Werewolves & Glass slippers

Something to desire

*Ella*

After four hours in the carriage with Alpha Blanklake, I decide that the most interesting thing about Algernon is that he wears a corset. I’ve never dreamed that men wear that.

“They pinch me,” Algernon confides. “But one must suffer to be elegant; that’s what my valet says.”

Since I dislike suffering, I am very glad that the seamstresses have not had time to alter one of Anastasia’s traveling costumes to the point of elegant pinching. The one I’m wearing bunches comfortably around the waist.

“The padding doesn’t help,” Algernon says fretfully.

“What have you padded?” I ask, eyeing him. He swells in the chest and shrinks down at the waist, so I have a good idea.

“Everyone’s costumes are padded these days,” he says, avoiding the particulars. “At any rate, I don’t want you to think that I’d ordinarily discuss such a thing with you, except that you are my family. Well, almost my family. Do you mind if I begin calling you Anastasia immediately? I’m not very good with names and I don’t want to become confused in company.”

“Not at all,” I assure him. “How does my sister address you?”

“Oh, as Algie,” he says, cheering up. “You should as well. That’s one of the things that I love about Anastasia. She never stands on rules… she started calling me Algernon directly after she met me, and then she shortened it to Algie. That’s how I knew,” he adds, somewhat mysteriously.

I blink, “Knew what?”

“Knew that she was the one for me. It was fated, really. We felt a wonderful closeness and we both knew.”

It is fated due to the lack of a governess, to my mind. Anastasia’s charming intimacies… verbal and otherwise… are the result of inadequate guidance. I would even guess that Minna has encouraged various improprieties.

I would rather slay myself than marry Algie, but I can see why Anastasia adores him. He has a coziness, a kind of sweetness around his mouth and eyes that is a soothing antidote to Minna’s bitterness.

“I just wish we’d arrive at the castle,” he says tetchily. His collar is so high that it is chafing his ears, I notice. I myself am lounging back on the padded carriage seat, so comfortable that I can hardly move. Normally by this time in the day I would have already been on a horse or my legs for hours.

“Are you worried about meeting your uncle?” I inquire.

“Why should I be? He comes from a little backwater, a principality they call it over there, but in England it wouldn’t be more than a small county. Hardly a kingdom. I can’t imagine why he has a title. It’s absurd.”

“I believe there are many small principalities on the Continent,” I say, with a touch of doubt. Minna doesn’t believe in taking a newspaper, and my schooling, such as it is, has come from filching books from my father’s library, not that my stepmother has ever noticed their absence.

“I would just introduce you, and then we could leave in the morning, but the prince insisted that you attend his ball. Most clear, his letter was. I expect he’s worried that he won’t be able to fill the ballroom.” He eyes me. “My mother suspects that he might be making a play for you.”

“Not for me,” I correct him. “For my half sister.”

“And isn’t that a turn-up for the books,” Algie says gloomily. “I must say that I thought the colonel existed. I couldn’t believe it when Mrs. Cinders told me the truth of it last night. You’d never know it from looking at her, would you? If my mother ever finds out, she’ll explode.”

I think that one would know it from looking at my stepmother, but I nod, out of some vague sense of family loyalty. “There’s no reason your mother need ever discover the truth. I certainly won’t tell anyone.”

“At any rate, I love Anastasia, and I must marry her, and my mother wants me to have the prince’s approval, and that’s that.”

I give Algie an approving pat on the knee. It must be difficult for him to get so many thoughts in logical order, and I certainly don't want to ignore his accomplishment. It’s interesting to see what a healthy fear he has of his mother; that might explain why Minna’s demand that he marry Anastasia had instantly borne fruit.

“We should be entering his lands now,” Algie says. “The man owns an awful amount of land in Lancashire, you know. My uncle thought it was an abomination, turning good English soil over to a foreigner. For all he went to Oxford and so on, the prince still has foreign blood.”

