Meat Cute

by Gail Carriger

  She was relatively certain they intended to do battle, or perhaps they had already begun and this was a hiatus of pacing. She wasn’t entirely certain about the etiquette of wolf fights – perhaps there were required regular intervals of pace-and-scowl. They seemed so very intent on one another. It was rather exhilarating, but also a terribly gauche maneuver, to have a beastly fracas in the middle of someone else’s garden. She supposed that they might have obtained permission.

  The smaller one struck first, side-swiping with one paw, as if they were boxers at fisticuffs. Instead of dodging the blow, the larger one just knocked it aside, in a remarkable display of lack of concern. The smaller one hadn’t used his claws, which led Alexia to wonder if this altercation was for show rather than in earnest.

  Then they met each other in mid-leap with a decidedly loud thump and tumbled together to the floor of the folly.

  The gentlemen surrounding them crowded in close.

  Alexia lost sight of the battle then, for she could see very little of it between trouser legs. It seemed to be a rollicking good time. There were claws and teeth involved, but so far as she could tell, little blood.

  She crept closer.

  She might have stayed like that, watching quietly and unobserved from the sidelines between the trouser legs of some large gentleman or another, if it had not been for the hedgehog.

  He was only a little chap and Alexia had no idea how he got there. But he was reeling in a slightly confused manner – well, you would be too, if a couple of ruddy big werewolves were fighting in your folly. He stumbled out from behind one of the marble columns and instead of dashing away like any sane hedgehog ought to do, he trotted out into the middle of the battleground.

  Alexia Tarabotti was quite fond of hedgehogs.

  She gave a small shriek (fine, perhaps not so small), which had the effect of causing everyone but the two circling wolves to swing, startled, in her direction.

  But it did not cause them to save the hedgehog.

  Alexia darted forwards, muscled her way through the assembled, and surged after the poor defenseless creature.

  Of course she had her gloves off, for what reason she couldn’t recall. And of course, instead of catching the hedgehog, who seemed to have realized the danger at last and dashed off, she stumbled and caught herself on the body of the larger wolf.

  Because Alexia was, in fact, preternatural, her touch instantly turned him from wolf back to human, so that she was no longer touching a wolf at all but instead the now naked form of one Lord Maccon, Earl of Woolsey.

  She shrieked again, even louder this time, and lurched backwards, breaking contact. She turned and covered her eyes with both hands. She also realized that there was a great deal she didn’t know about the male anatomy and that certain books in her father’s collection would need to be cracked open.

  Meanwhile, the gentlemen about her all began talking at once.

  “Hung fight!”

  “What’s that bloody chit doing here?”

  “Language, Rafe!”

  “God’s teeth, is that the curse-breaker? I knew we had one in town, of course. Impressive skills. Is it always that fast?”

  “Mr Tiklebark, you’d better shift back. This is going to take ages to sort out.” Alexia recognized the voice of Professor Lyall.

  Then there came a rumble from Lord Maccon. “Weel then, that there was a wee bit unsettling. Miss Tarabotti? Are you feeling quite the thing? Does it affect you poorly, too? I canna possibly have startled you any more than you did me. What a remarkable sensation, forced shift. Not exactly pleasant. Miss?” A pause. “What is it, Lyall?”

  Alexia kept her mouth shut and her eyes covered.

  “What’s that?” barked his lordship.

  A quiet whisper that could only be coming from Professor Lyall.

  She couldn’t hear what he said, but she certainly made out Lord Maccon’s response. “Clothes? Clothes, you say? Weel, if you insist. Dashed inconvenient. Has the lassie taken ill? She seems more quiet and subdued than she was earlier this evening.”

  Another spate of Professor Lyall’s whispers while the others murmured and argued amongst themselves. The gentlemen werewolves still seemed torn about the interrupted fight, such as it was. They kept harping on about the fact that it hadn’t ended to protocol, whatever that meant.

  Above the hubbub, Lord Maccon’s voice rose again, “Nay, leave off the cravat. Nonsense thing. We willna be rejoining the party. I’m decent enough for laymen.”

