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“Then I insist I be left to my own devices at Lowell Hall, as I am here.” He ignored the pang of loneliness. It was what he wanted. It was for the best.
“Oh no, my dear Duke. We cannot let it be said we did not do everything that could be done to bring you back to the fullness of your health.” Alwyn recognized the glint in the regent’s eye; it promised a very long game indeed. “You will be taken into the care of the Honorable Miss Tabitha Barrington.”
“An unmarried lady? And human, presumably?”
“She is quite unusual. As learned as a man when it comes to potions and palliatives.”
Alwyn scoffed. “There is no potion or palliative in this wide world that will be of any use to me.”
“So dramatic, Llewellyn.” Georgie smirked. “Have you taken Osborn as a pattern card?”
“There is no pattern card for me.” This was more human contact than Alwyn had had since he escaped Drake’s, and it began to tell: his head swam, and he would be damned if he fainted at Georgie’s feet. His body was weak and his mind exhausted; there was only one solution to his situation. “I am no better than Castleton, who ought to have been put down.”
“I say you are.” His Highness turned to face him; Alwyn hadn’t noticed Georgie had not been looking at him full on.
“There is no reason to believe there is a way back for me.”
“You were not in your right mind when you arrived on my doorstep, but arrive you did, proving you are capable of rationality and forethought.” The prince looked down his nose at Alwyn. “You will repair to Lowell Hall and bow to the lady’s knowledge.”
And put the entirety of Lowell’s pack in danger? “If in one month there is no change, you will put me down.”
“I will not.” The bear threatened again if the growl in Georgie’s voice was any indication.
“I shall call upon Lowell to do what you will not.”
“The man who rescues every runt on my island?” The regent laughed. “He would not lift a paw against you.”
Alwyn snarled, but where there ought to have been a rumble that doubled his displeasure, there was nothing, nothing at all since he had Changed to his manskin. “I am no better than Hallbjorn, who challenged Arthur’s father and won, leaving that sleuth scattered to the four corners of the earth. It was your father’s duty to put him down, to put Castleton down, and he did not do so. Will you follow in his footsteps? Is this failure to do your duty a feature of your bloodline?”
Had he been at full strength, thedominatumof another Alpha would not have affected him. As he was now, he was not equal to it. The fury of his regent did not manifest in a Change but in the power of an Alpha to suppress and control another through sheer force of will. It swirled around Alwyn and caught him as though in a vise; it stole his breath, and if not for the marble column at his back, it would have driven him to his knees.
“I am not my father.” Despite the force emanating from him, Georgie was as calm as a sea at rest. “You will be informed when the cottage is prepared and the lady has arrived. Help is at hand.”
Alwyn was beyond help, much less from alady.
***
Apart from an escapade requiring he once again attend an Osborn-related event, in which the prince did sort out Hallbjorn and install Arthur as the rightful Alpha, Alwyn had not wandered beyond Lowell’s boundaries once settled within them.
Now, with the sun fully risen, he roamed, as was his wont.
He had been welcomed with warmth and fearlessness by the duchess. She was yet known asFallen Felicitywith some lingering scorn by theton, no doubt envious that the only fall she took was into a title and the arms of the young (ha!) duke. Lowell was his usual lupine self, exuding power as easily as he breathed. How did Alfred prevent the lower orders from going mad with fear? Due to the strength of hissentio, perhaps? Lowell’s heart connection with his diverse pack was strong enough that even Alwyn could sense it, though he was not woven into it. Was this the common way of things?
Having had no experience of his ownsentio, he could not say.
Having had no experience being an Alpha at the height of his powers, he did not know.
Having lost his pride at so early an age… No, he would not dwell on it.
He was not entirely without awareness of what he should and should not have at his disposal as an Alpha. He was fully acquainted with hisdominatum,as much good as it had done him at Drake’s, which was none at all. Thevera amorislegend was robust across all species, deeply desired and wished for…but for his kind, those who roamed, felines at the top of the hierarchy, it was theconiunctiohe had hoped to forge before his freedom was stolen.
He had once dreamed he might be the first in generations to make that bond. An old dream he must release, for he was not fit for company.
At the start of his residency, Her Grace insisted upon his attending every meal at the Hall, then reduced it to the evening repast…then Sunday lunch only, accompanied by glowers and grumbles from the duke, who took Alwyn’s unwillingness to dine with them daily as an insult to his duchess. They were lucky he managed the Sunday Meal at all; sitting at table with humans was a foggy memory. He saw to his daily fodder, foraging like a rabbit, and thanks to Blessed Palu, meat appeared on his doorstep, already prepared. There was an excess of sauce, which he blamed on Lowell’s fancy French chef, but he ate it and was grateful, grateful he could eat it in peace, alone.
Alwyn paused in a familiar spot, his view through a lattice of sycamore branches, and observed that Barrington woman—no: that Barrington Woman, styled as one of Mrs. Anchoretta Asquith’s heroines. No, yet again: an antiheroine, for no wilting debutante was she, and therefore no heroine. The lady apothecary was more in the line of a duenna or chaperone, her sober garments of little note, her willowy figure nowhere nearau courantas determined by current society, her hair a diffident blondish brown, her eyes…oh, but those eyes, dark chocolate and doe-like yet without a shred of innocence. They lit upon everything in their path with a measuring gaze, removed and considering. What would it take to inspire them to lose that detachment?
He watched as Miss Barrington moved back and forth behind the large window of the odd little outbuilding behind her cottage. She spent much of her time there, when she was not wandering the grounds, carrying her equally odd little basket thing, kneeling amongst the low-growing plants, her head tilted as though she were in conversation with them. Alwyn had eluded her as handily as if he were in accord with his essential self. She did not see him unless he allowed her to, to prove he was beyond her grasp.
