Syon
I wasa bear in a cage anytime I was required to be in London.
The food bland, the people lazy and content to spend their time locked inside their cramped rooms rather than risk the refreshingly brisk winter wind. Yet here I was, the house draped in black crepe, the knocker off the door to let everyone know visitors were not welcome. I was in mourning for my grandmother. My last blood relative of any importance was dead.
My grandmother, the dowager duchess of Orley was dead. Dead. I’d yet to accept that. Killed at the age of eighty by, in her words, a trifling cold. No figure in my life loomed quite so large as she. There might be alphas who had no respect for the abilities of omegas to manage—and manage well—estates as great as ours, but she had until I was old enough to take up the reins. My grandfather had died before I was born. After his death, my father obsessed over my mother’s indiscretions rather than instruct his heir or look after the estates. So it was my grandmother, her three alpha mates, and Lord John, my grandfather’s omega mate, who’d raised me. But their pack was gone. My grandmother’s mates died in a yachting accident. And Lord John, the man who had given me my first pony, had only died three years ago.
Now I was alone.
And who was I but the Duke of Orley, named Syon at my grandmother’s insistence. But no one had called me that in almost twenty years. Not since my father had killed himself over my mother’s so-called honour not long after my eighth birthday. It had been Orley ever since. I almost forgot the sound of my name unless I spoke it out loud.
“Syon,” I whispered into the silence.
The loss of my grandmother created a dull hollowness in my chest. As the only living member of my family, as the woman who’d raised me when my own mother had fled the country with some German prince… Yes, I missed my grandmother far more than the omega who’d given birth to me. Her firmness and straight speaking. She’d never hidden the scandals attached to the name Orley. Not my parents’ disastrous mating and marriage that had my father blowing his brains out when his mate eloped with another man. Nor my grandparents’ own scandal—the duke and duchess of Orley not mating had been theon dit de jour—which had blossomed into a happy pack full of laughter and love. There were other scandals, but the last two generations had impressed upon me that a happy life meant not making my wife, the mother of my heirs, my mate—at least not right away. We could find emotional satisfaction elsewhere so long as we followed my grandparents’ example. Passion and instinct could and should be put aside.
I would find a woman to marry and give me heirs, but not mate her. She could find mates, lovers, whatever she chose after an alpha child had been born. I would have the same freedom. I’d even allow mating if either of us chose to mate the same sex before the child was born. So long as everyone knew that the child was mine, I was not concerned with our sleeping arrangements.
“Damn you, grandmother,” I laughed as I looked over the letter she’d written me on her death bed. Of all the letters she’d penned the one to her beloved grandson was the shortest, barely covering a single sheet. Others were thick packets, double-crossed in her tiny, precise handwriting.
Orley,
Marry now. Find a wife. An omega and a woman, for a man will not be able to give you an heir. I’m forever grateful that John had a hand in the raising of you. It made him very happy, though I am sure he never breathed a word of it to you. Let her be beautiful, for my sake, as I do not wish for a fish to have her portrait hung next to mine. Let her be cheerful, for yours. You smile so rarely and that is not good for procreation. For her sake and yours, do not mate her until you both know it is the correct decision. My marriage was happy because Orley and I looked elsewhere for love, for mates. Your father was not so wise. He married that woman and mated her. She brought him to the brink of madness with her dalliances. I blame her for his death. Thankfully the bitch is dead. But she gave me you so I cannot hate her.
But, beloved grandson and most excellent duke, think of your duchess as a wife and not a mate. At least not until you are sure of your mutual happiness, which I wish for more than life itself.
DDoO
P.S. I’ve instructed my goddaughter, Cordelia Markham, to call on you. I believe she can help you to find an appropriate omega.
Her voice came through in her letter. This was the woman I’d lost, and my heart ached for the first time since I’d heard of her death.
