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Always, perpetual, endless: tea.
The moment he heard the clatter of china, Timothy had taken his place in what would now and forever be his chair by the hearth. She poured out—she had no ingrained talent for this, but the only person she knew who could ruin tea beyond redemption was Felicity—and set her brother’s cup and saucer on the table.
She had been approaching this challenge from one angle only. It was time for her brother to instruct her, as he was ever happy to do. “What do you know about lions?”
“Lions…” Her brother closed his book and set it carefully on the side table at his elbow. He folded his glasses with equal solicitousness. There was a time when they could not afford to replace anything broken, and certainly not expensive spectacles. Would they soon become inured to their relative prosperity? She hoped not, for what they had once lacked in coin, they had gained in resilience and ingenuity.
Timothy folded his hands in his lap, the sight of his ink-stained fingers suddenly filling her with grief and euphoria in succession: how she had feared for his well-being, how grateful she was he was safe. He smiled and rubbed the callus on his right middle finger, the one built up against his devoted penmanship. “Derived from the Latinleoand fittingly given our environs, the Ancient Greekλ?ων.” He spoke a word in what she assumed was that language. “Ordercarnivora, familyfelidae, genuspanthera, et cetera.” He smiled, his cheeky wit gleaming through. “The males of the species, as you may have noticed, are blessed with an abundance of hair.”
“His is in a wretched state. I wonder if it occurred in his animal Shape.” Tabitha hated to think that was so. “And yet, inexplicably Welsh?”
“No, indeed. The Wild Lion of Wales figures in the traditional arms of the House of Aberffraw and on the personal arms of the current duke’s ancient namesake. The reasons for this would be lost in the mists of history, as the family line is all but gone. Lions, for all their predatory and dangerous natures, are highly sought as hunting trophies and as the subject of ritual kills.”
Tabitha tapped her fingers on the arm of what would now and forever beherchair by the hearth. “Do you recall that family in Munich? The ones who ran the guesthouse?”
“The ones you could not stop talking about?” Timothy topped up their cups. “Or talking to, quizzing them day and night? Thank goodness we were not meant to stay long, they were that close to turfing us out.”
“There was something about them.” Tabitha recalled their demeanor, fuller of life than anyone she had yet met. “I think they must beversipelles.”
“Which you would not have been able to ask, according to their laws.” The duke himself had explained the unique characteristics of their new neighbors to Timothy.
“Or had known to ask.” Tabitha sipped at her tea. “I am surprised they find it necessary to do so. Once one knows what to look for, it is easy to tell straightaway.”
“Not all of us have your powers of perception.” Timothy considered the offerings and chose a slice of gingerbread.
“There is a healthfulness about them, unlike us. A vitality.” Tabitha helped herself to a macaroon. “I expect that is why Llewellyn’s condition is of such concern. The issue with his inability to Change cannot simply be physical. I am sure they must think themselves into their Shapes, don’t you? Or feel into it—oh, they are an emotional lot, as we get to know them better. I do wish we had stayed longer in Germany.”
“Not your opinion at the time,” Timothy muttered.
“I heard tell of a physician, Dr. Reil, who thinks illnesses of the mind are not hereditary evils but a disturbance of the harmony between mind and body.” The man had not provided any practical advice to follow, unfortunately. “The duke’s instincts must be in his body as much as they are in his mind. Ought he to have something to, to hunt? Would that be part of his cure?”
“It is the female who hunts,” Timothy corrected her. “The male is there for, er, courting purposes and as the last line of defense in the protection of territory. As I have said, they have always been hunted, and in the case of Your Grace—”
“He is notmyGrace.”
“—taken from their homes, never to return. Alive, if lucky. Or perhaps it is not so lucky.”
“No. But he is lucky now to call this place home. And it must be the same for the rest, the mice and the colts and the badgers. Even if they live under the aegis of the wolf.”
“The wolf and his wife, a human, who has taken to their ways with aplomb.”
“Shall we do the same?” Tabitha asked. It wasn’t so much a proposal as a consideration.
“I believe so. We are amongst very few who are in on the secret.” Timothy, as ever, was delighted by knowledge of any kind. “And have so many things to add to what we know.”
Tabitha ticked them off on her fingers. “Enhanced senses, longer-than-human life span, reproductive capabilities by choice, the power of the Alpha as expressed in thedominatum.” That last was the oppressive power His Highness had exuded, and the first thing Tabitha had queried. “As well as bonding for life as fated mates. Or, to use the correct term,vera amoris.” Why did that make her shiver so?
“The mating bite.” Timothy waggled his eyebrows.
“It strikes me as rather unsanitary.”
Her brother drank his tea. “I would accept one without reservation.”
“Would you?”
“Oh, yes.” He set his cup on its saucer and both on the tray. He took hers as well, since whoever did not cook or brew, cleaned. “To be visibly claimed by my mate before the whole world? Without censure or fear of reprisal? Yes, indeed.”
“I did not think of it that way. Thank you.” Tabitha grimaced. “Even so. A mark on one’s person, so public.”