  Alexia felt a slight touch upon her shoulder.

  “Miss Tarabotti?”

  “Oh, Professor Lyall, please pardon my gross interference. There was this hedgehog, you see? And I was horribly afraid he might be crushed in the fracas. Poor little mite. He simply dashed out right there into the folly, and with the wolves ferociously fighting and so forth—”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” Lord Maccon came into her field of view.

  Alexia winced. He was no longer naked, but he was not (as he had claimed) at all decent. He was wearing his shirt and trousers only (and barely that). No waistcoat, no coat, and no cravat. He looked like some lad set to till the fields. No doubt he could do so easily, all rolling muscles and sweat and… And where are you going with that my girl?

  Alexia returned to explaining and defending herself, including the Alpha in her earnest diatribe, along with the more sympathetic Beta.

  “My lord, I do apologize for unsolicited preternatural touch. I was going for the hedgehog.”

  “It wasna serious challenge. Barely a test match,” responded Lord Maccon, as if he were trying to protest that the hedgehog hadn’t been in any danger.

  “But he was such a little thing.”

  “I dinna think Mr Tiklebark—”

  “Call me Riehard,” said Mr Tiklebark, whoever that was, from somewhere out of Alexia’s field of vision.

  Lord Maccon continued, “I dinna think Riehard would care to be pitied like that, my lass. He dinna need your help.” Lord Maccon looked grim. “And we canna have you interfering in pack business like this.”

  “Not Riehard, the hedgehog.”

  “Hedgehog?” Lord Maccon looked confused. “Hedgehog! What hedgehog?”

  “The one you nearly crushed, you big oaf.”

  “I never! Rather fond of hedgehogs.”

  Alexia crossed her arms over her ample bosom and glared. “Well, so am I and I didn’t want to see that one crushed by your massive paw. Or knocked about by a tail sweep or whatnot.”

  “Weel,” Lord Maccon frowned and then looked at the other men now surrounding them. “Extenuating circumstances, aye, lads? What do you say, rematch or call it good? It’s not his fighting skills that really matter to us anyway, is it?”

  The rest of the pack looked from Lord Maccon to Alexia, and then seemed to take some kind of unspoken cue and ignored her in order to answer his question.

  Professor Lyall said, “You know my feelings. He’s an asset. Trust will come, or it won’t, but I say tether him in.”

  One of the others said, “Agreed. But given his profession, Channing might see him as a threat to Gamma position. Would you be willing to fight again, Riehard, when he gets back from overseas?”

  The disembodied voice that belonged to Riehard and seemed to be emerging from the bushes somewhere to the left of the folly answered him. “That’s fair. So long as I don’t have to go up against this here Alpha again. He was holding back on me, but I’m still thinking I’ll need all night to recover and I could use a nice hot bath. Wolf hits hard!”

  Alexia blushed at that. Imagine mentioning bathing in front of a lady. I suppose I haven’t been behaving in a very ladylike manner.

  Lord Maccon looked puffed up and proud of his prowess.

  Riehard continued, “If your Gamma challenges, I’ll accept, but I’ve no real interest in his position. No more than I did Alpha. But I’ll follow protocol as ordered. I may not be accustomed to pack, b
ut I’ve studied the forms. I’m no newly metamorphosed puppy.”

  Professor Lyall looked at Alexia for a long moment. He seemed the only one really aware she was still there. Alexia was listening avidly, learning more about werewolves in one evening than she had before in her whole life.

  That said, while he wasn’t looking at her, Lord Maccon had moved so that he stood next to and a little in front of her. Not touching, but sort of looming in a proprietary manner.

  Professor Lyall said, carefully, “And your other ties, Mr Tiklebark? If we agree that you’re pack now?”

  “Severed, I assure you.”

  Professor Lyall’s eyes narrowed. “So long as they are also untangled. The one does not necessarily preclude the other.”

  “That may take me a little longer, Beta.”

