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“We are mates,” I sighed. Trix nodded and worried her bottom lip with small white teeth. “The only one here who knows, beyond us, is your mother… unless you’ve told others?”
“No, I haven’t. You are going to leave with him aren’t you?” Her second question so soft. “He… He kissed me.”
“I’m sure he did.” I wanted to bring her into my arms, kiss her, possess her.
“Oh.” The word was silent but her lips moved around the sound. I ached with the longing to embrace her. To reassure her that Pax was mad with jealousy about the Lovers' Circle, which was why he’d behaved as he had. On top of his constant lusting after her.
“You… Told him. About us?”
“I have not. He is my friend,” I told her. A small nod. “Go in. Cool down, omega.”
“Yes, alpha.” The word slipped out so naturally that her cheeks pinked with self-conscious awareness. Her small hands went to her cheeks giving herself little slaps. “Do you think there will be something sweet in the kitchen?”
The words were to herself for she’d already drifted off. My heart clenched longing for her, loving her, and worry that she would never accept those violently tender affections.
Pax
Meal times had becomethe only way to watch and plan how I would bring Jack and Beatrice under my control. I looked from the omega to the alpha and back to the omega. Something had changed between them since that afternoon, which I would not have noticed if I’d not been obsessively watching them. Her eyes followed him. And when she was occupied with some talk, he stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. No. I’d not try to make sense of this. I needed to leave. To be near the pair of them and not be… To lack control of them drove me mad. I wanted to tie them up and stare at them until I could come up with some solution about how I wanted to proceed. At one moment I thought Beatrice might thrust an oyster fork in his eye and the next jealous bile rose in my throat as I saw how intimate they were. An intimacy nothing like I had with my sisters. No, I’d long since resigned myself to the fact that theirs was not a sibling relationship. Perhaps a first love? But he was a year older than her and for… The timings of everything confused me.
Beatrice had effectively avoided me and Jack after dinner by attaching herself to the other women. I’d called her coward a dozen times in my head. But Jack seemed content to let her be, even suggesting this frosty treatment was a point in our favour. His intimate knowledge caused a streak of jealousy that I found impossible to ignore. His advantage over me was not his fault. But the advice to hold back had me growling at his retreating back as he went whistling from the breakfast room. At my recommendation, he went to run interference while Stimpson escorted Mrs Markham and Hero to the village. We’d yet to hear from Jack’s army friend but something Stimpson had let slip told me he kept ahead of his creditors with the hints of a wealthy wife. Jack’s parting shot was I’d better play nice with Trix and not provoke her as was my wont.
Under his instruction, I hunted down the one other person I needed on my side if I wanted to prevent Hero Markham entering into a ruinous marriage. Beatrice was to be my mate, whether she had come to terms with that or not, and therefore we must be on the same page in all things. But to do so without having her fly off the handle was another matter entirely. The image of her tied to her nest while I fed her favourite sweets or tortured her with pleasure she’d never known… Oh, to be the alpha who gave her that. I needed that. I needed Jack to be there as well—submitting to my will, following my orders with the dedication I knew him capable of.
I found my quarry sitting in the drawing room. So absorbed in her sketchbook, her hair loose over one shoulder, I had a moment to observe her without disturbing her serenity. In that posture, she evoked any number of paintings. Goddess but the omega inspired me to commission yet another portrait of her—already I had a dozen or so aspects and moods I desired painted, what was one more?
Dammit. She set my carefully laid plans on end. I’d come with a mission, and the sight of her had my thoughts turning in another direction entirely. The need to mar her perfection so that the world recognised her as mine warred with the immediate threat Stimpson presented.
“I wish to speak to you… About serious matters.” I decided to start with a topic that would not provoke her—or so I hoped. If she listened… Then I might entertain the thought, the possibility that I could do more than inspire lust with this omega. Perhaps the love Viola had spoken of the other day.
“Serious matters? Have you found something to buy, and ask my opinion?” She put her pencil aside and turned to face me. I wanted her serious, and she presented a face far graver than I’d ever seen on her. “Happiness is not something you can buy, Lord Paxton. Everything worth having cannot be bought.”
“Nothing like that… Must you fight me at every turn? It isn’t my place to bring this delicate matter to Mrs Markham, but you have the required intimacy.”
“Don’t tell me it is Hero?” Her face had drained of colour. “She—She is engaged. You cannot want her… You—“
“Never! She is a child and far too bland for my taste. You are a smart woman. You are the only woman I desire. No. I wish to talk to you about Stimpson deceiving to Hero. I do not approve of him and expect to hear nothing but ill when we return to town.”
“Stimpson?” Beatrice frowned. “What May Day madness is this? Deceiving Hero? Hero Markham? He is a pup. What does he know of deception? He does not care about her fortune. He is as devoted to her as a hound to its mistress. She has guardians and a mother to look after her interests. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s damned officious, my Lord. Damned. Officious.”
“Don’t use vulgar language,” I snapped. Surely, she was not blind to the oily character!
“Vulgar?” her laughter was like sunlight. “Damned officious.”
“Vulgar,” I growled and was rewarded with a grin from the fickle omega.
“You are vulgar to stick your nose in where it isn’t wanted. Meddling alpha nonsense.”
“If I am meddling—“
“See,” she interrupted with an even brighter smile. “When you agree with me, we get on very well, don’t we, Paxton?”
“Wrong thing to say, Vixen.”
“You don’t want us to get on?” Her eyes flashed with uncertainty, and there was a distinct shift in her scent. “Are you an alpha—”
“Oh, little Vixen… You called me alpha. Are you going to be my omega, Beatrice?”
She flushed, but the intoxicating smell of roses bloomed around us.
