My Lady's Choosing

by Kitty Curran

  Sensing a presence—or perhaps hearing his own inner pennywhistle score—Mac turns to face you. His look—one that speaks of your shared longing to have continued on that night in the coaching inn—more than crosses the chasm of your desire.

  What would it have been like had you continued and felt that powerful form moving between your legs, bringing you to heretofore unexplored vistas of delight?

  “What are you doing here, lass?” His voice breaks you from your reverie, your face flushed as you realize you have been spotted. You raise your chin, attempt to keep your voice even, and try not to be distracted by your wish to be lifted and balanced in much the same way as the caber before you.

  “I am on my way back from the village. I bought some much-needed supplies for the children…from your old friend.”

  Mac grins warmly, and you feel your heart clench. “Och, Fiona Buchanan? How is she and that great lunk she married?”

  “They seem very well,” you say tightly, looking away from his rippling torso lest your resolve crumbles. “She had much to reminisce about you.”

  “You seem almost jealous, lass,” says Mac. Though he is entirely correct—perhaps because he is—you are outraged at his impudence.

  “I am nothing of the sort!” you say. “We had a very pleasant exchange, and that was that! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do while you are busy throwing tree trunks about.”

  Cheeks blazing, you stomp back to the castle. You are too angry to notice the shadowy figure lurking near the entrance that almost stops you.

  You’re not jealous. Not a whit. Turn to this page.

  You hold your ground. “I will never go with you, never, do you hear me?” you gasp, as the wicked blade pierces your skin. A trickle of blood runs down your neck. You try not to quiver.

  “You are being very stupid, ma chère,” hisses Delphine. “Some might say…too stupid to live!” She throws her lovely head back and laughs. It is a strange unearthly sound, with no humor in it.

  Now is your chance. You duck away as she is distracted and grab a scimitar lying abandoned next to an unconscious ruffian. You spin around and point it at her.

  “Drop the knife,” you command. Delphine stops cold.

  “Well done!” says an admiring voice behind you. A thrill runs down your spine, for in your peripheral vision you see Lady Evangeline approaching with her small gold pistol pointed at her traitorous ex-lover. Delphine stares at her wildly.

  “You—you have no loyalty!” cries the outraged woman. “I would have loved you—I still love you—for all time! But you prefer this boring petite anglaise to a woman who would do anything for you!”

  Evangeline’s beautiful eyes are filled with tears, but her voice holds steady.

  “It’s over, Delphine,” she says. “You made your choice when you betrayed me. I thought I might never love again. I was wrong.” She turns to you. “You showed me that, my dear. No matter what happens after this day, I must thank you.”

  “Lady Evangeline!” you say with a sigh.

  “NO!” screeches Delphine. Although you both have weapons pointed toward her, Delphine rushes forward, knife aloft and ready to do damage. The blade sparkles ferociously in the sunlight. “You will not have this! Not while I still live—”

  A gunshot rings out, and for a split second you think Lady Evangeline has fired, has killed her former love. You are startled to see a curious mixture of anguish and relief cross her face as she stares at a figure several feet from you. Following her sapphire gaze, you turn and see a familiar looming presence, silhouetted against the bright sunshine, holding a gun.

  “Fabien! But why?!” you cry. He turns to you, his tormented Nile-green eyes even more tormented than usual.

  “Because you stopped her from killing me,” he says at last. “Consider our debt settled.”

  Before you can respond, he nods at you, holding your gaze for several loaded moments, and then swings himself onto his camel and rides deep into the desert, disappearing as if he were a mirage.

  At the sight of their employer’s demise, what remains of Delphine’s hired thugs turn and flee like the mangy scum they are. Your brave battalion of Sekhmets, lionesses each and every one, whoop and cheer.

  You barely notice, for Lady Evangeline has pulled you into one of Delphine’s abandoned tents and kisses you fiercely yet tenderly, your bodies entwined as perhaps they had been fated to be all this time.