  The professor nodded. “Understood. Gentlemen, if you would show our newest member home? The butler has already been told to prepare quarters. Welcome to the Woolsey Pack, Mr Tiklebark.”

  “Thank you, sir.” And strangely enough, to Alexia’s ears the newly adopted werewolf sounded not only genuinely grateful, but profoundly relieved. As if, until that moment, he had been experiencing a great deal of tension.

  “That’s settled, then.” Lord Maccon pivoted to glare at Alexia. “No thanks to your interference. Touch at the wrong time and you could’ve caused one of us serious injury, even death. Turning mortal in the middle of a wolf fight is no minor thing, young lady. I hope you realize that.”

  Alexia Tarabotti did not like to be scolded. Especially by a man of no relation and new acquaintance. Especially not when she knew herself to be in the wrong and had already apologized. “I beg your pardon!”

  “As you should.”

  “I maintain that the hedgehog was in danger.”

  “Ridiculous female. How do I know there was a hedgehog at all? You might have wanted to test your abilities a little, stretch your soulless legs as it were, see naked evidence of your power?”

  Alexia gasped and stood in a huff, near to tears. “As if I would lie about hedgehogs. What a horrible thing to say! I understood this folly assembly to be a private concern for gentlemen werewolves only, and I would have stayed well out of it had I not seen the poor thing in danger. I resent your suggesting otherwise!”

  Lord Maccon looked disgruntled. “Hedgehogs make for a verra weak excuse, if you ask me.”

  Alexia planted her hands on her hips. “I didn’t ask you.” Then she turned away from him to Professor Lyall and the disembodied Riehard. Perhaps he had no clothes, so must stay in the bushes. She wished him well of them. “I do beg your pardon for my inadvertent interference. I hope I have caused no permanent damage. Good evening, gentlemen.”

  And then she dashed off into the gardens, stung by such unwarranted lack of faith in her good word and honorable intentions.

  There was a murmur of masculine voices as she ran away, Professor Lyall’s quiet and reprimanding, Lord Maccon’s louder and militant.

  Of course, she forgot how exactly to get back to the house and promptly got lost in the grounds, finding herself eventually at the center of a small maze sitting hunched on a stone bench.

  Which was where the hedgehog found her.

  She sat very still as he emerged out of the bushes from the direction of the Grecian folly, and approached her with all the shy sweetness of his species.

  No doubt this was where he was fed regularly by the household. Hedgehogs could be tamed, and this one seemed accustomed to human company.

  She bent over, emotions mostly contained by now. Her temper had flared, and her feelings were injured by Lord Maccon’s calling her a bare-faced liar. But here was the hedgehog and Alexia, at least, knew the truth. She held out her hand, bare, for now she had most assuredly lost her gloves. The little creature snuffled at her fingertips.

  A rumbling from the shadows did not disturb him, although it slightly startled Alexia.

  “Miss Tarabotti, I must apologize. Your hedgehog hallucination would appear to be a reality.”

  She did not look up at him, because the hedgehog was gracing her with his presence. Climbing into her open palms.

  “I assure you, Lord Maccon, I am not the kind of girl to go around hallucinating hedgehogs all willy-nilly. And I resent that you should think so.” She lifted the small animal carefully and then rested him on the stone bench next to her, allowing him to sniff her hand further.

  Lord Maccon came forward out of the maze. “I dinna mean to imply that you lied merely to test your preternatural strength against me. Willing victim or no. I only meant to suggest that perhaps your interest, with me in particular, was in seeing me become, weel, not a wolf at that moment.”

  “I don’t take your meaning,” said Alexia, because she didn’t.

  “Aye,” he replied, almost kindly, “I can see that you dinna. Och, weel. My loss, eh?”

  He lumbered over and made as if to take a seat on the bench next to her.

  “Wait, no!”

  But it was too late. So she poked him hard on the posterior. Startlingly firm it was, to be sure. Instead of sitting entirely on the hedgehog, he lurched sideways in surprise, grazed the top of the little creature, and slid off the side of the bench to land hard on the damp, loamy earth.

