“Or we could go see what those hulking, young wolves are up to and see if we approve.”
Alice nodded immediately.
The soft laughter of the dowager duchess echoed as she led the way into a small sitting room that was almost hidden in the midst of the other, greater rooms. But the dowager duchess, Henrietta she told herself, simply crossed it and opened a hidden door that had been disguised by horrible wood paneling.
They went down a narrow hallway together. Henrietta pressed her finger to her lips before they entered the tiny passage, and Alice barely dared to breathe.
When the dowager duchess pointed out a peep hole, Alice looked in and found Hugh immediately. He sat in a chair next to a massive desk. The others ranged about the room, gathering drinks or lighting cigars before settling around Rhys’s desk.
“Your little kitten is angry with you,” Rhys told Hugh.
The group of cousins laughed.
“You have your hands full,” Oliver declared, crossing his legs and pulling out a cigar. He tossed one to Hugh, who shook his head and passed it to Rhys.
“Clearly,” Luke agreed, “if she weren’t a minx, we’d be down a cousin.”
“Down a cousin and unable to prove that the Maxwells are moving against the Wolfemuirs.”
“The prince won’t believe us without proof,” Rhys said. He leaned back and placed his feet on his desk. “The Maxwells are too powerful and too tightly linked with the prince.”
“The St. Claires would believe,” George, the slender cousin, said. “Devlin made it clear to his uncle, and they’ve had enough issues with the Maxwells to be unsurprised.”
“I am astounded,” Liam added, “that they’d move against your life.” He was the prettiest of them, with long lashes and deep, brilliantly blue eyes. But they were all cut from the same cloth and interchangeable.
Alice wasn’t sure she wanted to differentiate them. The more time she spent among these privileged wolves, the more she felt that she did not belong. Liam paced as he spoke, and Alice’s feet itched to echo his movements.
“And furious,” Henry said. Alice noticed his wolf had been close to the surface since he’d realized how close he’d come to losing his only brother.
“You don’t want the title, Brother?” Hugh asked. But the hand he placed on Henry’s shoulder proved the truth of the feelings between the brothers.
“Don’t say such a be-damned thing,” Henry growled.
The fingers Hugh pressed into Henry’s shoulder. Was it comfort that Hugh was giving? Assurance that he was yet here and living?
Hugh continued, “I saw the exchange between John Maxwell and that cur, Bellingham. There is no question that John Maxwell was handing off the missing signet ring to him. And the only reason to do that is to cause more trouble.”
“Whatever do they plan?” George wondered. He sat elegantly, seeming to be more man than wolf than the others, but his eyes flared yellow.
“What matters,” Rhys said, “is that they moved against Wolfemuir. We trap ourselves in these social strictures and standards to keep our beasts at bay. We must maintain that standard but crush the Maxwells at the same time. George, will the St. Claires stand with us?”
“The vampire prince is cagey,” George said. “All I can say for sure is that Devlin will.”
“I think we’re taking this too far,” Liam said carefully. “We’re talking about a minor Maxwell who dared to attack Hugh when no one was looking.”
“What are you saying?” Rhys asked.
“I am saying that we aren’t talking about a conspiracy. I know John Maxwell. He is working alone. He always works alone.” Liam still paced, ever moving. Was his wolf near the surface? She knew it often was for some werewolves.
“You don’t think that the marquis is involved?”
“I know he isn’t,” Liam said. “You know that I’ve become friends with the marquis’s heir. Charles Maxwell is careful and kind. He isn’t his father, and he has his father well in hand. Lord Abergavenny is fading. Charles is the clear leader. And Charles--”
Rhys nodded. “Charles is not his father. I thought these machinations had come to an end as Charles began to take over. But we almost lost Hugh.” He growled the final words, and his wolf’s eyes were shining—as if they could see through anything.
“But John,” Hugh said, as he considered, “John would absolutely work alone to turn us against each other. Perhaps even use us to take out Charles for him. Charles Maxwell doesn’t have an heir. Who is after him?”
“John, actually. You’d think his standing would be higher in that pack, but he’s barely tolerated. John has no idea how much and how often Charles and I are together,” Liam said. “I count Charles a good friend.”
“Good enough to talk to him quietly?” Rhys asked. “We will not be used to pave John’s way into the marquis seat and end Charles for him. If we set aside our need to attack—contain ourselves as our ancestors intended—and we allow Liam and Charles to work out a plan. Perhaps an alliance?”
Liam considered for a long moment and then nodded.
“Then go to it, but we don’t go anywhere alone. I am not losing a cousin. Take Henry with you. Our pirate will let Charles know without insulting him grievously that we will not accept what has happened.”
“And I?” Hugh asked.
“You have your hands full, my cousin,” Rhys said. “Your little kitten is not secure.”
Hugh’s head cocked as he considered.
Alice sighed as she saw it. They discussed her as if she needed to be secured like a roving puppy.
Alice watched Hugh think on what the duke said. The dowager duchess chuckled under her breath. Alice could only hear it because they were so closely pressed together.
