He looked at her with something like shock, as if she had uncovered some deep truth. She couldn’t see the truth itself, only that she had exposed him. She fell quiet because, obviously, she kept saying the wrong thing. His thoughts turned chagrined—he had been working very hard to hide his discomfort, she realized. She had exposed him, and now she was sorry for it.
“My brothers and I,” he said, taking a steadying breath, “decided we would like to come in from the woods. There are . . . attractions to drawing rooms and assemblies.”
She felt a great welling of desire, and could not tell if it came from him, or from her.
“Edward! My goodness, but people will talk, with you dominating this poor young lady’s attentions!” Francis Wilde came over and taunted his brother. Elizabeth couldn’t see where Amy had gone to.
She started to say that no, Edward wasn’t a bother at all, and then excuse herself to find her friend, but Edward bristled. An emotion that was half annoyance poured from him—the other half was anger. He rose and faced the other. “Francis. Do not interrupt where you’re not wanted.”
“I’m saving you. No—I correct myself. I’m saving the lady from you. From the gossip you will incite.” He bowed at her, and his smile was mischievous.
She wanted to smile at his playfulness, but Edward’s anger confused her. Something more than what was visible was happening here. The two men had both stiffened, and their glares held challenges.
“You are provoking me, sir,” Edward said, his voice constrained.
Francis blinked a moment in apparent surprise. “Yes, perhaps I am. And how are you getting on with that?”
The two brothers glared at one another, their expressions fierce.
“Miss Weston, you must pardon my brothers.” This was Vincent. He’d deftly stepped between them, grabbed them both by the necks, and glared pointedly until they drew back. The brewing argument vanished. “They are prone to teasing one another.”
Francis started, “It was only a conversation—” But Vincent threw him such a look, the small man wilted and ducked his gaze.
Edward, his shoulders still bunched with tension, looked away. “I will remember myself.”
“Good,” Vincent said to him. “Do endeavor to be pleasant for at least another hour.”
Elizabeth could not interpret what she had witnessed—rivalry, authority, uncertainty, all of it. The goading, the reprimand—perhaps it was that they were only brothers, deeply competitive. But there was more than that at work here. We decided we would like to come in from the woods . . .
Francis bowed something that was like an apology and went off to another room. Vincent followed him, and she expected Edward to do likewise.
Instead, he turned to her, his expression chagrined. “My deepest apologies. Tell me you will forgive me and grant me one more dance?”
She should have been frightened of him, after what she had seen. But she took his hand and stood before she knew what she was about.
“You like him,” her father said, as they sat at supper. She was with her parents near the Brannocks. The brothers Wilde were at the far end of the table. She didn’t dare steal a glance at Edward, though she was sure he was stealing glances at her.
Elizabeth gathered herself as well as she could, folding her hands before her. “I don’t know that I would use so strong a word,” she replied. “Mr. Wilde is very . . . interesting.”
“That is more than you have said about any other man who has ever turned an eye toward you, my sweet girl.” He kissed her hand and smiled knowingly.
Perhaps she could persuade Edward Wilde to return to whatever woods he had come from, and take her with him. This thought was shocking—and pleasant. She wrapped herself up with it.
While the gentlemen smoked and drank their brandy, Mrs. Brannock led the ladies to the drawing room. The gossip that followed there was mercenary. For once, the thoughts of the women were just as stark as the words they spoke. There were more daughters than available bachelors in the neighborhood, and the arrival of the Wildes was a boon.
“But what of their family? Does no one know anything of them?”
“Clearly, the family made its money in business, this is why no one has heard of them.”
“They do have a rough edge to them, don’t they?”
“But money forgives many faults, doesn’t it?”
A few stray glances went to Elizabeth, who pretended to be occupied with the lace on her sleeve.
“I would know more about them before allowing them to claim one of my daughters.”
“Does anyone know if they even have this fortune that everyone speaks of? Taking Lilies Park isn’t a sure sign of it—”
“They’d have had to prove their credit before taking the estate, surely—”
“I’m sure I don’t understand such things—”
“But they do seem very fine, don’t they? Ah, to be young again, I might try to catch one of them for myself!”
The worry over money was valid, but it had a second function: to raise doubt and thus put off rivals. Whatever they said, the mothers would be happy to have their daughters married to money. None of them were so fine that they could easily refuse anything upward of three thousand a year. If the marriage went poorly years hence, whether because of money or disposition, they would all say that they knew from the first it would be so. None would remember the talk of this evening.
Amy leaned close to Elizabeth. “You are thinking very deep thoughts, my friend.”
“Oh? I’m told that thinking in ladies is unattractive.”
“Usually it is, but it makes you appear quite mysterious. I approve.”
“Amy, you’re a bad influence on me.”
“Good! Now, do share.”
She took a deep breath. “I am thinking, what a pack of vultures.”
Amy burst out laughing, and the matrons and their daughters turned sharp looks to them, which caused Elizabeth’s friend to choke back even more laughter.
