Betrayed by his Luna

Rover is right

*Bryant*

The residence is quiet when I return. Servants all abed, and with any luck, my Luna is as well. I suppose it would behoove me to stop thinking of her as such. I walk past the parlor. Something catches my eye. I double back. A lamp has been left burning on a small table, but that hadn’t drawn my attention. The room appears somehow more welcoming, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why it is.

Inhaling deeply, I detect the faint scent of roses. Madelyn has been in here. What has she done? Or is her mere presence enough to bring warmth to my residence?

Don't be ridiculous. It’s because someone left the damned lamp burning.

I extinguish the flame, sending the room into shadowed darkness, the only light now coming from the entryway and the outside gas lamps. Why does the residence have a different feel to it? Because I know she is here. It is no more than that.

I stride to the library, where no servant waits. The only one to greet me is my faithful dog, who begins struggling to his feet.

“Stay, old boy.”

Rover drops back down. I think he might have even sighed with relief. I pour two tumblers of whiskey before joining Rover on the floor, pressing my back against my favorite chair. I dip two fingers into one tumbler before extending them toward Rover, who licks them. I savor my own glass and release my own sigh.

Madelyn has blossomed into a beauty. Not that there’d been anything lacking in her when she was barely seventeen except for loyalty and devotion but she had still had the willowiness of a child. She had been as flat as a well-planed plank of wood. Now she is enticing curves. Her eyes have lost their innocence, and I regret whatever role I might have played in that transition. Although I suspect Blake is more at fault there. I doubt my brother has kept in touch with her over the years, as no one else in the family had received letters from him.

In anger over Blake’s betrayal and my family’s disappointment in what they had considered the young man’s lack of character, Barkley and I purchased him a commission in a regiment. Barkley inquires with the War Office from time to time regarding my brother’s whereabouts, but then that is Barkley’s way, to want to give the appearance that he is a member of a caring and loving pack when the truth is we are all much better off going our own way.

I see Barkley with a bit more frequency of late. It's gratifying to no longer have to hold out my hand. I took Madelyn’s dowry and invested it, until it had grown into a substantial amount. It seems I have a knack for determining sound investments. I'll never again be dependent on Barkley or anyone for anything. I have acquired what I have always desired: total independence. I can't understand why I feel something is lacking in my life.

I remember the satisfaction I felt when I handed over the money for this residence. It was the first thing of any significance I had purchased without help from Barkley. That night I got drunk to celebrate. Alone. Because I had no one who could understand how liberating it had been to require no assistance from anyone. Only now the she-wolf who made it all possible is sleeping here, in a bedchamber upstairs, her eyes closed, her breaths quietly puffing.

With the help of Madelyn’s substantial dowry, I have been able to rise above my beginnings, to become my own man, to step out from beneath my brother’s long-reaching, suffocating shadow.

“What are we going to do about her, Rover? Without her dowry, we would not have had the means to purchase this house or make investments. And you saw the estate each time we visited. She may have avoided us… her avoidance had actually begun to amuse me… but I clearly saw evidence of her efforts.”

My beta, my manager, and my solicitor often came to me with requests from Madelyn for funds regarding improvements she wished to make. I approved them all. I fought not to admit even to myself how much I anticipated their visits, reading her letters to them, knowing what she was about. She might have been a silly girl when she married me, but I have never been able to find fault with the manner in which she handles the pack or estate.

Perhaps she knew that as long as she did a fair job of it, I would stay in London for the most part and leave her be. Only now she needs me.

I gather more whiskey on my fingers and extend them to Rover, who takes the offering, his intelligent gaze never leaving me. “Damnation, you think I owe her this blasted mating Season for her sister.”

With a heavy breath, I drop my head back and stare at my book-lined shelves. Books and boudoirs. They entertain me. “I don’t much like it when you’re right Old boy.” I down my whiskey, then finish off Rover’s.

Burying my fingers in the soft fur, I stroke the one creature with whom I have shared all my secrets, my disappointments, my dreams. I wish I could overlook what I owe Madelyn, send her back to the country or, at the very least, to my mother’s.

But I can’t. Damnation, I can’t. Because the blasted dog is correct. I owe her.