Bisclavret by K.L. Noone

Author:K.L. Noone [Noone, K.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2019-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The receiving line was long and deathly dull; sitting like an overgrown statue at Andreas’s side while he greeted all the visitors from near and far-off lands, I found myself—I still do—amazed at his capacity to exude welcome and good cheer to all. I personally would have run screaming after the fifth person—two ambassadors, two ladies, and the Earl of Hyacinthe—looked him up and down, batted eyelashes, and offered unsubtle invitations to come and look at fictitious problems in their guest quarters.

Andreas, being himself, only widened earnest eyes at them and began naming engineers he could send over, all of whom were over fifty and happily married. I sat on his foot, and mentally rolled my eyes.

He’d given in and put on the second-most elaborate crown, a heavy ornate thing wrought of dense metals and dark jewels. It flattened the gold of his hair and shadowed his face; I suspected that by the end of the evening he would have conveniently set it down on a chair or table and forgotten to pick it back up. As it happened, this was true. It generally is.

I had been given a bath for the occasion, and my fur had dried in unfamiliar lightweight waves of silver and jet. In oblique revenge, the left leg of Andreas’s blue velvet formal attire was now covered in a hoary frost of wolf’s hair.

The line seemed unending. I sat there gazing out over it, and wondered how long it’d take before I could shepherd him off to the peace and scholarship of our rooms upstairs. A place away from the hovering and fawning of courtiers, appointment-seekers, the curious and the flirtatious, the manipulative…

The manipulative. I caught a scent. Lilies. Sweet and drifting.

I knew that scent.

I knew her.

I shot to all four feet. Upright. A growl echoed, low and rumbling. Me. Instinctive. My skin prickled; the hackles on my neck rose. I couldn’t see her yet. But I knew.

She was here.

The men and women in the line in front of us melted away, snowflakes facing a vicious wolfish conflagration. Andreas put out a hand—not backing away, trying to catch my attention, the only one not frightened, as ever—but I heard nothing he said.

I walked forward, unerringly and deliberate, letting her watch me advance.

Of course the Countess was afraid of large dogs. She ought to be.

I hadn’t recognized the title; her husband had only been a baronet before, a simple Sir Edgar. I hadn’t known she’d run to him, though I knew then, in that instant, and it all crashed into comprehension.

She’d married him. She’d given him herself and her wealth, and he’d protected her. From me. The monster she’d feared.

The gown she wore, dripping with jewels and real gold thread, testified to their prosperity if not their good taste. Her eyes were the same—not because they remained the tempting pale green I’d tumbled head over heels for in a market square, but because of the expression. The way they’d looked on the last day she’d looked at me, shuttered and opaque and afraid.

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