion, she would have thought she had.
But what of those moments when she drew on the mantle of Lady Frost? Who loved Lady Frost? No one. Oh, but…Arthur said she was a challenge, a glorious challenge. But who wanted such a challenge? It sounded tiresome to her, and tiring. He would tire of battling the ice, of melting the rime. He would decide he preferred an amenable mate, never mind the bite—
This mental chaos would not do. In fairness, yesterday had been as if an entire fortnight passed in one day. Between the emotional strife and the lovemaking in the copse and the bite, it was no surprise she was less than mentally acute, standing in the chill of the earliest hours of the morning.
She was Arthur’s mate. She bore his mark. She was herself, Beatrice, with a soupçon of Lady Frost. She was Aunt Beezy, she was Madam. She was a salty little cake, apparently. Beatrice closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then another. She was soon to be even more as well as Arthur’s wife—
Ah. There. She opened her eyes and her ears and, most importantly, her heart.
It felt as though every heart she held near and dear beat in her chest. She stood now in anticipation and—yes, there it was—the exhilaration she hoped for.
In the dark, around the edges of the clearing, people took their places as they had the previous afternoon when they gathered to support Arthur. As many souls as resided beneath Arcadia’s pristine and impermeable roof, those gathering sounded greater in number. Before she could wonder why, a figure approached the path that roughly led from London.
“I commence theinitiatio.” His Highness, Prince George, Regent of England, stood at the end of one path, holding his unlit torch as indifferently as he would a quizzing glass. “I stand as a representative for the elders of our kind. Despite my youthful good looks. And myau courantfashion sense.”
Beatrice lit her torch from the bonfire, and the flame flared high. In its light, she discerned many a familiar face. “You are welcome, Your Highness.” Not a quiver in her voice.Thank you, Lady Frost. And yet a smile threatened despite the adoption of that trusty persona. “In accepting this light from me, you light my way forward in the role I have been asked to fulfill to the reproof of none.”
“I accept,” he said. She touched the fire to his branch, and it took. She turned her attention to the next path, which lead from the cottages, where the heart and soul of the sleuth would abide, where its families would thrive and grow in number.
“I stand as a child of this sleuth.” Ursella stepped from that path, her torch sized for her little fist.
Beatrice fought incipient tears. Behind the child stood her siblings and her parents, beaming at her like they had swallowed the sun. “You are welcome, child. In accepting this light from me, you light the way forward for the young.”
“I accept.” It was not her imagination, was it, that this flame sparkled like fireworks over Vauxhall Gardens? She thought it must have done so, for Ursella gasped and her brother and sister whooped.
“Well done, Ursella,” she whispered.
“And you, Aunt Beezy,” the child said, dignified in her great responsibility.
The next path led from greater England and Wales and Scotland beyond. A familiar figure stepped from this direction. “I stand as a friend to this sleuth,” Felicity said.
“You are welcome, friend.” They shared a look of joy and awe, that life should find them here. “In accepting this light from me, we agree to show the way for one another always.”
“I accept.” The light blossomed, and behind Felicity stood her duke; his Beta, who grinned at her; the Lowell Omega; and several others from that esteemed pack she had yet to meet.
