“That is not your style.” He had such confidence in her.
“No, it’s not. But you’ve seen my mother. She would’ve hidden me away, kept me trapped in my room, stopped me from saying anything, and denied it all publicly. In fact, that’s exactly what she tried to do. But it wasn’t possible, you understand?”
He stopped breathing and drew away from her.
Faith’s skin went all over tight and tingled with fear. But she would do this. She owed him honesty. She owed him all her truths. He might keep his own past hidden from her, but she would not be so reticent. If they were to have anything together, it must be based on honesty.
“What happened?” She knew that he did not want the truth, but he asked because she needed him to. Faith loved him for that.
“There was a child.” She flopped her hands open in a helpless gesture. “It only takes one time, did you know that? Well, I didn’t. But apparently, only once.” She gave a humorless little laugh. “Lucky me.”
He closed his eyes, clearly horrified. “What happened to the baby, Faith?”
He is no longer calling me Lazuli. She swallowed, her throat parched.
He grabbed her shoulders, pressed her back so she must lean into his hard hands or fall. His gaze was impossibly cold and fierce.
“What did you do to it?”
Faith understood, then, some small part of his past. Not all, of course; he would have to tell her the rest. But she understood the signs of betrayal in others; she had felt it so often herself. “Channing, I’m not her. You know that, don’t you?”
“What. Happened. To. The. Baby.” A small shake each time.
“I lost it. Late in the pregnancy. Too late, they tell me. I wonder sometimes if the baby knew, somehow, that it wasn’t wanted. So, it rid itself of me.” She looked away, closed her own eyes. “There was a lot of blood. They wouldn’t even tell me if it was a boy or a girl.” She hated describing it. She wanted to shove the memory back where it belonged, locked away as if in the smallest corner of the bottom drawer of her specimen case. A deadly little treasure, like a chunk of cinnabar, that she knew was there, that she had collected, but that would destroy her if she took it out and handled it, dwelt upon it.
He made the funniest sound then, a lost whine-whimpering, and drew her back against him. Arms gentle. But she didn’t deserve comfort, so she pushed away, forced herself to go on. I’ve got to get this all out now, or I won’t have the guts to do it later.
“No,” she said, “Let me finish.”
“No more,” he begged.
She overruled him. “It damaged me. The baby damaged me, tore me open. Inside.” She took a little sip of air. Almost there now. “The surgeon – they had to call him to stop the bleeding – he said… He said I could never have another. Even if the seed took, I’d likely die in the attempt.”
“So, they set you to net a werewolf. Because a werewolf cannot get you pregnant.”
“See why I didn’t fight it? One moment, one stupid, stupid choice, with one stupid man, and this becomes my only option.”
“I become your only option.”
She shook her head, desperate for him to understand. “I still wanted something more, something better. Although I know I don’t deserve it.” Faith could feel her voice cracking, breath hitching. I’ll not cry any more this evening. Enough of that.
“Not that I think I’m worth any form of loving. I just didn’t want my existence to end as well, there, like that, with the baby. Do you see?”
“Oh, Lazuli.” He tried to reach for her again. His face was pained and pulled into harsh lines. Ice cracked open under stress.
She held out her hands, palms forward – wait. This was like lancing a boil and she must pour out all her confessions like pus, ruining herself in his eyes forever. I don’t want your pity!
“I wanted you. You know I wanted you. You were not a second choice, or my only option. You’re glorious and perfect, and grumpy, and angry all the time, and secretive with your past. There are horrors there. I know there are. But it’s different for you. It’s different because you’re a man. And you’re immortal. And you have a pack. You still have everything. No matter what happened to you, don’t you see how lucky you are?”
She looked down at her hands, struggling to keep the tears in. “And my baby died, bled out of me and taken away, stealing all my futures alongside. And I wanted you despite that, just a taste of what might have made it all worthwhile, do you see? Because I couldn’t imagine anything after that. I couldn’t imagine anything being good or kind or decent or whole ever again.”