  Well, finally, you two! Turn to this page.

  Just then, a woman runs past you in tears. Certainly, a lady fleeing a man’s presence at a ball is understandable, if a bit unusual. However, the lady fleeing this certain man at this certain moment is close to you in years but prettier (alas), dressed in finer clothes than you (double alas), and you suspect that her tears have more to do with the handsome ginger man in military uniform she has just run from than any war, recent or otherwise.

  “Now, lassie,” the handsome ginger man—who is none other than the Captain Angus “Mac” MacTaggart to whom Lady Evangeline offered to introduce you but a moment earlier—calls after the woman while shaking his head in frustration. “I didnae come here to engage in…well, never mind! I came here for charity.”

  Mac is muscled and broad shouldered, unlike the sleek nobles of the ton that surround him. His is a body that’s seen vigorous activity, and you shudder with longing to know what kind. With eyes the green-brown color of a Highland glen below a Highland moor, and a strangely sad square jaw set with a sensitive poetic mouth, he is a vision of Scottish virility. You can scarcely tear your eyes from his noble visage before Lady Evangeline kicks you sharply in the shin.

  “Captain MacTaggart! I long to make your introduction to my dear friend—” Lady Evangeline gestures to you, but Mac dismisses her, not unkindly.

  “I’m not one for formalities, lassie, that you know.” His brogue tumbles out like stout into a pint glass. “And I am more than a mite sorry for causing a scene at the ball. I just want to raise money for the other lassies and kiddies who are without their men, as such, due to this awful war. Mother Mary forgive me, I do forget myself and can be a bit rough in my talking. I try to remember I am but speakin’ to the softer sex and not the men out afield. The widows just seem to look for a strong shoulder to cry into and, well, Lady Evangeline, begging your pardon, I feel they get a bit…erm…confused.”

  While Mac has been brogue-ing about, he has cast what can only be described as pointedly interested looks in your direction. Several, to be precise. When, of course, he wasn’t rubbing his manly temples with his manly hands and wringing those manly hands of their nervous, manly energy.

  Something about his tender, helpful nature, buried in all that muscle and uniform, speaks to a place deep inside you. You slip the gold bracelet off your wrist and hand it to Mac.

  “It isn’t much,” you say, by way of introduction, “but it was my mother’s. More valuable than that to you, it is solid gold and perhaps can fetch a sum for your noble cause.”

  Lady Evangeline is struck temporarily dumb by your quiet act of kindness, and just as well. It gives you an opportunity to feel the heat of Mac’s rough hands around your own, both of you holding each other (and the bracelet) the way one holds a promise that one intends to keep forever.

  Your eyes catch Mac’s for a moment, and you see they are shining with barely contained tears.

  “Thank you, lassie,” he manages to whisper. He squeezes your hand in such a way that suggests he would like nothing more than to pull you closer, and that he is moved by your goodness and pluck. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  If you haven’t met Benedict yet, turn to this page.

  If you have met Benedict, turn to this page.

  Trying to steady your breath, you tiptoe nervously toward the great hall of the museum. Something hairy glances against your shoulder. You nearly scream before you realize it is just a cat who has leapt upon a
ledge and is head-butting you.

  “Good puss,” you murmur. You rub its head.

  Squaring your shoulders, you continue onward to the great hall in your mission for tea. Perhaps Kamal has made some headway in clearing the worst of the debris? Chiding yourself for foolishly fearing something as innocent as a little cat, you step through the doorway…and find yourself pinned down by a rock-hard arm. A heavy hand silences you before you have a chance to scream.

  “Well, look at what we have here,” a low voice hisses in your ear. “Madame St. Croix will be pleased.”

  You wildly glance up into a familiar pair of Nile-green eyes. No…it cannot be. Now that a scarf is no longer obscuring his face, you are shocked to find that the guard who so frightened you earlier has a countenance as beautiful and harshly unforgiving as the Sahara.

