He noticed that Biffy winced a bit. But Biffy was even more a snob than he. One of his more adorable qualities.
I should certainly not be thinking of my Alpha as adorable.
Mrs Silence Whybrew was a widow, her husband’s overenthusiastic celebration of their own blessed event having occasioned a drunken tumble over an ill-placed whitebait stall directly in front of the local music hall. The resulting pinwheeling collapse was thought to be a modern interpretive dance-commentary on the current state of dockside fish-trading facilities. He was thus left to expire and did so, with no one the wiser until he began to smell worse than the whitebait.
Mrs Whybrew delivered this tragic tale with an unprecedented degree of amusement. “Oh, you’re welcome to laugh, boyos.”
Rafe and Hemming were both struggling to respect the gravity of her loss (as opposed to the ridiculousness of its execution). Lyall felt his own lips twitch, and he was usually the best of them.
“He was a right ol’ sod. I’m no’ ashamed to say I was plumb glad to be rid of ‘im, ‘cepting for that it landed me in the workhouse. ‘Course now I’m ‘ere, and this seems a fine place to be.”
She grinned around at the assembled large gentlemen.
“And grateful for the attention, I don’t mind saying.”
Lyall wished she wouldn’t. Silence Whybrew seemed a startlingly ill-named individual.
She continued to defy her moniker. “You’re a fine lot of muffins, aren’t you?”
Zev blushed. Hemming’s mouth dropped open. Rafe started to snicker.
She strode forward towards Biffy. “So lemme see to the little ‘un.”
Lyall slid like oil in front of her. No one, but no one, approached his Alpha without being properly vetted first.
“Oh, well, then. Who’re you?”
“Mrs Whybrew? Perhaps if you’d take a seat over there, I will bring the child to you.”
“Well then, if you insist, m’ boy. Funny ol’ things, you werewolves, aren’t you, then?”
Lyall scooped the baby off Biffy’s lap (Biffy giving him an inscrutable look) and deposited it on Mrs Whybrew’s. Robin did not amend his floppy state, and she seemed remarkably capable of handling two at once.
She looked down on the infant with genuine interest and affection.
At least there is no artifice to this woman.
“Aw now, ain’t he sweet? We’ll do nicely, he and I and little Gracie here.” She grinned around at the assembled pack. “I’ve more milk than my Gracie-girl can handle.” Her eyes shone with hope. “If you’d like me here, I could get up with him in the night and all sorts.”
Everyone looked at Biffy.
Mrs Whybrew finally realized her breach of protocol. “Oh, ‘eck, you’re the new Alpha, ain’t you? Didn’t know your lot came so pretty. I thought you was one of them clavigers. I didn’t mean anything by...”
She trailed off, blushing crimson at her many gaffes.
“My mama always said I couldna stop my mouth with anything short of a dirigible, it was tha’ big.”
Biffy quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I beg pardon, m’lord. But I’m a good woman, I surely am. I’d do my best for you.” She straightened, but her care for the two infants in her lap didn’t waver. “Thinking I ought stop talking now.”
“Why alter a habit you’ve clearly no intent to change?” Biffy spoke at last, seeming genuinely curious rather than cruel.
Mrs Whybrew laughed. “Oh, aye! You and me, we’re fine, aren’t we, m’lord?”
Biffy grinned at that, his sweet, solemn face suddenly suffused with aching beauty. It’d been a very long time since Lyall had seen him smile like that.
“Welcome to the pack, Mrs Whybrew.”
Lyall sighed. That was his cue.
“Perhaps Mrs Whybrew and I might step into the conservatory for a little chat. Alpha, if you’re certain?”
Biffy nodded.
A short interview later, Lyall concluded that Mrs Whybrew was a salt-of-the-earth type with no immediately apparent character flaws – aside from a certain breeziness of manner. Older than she appeared, crass and unashamed, but nothing seriously debilitating. She was utterly without malice or guile. While Lyall wasn’t certain how well she would fit in with the pack in the long term, she seemed entirely well suited as a temporary salve to the unexpected fatherhood that had been thrust upon them. Or thrust upon their doorstep.
They agreed upon terms so generous, the lady in question began to cry in gratitude. Lyall gave her a handkerchief and saw her installed, plus measly belongings, in the nursery. The babies remained gratifyingly uninterested in the proceedings and settled down under Mrs Whybrew’s practiced touch with no further histrionics.
Then, because he could, Lyall sent Zev off in pursuit of some decent clean clothes for all three of their new additions – Gracie, Robin, and Mrs Whybrew. He included an extensive list of other necessities that Mrs Whybrew claimed were not urgent but would certainly smooth matters over with the infants in question. Things like blankets, and knitwear, cloth for nappies, and associated cleaning apparatus of such elaborate and complex nature that Lyall really would prefer not to think about their use.
By dawn, everything was settled and the pack was asleep.
Channing returned directly before sunup and gave Lyall a grumpy look out of ice-blue eyes.
“You back, then?”
“Yes, Channing, I’m back.”
“Good. It’s been hell without you. And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll categorically deny it.”
“Good to know where I stand.”
“Nothing’s changed there.”