“As do you,” I point out. “You are related to him through your mother, no?”

“Well, my mother...” Algie lets his voice trail off. Apparently, he doesn’t consider her blood to carry the foreign taint. “You know what I mean.”

Trying to change the subject I ask, “Have you ever met the prince?”

“Once or twice, when I was small. It’s rubbish, his being my uncle. He’s not that much older than I am: perhaps ten years or a bit more. So why should I be forced to parade my bride in front of him? It’s not as if he’s a king. He’s just a spare prince.”

“It will be quickly over,” I say.

“He’s desperate for funds, of course,” Algie reports. “I heard that his betrothed is…”

But whatever bit of hearsay he is about to pass on is lost in a welter of noise. The coachman suddenly bellows and pulls the carriage to the right; the wheels squeal as they careen across the road; the dogs lose their breath expressing their opinions. Mercifully, the vehicle comes to a stop without toppling over, and the second carriage, carrying trunks, Rosalie, and Algie’s valet, manages to avoid bowling us over.

Algie pulls down his waistcoat, which has got rucked up in the disturbance. “I’d better see what happened. This will take a man,” he says, looking not a day older than his eighteen years. “You stay here where it’s safe. I’ve no doubt we have a bit of trouble with the axle or some such.”

I give him a moment to exit from the carriage and then straighten my traveling bonnet and follow him.

Outside, I find the groomsman soothing the horses, while Algie himself is bowing so deeply that I expect his ears to touch his knees.

A man who has to be the prince is seated on a great chestnut steed, and for a moment I can see only his dark silhouette against the sun. I have the confused impression of his motion and power, easily controlled: an aggressive body, with big shoulders and muscled thighs.

I raise my hand to my eyes to shade the sun just as he leaps from his horse. Dark hair swirls around his shoulders as if he is one of the actors who comes through the village to play King Richard or Macbeth.

My eyes adjust, and I change that idea. He is no Macbeth… more the king of the fairies, Oberon himself, eyes at a slight, wicked tilt, with just a hint of the exotic. His ’foreign blood,’ as Algie has it.

He has an accent, a delicious smoky accent that matches his eyes and his thick hair, and there is something else about him, something more alive, more powerful and arrogant than the pallid Englishmen I meet every day.

I realize my mouth has fallen open and snap it shut. Thank goodness he hasn’t noticed me.

Groveling probably happens before the prince all the time. His Highness is nodding to Algie. His retinue has dismounted and is standing about him. The man to the left is precisely what I imagine courtiers should be, all curled and colorful like a peacock. There is even a boy in splendid red livery. Apparently, they are out shooting, a royal shooting party.

Then he does notice me.

He surveys me coolly, as if I am a milkmaid at the side of the road. There isn’t a spark of interest in the man’s eyes, just a haughty calculation, as if I’ve offered to sell him milk and he finds it curdled. As if he’s mentally stripping off my too-large traveling costume and staring at the stockings rolled up inside my corset.

I incline my head a fraction of an inch. I’d be damned if I rushed forward and curtsied, there in the dust and the road, to a prince whose self-importance matters more than his manners.

He doesn’t react. Doesn’t nod, doesn’t smile, just looks away and turns back to his horse, swinging onto the saddle and riding away. His back is even larger than I’d at first thought, larger than the smithy’s in the village, larger than...

I’ve never met anyone so rude in my life, and that includes the smithy, who is often drunk and so has an excuse.

Algie snaps at the servant, telling him to open the carriage door and make it quick. “Of course it wasn’t the prince’s fault that our horses were startled by his party,” he says. “Now get us back on the road and be quick about it.”

“Jaq!” I call. The little dog is busy yapping at the heels of a horse who could brain him with one restless movement. “Come!”

Algie motions to a servant, but I stop him. “Jaq has to learn to obey,” I say, taking out my bag of cheese.

Gus and Perla crowd against my skirts, acting like the ravenous little pigs they are. I give them each a piece of cheese and a pat, and then all of a sudden Jaq realizes what’s going on. “Come!” I call again.