“Lazuli, I am none of those things.”
She was fierce at him all of a sudden. Feeling her grief shift into something much easier to handle – rage, power, defence of that which she found worthy.
“No. You’re not. You’re not good or kind. You aren’t decent or whole – but that’s the point. Don’t you see? I think we could be those things for each other. Us. Together.” Her shoulders sagged. “Although I would understand now if, knowing all this, you don’t want me anymore.”
He snorted. A moment of his old arrogance, the tilting curl of a sneer that had first pulled her towards him.
“Wanting is not the problem, Lazuli.” He cocked his head. “May I touch you now?”
She nodded.
He pulled her close and cradled her against him, and pressed his face hard into her neck, inhaling her scent. He did not kiss her. His hands were chaste even as they rubbed her back.
Faith had never felt such comfort.
STEP NINE
Small Tokens of Your Affection Are Always Welcome
Teddy interrupted them and there could be no more confessions that evening.
Faith and her cousin hailed a public conveyance to get home. Faith spent the drive vibrating with repressed wanting, and shared fears, and nerves too tight. She thought, slightly hysterically, that Channing might pluck out a tune upon her. He could once have been a musician, before he became a werewolf. All those with excess soul had gifts that must be given up with the bite; what had Channing sacrificed? Too much, she suspected.
Faith felt purged and free, empty and weak, and terribly needy. She was so many things all at once, it was a wonder she did not collapse.
Fortunately, Teddy somehow understood. She sat close and clutched one of Faith’s hands in both of hers. Silent for a change. Faith wondered at that; in all their months of intimacy, she had never known Teddy to be silent for more than five minutes together.
At home, Teddy shepherded Faith upstairs and saw her delivered safely into Minnie’s worried care.
“I will explain everything to Mums,” said Teddy, closing the door behind her.
Faith wondered what that meant, exactly, and what form such an explanation might take.
“Oh, miss,” said Minnie, “you look awful.”
Faith gave a dry chuckle.
Minnie also looked somewhat shaken. She moved awkwardly and her cap was pulled full forward over her head, so it shadowed her eyes. Maybe she, too, had been crying, or was exhausted and overworked.
“I’m fine, Minnie dear, a little upset by some things that happened tonight and definitely ready for bed. Are you all right?”
“Yes, miss, just tired.” Minnie began to help her with her dress. Her hands shook a little.
“Minnie, are you sure? You can tell me anything, you know. I won’t judge. And I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“I shouldn’t, miss, not when you’ve had a bad night yourself, but I’m sorry, I have to tell you something.”
Faith suddenly remembered before the gallery, what her mother had said. “I should warn you. Mother is looking for you. She’s annoyed about you working for a seamstress. I don’t know why. She might come to see you tomorrow. Unfortunately.”
“I know, miss. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Never say she tracked you down already? She must have g
one straight to yell at you after yelling at me. I’m so sorry.”
“No miss, not her. Your father found me.”
Faith was utterly flummoxed. “Papa? But why? You mean he came to see you, at the modiste? What…”
It made no sense. Papa had never set foot in a modiste’s in his life. He didn’t involve himself in the domestic running of a household. What on earth was he doing, tracking down Faith’s maid in her secondary place of business?
“Please, miss. Just let me speak. If I get it all out now, then maybe I’ll actually say it all. But if you interrupt me…”
Faith nodded, eyes wide, mouth firmly closed. An evening for confessions, I see.
Faith had her nightgown on now and was sitting on the edge of the bed while Minnie paced in front of her in nervous agitation.
“Miss, did you know my father was killed by vampires?”
Faith shook her head.
“During the war. He fought for the Union and didn’t make it back. They found him, drained and punctured. It forced me into service. Before he died, he earned enough for me not to have to work. But after…”
Faith nodded again. Ashamed she had never asked about her maid’s circumstances. She knew some of the generalities but not the particulars.