  “Farouk?!” you attempt to say through the firm, calloused fingers clamping your mouth shut. It comes out sounding more like “Fmmrk?!”

  Still, he seems to understand what you say. “No,” he hisses under his breath. “My true name is Fabien. Fabien de Mangepoussey. And you are coming with me.”

  “No!” You cannot even scream as you struggle in vain against his iron strength. Another burly man you do not recognize opens the door to the outside world and nods menacingly. Farouk/Fabien nods back and swings you off your feet as though you weigh no more than a rag-doll. Despite your furious kicks and struggles, he carries you effortlessly across the great hall.

  You give another stifled scream as you spot Kamal lying lifeless on the floor. Fabien shows no mercy, but only grasps you tighter.

  “Ignore him. The imbécile was too preoccupied with his foolish antiques to notice that I have been working for another right under his nose.” He smiles at you mirthlessly.

  “Do not worry, he may still be alive. Perhaps.” His fellow ruffian laughs under his breath.

  The idea merely makes you struggle all the more. Fabien’s green eyes flicker as annoyance crosses his handsomely swarthy face.

  “Do not make this harder for yourself, chérie. You have an appointment with Madame Delphine St. Croix, and I would hate to disappoint her.”

  And with that he hauls you unceremoniously out the door and onto an awaiting camel. You ride away, far beyond the city, as you continue to fight desperately to free yourself…to no avail.

  Turn to this page.

  You refuse to leave and instead offer your heart and soul to Craven. He accepts you happily and you embrace.

  As the sun rises, you wait together at the sleeping Alexander’s bedside. The light illuminates a painting of a sweet little girl, the very image of Alexander. It is strange, for the painting hangs in so prominent a place, but you could have sworn it wasn’t there before. The girl smiles out beatifically, as if in thanks.

  Little Alexander awakes and tugs your hand. “I dreamed of Helena. She said she is at peace now that the bad man is gone.” A shiver runs down your spine, but not an unhappy one.

  “I love you, my darling,” says Craven, like a man transformed.

  Blissful time passes. You see young Master Alexander off to school in the fall, a confident and changed boy. And yet…for all that Craven seems happy and content, he still does not ask for your hand. Rather, he pauses whenever you speak of the future. “There is something I must tell you…but cannot,” he sometimes says. You know not how to press him on the matter, nor on his strange absences which occur once a month.

  Nevertheless, a period of torrid pleasure and peaceful companionship passes…until you decide to take action.

  On the evening that you enact your plan, the sky darkens and a full moon rises. You smile to yourself. This promises to be the night you will make Craven face the last of his demons, once and for all. But first, you make love, experiencing total ecstasy in both body and soul.

  You lie entwined with your lover in a corner of the library, the moonstone of your sex still aglow with otherworldly desire for him.

  He places that broken-statue hand of his on your left breast, which he has taken to calling Grecian Urn. His other hand travels to your right breast, which he has nicknamed his Sepulcher by the Sea.

  His hands are as hungry as his heart, and oh! how they hunt your flesh for sustenance.

  “You make me feel as if I am half woman, half beast,” you moan into your lover’s lush but well-groomed pelt.

  Lord Craven emits a growl that could also be a knowing laugh, slipping his explorer’s tongue over the valleys and peaks of your topography.

  “Your womanly orbs undo me as much as the moon does,” he whisper-growls into the soft fur of your womanhood. Your womanhood responds with some whisper-growling of its own.

  The actual moon, which has heretofore been hidden by sumptuous cloud cover, breaks through the late-evening gloom with the same vigor as your pleasure breaking through your lover’s embrace.

  The moment a sliver of moonlight slices his ethereally pale flesh, Lord Craven screams as if stabbed by a saber.

  “NO!” He flings you into a pile of watercolor silk cushions, which you can’t help but wonder if he placed there much earlier to soften your landing, should he ever choose to fling you across the library floor due to an errant moonbeam.

