Werewolf fairytales

At your service

*Margaret*

Lyddie jumps up, screams, and very nearly faints when Colin runs down the hill and gasps out the news that there are two men in the front entry, and one of them has skin with pictures drawn on it. Actually, he thinks they both do. And one has a cane.

“A cane!” Margurite cries, jumping up and down. “It’s a pirate with a peg leg! Let’s go!” She and Colin are obsessed by pirates, which I, having never breathed a word to my children about beta Fenrir’s profession, had thought a rather humorous coincidence. It doesn’t seem so amusing now.

Nanny McGillycuddy grabs Margurite’s arm just in time. “No, you will not,” she says, in the tone of voice that none of the children… nor indeed I… ever disobey. “Your mother shall speak to the gentlemen by herself.”

“You’d better get up there, Mama,” Colin cries. “These men are big. Big! So big.”

“How big?” Margurite asks, sounding cheerfully interested rather than dismayed. That’s Margurite. She would ask questions of a highwayman demanding her money.

I rise and collect my parasol. I don’t want to go up to the house. With every particle of my being, I don’t want to climb that hill.

“Huge!” Colin answers. “They could have eaten me up. Though I had my sword, of course. They would have eaten you,” he says to his little brother. Alastair gives a shriek and hides behind my skirts.

“Colin,” I say sharply, “you are not being helpful. There are no cannibals in England.”

“These men aren’t like everybody else! What’s more, they can’t be from England, because no one has drawings on their skin here. So they might be cannibals.”

I know that I am white as chalk. But as my mother used to say, what cannot be avoided must be faced. I made it through my parents’ and sister’s funeral, and I can make it through this.

“Children, stay with Nanny.”

“Mama, you shouldn’t go,” Alastair whispers, hanging onto my skirts. “They might be bad. Bad men.”

“I told you that we needed a butler,” Nanny puts in unhelpfully. “I’d best come along.”

The words of the Morning Chronicle are seared in my memory, and I know precisely who is waiting for me at the house. “Absolutely not, Nanny. Please remain here and make sure Alastair doesn’t wade back into the lake. You may join us in…” How long does it take to greet a mate one doesn’t know? Ten minutes?

And after that greeting is dispensed with, how long should one wait before informing him that he has three children?

“Fifteen minutes,” I decide. “Please bring the children to the house in a quarter of an hour.” With that instruction, I head reluctantly toward the house.

My temples are throbbing. What if he rejects my children?

I would leave him, of course. Thanks to my father’s careful stewardship, the estate is thriving, my jointure along with it. I can more than afford to scoop up the children and buy a house. My mind reels. What am I thinking?

This is my house. If he rejects the children, I will order him to leave.

I pause at the top of the hill to allow my breathing to return to normal before I walk through the courtyard and into the house. I am making too much of it. After all, I remember Fenrir clearly. He was thin, small, and rather shy. Even in the scant light of just two candles, I remember how red his face had turned.

Men don’t change. Everyone knows that. I merely have to be polite but firm. He will leave again. A criminal will not be allowed to stay in the British Isles, no matter how powerful his father.

Thankfully, the resulting scandal will have no effect on my life. The thought is steadying. There was a time, just after my marriage, when my father-in-law urged me to become part of his circle. Humiliated by my husband’s desertion, I declined.

Now, years later, I am deeply grateful not to be involved in the petty meanness that engages so-called polite society.

I shake out my skirts, take a final deep breath, and move toward the house. Halfway through the courtyard something makes me stop. I pivot on my heel.

They are seated under the tree. Two of them.

Pirates.

One of them wears an earring, and both have strange designs on their faces. They are huge, just as Colin claimed. Big, muscled men who sprawl in my chairs like... like nothing I’ve seen before. One of them rises at the sight of me. He is immense, his shoulders broad as an ox, and his face bronzed. He looks at me with unnervingly steady eyes as I walk closer; something about his gaze sends an errant wave of heat up into my cheeks.

But at the same time, I realize, with a sense of relief that makes me feel positively dizzy, that neither man is my husband. Neither resembles him in the least. It stands to reason that Fenrir would have grown a bit more, since he was only seventeen when he bolted, but he would still have brown hair and a wiry build. These men must be his emissaries.

“Gentlemen,” I say, summoning a smile as I come to a halt before them. “I am so sorry that no one was here to greet you. I expect that you are acquaintances of my husband, beta Fenrir Garou.”

They are both on their feet now, but a moment of silence ensues while they stare at me. Despite myself, my smile slips. They are so large, and in appearance so non-English. Perhaps they don’t speak the language?

“Bonjour,” I say tentatively, silently cursing the fact that I have always been too bored to pay attention during French lessons.

“Daisy?” the big one asks. He has dark blond hair, cut very short, and skin the color of honey. Not to mention the decoration under his eye. He is terrifying.

Daisy? I don’t quite know what to make of that. “I’m afraid we haven’t any Daisies here, but that can’t be what you mean?” I try to look at him again, but my eyes skitter away.

He is so male. I’m not used to being near people like him. In fact, I can’t think of a single Englishman, other than the blacksmith, who has that air of fierce masculinity.

They continue to stare at me silently. It is really quite irritating. Then I notice that the man who has spoken is wearing a coat that is far too elegant for a mere servant.

