Chapter Twelve #2
Sorcha still did not understand why one would not want to keep half a dozen mice turned accidentally magenta when they had been chewing through the wall in one of the classrooms. They also sported tiny, very fetching, horns like a unicorn’s.
“Shh,” Sorcha said, reaching over the gate to pet the sneezing pony. Beetles swarmed around her borrowed shoes. “You’re perfectly fine.”
The donkey jostled for attention, eyes rolling when Aidan stepped closer. The rabbit scurrying past peed. Sorcha glowered at him. “You’re scaring them.”
He lifted his hands placatingly. “Not on purpose. It’s the wolf.”
“Tell your wolf thank you very much and also to stop it right now.”
Aidan’s expression softened, then sharpened with curiosity. “I think that did the trick, actually.”
“He’s obliging.”
“Not especially.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I have a way with animals.”
“Aye.” It was all he said, though it held a wealth of information. But it may as well have been in Pictish for all she understood it.
She checked on the hounds, the kittens, the goat, the chickens. Nimue, the unicorn with the broken horn who refused to leave. And then she tossed a hunk of raw meat over the wall. Aidan continued to watch her as if she were one of the curiosities in his museum. “Dare I even ask?”
“It’s for the Black Shuck,” she explained, wiping her hands clean.
“You feed a Black Shuck?”
“Everything needs to eat.”
“Black Shucks eat people. Souls.”
Sorcha waved her hand dismissively. “Rumor. Foul lies.” Possibly the truth, but she would never admit it. “They’re just misunderstood.”
“They have scared people quite literally to death. There was one in Haven just at Midsummer.”
“Bah.”
He stopped. “You found him, didn’t you? The Order went searching, but they had no luck.”
“She plays fetch with it too,” Aesop said in his sweet, rumbly voice as he stepped out of the shadows. There was an edge to him she did not often witness, a simmering threat. The fur on his legs was singed.
“His name is Shadow and he gets lonely,” Sorcha said. “Aesop, this is Lord Coventry. Lord Coventry, Aesop.” There had been no time for introductions earlier.
Aidan inclined his head. “How do you do?”
“There’s blood on the path.” There was a huff to Aesop’s reply, like he were a bull ready to charge. He might be gentle by nature, but he was also a Minotaur. Few dared to cross them.
“Not my blood,” Sorcha assured him. She had managed to get in a good blow when Brutus grabbed her, after all. “I had an…adventure.”
“She was abducted,” Aidan said flatly.
She stepped on his foot. “But I’m fine now and Lord Coventry arrived in the nick of time.”
“I’m sorry, Sorcha,” Aesop said. “I should have been here. You need a guard.”
“I do not. I’m finally free of chaperones. You’re not putting some domineering, dictatorial man at my heels.”
“A woman, then?”
“Maybe.” She only said it to placate him, and they both knew it. She had no intention of dragging anyone else into danger. She made her choices with clear and open eyes.
“I heard a hedgehog crying down in the valley behind the thorn trees.” Aesop held out his hand. A hedgehog lay curled in his massive palm. “No one saw anything untoward this morning. We don’t know how that fire started.”
She instantly made a cooing sound. “That’s the hedgehog from the stables at the fighting pits.”
“About that…” Aidan said.
Aesop grunted, his curved horns gleaming. “I keep telling her not to go alone.”
“I’ll be on hand from now on,” Aidan said quietly. They watched each other for a long moment, seeming to come to an understanding.
It made Sorcha peevish.
“She nearly got herself killed,” Aidan added.
Aesop looked stricken. He was moments away from tears. Sorcha stepped on Aidan’s foot again, much harder this time. “The earl is exaggerating,” she said in her most comforting tone. “He’s very sensitive.”
Aidan raised an eyebrow.
“See?” Sorcha said. “Very fussy. Now, never mind him, Aesop.”
Aesop grunted again. “He’s a wolf.”
