“You’re a werewolf?” Her voice could strip wallpaper.
Channing was too old to bandy insults, but he did enjoy it so. “You are a human female?”
The lady bristled. “I bleed red, sir!”
“It was not the human part I questioned.”
The woman did an interpretive fish expression before going red about the ears and whirling to her daughter. Her voice was now cold and vicious. “He’s not what I expected, daughter. Not at all what I wanted. I don’t know about this.”
Channing went to say something even worse, to bring her attention and anger back to him and shield Faith, but Ulric beat him to it.
Ulric might enjoy abusing Channing as much as possible amongst pack-mates, but he would never stand idly by and permit anyone non-pack to abuse him. Ulric glared at the repugnant female. “Major Channing is a decorated soldier, the head of a powerful government body, reasonably tall, and passably good-looking. He has all his teeth, all his hair, and all his limbs. What more could you possibly wish for in a son-in-law?”
“Oh, but Mr Dickswamp—”
“Ditmarsh.”
“Mr Dickmark. I meant no offense to your – how do you say it? – pack-bud.”
“Pack-mate,” Ulric gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Whatever. I meant to say that I expected something less. Even with that attitude, he is probably too good for my worthless daughter.” Faith’s mother whirled back to face Channing, looking up at him, her face contorted with disgust. He was not sure if that was for him or Faith.
“You don’t know my daughter very well, do you, sir, to be actually interested in marrying her?”
Nothing upset Channing more than a mother abusing her own child. This woman was beyond repulsive. They were in public! To say such a thing about her daughter when others could overhear? Is her intent to humiliate me or Faith or both? “I know her as well as can be expected, given the restrictions of polite society.” He would not defame Faith’s character, no matter what had been done to her in the past.
“He’s a good man, Mother. Please don’t make a scene. Please, your temper.”
Mrs Wigglesworth wrinkled her lip. “He is not a man at all. I’m shocked you caught him, girl. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Channing blinked a moment. She sent Faith here believing she would fail? Why?
Faith was looking ever more desperate. As though she was trying to hold her mother back, hold her silent through sheer force of will. Channing hurt with the need to fix this. But he did not know how. Mrs Wigglesworth would not shut up, and she was Faith’s mother, after all.
People were listening in now. Mrs Wigglesworth’s voice was strident and nasal, carrying throughout the gallery. Channing had grown accustomed to Faith’s accent, but Faith’s voice was calm and smooth, nothing like that of this woman.
He looked down his nose at the female in front of him. She didn’t smell right, either, drenched in perfume – chemical flowers and some dead animal’s musk. That kind of thing was banned at parties in London. This whole situation was, well, appalling. Channing should know; he had done a number of appalling things in his day.
“My daughter won’t make you a good wife, sir.”
She continues to sabotage her own daughter? What is going on here?
His Lazuli looked down at her feet and whispered. “But, Mother, I thought you wanted me to marry a werewolf.” Clearly, she was confused, too.
Channing growled at Mrs Wigglesworth. “She is perfect. Do hush yourself, woman. No one here cares for your good opinion.”
“You’re making a mistake,” warned the lady. Although Channing hesitated to use the word lady. Creature suited her better. Or was that an insult to other creatures?
Faith obviously did not know what to do. Admit to an attachment, which her mother had once wanted, and prove she had succeeded as instructed, yet be totally undermined? Or admit to no attachment, which her mother now wanted, and be told off for failure? Mrs Wigglesworth had put her daughter in an untenable position. No matter what Faith said, her mother would have an excuse to attack. Which Channing suspected was the woman’s real objective.
Finally, Faith admitted, to her slippers, “We are not engaged.”
“Well, fine, he’s safe from you and your corruption, isn’t he? Good thing I arrived in time to warn him, isn’t it? Did he have his way with you, too? Did you let him, you whore?”
“Mother!” Faith’s voice was cracked and quiet.
“She is broken, Major Channing. If your intent is honorable and decent, you should know that she is neither.”
Faith had begun to cry now. Silent tears rolling down out of those blue eyes. Her fists were clenched as well. The tears were humiliation; the fists were fury.
Channing felt sick. This, then, was Mrs Wigglesworth’s objective. To humiliate her daughter on two continents. Revenge for some perceived slight to family name or her own petty vanity. Channing would not have it!
Mrs Iftercast made herself known at this juncture. She put an arm about Faith’s waist. “I thought you came to see her settled, cousin. To give your blessing. We all thought you had come to London so the correct forms could be observed.” Mrs Iftercast’s voice was trembling. Her round face and cubby form fairly vibrated with offence.
Channing said, wishing it was his arm offering comfort, “I begin to think this female crossed the Atlantic merely to shame her daughter in my eyes.”
He leaned forward so his mouth almost touched Mrs Wigglesworth’s ear. He wrapped one large hand about her upper arm, holding her in place.
“Don’t touch me,” she spat, “you beast!”
He spoke so quietly, only she could hear him. Well, maybe Ulric could, too, with his supernatural senses, but he was pack, so that was fine. Although with all the murmuring and shocked exclamations at the public scene, his words were masked.
“Madam, you are the mother of the woman I love, and all the things you think I do not know about her, I know. This act of sabotage of yours is petty and foolish, for it will no more dissuade me from anything I chose to do than your piss could divert a river.”
She gasped at his crassness and struggled against his grip.
“Stay still, or you will see what kind of monster I am.”
She froze.
He continued to hiss in her ear. “Faith is ours now. You will leave this country and never return. You will not speak to her. You will not write to her. You will not even look at her again. You think what you have done here, now, ruins her in the eyes of London society? We control society.” He tilted his head towards Ulric’s imposing form, hovering protectively near Faith. “I will drag your name through the gutter as a liar and a mad zealot who comes to destroy her own daughter’s relationship out of hatred for the supernatural. Do you think they will side with an American over me? Over us?” He flicked the fingers of his free hand once more towards Ulric, who was at his most gorgeous and pompous. “We are the London Pack. You are nothing. And if you think we will try to preserve your reputation because it is tied to Miss Wigglesworth’s, well, then even as I dirty your name, you can be certain I will change hers. I will give her mine. And I am one of the Chesterfield Channings.”
He let Mrs Wigglesworth go and stepped back.
“Faith,” he said, turning to the trembling girl.
She was not afraid; she was humiliated and furious. She was holding it all in, though, and looked only sad. He applauded her for this. Because while he knew her true feelings, others saw only her pretty face, her apparent fragility, and an unwarranted attack.
“Faith, come to me now,” he commanded.
She would not look at him, her head resting on Mrs Iftercast’s shoulder. Her little round cousin stood at her other side, patting her back and glaring.
“Lazuli.”
She raised watery blue eyes to him.
He held out a hand.
She took a step across the divide that separated them within a circle of gawking onlookers. She brushed past her frozen, vibrating harridan of a mother.
He tugged her to him, against his chest, in front of all the assembled.
She gave a little sigh and relaxed infinitesimally. Her smell, sweet cake and candied fruit and intoxicating spirits, flooded his senses.