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“Miss O’Mara—I mean, O’Mara! Language,” Felicity scolded. “He is calledHimself, although his papers say his bloodline name is Lord of Kinvara.”
Felicity reached up again to pat his neck, and the atmosphere transformed in a way Tabitha had not yet encountered: there was a sudden compression of air around the horse, around her, around them all. It was unlike the sensation she experienced in the presence of the prince regent’sdominatum, which had been loaded with incipient violence; this was a gathering, a promise of creation, of transmutation. A loud crack sounded, and all at once the duchess’s stud was gone; in his place stood a man who caught his rug to his family jewels in the nick of time. He was of a size with Lowell, but half again as wide at the shoulders, and stood firm on long legs banded with muscle. His hair, copper bright, fell around his shoulders and down his back in great curls that yet had a masculine flair; the expression in his large brown eyes was a blend of joy and deep, deep misery.
“Ye bletherin’ bastardin’ shiteface of a bowsie!” The elegant, calm, impassive, imperturbable O’Mara was shrieking like a fishwife. “A stud! A stud! You arse-faced gormless wanker of a bollocks!” She huffed and puffed, her nostrils flaring; she bared her teeth and exploded into a gorgeous sixteen-hands-high strawberry roan then galloped away.
“I’ve not betrayed you!” he called. “Believe me! Fidelma!”
“Fidelma?” muttered every member of the pack.
“Oh, my goodness!” Felicity stood, enraptured, before him. “Are you a centaur?”
“That’s a myth, missus,” he replied as he secured the rug around his hips with one of its straps.
“Your Grace,” said Lowell.
“Sure, I’m no duke neither,” said Mr. MacCafferty. “My da’s an earl, but only the Irish sort. I don’t make much of it, myself.”
“The lady is a duchess, and you will address her as such.” The duke growled and flexed his hands.
“A duchess!” The horse Shifter threw his hands in the air and almost lost his rug again. “Well done, missus. Sure, you were far from a duchess when I met you at Tattersalls. Couldn’t have happened to a lovelier girl, in fairness.”
“How in the world did you get papers?” Felicity asked.
“Well, I’ll tell ya, it was awkward in the extreme, missus. Your Grace.”
“O’Mara is a horse?” she asked her husband. “I assumed she was a wolf, like you and Bates.”
“I assume you are the reason she fled Ireland?” the Alpha wolf demanded.
“It wasn’t like that, Alf. Can I call you Alf? No? Right.” Mr. MacCafferty sighed. “It’s a long story, and one I won’t tell without Fidelma’s permission. I’m that determined to make right by her.”
“Well, let us acquire you some clothing,” Felicity said to Himself—Mr. MacCafferty. Or with an earl for a father, was it His Lordship? “I shall send a footman ahead with the news of your arrival. Mr. Coburn will attend you, and Mrs. Birks will prepare a room.” She nodded to one of the cats, who set off to carry her instructions to the Hall.
“I can’t thank you enough, missus,” he said, ignoring the duke’s snarl. “If I could stay until I’ve sorted things out with Fidelma…”
“You honor us with your presence,” Felicity said as she ground her heel on Lowell’s foot. “If I may make you known to the Duke of Llewellyn? Your Grace—oh.”
“He has gone,” Tabitha said. “My lord”—the horse Shifter grimaced at the use of the title—“you look in need of a restorative. I shall put together a tonic for you straightaway.”
***
The Irishman did indeed look worse for his time away from the care of Felicity’s stable yard. A concoction of angelica and the ever-versatile peppermint would at least refresh him after however long he had been keeping to his Shape. Tabitha combined the elements of the brew and put it on the hearthstone to keep warm while it settled; she was about to bank the fire when she heard and recognized the pad of a foot on the healing shed’s step.
A cup of tea, as cliché as it was, would not go amiss. She put the kettle on the fire and opened the door.
Llewellyn held out a profusion of flowering nettle; he did not meet her eyes as he did so. She took it, cradling the bundle with care, and stepped back to let him enter at his own pace. “The duke and duchess expressed their appreciation for bringing Himself, er, Mr. MacCafferty to them. Her Grace would wish me to assure you she bears you no ill will, and if she had been harboring aversipellisunwillingly held in their Shape, she would have done all in her power to make it right.”
“I did not know that one could not tell if a Shifter was trapped.” He slid into a chair near the hearth, his back to the wall; he could see out the door, which he had not closed, and through the shed’s large window. “Drake used to drag us around this godforsaken island in the summer months, and once in Penzance a colony of sea gulls passed through the sideshow. Foul creatures, sea gulls. I was not surprised they would take the opportunity to look down onanimalis pura, but when they saw me, they did notseeme.”
“But you knew them for what they were.”
“I did. Yes.” He was taken aback by this. “Even without their squawking and scavenging, I knew.”
Tabitha took down the everyday tea set from the shelf above the hearth: large, solid mugs suited for a day’s work. “Was it—I was about to ask if it was your lion who knew this, but I am beginning to understand the sympathy between the two sides of you. It would have been both, even if the man was not at the forefront.” The kettle started to steam, and she perused her jars of tea leaves. “And you knew that Mr. MacCafferty was not ahorsehorse and feared the worst.”
“I thought he had been tricked as I had been.” Tabitha moved as quietly as she could; the kettle bubbled, the fire snapped, and the duke spoke. “I was returning to Wales. I had been around and about, sowing my wild oats, and it was time for me to return to Anglesey. I sent a letter to Georgie saying he would not see me for some time as I was accepting my responsibilities at last, my wanders at an end. I passed through Cardiff and was anticipating the homely pleasures of the quiet life, even if I had no pride to go back to.
“I walked along the high street and heard, as only one such as I could hear, a baby’s cry, a woman begging for her life, deep in a warren of alleyways in the seediest part of town. I ran and found her, covered in blood, bowed over her knees, protecting her child, her clothing torn, surrounded by ruffians. There were six of them, armed with cudgels and knives. I would have made short work of them all even in my manskin, but my lion—at the sight of the young, he insisted he show what happened to those who would hurt a child, even though we ought not to do so, never, beforehomo plenum. We Changed, and I thought the very sight of us would drive them away. I charged into the alley and leaped to stand over the woman to protect her, and she…