“What other options does she have?” Hugh’s voice carried far too clearly to Alice.
She barely kept back the growl that she’d learned from him.
“She could run,” Liam said.
“She could refuse you,” Henry replied.
“She could marry you and ignore you,” George added.
“She could marry you and tolerate you,” Rhys added. “Enjoy your fortune and your title.”
“She is honorable,” Hugh said. “And kind.”
“And feisty,” Henry said. This time it was Henry who placed a hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “My brother, you need her to be your partner. Your mate. Our lives are long indeed. Far too long to alienate the woman who was brave enough to let you have your millennia.”
Hugh nodded.
And with that nod, Alice’s heart lightened with hope for the first time.
“Make him earn it,” Henrietta said as they left the narrow passage far from where they’d entered. “Make him earn you and want you. Make him hunt you. Do not, my dear, give him an inch.”
“He doesn’t want me any more than I want this,” Alice’s hand waved around the sheer, astounding luxury of the dowager duchess’s rooms.
“These are just trappings, my dear.” The dowager duchess immediately dismissed Alice’s fears to deliver her advice instead, “Make him want you so much he can’t close his eyes without seeing your face. You have his attention and his imagination. If you can keep those, his mind will follow where his heart has already gone.”
Surely she wasn’t saying.
Alice shook her head to countermand what Henrietta had said. “He does not love me.”
“Oh, he loves you,” Henrietta chuckled. “Not one of those men down there would be trapped by some rector’s wife unless they wanted to be.”
“But,” Alice stared at Henrietta, who was so certain, so utterly sure.
“He loves you. Now make him acknowledge it. And make him want you so much that he can’t think for it.”
“Why?”
“Because a millennia is a very long time, my dear, and he needs to worship you to keep you happy for all of that time.”
Hugh knocked on her door late that evening. She hadn’t slept well in the prev
ious two weeks, but the massive bed—even made up with her own bedding—was not welcoming. It was too large. Too different from her own. It had bed curtains and lace and…
It…
It…
It wasn’t the bed. It was everything else.
But when she opened the massive, carved door to Hugh, what she felt wasn’t overwhelmed, it was relieved.
“Walk?” He held out his hand, but his voice and his hand were entreating, not commanding.
She asked, “Can we go outside?”
“If you like.”
She took her cloak and followed him from her room. He wrapped her cloak about her shoulders and led her through spiral marble staircases and hallways hung with paintings that she stopped to marvel over before they finally reached a side door that she’d never discover again on her own.
The house wasn’t just large. It was massive, with hallways that could lose you for days. It was luxurious beyond belief. Shocking in its beauty. She didn’t belong here.
“You must have spent a lot of time here,” she said, trying not to tell him yet again that she wasn’t one of them. That she wasn’t…all of this.
“My mother and uncle were close. Rather like you and Algernon. So, yes. Henry and I had adventure after adventure with Rhys in these halls.”
She nodded because she wasn’t sure what else to do. She’d grown up ragged running through the woods of the Wolfemuir’s. He’d grown up…
Here.
He tugged at her, an invitation to step closer, and she took it. She snuggled under his arm even though she shouldn’t have. It was letting her mind run into the imaginings where he wanted her. Where there wasn’t Leah.
The last time they’d done this, he’d been hurt. She’d felt his warmth but that had meant so little compared to the rest of that evening and the horror of it. It led, however, to this moment. Where she didn’t carry his weight, and the woods were exchanged for rolling, manicured landscapes.
They walked for a long time in silence, other than the occasional pointing out of some treasure amid the landscape. She felt words pressing against her teeth before she finally dared to say, “I don’t have the skills to run a large house. And,” she added, choosing bald honesty, “I don’t want to have them.”
“We have a very capable housekeeper.” He didn’t sound as if he even cared. He didn’t freeze or tense or pause in his reply.
“I don’t think I’ll like the ton.”
“Do you like my cousins and brother? My aunt?”
“Yes,” she admitted, feeling his trap box around her.
“Then you’ll like the ton that I spend my time with. There are a few bad apples I can’t entirely avoid, but not many.”
“I--”
He waited.
He wanted, she realized, all of her worries about this next step. He was so careful and gentle as he waited for her.
“I’m not good ton,” she said. “I can’t draw or do needlework or speak the expected languages. I don’t particularly care for dancing or parties. I like to read novels.”
He laughed this time, and she pinched him.
“I don’t care about needlework or whatever. I think you’ll like dancing with me, and I have been known to read many a novel.”
She took a ragged breath.
“Was there anything else?”
“I think you know the rest already. You can tell my family isn’t well-connected. We aren’t overwhelmingly rich. We--”
“I like your family very much.”
“We aren’t good at magic,” she finished. Many a mage had risen in society with incredible magic skills. She didn’t have those. None of her family did. Her family’s skills had been ever fading. They were almost mages by default since they weren’t werewolves or vampires.
“I don’t care about that,” he said. “You had enough magic to save my life. That’s more than enough in my opinion.”
