Werewolf fairytales

Everything is out

*Paisley*

In the morning, my father looks up from his plate and nods to Quirbles, the butler standing by the fire, ready with toast. "That will do, Quirbles."

I put down my fork as Quirbles quietly closes the door. "What is it, Papa?"

"You're not the same," he says abruptly.

I blink at him.

"There's something different about you."

"I hope not." I don't know whether to hope Theo's condom worked or not: outwardly, nothing betrays that I've been ravished… and loved.

"What happened in that castle?" he asks. His voice is kind, but firm.

I pick up my fork and push my eggs to the side of my plate. "I took care of the little prince. I told you that already, Papa."

"That's not what I mean... His father didn't do anything untoward, did he?"

My mouth falls open. "Of course not, Papa! What a thing to suggest!"

"His Highness is not English."

"He is all that is honorable," I say reprovingly. "And the princess is perfectly lovely. We even become friends. And by the way, she is English… though really, Papa, you shouldn't make assumptions about people's characters based on where they come from." In truth, I miss Ella, which is absurd because we've only known each other a few weeks.

"Nevertheless, you have changed somehow. What happened there?" he persists.

With a deep breath, I take the plunge. "I fell in love."

"Ah, I thought so," he says, with the satisfaction of a confirmed guess. "You know, sweetpea, when your mother was dying, she was very worried about you. She was certain that I wouldn't notice what you were feeling or thinking."

"Well, you didn't, when it came to Rodney," I point out, rather unkindly.

"I make up for that now," he says, taking a bite of kipper.

I watch him chew and smile to himself.

Then the significance hits him. He puts down his fork with a sharp click.

"You fell in love… with whom did you fall in love? Some dissolute scrap of gentry hanging around the prince's knees, hoping for a handout, I'll warrant. One of those glittering court fellows with no more substance or ethics than a tomcat!"

"No." I take a bite of my now-cold eggs, though I can't taste them.

He frowns at me.

"The butler," I state; having plunged, I have to keep going.

At this unimaginable revelation, the blood drains from his face. "You're jesting." His voice is a whisper.

I square my shoulders. "Mr. Theodon is the prince's own brother. He is the son of a king. He serves as His Highness's majordomo out of strong loyalty and affection."

He blinks. "No gentleman would ever serve as a butler, no matter what fancy label you give the position."

"He is a gentleman," I snap, in a tone I've never before used with my father.

"Then there's something else wrong with him... Oh, dear Goddess, he's a married man." He drops his head into his hands. "I should have wedded you to Rodney the day you turned sixteen."

I rise, then slip into the chair next to him. "He is not married, Papa."

He raises his head. "Poor as a church mouse, I expect. No estate."

"None," I admit.

"Still, that doesn't explain why he's the butler. The man could marry an heiress if he's the son of a king. There's no need to put on livery; there's many a rich merchant who would love to boast of a son-in-law with that pedigree."

I bite my lip.

It comes to him. "Wrong side of the blanket," he states, his mouth bunching up with disdain.

I nod.

"Damnation!" The word echoes harshly in the little room.

"Papa," I say imploringly. "Theo is not…"

"Theo? Theo? What kinda name is Theo? I'll be damned if my daughter will have anything to do with a man named Theo." He surges to his feet. "Tell me that the bastard touched you, and I'll kill him myself."

I jump up. “Papa, no!”

He grabs my arms and stares into my face. “No? No, you are still a virgin?” I don’t answer, and he gives me a shake. “Does that fine prince over there know the consequences of his bastard brother deflowering an English she-wolf? Does he?”

“He didn’t deflower me,” I whisper.

His face relaxes, but his grip doesn’t. “Ah.” Then, more slowly: “That would explain why he’s not here, trying to make his way out of the servant class by marrying you.”

“He refused to marry me!” I half shriek.

He drops my arms, totters, and sinks back in his chair. “Margaret, Margaret, why did you leave me?” he moans.

I raise my chin. I can’t even imagine what Mother would make of this situation. “I asked him to marry me.”

His only response is a loud groan.

“And he refused on the grounds of his honor.”