  “Run, my love! Run for your life!” The screams rip through his body, competing with the strange forms and shudders also ripping forth from him as the moonlight plays brighter across his bare, beautiful frame.

  “Call Mrs. Butts!” he screams. “She knows how to chain me!”

  “Chain you?” You frantically gather your silken robes around your orbs, womanhood, et cetera. “I bid the servants retire in the furthest chambers of their quarters so that we might enjoy each other in uninterrupted freedom!”

  Terror colors Lord Craven’s darkly handsome features, mixed with respect for your command of your desire as well as of his household staff.

  “NOOOOOOO!” He screams as fur and blood tear through his desirable flesh. The transformation shows you what he truly is…

  “A were-creature?!” You scream and duck behind a chaise lounge toppled earlier by vigorous lovemaking.

  “A monster.” His words are raw, his breath ragged, his teeth sharp and long. His voice is the only thing you recognize. The rest of him is a hulking mass above you, the wild night made flesh, out for blood, and out for you.

  “Blanche…she left me for a time to be with her poet lover. When she came back, she had changed. She had become a monster.”

  You shake your head. “No, she was a monster long before. She merely came back a wolf.”

  Lord Craven stares at you, eyes drenched in sadness. “She then turned me into this—this thing. She wanted to change the children, too, but I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—let her. So she turned on them instead. She took Helena…” A single tear runs down his wolf face.

  He could destroy you with a single swipe of his knife-sharp claws. End you with one snap of his abominable jaws. But you place your hand on the center of his chest.

  “Are you not afraid?” he cries.

  “Not of you.” You reach out to embrace his terrifying form. He trembles at your touch.

  “Not,” you say as you draw his horrible maw to your delicate mouth, “of my monster.”

  You kiss him. He shudders in tender ecstasy. He shudders with relief.

  “Make us as one,” you command. “You never have to be alone. Never, as long as either of us has breath left in our bodies.” You share a look between your eternal souls. You nod. He nods. The kiss turns to teeth and tongue and magic.

  Together, your bodies are rewritten by the moonlight.

  The legend of Hopesend Manor now speaks of two demon beasts who stalk the moors as a pair. One is never seen without the other, and when they howl at their moon-made-master, no creature has ever been said to sound happier.

  The End

  While Benedict unlocks secret passageways of your mind, C
ad unlocks the secret passageways of your body. You know the way Benedict would love you: full of honor and wit, with repressed desire bursting out in rare moments of passion, shooting stars across a dark sky of decorum upheld, appearances kept, pants buttoned.

  But what if you want a sky full of stars? What if you want to be blinded with light and passion? Why should you have to marry Benedict at all, for that matter, just because you want to love his body? Why do you need to marry well to live well, to give the color of your rose to one man alone, for all of time?

  It is Benedict’s world that has made you a beggar of love and station. It is Benedict’s society that deems you a bad catch, in need of a savior merely to live your life. It is Benedict who has decided that you needed saving from Cad, rather than taking a moment to see what you truly wanted. As much as you feel for him, and want him, something derelict in Cad speaks to you. Something that sounds on the nature of your very own soul. You perhaps would not feel so animal if you had grown up in the cozy bosom of the ton, a gilded daughter, debuted and danced and feted as if she were destined to be a jewel in some young man’s crown.

  But you weren’t danced and debuted. You were relegated to toil while others shone. You bathed in shadow yet, for others, created light.

  “You know your mind, girl.” Cad laughs, raw and sultry, his body shimmering with perspiration. He is a fool, of course, for thinking he could take down Benedict with such a hasty scheme. To raze a castle with a claw is impossible. It takes more finesse. More artistry. More watching, waiting, planning. Paperwork.

  You recall his lush tongue brushing against your breasts, the shape of his kiss, the bulge in his trousers. He has a face so beautiful, your breath catches just from watching it catch moonlight.

  A face like that can open doors. A mind like yours can open a world you had thought was closed to you.