The gentlemen joined the ladies soon enough, and there was music and whist. The younger of the company drifted to an adjacent parlor, talking around the fireplace with the illusion of privacy, chaperoned by the company in the other room.
“I think our introduction to the neighborhood has been a great success, brothers,” said Francis, the merry one, as Elizabeth thought of him. “What say you, ladies?”
“A triumphant success, I think,” Amy exclaimed. “But you will have to hold a ball of your own soon to truly establish yourselves.”
“Ah, of course,” Francis said. “We cannot escape the balls, can we?”
Vincent and Edward showed sour expressions at this, though they made a good show of fortitude. The drawing room was not their natural habitat, as Edward had indicated. Francis masked discomfort by being forward. Vincent and Edward did not mask it at all.
“But now—I am going to be quite rude,” Amy said. “I hope you will not think ill of me for it.”
“How could anyone ever think ill of you?” Francis said.
“We know nothing about you,” she said. “Where are you from? What can you tell us of the Wilde family? If you do not wish to answer directly, perhaps we can play a game of questions. You need only answer yes or no, then.”
“There is nothing to tell, really,” Vincent said, eyeing his brothers.
“No, please, a game of questions would be delightful! Are you from the north?”
“Ah . . . no,” Vincent said.
“The south, then?”
“No.”
The young lady pursed her lips. “Well then, where are you from?”
“Miss Weston,” Edward said. He began to pace. “Do you play the pianoforte?”
Elizabeth flinched, startled. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”
Francis laughed. “Then we must hear you play, Miss Weston, for all ladies say they do not play well, to better display their genteel humility.”
Amy stood and gave a brilliant smile. All the gentlem
en must swoon. “Mr. Wilde, we are having such a fine conversation, I’m sure no one wishes to leave it even for a moment just to play something.”
Rescue. Elizabeth’s relief was physical.
Francis seemed put out. “Really, I thought this was how it was done. The lady is asked to play, she demurs that she does not play well, her assembled friends assure her that she plays very well indeed, and then the lady is allowed to demonstrate her skill without being accused of undue pride.” He was teasing. His manner was bright, containing no malice at all, but Elizabeth might wish she weren’t the subject of his banter. She was ill equipped to bear it.
“Mr. Wilde, do be still,” Edward said, biting the words. Something rose up in him. His lips curled, showing teeth.
Their exteriors were polite. They did not tear into each other with claws—but they wanted to, with the looks they gave one another, raking each other up and down with sharp gazes. Their lips parted hungrily, their teeth were white and sharp.
Elizabeth stood. She did not have to feign an anxious tremor in her voice. “I think . . . I think I should like to take a walk. A turn about the room. To get some air.”
The brothers turned to her, still annoyed but they no longer seemed as if they wished to devour one another, and that made a great improvement on Elizabeth’s nerves.
“Miss Weston, are you well?” Vincent Wilde asked.
“In truth, the room seems somewhat . . . crowded.”
“There are less than a dozen of us here!” one of the other young ladies, one often frustrated with Elizabeth’s fragility, exclaimed.
“And yet I think the room is quite full.”
“Miss Weston displays a great deal of insight, I think,” Edward said. “If I may, I will escort you to the window for some air.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They went off a little ways, and Edward pushed open the window. The air that came in was cold and damp. Her mother would be horrified of a chill overtaking her, but Elizabeth breathed it in gratefully.
They had some privacy. They could speak alone in quiet voices. It seemed wonderfully illicit. Some of the others might think this had all been a ploy on her part to get Edward alone. Amy might have encouraged her to try such a trick, but she would know this was honest. Elizabeth wasn’t very good at ploys.
Edward’s concern was genuine. He did not think this was a ploy.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I was quite overwhelmed.”
“You are not wrong about the room,” Edward said. “It is more full than it appears.”
“I think that is because the personalities of you and your brothers are so very large. When you were boys your mother and father must have despaired of ever having peace again. Except—you are not truly brothers, are you?”
“How do you guess that? I know we do not favor one another, but it is very forward of you to say so.”
“I have never done a forward thing in all my life but talk to you.”
“You—your insight . . . it astonishes me.” His whole manner had stiffened.
She had never wanted to understand someone as much as she wanted to understand him. At the moment, he was building walls in his mind to keep her out.
“I am not trying to astonish, truly.”
“It makes you all the more intriguing.”
She had never before wanted to kiss someone, but she could finally see why one might want to. If she leaned in, if she put her hand on his chest—it was scandalous. She also felt that if she tried to kiss him, he would let her.
He shook his head and took a step back, and she felt as if a chasm opened between them.
“I fear, Miss Weston, that I have misled you. I admire you, but I cannot do more than that. This is for your own safety, please believe me.”
He was not lying. But he was disguising the full truth.
“Mr. Wilde—” But he had already walked away.
Amy interrogated her thoroughly.
“But what did he say?”
Heads bent together, no one could hear them. The evening was over. Elizabeth was in her coat, waiting in the foyer for the carriages to be drawn up. The brothers Wilde were nowhere to be seen.
“That this was for my own safety, and then he left. He was unhappy, I could see that he was.”