“Where did I go wrong?” he moans. “What did we do wrong, Margaret?” He raises his head. “This is all because of Rodney, isn’t it? You got a bee in my bonnet about Rodney, and so you fell for a good-looking servant with an interesting tale.”

“Theo is a gentleman and as honorable as you are. He means to be a doctor, just like your own brother.”

“You are not the first,” he says, unheeding. “There’s that daughter of the Alpha of Southplank, a year or two ago. Everyone knew she ran off with a footman, some say for an entire week. But she’s properly married, right and tight now.” He stands again. “And that’s what you’ll be as well. I’ll visit Sir George this very afternoon.”

“I will not marry Rodney!” A numbing wave of despair breaks over me.

“You will.” My mild-mannered father suddenly takes on the look of a bulldog. “You’ll do as I say, Paisley. I won’t have you ruining your life, pining after a servant who had a better understanding of propriety than you do. I don’t know whether I’m more appalled that you played the fool enough to ask such a thing of the man, or more grateful that he didn’t lunge at the chance.”

“No, Papa!” I cry. “You don’t understand. You can’t!”

“I can,” he says. He takes my arm and begins towing me up the stairs. “And don’t think you’re going to run away again. I’ll tell the Alpha that you suffered from a bout of sun-sickness. You will marry the fat-bottomed Rodney on the morrow and count yourself lucky. The last of the banns were said Sunday, just as you were flitting around that castle making a fool of yourself!”

“Papa,” I say, my voice catching with tears. “I love Theo. I love him more than…”

“You will forget him,” he states. We reach the top of the stairs, and he pushes me directly into my bedchamber. “Someday you’ll look back on this episode as if it were a bout of fever. I always thought I was a sensible girl, Paisley.”

“I am!” I cry. “I loathe Rodney, Papa. I loathe him, and I will not marry him.”

“You will,” he says, shutting the door in my face. I hear him through the wood, his voice only slightly muffled. “Tomorrow!”

A few hours later I hear the front door burst open, and I know that my father has returned, and hasn’t waited for Quirbles to open the door. I hurry down the stairs, my heart pounding. My father’s face is gleaming with sweat, his usual rather mournful expression metamorphosed into pure anger.

Without a word, I run into the sitting room before him. “That bastard!” he bellows, slamming the door behind him.

I fall into a chair, judging that the bastard in question is not my beloved Theo. Evidently, Rodney has revealed all.

“He took advantage of you, a maiden, a gently born maiden. And he did so…” he wheels and glares down at me, “in a barn? In the straw?”

I swallow, but honesty forces me to admit, “I allowed him to do so, Papa.”

Rage twists the corner of his mouth. “That is irrelevant. Irrelevant! You are a gently born damsel, the only child of my house, and you were deflowered in a barn!” He splutters to a halt. “Your mother,” he adds heavily, “would kill me for this.”

I bite my lip but say nothing.

“Sir George threw his son across the room once that young fool confessed,” he says, seating himself opposite me. He reaches up and pulls at his neckcloth as if it were strangling him.

“He did?” I squeak. “Across the room?”

“The Alpha was as appalled as I,” he says, dropping his head back on his chair’s high back. “That donkey didn’t even seem to realize what he’d done. Of course you ran from the house. You, a damsel, taken without the benefit of marriage, my daughter… in a barn.” That seems to be the worst detail. “I shall never recover from this, never.”

“Papa,” I begin, hardly knowing what to say.

He jerks his head upright. “I want you to know, dear, that Sir George and I understand entirely why you fled. Entirely. It must have been an awful experience for you. Terrible. Like those suffered by she-wolves in wartime, I have no doubt. In the Egyptian campaign, for example…” He stops and shakes his head. “Irrelevant to the present situation.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t nearly as terrible as that,” I say tentatively, as he has never instructed me on the plight of she-wolves in wartime.

“No gently bred she-wolf should be introduced to a situation that she instinctively finds distasteful except in the most acceptable circumstances.”