“I am,” Aidan admitted.
“Don’t scare the kittens.”
“I won’t.”
“The kittens aren’t scared of anything,” Sorcha pointed out. “If a Minotaur doesn’t worry them, I doubt an earl will get much of a reaction, wolf or not.”
It dawned on her again that she was standing with her betrothed. And a Minotaur. And that it had been too long since breakfast.
“Let’s have some tea,” she said. “Because all of that was rather…a lot.” Tea would make this all proper and normal.
Ha.
Still, her governess would have approved.
They went to the kitchens in the lower quarters of the Hall, which had been refurbished by Granny. Anything with an oven looked as though it belonged in Kensington Palace.
The front hall and the drawing room were clean, if a bit sparse.
There was dog and cat fur on most of the furniture.
An entire wing upstairs was closed off, draped in white sheets.
An owl lived in the old conservatory. But the kitchens were as modern as could be.
Granny had cleaned up the old hearth and added an oven.
There was a well-water pump, new pipes. Sorcha had brought in a long table in the adjacent servants’ hall, where everyone who ate food off plates instead of hunks of bloody meat on the other side of the wall gathered for meals.
The dishes were the very best hand-painted china, brought from London some years ago, and the glasses were crystal—all served by a Minotaur who could have worked in any palace as a butler or baker to a king.
If they weren’t fussy about horns and a tail.
And hooves in the dining room. As Nettlestone’s dining room was mostly used for storing piles of paper for folding into magical birds and supplies for various wounded animals, it hardly mattered.
And Sorcha happened to like his horns and hooves.
The manor was lovely, rich with history. But Sorcha thought once more that she might prefer the Wolf Wood.
She added extra honey to her tea when she noticed her fingers were trembling from recent events. Unacceptable.
Aidan drank his quietly, as he did most things. But he wasn’t ignoring her, far from it—he watched her over the rim of his cup with that furrowed brow.
Granny chose that moment to materialize. Her snake scales glinted like daggers as her sharp eyes landed on Aidan, her eyebrows lifting appreciatively. “You’re a Carnahan.”
Sorcha and Aidan both blinked at her.
She smirked. “I knew your great-uncle. Very well.”
Sorcha choked. “Granny,” she managed to say, “this is the Earl of Coventry.”
“Oh, I do like an earl.”
“Lord Coventry, this is my grandmother. Duchess of Gloucester.”
Aidan bowed. “An honor.”
Granny’s diamond tiara shone brighter. She did love having her station properly recognized, always had.
He did not seem particularly concerned that the duchess in question was clearly dead and had been for some time.
Or that she had ogled him. As she had clearly ogled one of his ancestors. More than ogled, likely.
“That is not appropriate attire for an earl. And you still have soot on your shirt.”
“Very true, Duchess.”
“Good. As long as you agree with me.” Granny winked at Sorcha. “I’ll leave you.”
Sorcha rolled her eyes, refusing to blush. She was a woman grown. She was the Red Cloak, for goodness’ sake. Scourge of the Cauldron, etcetera, etcetera.
Funny how all of Granny’s rules about chaperones and reputations went right out the window when faced with a single earl of good fortune. And a muscular chest.
Granny vanished in a swirl of light, leaving behind a waft of rose perfume. Her attempt at setting a romantic scene, no doubt. “So,” Sorcha said. “That was my grandmother.”
“Well, now, what have we here?” a sultry voice positively purred.
Sorcha bit back a sigh. “And that is Lady Hecuba.”
Hecuba drifted down the stairs, careful to avoid the patch of sunlight on the fourth step. Her moonlight hair floated around her. She was pale as lily petals. Stunningly beautiful.
Aidan bowed again. “Lady Hecuba.”
Hecuba looked him up and down, her smile showing her fangs. “Delicious. Even if you do smell of dog.”
Sorcha dropped her head in her hands and groaned. “Lord Coventry, welcome to Nettlestone.”