“Just so you’re aware, there are two babies and a wet nurse now in residence.”
That managed to ruffle Channing’s arrogant icy air. “Not... yours?”
“How would that even be possible?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Lyall decided to take that as a weird kind of compliment. “No, Channing, one was left as a deposit, and then the other two followed as compound interest.”
“I find that’s all too often the case with women and children.”
“Channing, I don’t know why, but I believed that twenty years would improve your personality.”
“God’s teeth, man, I don’t know why you believed that either. I’m going to bed – keep the brats away from me.”
Lyall rolled his eyes and took to his own bed as well. It was a nice bed in a sweet room. His own beloved, if eccentric, pack was once more around him, and his Alpha was one door over. My Alpha. He found himself smiling in a manner he was certain must appear foolish. Fortunately, there was absolutely no one to see.
The smile turned wicked (in a manner Lyall would never allow outside the privacy of his own bedroom). There was something thrilling in the prospect of knowing Channing would have to cope with screaming babies. Thrilling in a different way came the memory of that small body curled against Biffy’s chest. There was also a certain warmth and knowledge that between them, he and his Alpha, had managed to cope elegantly with a crisis, small and wiggly though it may be.
What a homecoming.
With any luck, thought Lyall as he drifted off, Robin’s rightful parents will have been found by the time the sun sets and the pack is up and about once more.
Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, it got worse. Because when the werewolves came down to breakfast the next evening, it was to find that yet another child had been left on their doorstep.
* * *
If Robin gave Mrs Whybrew and the clavigers any trouble during the daylight hours, no one reported it. The werewolves slept snug in their beds undisturbed.
Biffy awoke feeling more rested than he had since first assuming Alpha. This could, no doubt, be attributed to Lyall’s presence in the room adjoining. To have his Beta home – so capable and so calm. He had handled all of last night’s excitement with good-humored efficien
cy. I am a lucky Alpha.
Contemplating Lyall’s curled and sleeping form, so close, warm and soft and smelling of spices and foreign lands, was less restful. The sleep fled Biffy’s brain, and in its place came yearning. To crawl in next to that warmth. To rub against the softness of his skin, to rub away those foreign smells. To mark him and claim him, for pack, of course, but also as lover. To make him not just my Beta. But mine.
Probably not a good thought to start the night with.
Biffy rang for his claviger to help him dress.
James took slightly longer than usual to arrive and was in a decided tizzy.
“Out with it, dear boy, you’re practically vibrating.”
“We’ve had another one, my lord!” James buttoned up Biffy’s shirt-front with nimble fingers.
“Another what, James?”
“Sorry, sir. Another baby on the doorstep.”
“You’re having me on.”
“No, sir, it’d be in very poor taste if I were, and I should try to be more original about it.”
“Well, that’s something. No, not the blue waistcoat, not with a brown suit. Are you mad?”
“Your pardon, sir. Not thinking right, sir.”
“I should say not.” Biffy cut no slack on the matter of waistcoats. Or better said, all slack was already cut, because his waistcoats fit perfectly and were never subject to debate or jocularity.
James selected a gold paisley instead, which wasn’t exactly what Biffy would have chosen but was good enough and he didn’t want to upset the boy further.
“A girl child this time, sir. Mrs Whybrew says this one’s older, on solid food but not yet of an age to speak much by way of information. Although she seems to have the capacity for mummy and daddy – Mrs Whybrew and the coat rack are receiving mummy, and the pack, clavigers, and that mermaid sculpture behind the card table are under the auspices of daddy.”
Biffy shuddered delicately. “Not the mermaid Ulric insists reminds him of his misspent youth?”
James’s eyes twinkled. “The very one, sir.”
Biffy regularly threatened to accidentally stumble into that mermaid. It was quite hideous, being of that porcelain variety favored by grandmothers, with too many shelves to fill. Her tail faded to insipid blue and her skin was rather wan and splotchy. The mermaid herself wore an expression of profound discomfort, and everyone (except Ulric) was under the impression she ought to be put out of her misery.
Biffy sighed. It’s not that I mind living in a household full of strapping men, but I could wish werewolfism conferred alongside more aesthetic understanding and less wet-fur smell. “So, the hunt for the parents of these infants is once more on? Is it possible the new one is related to Robin?”
“Mrs Whybrew says she thinks not. The ages are too close to permit such.” James looked pained, as if the very idea of the calculations behind this assessment troubled him.
“Very well. I’d best go down. Just a simple knot tonight, James. With all this fuss around the house, I very much doubt I’ll be going out on the town this evening.”
James looked relieved. He was new to Biffy and not, thus far, a standout. He’d been given various complicated knots to study but hadn’t yet mastered any. Biffy had given serious consideration to the hiring of a proper valet, but werewolves were supposed to employ clavigers as personal gentlemen, and James was trying. Unfortunately, it meant Biffy’s cravat, more often than not, looked as if it were trying too. He’d had to re-tie his at the club more than once.
Biffy wondered if there was a school for valets he could send James off to for a brush-up. He was a good, even-tempered lad, for all he trod the boards, but his knot work... quite, quite lacking.