Minnie took a deep breath and blurted, “Your mother came to me with a task. She gave me something and asked me to deliver it, well, them, to a business associate of your father’s here in London. Anti-vampire, she said.”
Minnie lifted her sewing kit then. Faith knew it well; she herself had given it to Minnie several years earlier. It was one of the hatbox-shaped models, designed for high-end seamstresses. It had special extra-sharp scissors in varying sizes, a fancy iron (one of the self-steaming models), and all the best micro-gadgets to come out of the European domestic service inventors over the past decade. It hadn’t come cheap, but Faith knew how much Minnie loved to sew.
“Your tool kit?”
Minnie nodded and set it on the floor to pop it open, lifting out the accordion shelves. It was constructed like a sewing basket but modified heavily to specific technologies. It had lots of nooks and crannies to stash both gadgets and supplies and was Minnie’s pride and joy. It also had a hidden compartment that only Minnie, Faith, and the original maker knew about.
Minnie popped open this secret drawer and pulled out what looked to be two or three dozen tiny bobbins, each one loosely wound with yarn.
Minnie handed one to Faith to look over.
The yarn was clearly a disguise, because the small bobbin was far too heavy to be a real bobbin, and not shaped at all correctly upon close inspection. Faith pulled off the yarn. Underneath, it looked like an elaborately filigreed version of…
“A bullet?”
Minnie nodded. “Sundowner bullets.”
Faith gasped and dropped the deadly little thing onto the bed. “Oh, Minnie.”
Faith stared down at it, innocently resting on her coverlet, horrified. There before her was the only thing that could reliably kill a vampire or a werewolf. It was the standard brass color of most bullets (not that Faith had a great of familiarity with projectiles), only this one was pretty and jewelry-like – caged, patterned, and cored with threads of grey and shards of blond. Incredibly expensive and complicated to produce, a Sundowner bullet incorporated both silver and rowan wood, yet could be loaded and shot like any other .36 caliber. Sundowner armaments were strictly patented and production was tightly controlled, even more so in England than in the Union. In fact, only a few people in all of Britain were authorized to use them, let alone make them, and most of those were supernaturals themselves.
Faith suddenly knew. “Major Channing was looking for these, wasn’t he, when he pulled aside my specimen case? I thought it was his fierceness that scared you, but you had these with you all along. That’s why you were so nervous.”
Minnie nodded. “Yes, miss. Lucky for me, the higher the rank, the more likely they are to forget servants are people, not property or furniture.”
Faith winced. “I take it you failed to deliver to Papa’s associate. Why?”
Minnie grimaced. “I thought I could sell ’em myself. Turn a tidy profit, use the money to emigrate to Europe. I didn’t know how hard it is to fence bullets in a foreign land, especially when one is only a lady’s maid.”
“Did you take the work with Mrs Honeybun in an effort to pursue this illicit activity?”
Minnie hung her head. “Yes, miss, in part. I mean, I do like it. The money from the sale would have gone into me starting my own dress shop. But it’s too hard for someone like me to sell something like this. I’ve never done it before, miss. Please believe me.”
Faith could understand wanting independence. She could understand hating the supernatural set. She didn’t blame Minnie.
“We’re all sinners, Minnie, in some form or another. But why confess now?”
“Your father wants his bullets back. And he didn’t ask nicely.”
Minnie pushed at her cap, revealing what she’d been hiding under it. One of her eyes was dark and swollen. She’d clearly been beaten.
“Mrs Honeybun yelled for lawmen and he ran. But he’ll return.”
Faith nodded. “You’re safe here tonight, I think. The Iftercasts have taken against my parents, thank heavens. I don’t know what we did to deserve the care of such nice people, Minnie.”
“True, miss.”
Faith patted the counterpane, and Minnie put the bullets away and came to sit next to her. Still trembling a little.
“And tomorrow, miss, what then?”
“Did you hear that I’m engaged, Minnie?”
“No, miss. Felicitations?”
“To a werewolf.”
“The grumpy one from after we landed, who you yelled at?”