He comes, and I give him a piece of cheese.

“Tedious business,” Algie remarks.

“Yes,” I agree with a sigh.

“But they do seem to be less noisy. I’m afraid Anastasia has too soft a nature. Just look what happened to her poor lip.”

Once we’re seated, Algie says, rather unnecessarily, “That was my uncle. The prince.” His tone is reverent and hushed.

“He seemed princelike,” I agree.

“Can you imagine what His Highness would make of Anastasia’s background?” He sounds horrified at the thought.

“I wonder what his bride will be like,” I say, again picturing the prince silhouetted against the sun. He’s the sort of man who would marry a glimmering princess from a foreign land, a she-wolf wrapped in ropes of pearls and diamonds.

“Russian she-wolves are dark-haired,” Algie says, trying to sound as if he knows what he’s talking about. “I might have introduced you, but I thought it was better that he did not notice you until…” He waves a hand. “You know, until you change.”

As far as I can tell, he hasn’t minded a bit that I don’t look as pretty as Anastasia…. until now.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

He focuses, blinking a little. “For what?”

“I’m not as much fun to have on your arm as Anastasia. The prince would surely have noticed how beautiful she is.”

Algie is too young to dissemble. “I do wish she were here,” he says. “But it’s probably better this way, because what if she saw him and she decided . . .” His voice trails off.

“Anastasia adores you,” I tell him, feeling very pleased with myself for suppressing an impulse to add ‘more the fool she.’ They’re perfectly matched, Anastasia and Algie: both fuzzy and sweet and awed by anyone with two thoughts to knock together. “And remember, the prince would never in a million years marry someone like Anastasia. I expect that he’s too high in the instep for even an Alpha’s daughter, let alone someone like my stepsister.”

Jaq growls out the window at a passing carriage. “On the floor,” I say sternly, and he hops down. But Gus puts his front paws on the seat and whines gently, so I let him jump up and sit next to me. He leans his trembling little body against me and then collapses, chin in my lap.

“I say, that’s not fair,” Algie points out.

“Life isn’t fair,” I say. “Gus is being rewarded for not barking.”

“He’s brilliant,” Algie says, rather unexpectedly.

I blink down at Gus, who is decidedly not brilliant.

“I mean the prince. My mother said that he actually took a degree at Oxford. I didn’t even bother going to university. But he took a top degree in ancient history. Or something like that.”

The prince has not only arrogance and royal blood and a truly beautiful riding coat, but brains?

Not so likely. Aren’t all those princes inbred? “Likely they give every prince a top degree just for gracing the door of the university,” I point out. “After all, what else could they say? ‘I do apologize, Your Highness, but you’re as stupid as a hedgehog, and so we can’t give you a degree’?”

As we trundle the last miles to the castle, I carefully nurture that sprig of disrespect for a man whose hair curls wildly around his shoulders, who spends his time careening about accompanied by scented courtiers, and who doesn’t bother to greet me.

He counts me beneath his notice, which is humiliating but not exactly unexpected. I am beneath his notice.

In fact, thinking about the way he looked at me is almost amusing, in retrospect. I just have to get through the next few days. Then I can take all my newly altered clothing and go to London and find just the sort of man I want.

I can see him in my mind’s eye. I don’t want a man like that prince; what I want is someone more like Beta Mamluks, whose property runs close by Yarrow House. He is a sweet man who dotes on his mate. They have nine children. That’s what I want. Someone straight and true, decent, and kind to the bone.

The very thought makes me smile, which catches Algie’s attention. “Did you see the waistcoat Mr. Toloose was wearing? He was the tall one, with the striped costume.” Obviously, Algie has been experiencing some anxiety.

“Yours is very nice,” I assure him.

Algie looks down at his padded chest. “I thought so, I mean, I do think so. But that waistcoat…”

We have both found something to desire.