“Did the healer say you were all right.” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked yet. She’d been afraid to discover that her lack of abilities had ruined him somehow.
“I’m fine.”
“I…” She took a long breath before she tried again, “I didn’t damage you?”
He paused in the moonlight, letting it fall on her face as he pressed his index finger under her chin and turned her face to his. “You saved my life, Alice.”
She swallowed and then asked again, so she could see his eyes when he replied, “You’re all right, then?”
“Yes.” The answer was as decisive as she needed it to be.
“Good,” she said.
He kissed her forehead, and then, when she didn’t pull away, he kissed each cheek.
And when she didn’t step back, he slowly lowered his face to hers. He kissed her eyelids. Her nose. Each brow. The skin near her ear.
She took a breath and held it.
Finally, he pressed his lips to hers. His lips were warm and gentle, but they set her on fire. He slowly kissed her, moving ever gently. He pulled her closer, giving her the chance to pull back.
She did not.
He placed his hand on the base of her spine, fingers pressing her to him, anchoring her as he overwhelmed her until her breath was ragged, her face was flushed, and she felt as if she could set the grounds afire.
The open carriage rolled through Hydon Park and Alice sat inside it, next to the wolf who had been squiring her around town. She ignored him. It was good for him.
So his mother and aunt said.
He was telling her a story. She was hanging on every word but pretending to be bored. She heard his barely audible growls, but she pretended she didn’t.
“My mother will take you shopping,” he said, unhappily.
The unhappiness sapped at her. She hated this. Hated all of it. Hated these games. She told herself to remember what Henrietta and later, his mother, Jane had insisted. Make him earn the attention Alice bestowed.
“Give it like droplets of ambrosia.”
“Frustrate him,” Jane had said.
“Certainly that will make him give up?” Alice could hardly believe that his mother and aunt were telling her to treat him this way. It seemed counter-intuitive. And it was not how she wanted to be.
Not at all.
She didn’t want this.
But she did as they said. “Oh,” she looked up as if pretending interest instead of hiding it.
She’d been shopping with his mother and aunt several times. If she never saw another dress-maker or got stabbed viscously by another pin again, it would be too soon. And she probably owned enough gowns right now to see her through the rest of her very long lifetime.
She stared towards the gardens. She wanted to get down and stroll.
She ached to.
And then his growl cut off with the slightest hint of a whimper.
She looked up at him sharply. This time it was he who was looking away. He was looking a tall, slender blonde under a large parasol.
It hurt to watch him look at the woman. And it hurt that she’d made him whimper. Unless it was the other woman. But, either way, she hated this. She’d hated Lyndone since they’d arrived. She wanted to have a chance and learn to know him, not trick him.
“I can’t,” she said. “I simply cannot go shopping for dresses one more time.”
“What?” he said, jerking his head around. His eyes glinted at her.
“I want--”
“What?” He demanded so ready to give it to her even though she’d been awful.
“I want to feel wanted,” she spewed the contents on her heart on him. “I want to walk and ride and see if I like dancing with you and read novels and never, ever go shopping again.”
“But you bought so much when I first sent you for a shawl.” He was grinning.
Her eyes narrow
“I was angry.”
He burst into open laughter. Heads turned as the carriage rolled slowly past.
“And,” she confessed, “I really wanted that
navy shawl. Now I can’t even find it. I’m drowning in petticoats and chemises. And the dresses. I might hate them. I can’t remember.”
He laughed again. Loud and long.
The yellow went from his eyes, and she discovered how much she liked his eyes when the wolf was at the back. She loved the wolf, she loved the way it needed her, and she knew that he did, but the man—she wanted the man to need her, too.
More.
“Novels?”
She nodded.
“My mother? My aunt?” The question was why she’d been acting the way she had been. He didn’t need to elaborate. She didn’t want to either.
She nodded.
“Meddlers.” He scowled for a moment past her before turned those dark eyes on her. “You are not alone.”
The promise warmed her.
Before she could nod, he added, “You are wanted.”
There was so much feeling in the words, but the ghost of that woman Leah haunted her. The woman that had left him so upset when he spoke with Henry. The thought of her was painful.
But she couldn’t not nod. He was waiting for it, and she so wanted to believe that what he said was true.
She wanted, needed to believe he wanted her, and she was starting to think he might.
“Novels,” he said.
But instead of continuing the drive through the park with the upper crust of the ton and their perfect carriages, he pulled the carriage over, told his servant to take it home, and lifted her down. They walked through the gardens, ignoring the inviting glances for him to bring her over to this carriage or that group of ladies.
They walked through the roses where he picked one for her, stripped the thorns, and tucked it behind her ear.
She smiled up at him, and his fingers lingered near her ear and hair, making her utterly and fully aware of him. The size of him. The warmth of him. The way he made her feel. It was as if each pore of her body focused on him. As though he were North and everything that combined to make her pointed ever towards him.
They stared at each other for long moments, aching to take that next step and unable to, surrounded as they were by their people and the expectations of the ton.
Compelled by Love (Kendawyn Paranormal Regency) Page 5