“Of course he was, to give you up. My dear, he has used you very ill, to draw you in and then drop you like . . . like a handkerchief.” She frowned at her own metaphor.
“I do not know what I did wrong. Perhaps I spoke too freely—”
“Oh, do not blame yourself. Who can understand men?”
They kissed cheeks in farewell and the Westons left in their carriage. When her father asked her how she liked the evening, she only said that she liked it well enough, but that she was tired now and didn’t want to speak.
That night, a wolf howled across the valley. She had never before heard such a sound, a plaintive cry, a heart breaking as the piercing note drew long and faded. The tenor of longing, and of uncertainty, was familiar to her. It should not have been. The sound was the frustration of someone who had been unhappily standing in close company all evening, but who no longer felt at home in the woods, either. The cry of someone who would be pleased to dance, if only he could find the right partner.
Because she had danced so much more than she was used to, because she had spoken so freely to Edward Wilde, she was feeling brave, and so she donned her coat and took a lantern and went out to the grounds of the manor.
She did not think to search so much as she meant to let herself be found. But the wolf did not cry again. “Edward!” she called out once, but her voice echoed strangely and she cringed. Perhaps she should go to the edge of the wooded park and wait for him.
Her slippers grew wet with dew, as did the hem of her nightdress. She ought to have put on better clothes; she thought her heavy coat would be enough. This was all madness—but she did not mind so much. It felt honest, in a world of pretense.
Then she saw him, a huge creature loping across the grass of the park. He was gray, the color of slate and steel, with a touch of mist on his muzzle and belly. His fur stood thickly from his body. His long, rangy legs carried him toward her. His eyes were icy. She should have been terrified, but she was not. She should have imagined the creature leaping and biting into her throat. Instead, the wolf slowed, stopped, and watched her.
He was lost, angry, and terribly sad. She wanted very badly to touch him, to say that all would be well.
At the edge of the wooded park, she sat, hugging her coat around her against the dewy grass. The wolf sat, too. They regarded each other as a couple in a dance might, looking across a space just barely too far apart to reach out and touch, not knowing what to say to one another. The wolf—she felt him being oh so careful; he did not trust himself to move any closer.
Moments passed, and she found she was satisfied to sit, and listen. The wolf bowed his head, his ears pressed back. There was apology in the gesture. Shame. She had seen hounds look like this after being scolded.
“Don’t be sorry,” she assured him. “Oh please, don’t be sorry. It is such a pleasant evening, I am happy to sit with you like this.” The air was cool, but with her coat she did not feel the damp.
The wolf settled, lying down and resting his head upon his paws. He sighed a breath that sounded like a whine.
Elizabeth waited.
“Bloody hell!” Francis cried out when he came out through the trees. “I beg your pardon, Miss Weston, you startled me.”
The wolf had not startled him; she had.
She blinked awake—she had nodded off. The wolf—he was truly asleep, curled up, tail to nose. She flattered herself that she had given him some comfort, to allow him to rest.
Vincent came up behind Francis. Both stood, wearing coats and looking harried. The masks were gone.
“Mr. Wilde . . . and Mr. Wilde,” she said, thinking that she ought to stand, but she did not want to disturb the wolf’s rest. Something was happe
ning—she did not look away for fear of missing it. The creature’s fur seemed to thin; his limbs seemed to lengthen, claws fattening into fingers. The changes happened with the gentleness of mist fading at dawn.
“Miss Weston,” Vincent said. He seemed tired; his brother stood wary. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”
She hugged herself. “I do not know. A voice drew me.”
“Edward—” Vincent said wonderingly, and she nodded. “But how?”
“Again, I do not know.”
Francis laughed, and the sound was a relief. The merry version of him was more pleasant. “Do not take this as an insult, my dear lady—but what are you?”
“I might ask the same of you.”
The wolf was half man now, a naked face with pointed ears, sharp teeth behind curled human lips. The fur continued to thin.
Vincent said softly, “He spent too long in a crowded ballroom.
We . . . we are not so used to polite company.”
“He said you had decided to come in from the woods.”
“Yes,” the taller brother said. “Francis and I have more . . . fortitude. For Edward, it is difficult. He lasted in company longer than I thought he would, and I believe we have you to thank for it.”
“Oh?”
“You give him a reason to be civilized.”
He does the same for me, she thought.
Edward Wilde lay before them now, nude, back bowed in the curled shape his wolf had lain down in. He seemed tense, muscles taut, as if dreaming some difficult dream.
“He will sleep for some time,” Vincent said.
“He is exhausted,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m astonished that you understand. You are not at all . . . frightened?”
She smiled. “Assemblies frighten me. Proposals frighten me. This . . . is merely wondrous.”
Her limbs had grown stiff and she took some time rising from the ground. Francis rushed forward to assist but was only in time to touch her elbow and bow an apology. She thanked him anyway. Moving then to Edward, she removed her coat and spread it over him. He made a sound, a soft murmur that she couldn’t make out, and nestled more deeply into his grassy bed and sighed in comfort.
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