  Fortunately, the hedgehog seemed only confused by its brush with the nether regions of a werewolf. Alexia was not so complacent, since she’d just prodded an earl.

  “Really,” she said to the little creature, who didn’t seem to comprehend his peril, “I believe Lord Maccon has it out for you.”

  Lord Maccon sighed, stood, and brushed himself off. “Dinna see the wee beastie there. He’s hurt?” He didn’t attempt to check for himself.

  “No, near thing though. You aren’t going to make amends?”

  In the light of the floating dirigibles, his face looked strangely sad for a moment. “Prey animal, I’m afraid. Willna take kindly to my scent or touch.”

  “He doesn’t seem too fussed.”

  “No, he seems quite tame. Or perhaps he is nose blind. To wander out into a fight like that.”

  “You see why I tried to stop it?”

  “You did stop it.”

  “And why I had to prod you just now?”

  “You’re verra bad for my dignity, Miss Tarabotti.”

  What dignity? she wondered. “And you’re very bad for hedgehogs, Lord Maccon.”

  She let the hedgehog have one last sniff, then set him gently on the ground before nudging him towards the bushes. She stood. “And now, at the risk of being compromised, I shall take my leave. Good evening, my lord.”

  “Good night, Miss Tarabotti. Dinna let the hedgehogs bite,” he advised, trying to be witty. “Or werewolves, for that matter.”

  Alexia ignored him, feeling disconcerted and slightly confused, but confident that while she’d misplaced her gloves, he’d lost half his clothing and gained a soggy bottom, which would suggest she’d emerged the victor in their encounter.

  She went find her mother, and somehow the presence of werewolves in London did not seem so ominous as it once had.

  The footman and the chaperone left the party separately. It would not do for them to be seen departing together. However, they ended up back in each other’s company later that same night. Or to be more accurate, early the next morning.

  Without her ugly salmon dress and her uglier lace cap, the chaperone looked younger. Not so young as the footman, but then, he was a werewolf and did not show his age. Her hair, powdered to look dull and lifeless, did actually have a few streaks of grey in it. He uncovered them as he brushed out the powder.

  He concentrated on his task, stroking through her fine, soft locks, bringing back the shine and ignoring the grey. It was just as thick and glossy as it had been when they first met.

  She was focused on the mirror in front of them, rubbing cream into the soot she’d used to darken the shadows under her eyes. Those eyes, when he met them in t
he glass, were still as bright and as vibrant a green as they’d been at sixteen. But these days, the cream did not remove all the shadows and never would again.

  Almost twenty years, he thought, we’ve been at this game.

  “So Riehard will join the Woolsey Pack.”

  She nodded slightly. “He will. It is a good thing. He was drifting. With us, here, in our work. You’re not Alpha enough to hold him safe and he is too mercurial for his own good. And he cannot hold himself tethered, of course. Lord Maccon is right for him. Solid and sure.” Her gaze sharpened on his in the looking glass. “I worry about you too, sometimes, in that regard.”

  He concentrated on brushing. “Ah, my heart, but I have you. And you are my tether.”

  She looked a little sad, one long, deadly finger paused on the wrinkles at the corner of one eye. “Not forever.”

  “No, but I think we have much more to do here yet.”

  “Yes. Together.”

  He put down the brush and took her sharp shoulders in his hands. “And that other matter of personal interest?”

  “It is begun well.” She looked pleased with herself. “They must tangle the threads themselves.” A tiny frown. “Although I did not expect the hedgehog to reappear.”

  “You cannot control all the variables, my dear. Did you know the girl?”

  “I was her nanny.”

  “Oh yes, I remember now. I should have thought the Beta a better match.”

  “Oh no, too much blood spent there. You forget their history. He does not show it and he never will, but his feelings for the girl could never be more than fatherly.”

  “But Lord Maccon – why him? Why not a more peaceful pairing?”

  “The Sidheag connection.”

  “Of course. He’s the great great grandfather who broke her heart.”

  “There might be one more great in there. It broke his too, you know, leaving Scotland.”