I fold my hands in front of me and summon the patience I’ve developed raising three small children. “Gentlemen? Do you work for my husband, beta Fenrir Garou?”

The blond man clears his throat. “We are… we do know your husband.” He shifts his weight, and I see he is leaning on a cane. It is hard to reconcile this infirmity with the muscled brute he appears to be, but of course there is no way that strength could compensate for a partially missing limb.

“Please,” I say quickly, “do sit down. I know it must be very difficult to manage your balance.”

He looks at me through absurdly long lashes. Really, if he weren’t so monstrously large, he would be attractive, the way laborers sometimes are.

For a moment I think he hasn’t understood me, but at last he sinks back into his seat.

His associate backs against the wall and remains there. One hardly notices a footman standing at the ready, but this fellow has a distinct air of menace, evoked by the fearsome scar across his chin. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle at the very idea of such a man under my roof.

Once beta Fenrir arrives, I will have words with him about sending such a pair of reprobates to greet me, even though it is considerate of him to send advance notice. I truly appreciate that.

“Please tell me what I can do for you,” I say, spacing the words slowly. “I understand that beta Fenrir Garou has returned to the country.” I hesitate and then plunge in. “Are you here to inform me of his imminent arrival?”

“Something like that,” he replies. His voice is deep and lovely, like water on stones. “Do you suppose the boy would like to join us?” He nods behind me.

I turn and see the tip of Colin’s sword poking out from behind the bricks. “Colin Garou, I told you to stay with Nanny,” I scold.

The blond man stares at Colin with his brows furrowed. I do not allow people to scowl at my children, and I give him a look that tells him to stop it, this minute.

Really, the man seems a bit thick. Naturally, Colin hasn’t paid me the slightest mind; he is edging toward us for all the world as if I might not notice his disobedience.

“Is this your son?” the man asks. ’Tis an impertinent question from a total stranger, unless perhaps he is a foreigner… yet he sounds English.

“He is indeed,” I say, putting some severity into my tone. “I am disappointed to say that he is quite naughty.”

“Ah, but he’s a pirate,” the man says. “Pirates are naughty.”

I take another deep breath. “Should I assume, sir, that you speak from experience?”

“Retired,” he says solemnly.

Colin is at my side now. “I’m not retired,” he says, his voice coming out in a near bellow. “I’m going to spend my life sailing the seven seas.”

“How old are you?” the man asks.

Colin pushes out his chest. “Five and a half. Almost six, really.”

I wrap an arm around him and kiss his hair. “He turned five a couple of weeks ago.”

“I should like to speak to your mother alone for a few minutes,” the man says.

Colin obeys him instantly and moves to the far end of the courtyard; given his usual disinclination to listen to whatever I have to say, this is profoundly vexing.

Still, it probably shows an instinct for self-preservation that I am glad to see in my child.

The servant steps away from the wall. “Perhaps the young master and I could stroll down to the lake,” he suggests.

I give him a searching look. His nose has been broken at some point, and his face is marred by a flower design near his eye, not to mention the scar. A single sentence is all I have to hear to know he’d grown up in the East End of London.

But I’ve made it my business to stop judging people by superficialities like accent and appearance. There is kindness in his eyes, almost as if he were laughing inside. “What is your name?” I ask.

The blond man plants his cane to stand, but I touch his sleeve lightly. “Please, Sir, no need to stand.”

I turn back to the servant and hold out my hand as my mother has taught me to do. ‘Ladies curtsy,’ my mother had said. ‘She-wolves of worth and value shake hands. Without gloves. And even with servants, upon meeting them for the first time.’

The pirate’s hand envelops mine, and his eyes crinkle as he smiles at me. “Lady Garou,” he says, “my name is Sharkton, though I am usually called Shark.”

“Shark!” Colin cries with delight from across the courtyard.

Shark grins over at him. “Aye, it’s a pirate’s name, my lad.”

The other man has risen, despite what I said. “Take Colin down to the lake, Shark,” he says. Although his voice is mild, a strand of tension shoots through me: I am suddenly deeply aware that I am about to be left alone with him.

I walk across to my son, bend down, and tap his nose. “Now remember, you’re the host. What would your guest like to see?”

“Not Lyddie,” Colin says. “She might faint.” He trots over, reaches up for Shark’s hand, and leads him away.

I turn back, feeling strangely unsettled. The blond man is still standing; I give him a cool smile and hold out my hand. “I am Lady Garou,” I say, pulling out of thin air the title that I never use. But there are times when it is wise to stand on precedence, and this is one of them.

“Lady Garou,” he says. He leans his cane against the table and takes my hand in his, but he does not shake it. Or kiss it. He isn’t from a High pack, then, for all the magnificence of his coat.

His hand is even bigger than Shark’s. I can feel calluses on his fingertips, and I see a white scar that snakes across the back of his hand.

In that instant, I am struck by a realization so unnerving that I feel quite unsteady.

I withdraw my hand and sink into a chair, my eyes fixed on his. Blue eyes. Terribly blue. I remember those eyes, but they had belonged to a different man.

“You were short,” I whisper, disbelief paralyzing me.

“Not any longer.”

There is a moment of silence as we stare at each other.

Then: “Beta Fenrir Garou at your service… Your husband,” he adds, when I don’t say a single word.

I can’t get any out.