Biffy slid into his coat. James gave a critical eye to his lapels.
I suppose I can’t be too harsh on the chap. He is almost as new to being a claviger as I am to being an Alpha.
Biffy patted James on the shoulder. “Good lad, thank you.”
James blushed and dipped his head.
Easy as that, is it? Poor fellow, have I been a horrible grump these past few months?
“You can head off about your business. You have a performance tonight, I believe?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Carry on.”
“Thank you, sir.” And James was off.
Biffy followed him with a little more dignity. He paused in the hallway outside Lyall’s door. Then, because he wished to stop second-guessing himself, knocked sharply.
Lyall opened the door himself.
“Alpha?” He appeared to be in mid-toilette and was knotting his own cravat, if the loose material around his neck and the absence of a claviger were anything to go by.
“Ah, good, professor. A moment of your time?”
“Of course, Alpha, if you don’t mind me...” He waved at his neck.
“I could call a claviger for you. I’m sure there is one to spare.”
“No, no, I prefer to see to myself.”
Biffy smiled. Of course he did. “Well, perhaps I might help?”
Lyall blushed at the offer. It wasn’t proper, of course, but everyone knew Biffy was particular about neckwear.
“I’d be honored,” said Lyall, because they both knew it was all he could say.
Biffy stepped in and moved towards him.
This might have been a miscalculation. It brought them too close together. Biffy’s fingers, ordinarily so nimble about a cravat, came over fat and fumbling. Lyall’s scent was still peppered with spices and heated sand, although there was starting to be more of the memory of him there, underneath. The scent of the real Lyall. Lost lovers. Old Betas. Salt and sweet and caring.
Biffy breathed a little less deeply, because he desperately wanted to do the opposite.
Lyall, for his part, remained perfectly motionless under his Alpha’s touch.
Biffy coiled the length of cloth about Lyall’s neck, twice – a deft twist here, a fold there, ending with one clean simple stab of a very plain cravat pin. He stayed close one more moment, fiddling a little longer with the shape of the knot and tucking the fall. Because he wasn’t ready to stop.
Lyall’s very stillness was a memory itself, of a nested presence that had once held him still, too, for a time. Held him together and whole, when the world was shattering around them both.
He stepped back, too much all at once. I cannot abuse my power as his Alpha. We cannot be what we were. Lyall had given him no indication that a renewal of advances would be welcome. Their communication over the years had been sporadic and polite. He had not the courage to try and no incentive to hope. Another part of his past that he must let go.
“It seems we have another stray?”
Lyall let out a tiny, shaky breath.
Oh, no, thought Biffy, he is not indifferent. Now what do I do?
He thought to step back in towards the slighter man. Just one more touch. His cheek, perhaps?
But Lyall turned away in pursuit of his jacket.
His waistcoat was so plain it was almost an insult to his station, although not quite. His jacket was only slightly more appropriate. But Biffy knew it was Lyall’s way, to stay in the background, to make no fuss with manners, or opinions, or dress. Always oddly attractive, that cultivated invisibility. As if Biffy were the only one capable of really noticing Lyall. Because Biffy had always been aware of him, whenever Lyall was near. Which was why he was there now, alone with his Beta. Too alone for his own needs to permit, really.
I must be careful in future. I fear I over-stress the Beta-Alpha relationship. I make it mean too much. Because I want it to mean more than it does.
“Another baby was left on the doorstep?” Lyall guessed.
Of course, Lyall would apprehend the truth without need for an explanation. Nevertheless, Biffy relayed what James had said.
“Well, at least we have Mrs Whybrew.”
“Small mercies.”
“This
can’t be allowed to continue.”
“No, I agree.”
“Your plan, Alpha?”
“I was thinking of pulling everyone I could in for the evening and setting us all to a concerted effort at tracking down any parents. Perhaps you might consider taking wolf form and putting that most excellent nose of yours to good use?”
“You want me to do some tracking?”
“If you aren’t averse.”
“No, Alpha, I think that is an excellent idea. Perhaps first I should talk with the clavigers, reintroduce myself, before they depart for the evening? That way, I can set a plan for further investigation during daylight hours tomorrow, in case we cannot solve this before morning.”
This is why Lyall is such a good Beta. Always prepared to offer support but also suggestions.
Biffy allowed himself a full, warm smile of gratitude.
“Perfect.”
Lyall dipped his head in a blush.
Biffy felt a heady rush at the power of that. Something so simple as one word of praise to build allegiance. “Shall we head down to face the nappies, as it were?”
“Lead on, Alpha, do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Decorating for Christmas
The drawing room was only slightly less chaotic than it had been the evening before. Apparently, the pack had no intention of keeping their new additions confined to the safe anonymity of the upstairs nursery.
Despite the fact that, under ordinary circumstances, everyone ought to be at breakfast, the pack were all in the drawing room with Mrs Whybrew and the (now three) babies. Quite apart from everything else, this was startling because werewolves, as a rule, never missed a meal.
Well, to be fair, Channing was eating with the clavigers. But no one thought it was a good idea to invite him along at the best of times. To anything. For any reason. Let alone a room full of infants.
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