He owed her an explanation or at least an apology.
However, because she was staunch and forthright and oh so darling, Faith took the opening afforded by their comparative isolation before he could. Brave, his Lazuli. Shining with courage, not afraid of anything, not even him.
“You’ve reconsidered my history and decided against me, sir?”
Is that what she thinks? I have made her doubt herself further.
“Never that.” He resisted pressing her hand.
“You’re afraid I’d insist on matrimony? I promise, I wouldn’t.” Faith lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I’d take you however I could get you.”
That jolted him with need. He noticed his marks on her neck had faded, and he hated that. He wanted her under him and writhing, trying to escape, helpless. His in every way. The scent of her filling him, the body of her being filled.
“You have no idea what you offer.”
“You forget, sir. I know exactly what I offer.”
“You should be demanding I marry you. Your family should have me horsewhipped for what I did to you in that garden. There should be a gun with silver bullets to my head and you waiting for me at the altar.”
“Is that what you want?” She was clearly confused.
He took a breath. “Whichever way I took you – one night, one season, or all of your eternity – I would be no good for you. I want you. God’s teeth, of course I want you. Look at you. You are perfect.”
She leaned in, eyes bright. “Is it your nature that makes you give up before we’ve even started? I promise, I’d run from you every night. Chase me. Mark me.”
Channing felt himself tighten full-body, swollen and straining with want. He feared the others might smell his arousal. I am no good for you. He couldn’t speak.
“You gave me rocks. You took me to a scientific lecture. You make me need so much. It isn’t fair to let me drift like this. Where will I anchor if not to you?”
“I warned you I was a cad.”
“You don’t think you’re good enough for me?”
“I don’t think I can change enough to suit you.”
“Then let me go. Cut me loose. Truly stop this.”
But you are mine. His heart beat the refrain – mine mine mine – pushing old dead blood through tired immortal veins. He was exhausted and lonely.
“I am trying to,” he said.
“Try harder,” she snapped back.
Channing did not realize until later that night how alike they were. How, this time, he had thrown down the gauntlet to her. The island of his loneliness was temptation, summoning Faith to swim towards it. For she had been treading water a long time and saw him as a place of refuge, unexplored. Faith knew he was no safe tropical island, rich with greenery and wholesome fruit. She knew Channing’s soul was a granite boulder standing stiff and solitary in the midst of an abandoned lake.
But she would take that as a challenge, his Lazuli. Granite, to her, was full of many fascinating things – minerals and crystals and shards of trapped light. A rock was never only a rock to a geologist.
She had told him to let her go and to run. But she was really saying, I will track you. I will hunt you. I will follow. And you will smooth the water with your own ice so that I may walk across it.
And Channing realized, for the first time in ninety years, that he might.
STEP EIGHT
Never, Under Any Circumstances, Make a Public Scene
Like a good girl, Teddy waited to turn into a jittering wreck on the way home, thank heavens. Her first comment explained why she’d been so quiet throughout the evening. “Oh, those werewolves, so blunt with their implications. Around the dinner table, no less. I declare, I hardly knew where to look or what to say.”
Faith hid a smile and imitated Teddy’s accent. “To be sure, cousin, even breathing seemed a risk at times.”
“Now you’re teasing me, Faith darling. But be serious, we are like sisters now. Do you really want such a thing as that? I mean to say, should you marry Major—”
“Now, Theodora, don’t tempt fate,” interjected Mrs Iftercast.
Teddy corrected herself. “Should you marry into the London Pack, then, well, that would be your life. Every night sitting around that table with those big loud men.” She shuddered. “Hardly bears contemplating.”
Faith thought it sounded wonderful.
Colin said to his sister, “Teds, don’t be a ninnyhammer. I’m sure Faith feels the same about your prospective future spent mucking about with horses and mulch and oats and sheds and bally whatnot.”
Faith nodded vigorously.
Colin gestured. “See there? Mother, now that you’ve got the girls sorted, could we get on to me and Miss Fernhough? She’s such a marvelous pip. I tell you. The pippiest.”
Teddy took Faith’s hand while the rest of the family attempted to convince Colin that no matter how pippy his Miss Fernhough, she was still too young.
“Of course, Faith dear, if you like him, then I am with you ’til the bitter end.”
“Well, I hope it doesn’t come to that, but thanks, Teddy.”
Accordingly, Faith became even more determined in her pursuit of one arrogant blond werewolf. The pack was on her side. The Iftercasts were on her side. Surely even Major Channing could not stand against all of them?
Faith decide to seriously strategize. She began to research. She made enquiries. She learned all she could about werewolves in general and the enigmatic Major Channing in particular. His war record was extensive. His reputation was colorful. His previous relationships were temporary. His history before he became a werewolf was… absent. Oh, there were rumors: that he’d been a sculptor and then a soldier, and that he’d been bitten in battle during one of Napoleon’s many wars.
She learned that his current place of business, BUR headquarters, was located in Fleet Street. She sourced his other haunts. His club was Claret’s. He preferred to walk and to run on Blackheath and not in Hyde Park. His contacts and compatriots were primarily within the War Office, the Home Office, and the military barracks.
She found a painting of a white wolf bent and drinking at the edge of a half-frozen lake, the world white around him. The artist was skilled, breezy in his brush strokes so that the very stillness of the image hinted at a burst of motion soon to come, the moment that the wolf looked up and noticed he was observed.
It cost more than she could afford and less than it was worth, but she bought it anyway and sent it ’round to Falmouth House, directed to Major Channing.
He had sent her courting gifts. Hunted rocks and laid them at her feet like fresh kill. She would do the same.
She found a pair of slippers made of rabbit fur and, highly amused at her own daring, ordered a size she hoped would fit, and sent those next. Directed to Major Channing, with no inscription, and no return address.
She thought it likely that he’d find such trinkets very annoying, and that the others would laugh at his expense. But then, late at night, he might put on the slippers and look at the painting and think of her.
Her campaign was probably going as well as she could hope. She hadn’t seen Channing in several days, but Biffy positively beamed at her when she dropped by the hat shop.
“What are you up to, little American?” he teased. “Our boy is flustered. I’ve never seen him flustered before.”
“Killing him with kindness,” said Faith.
“That’s no joke. With Channing, it might actually kill him.”
So, she was feeling almost optimistic.
Until her parents came to town.
It was Teddy who told her.
“Oh, Faith, you’ll never believe it, but your mother and father have just arrived in town. They are downstairs in the hallway.”
Faith felt sick. “What?”
“Apparently, Mums wrote them. Ages ago, right after we visited the hat shop the first time. Mums was so chuffed, you see? After such noted attention from Lord Falmouth, she felt certain we would be announcing your engagement imminently. And to a werewolf, no less, exactly as your parents wanted. Then, when Major Channing began to avoid you, she forgot to write again to warn them off. It likely wouldn’t have done any good. They had already set out across the Atlantic. They came by steamer, if you would believe it? Not by dirigible. In this day and age, so old-fashioned. No offense.”