I frown, and he frowns back. “In the dark,” he clarifies. “In a proper bed, within the sanctity of matrimony, and with the knowledge that your husband respects and admires you, even though the act itself… to wit, consummation of the marriage… is necessarily distasteful to you, if not painful.”

“Oh,” I say. That would have summed up my probable marital relations with Rodney. But it has no relevance for intimacies with Theo.

“As I said, neither of us blames you,” he repeats.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Your mother would have fled as well.” He pulls off his neckcloth and mops his face with it. “I simply cannot countenance the idiocy of that young man. Idiocy!”

I wait, a sick feeling in my stomach.

“But be that as it may,” he says, “you have made your bed, albeit in the stables. Did you confide to this Theodore what happened to you?”

“His name is Theodon, not Theodore.” But I nod.

He wipes his face again and throws the neckcloth to the floor. “I shall send the man a gratuity. One hundred pounds. In refusing you, he showed the breeding of his paternal lineage. Obviously, he realized that you were slightly cracked because of the horrendous experience you endured. And he responded as a gentleman must. Two hundred pounds,” he adds.

“Be that as it may, you’re to marry Rodney immediately,” he continues. “We’ll forget that episode with the castle and the butler ever happened. Rodney is not the man I should have chosen for you; I see that now. And I am sorry. But you know as well as I do, my dear, that all other doors are closed to you at this point.”

His voice seems to take on a brassy sound, like someone speaking a foreign language. “Papa,” I plead. “I cannot marry him. Please.”

“Do you think that your mother wished to remain married to me after our wedding night?”

There is no possible answer to that.

“She did not,” he says heavily. “The act is horrifying to a delicately bred creature. But we managed, and we loved each other, and there’s no one else in the world I would rather have married.”

“She didn’t have to marry Rodney!” I cry.

“I want your word of honor that you will not run away again.”

“Theo might come for me,” I blurt out.

His eyes soften. “Oh, sweetheart. Didn’t you just say that he refused to marry you?”

I nod miserably.

“He truly is a gentleman,” he says gently.

“But he might come for me,” I say, tears running down my cheeks. “He… He knows how much I detest Rodney, and he loves me.”

“He can’t support you,” he says, standing up and pulling me into his arms. “Were I he, I would loathe the idea of lowering the she-wolf I loved, a true lady, to the level of a servant. Did he say anything of that sort?”

A sob rises in my breast.

He holds me even closer. “I see he did. Well, my dear, the truth of it is that you have met two young men. One of them is a true gentleman, though perhaps his birth is not the best. And the other is no gentleman, though he’s an Alpha’s son.”

“P-Please don’t make me marry him,” I manage.

“There’s no choice,” he says, rocking me a little. “You know that. There’s no choice. You’ll forget your noble butler in time. Rodney genuinely loves you, for all the boy’s a fool. You could do much worse.”

“I can’t bear it,” I say, sobbing.

“You mustn’t run away,” he says. “It broke my heart. I aged ten years, sweetpea. I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t know where you were. Please.”

Silent tears seep into his coat.

“And you’re a she-wolf of quality,” he says, pressing forward where he obviously sees an advantage. “You must marry Rodney.” Then he plays his strongest card. “It’s what your mother wanted.”

I know it’s the truth.

“Margaret’s heart would break to think of you, her only child, as a servant, or withering into an old maid,” he says. “I promise you, child, I promise that you will learn to love Rodney. He’s a fool, but he’s not vicious or unkind. He genuinely loves you, in a way that I’ve rarely seen among gentlemen, to tell the truth. He will always care for you, and for the children you will have.”

The weight of his words feels like heavy brambles, rooting me in Little Ha’penny, in Rodney’s arms, in Durfey Manor.

“I… ” I swallow, make myself say it. “I will marry Rodney, but only if you give me a week. If you force me to marry him tomorrow, Papa, I will run away tonight. I will crawl out my window if I have to.”

He sighs. “Waiting for the butler?”

“He’s a gentleman,” I say stoutly. “You acknowledged it yourself. He loves me. He told me so. He’ll find a way, some way, to come to me.”

He turns away, but not before I see raw sympathy in his eyes. “As you wish,” he says. “I owe you that at least.”