Was she interested?
Of course she was.
He added that there was a lecture next Thursday on local clay deposits and sedimentary formations.
Would she like to attend?
Of course she would.
She wrote back with evident delight in every stroke of her pen but added that her cousins would have to accompany her, as chaperone.
At the lecture that Thursday, they sat next to each other. Not touching but wanting to. She had no doubt that she confused him greatly with her obvious amusement when the lecturer referred to a paper written by a Mr Horner Carne.
I did not know my writing had made it across the pond.
“What amuses you so, Lazuli?” he whispered, away from Mrs Iftercast’s hearing. “Do you know this Mr Carne?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She was coy.
“You smell delicious,” he replied.
Two days later saw them, once again, attending the same informal gathering. The kind that involved a hundred individually designed teacakes and a small circus performance. Faith had learned to be wary when the invitation said informal gathering.
“And how are you this evening, Mr Horner Carne?” he asked, drawing her into a corner of the room, while everyone else was playing parlor games. (The circus performers were now swilling sherry and bantering with the host over cards. Channing waved at one of them but did not stop to chat once he saw Faith.)
“You’ve found out my greatest secret,” she teased. Not at all afraid he might expose her. He had nothing to gain from such a petty act.
“I must admit, I tried to read your papers and found them impossible to get through.”
“They are dry, aren’t they?”
“No! It was my ignorance, not your style. I could tell it was you from the tone of voice alone. I did not know geology could be so witty.”
“And I did not know you could flatter with such tact.”
“Only by accident,” he admitted ruefully.
She threw her head back and laughed then, charmed by his disgruntlement. She noticed his icy gaze spark against her exposed neck and gloried in the thrum of awareness.
Heads turned at the joyful sound. The expressions were, mostly, approving. A few gentlemen looked disappointed. The young circus performer, whom Faith assumed must be a claviger to Channing’s pack, stared at them with undisguised interest.
Faith stopped laughing and lowered her chin.
Channing’s blue eyes returned to her face. “How goes the hunt? I have heard nothing from my pack on the matter of an engagement. Have you found yourself a nice loner with whom to flirt? They are not as stable as the rest of us, you know.”
“Someone keeps interfering,” she said sharply, more hurt at his asking than annoyed by his behavior. “Others are interested, but they’re not werewolves. I’m set on this path and I’m not supposed to stray.”
“Yes.” His eyes were no longer on her but on the rest of the party, cautious, as though they were the enemy. “You want to please your mother.”
Faith flinched. “Werewolves, I begin to suspect, are territorial.” It was an accusation. You tell the world I’m yours, but you don’t make it so. No offer. No declaration.
“It is true that none of my fellows will approach while I am here with you. But neither would any mortal gentleman. This is not because I am a werewolf, but because I am a scoundrel who has called men out for less. And that is not tied to my immortal nature, either, I assure you.”
Faith was hurt by the implication of his indifference, so she was injudicious with her words. “Why must you ruin this for me? Your attention is too marked and my reputation will suffer.” Faith knew she sounded plaintive, but she was also frightened. She was afraid he would take this as his opportunity to run. For all she resented his reluctance to commit, she craved his company.
“You believed it would be easy?” he scoffed, and she thought maybe he didn’t even know himself why he felt compelled to pursue her. To seek her out.
He bent slowly, giving her time to flee. When she did not, he nuzzled her neck and tasted her there. Lightly and with only his lips, but she knew his teeth were eager and her pulse beat extra hard in an involuntary temptation.
“They keep sending me flowers,” she said to distract him and to remind him that there were others interested. That they were not, in fact, alone at this moment.
“Do they indeed?” He did not look pleased to know he had competition. Maybe this really was nothing more than a game to him. Maybe he didn’t think of her at all when they were apart.
Except that the next day he sent her rocks by special courier – a geode of purple to rival Teddy’s now wilted alfalfa, and a growth of rose quartz, palm-sized and lustrous. She set the geode next to her bed and stroked it before falling asleep, as if it were a pet, or the head of a great white wolf.
She learned that night, when he never showed up at the theater, that Major Channing had left London on urgent business and no one knew when he would return.
London hostesses understood werewolf business obligations. And while they were not pleased at being denied the pleasure of a declaration, they still invited Faith and, by default, the Iftercasts to their gatherings. And Faith still went.
It was, oddly, lonely without him. She was surrounded by eager swains, fashionable gentlemen who wished to bask in the glow of London’s favorite American, Lord Falmouth’s original. Many a young man was eager to take advantage of Major Channing’s absence. They were curious, too; what had such a werewolf seen in her? What about this girl had captured the attention of such a confirmed recalcitrant reprobate?
Faith did her best to meet social expectations. To be vivacious and sparkling even though she felt lackluster. Conversations with other men were so much more stilted, so much less intimate. She missed the way Channing held her when they danced together, slightly too close, slightly too hard – as if he could not stand to let her go. As if she could lean back in his embrace and they might spin and spin until they untethered from the earth and flew.
There was some speculation when he abandoned her without solidifying the deal. Had she lost him? Had he been toying with her and deluding them all? The ton did not like that possibility at all. So, naturally, it was much discussed.
Faith suspected that they would side with her if it came to light that he had played her false. It made her a little sick to even think of it. But London had adopted Miss Wigglesworth, and they would not take kindly to Major Channing mistreating her. It was so much the opposite of Boston, it almost made her cry. That these strangers would give her the chance that had been withheld by her own people, by her own family.
Oddly, she felt a strange sympathy for Channing. Even as one week stretched to two and he remained away from her. Even as she doubted him. London was so very eager to blame him. To see Faith as the wronged party. They had probably doubted him from the start. They would not be surprised if he abandoned her, but they would not forgive him for it.
And yet, this is his home.
He is as mistrusted and as unwelcome here as I was in my mother’s house.
It made Faith terribly sad for him, and angry at herself that she could not stifle her own compassion. Even as he stayed away from her. Even as it became evident that he would repeat the past. Another werewolf betrayal.
“Where have you been?” she asked, after three whole weeks without seeing him. Not even at the hat shop, and she had visited four times. I missed you, she felt, behind the words, and tried not to let that show. And I own far too many hats now. Thank goodness Biffy had taken to simply gifting them to her.
“Hunting deadly little creatures of American make.”
“I’m not deadly.”
“I was not hunting you.”
“Did you catch them?”
“They are still at large.”
Faith nodded, wondering if there was some connection to the embarrassing scene on the embarkation green when she’d first met him. Wondering that he could cut her off so completely. Wondering if this thing that was nothing between them had ended.
“Will I see you at the Brophys’ ball?” she asked. But what she meant was Are you letting me go?
“I returned to town with nothing but that in mind.” He was, as ever, all sarcasm and indifference, but his eyes were hot, as though he wanted to eat her up; she knew the truth in that moment. He wanted her very badly indeed. He had tried to stay away and failed.