“Yes, Minnie, that’s him.”
Minnie gave a small smile that might have been approval. “Very good, miss.”
Faith said, “Here’s what I think we should do…”
Channing believed that Biffy would come to talk to him about his hasty choices, but it was Lyall who found him.
Channing was in the library of Falmouth House, his favorite haunt when he must be at home. Which wasn’t often but, he supposed, with a wife, might become more frequent in the future. He’d claimed one of the small tables for his desk, and most of the rest of the pack left him be. Children were not allowed in the library. Not until they could actually read.
He was examining a set of shelves in the brightest corner of the room. Or what would be the brightest corner, with the curtains open and the sun above the horizon.
The shelves were sparsely populated with only the cheapest of volumes. Book spines were too likely to fade on these particular shelves, since the staff had orders to open all the downstairs windows in the summertime and to draw the curtains year ’round. Just because werewolves could only be awake at night did not mean they allowed a gloomy, cheerless, stuffy habitat like that of the vampires.
After long consideration, Channing began removing those few books that were on the shelves and rehoming them elsewhere in the library.
The London Pack didn’t boast a particularly vast book collection. In fact, it might be called embarrassingly petite. Channing thought that he ought to put a concerted effort into improving it. It had dwindled considerably since he joined the pack. Most of the political, historical, and technical manuals had migrated to BUR over the last half century. A great many books had been abandoned by the pack in the library at Woolsey Castle when they’d been forced to relocate to London. They were now the property of the resident vampires. Once a hive got their fangs into something, it was easier to buy another than demand it back.
“What are you doing, Channing? Cataloging?” Professor Lyall came into the room.
“Oh, it’s you. No, reorganizing.”
Lyall watched him for a moment. “You have plans for those now-empty shelves?”
“I
do.” Channing was churlish. “I trust you don’t object, Beta?”
“Depends on the plans.”
Channing did not answer the unasked question. “Lyall, what do you want?”
“I understand you have sealed the deal with Miss Wigglesworth.”
“Faith. Yes. You’ve come to put me off?”
“Certainly not. Biffy approves. You know the rest of the pack all like her very much. Those who have met her, at least. I think she’ll fit in well here. And we will, of course, look after her should you run away.”
“You think that likely, do you?”
“The odds favor it.”
“You haven’t much faith in me.”
“Channing, I’ve known you for a hundred years, give or take a decade. You’ve never kept a woman for more than a few hours, let alone the span of a mortal lifetime. Frankly, I do not know what to expect. Up until this moment, you were nothing if not predictable in your loneliness.”
“She needs us rather badly.”
“Yes, I know. It does not have to be you who marries her.”
“Yes, it does.” Channing’s lip curled and he bared his teeth.
Lyall rolled his eyes at this display of possessiveness. “You’re sure you’re good enough for her?”
“Most assuredly not. But she seems to think so, and I want to try for her sake.”
Lyall gave a tight little sigh. “Channing, you must tell her about Odette.”
“I know.”
“And Isolde.”
“Don’t say that name.”
Lyall stood before him then, stopping him from pacing and fiddling with books and shelves.
Channing nearly walked right into him.
Lyall didn’t flinch – small, sandy-haired, self-effacing and urbane, infinitely powerful. A great deal stronger than Channing in every way. His enemy, his friend, his stabilization over the decades. There was so much time shared between them that they had become two thirds of a whole. Two thirds unchanging over the course of three Alphas now.
Channing remembered his howler training from when he’d first been metamorphosed. He thought on it often. The balance of the pack, the rule of three. Alpha for the head, evolving, shifting, holding too many tethers, burning brighter than the rest of the pack until he snuffed himself out in madness. Beta for the heart, beating a steady rhythm of care, love, resilience, ever steadfast. Gamma for the strength in arms, the warrior, the challenger, the weapon, to remind the pack of what they really were – hunters, trackers, fighters. To remind them to survive first.
How To Marry A Werewolf (Claw & Courtship Novella Book 1) Page 13
