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Was there any opportunity to stay, argue with her I would have, but something about the set of her jaw told me it was my turn to retreat.
But I couldn’t. I lingered in the gallery, hoping to see her. An embarrassing turn of events. Eventually, Mrs Markham and Beatrice pushed through the door. She shot me a hard look, shaking her head and moving past me. Again I did not pursue, too stunned by the fact she seemed to have communicated with me, wordlessly as she had with Jack. The moment left me stunned and happy. I sunk into an armchair by the fire, staring at the portrait of some long dead Orley.
“Paxton? What are you doing here?”
I straightened and turned to see Orley standing in the door. The alpha radiated a kind of blissed calm that seemed antithesis to associating with any Hartwell omega. “Sitting.”
“Get out…”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But Viola wants to talk in private… Behind that screen!” he shoved me even though there was a perfectly good door I could have walked through.
“Syon! Good. You are getting better at sneaking around. Now. I should have been earlier but Pitt sent an express. He wishes us well of course but most importantly he wonders if we will be supporting the government’s position on France. And I’m so full of the child you put inside of me that I can’t remember what the current situation is? Have you been screening my letters?”
“Would I do that? But that is not what you wanted to discuss.”
“Syon, the fate of the country is more important than the fact my sister Beatrice, who has sworn since she was presented at court that she will neither marry nor mate, is in love with both Paxton and Fordom!”
I froze. This was some elaborate joke, surely…
“Do you truly believe that Beatrice loves Lord Paxton or the Colonel?”
“It is what she says,” the duchess spoke with that same easy confidence as when she stood before the parliament. I’d not have believed her otherwise. Wouldn’t have considered the possibility if she’d… If she’d sounded in earnest. Instead she spoke gravely, as if worried it was true. “I need your opinion, alpha. What do you think? She is head-strong and… When she feels things she feels them deeply. She would not lie ‘bout this.”
I would have swallowed my tongue if possible. Love? Love me? Love me and Jack? Beatrice? Who just this morning had filled my tea with enough sugar for the spoon to stand on end… My cock got hard at the thought of her little games she was sure to play. Willful? So much the better. I’d take all the more joy in mastering her.
“Tis wondrous strange, if it is so.” Orley said.
“We should lock them in a closet,” Viola said.
“No.” His bark would have no effect on his wife, but he tried.
“Please, Syon? Alpha? I’m sure that the linen closet on the third corridor on the second floor off the duchess’ nest could fit all three of them.”
”Not that closet.”
”Why not?”
I rolled my eyes. Omegas and their charming naïveté about alphas pissing all over places they’d fucked their omegas. I was proven correct when Orley growled. “Because that is where I fuck you.”
I cleared my throat trying to smother my laugh. If Viola discovered me here they would not reveal more about Beatrice. I needed to hear what she had to say. Here I was, an alpha of seven and thirty, eavesdropping for any scrap of gossip. I wanted to confirmation of her feelings so that, on next seeing her, I could bend her over the dining table and fuck her brains out. Knowing she’d be begging for my knot was one thing—the omega was a creature who took her pleasure with enthusiasm. I needed to know whether she would claim and Jack her as her mates without the fuss and dancing about we three’d been doing these past few days. I wanted to see my bite, Jack’s bite on that throat I’d only caught glimpses of.
“I think you have ghosts in the gallery, Syon.” Viola said.
“It is an old house. I am sure there are ghosts.”
“But how… Do you think perhaps if we had her kidnapped? They could then rescue her. Her pride wouldn’t be ruined because it would be natural for an omega to fall head over heels in love with the alphas who rescued her.”
”Omega!” Orley laughed. “Let them be. Your sister, though I do not know her well, is surely capable of letting… She is independent.”
”Precisely my concern. What if she never lets them know that she wants them for her mates. Wouldn’t that be better to… help love along.”
“Love goes by haps, some cupids kill by arrows, some by traps? Viola… You are an intelligent woman but I fear you take too much inspiration from Shakespearia’s plays too much. You turn…”
”Dare say it and I’ll bar you from my nest!”
The alpha’s scent shifted and I looked around hoping to find a way to escape. I’d no desire to be an unwilling witness to my hosts' lovemaking. Thankfully Orley must have remembered my presence for with a growl that they needed to move their activities to her nest, they left.