Now all that mattered was to find some omega to marry. An easy task—if I’d spent any time in London or been a social creature. My reclusive nature now meant I would be stuck here, kicking my heels until a bride was in my bed. And still, no omega of my acquaintance had caused my blood to run hot. However, I could not scent them the way most alphas could—the prize I’d won in an amateur boxing match in my youth. I might have a broken nose and lost my sense of smell, but the other fellow had been out for nearly ten minutes, had a broken jaw, and lost a couple of teeth in the bargain. Even the greatest brawlers of the age could not present a more mangled nose than I. My disfigurement was enough that I did not enjoy the stares of men or women. My title might allow me a second glance, but my face would cause any lover to close their eyes for the obscene visage I possessed. I’d have to rely on my title to find a wife.
Knowing I’d be in London for the foreseeable future, I wrote to the beta mistress I kept at the ducal seat Ayleigh letting her know our affair was at an end. I saw no reason to bring her up to London. I was done with her.
Goddess, I hated the city. The thought came unbidden, but I felt it in my very bones. I wanted this business of finding a wife finished.
“Your Grace, there is a Mrs Markham begging for a moment of your time,” Horne, my grandmother’s long-serving butler’s muffled voice came through the door. I had expected a visit from this matron, but she was near an hour late of the appointed time. Horne would be well aware of my dislike for tardiness and the pleading sound in his voice only confirmed that he knew I would have little patience for my grandmother’s goddaughter.
“Send her in!” I called without once taking my eyes from my grandmother’s letter.
Being who I was, I’d a pretty good idea of the picture I painted when the admittedly dashing widow entered. How could I not? My portrait hung on the wall, a likeness only recently commissioned for grandmother last summer.
There my painted self hung. Honey-coloured hair cropped short because I abhorred the vanity of wigs. At least they were going out of fashion. But there, any neatness of dress ended. My clothes were as they ought to be for a nobleman just returned from a morning ride and who’d not taken the time to change. The artist had not missed a detail, for my boots too were splattered with mud. He’d painted me against the background of the great oak at Ayleigh. I liked the painting. Even my nose didn’t seem out of place.
But I wasn’t at Ayleigh nor back from a ride—that had been postponed by this omega’s tardiness. Today, I sat within the library, with all the appearance of a stuffed up self-important duke who didn’t care for the niceties of fashion. The library was an elegant chamber, every piece of furniture in its place as if it hadn’t been moved once since being placed there with care some five years before when my grandmother’d redecorated the entire place. It was the only room in the house I spent any time in.
On hearing her step, I rose ever so slowly and wondered if she could see those dark eyes some called inscrutable—a risibly romantic notion. Even given the distance between us, she could not but be aware of my presence—broad in the shoulder, with a trim waist, powerful thighs as I prowled towards her. Mrs Markham flushed and dropped into a neat curtsey. No omega flushed like that when they were embarrassed. It manifested an omega’s natural response to being near an unknown, unmated alpha. And just as omegas flushed, alphas became aroused. No one would find it strange if my cock became hard when I came into contact with an attractive omega, even a mated widow. This didn’t happen. I couldn’t scent her or her arousal.
I appeared to have no notion of my power over the weaker dynamic. How could I, when I did not seem to register the small gathering of slick she felt between her thighs? And she, a mated widow nearing fifty! I suppressed a chuckle. If only she knew. I could not smell her or her slick even if I was within arms reach. But I could read people and her face told me everything I had no interest in.
My dispassion would have scandalised many omegas, for what omega did not want an alpha to respond to them? I had noticed her attraction the moment she entered—flushed cheeks and fluttering fingers over a thin mouth spoke as loudly as scent. And I gave the matron credit. Her beauty had matured, not faded. Her fair hair still glistened in the afternoon sun. In all, if I had been so inclined, she would be just such a woman an unmated alpha might dally with—the wild passion of her heats would not be so severe and as she had been mated there would be no worries that she would form ideas for the future. But I was not so inclined. Once I had made my mind, I did not waver or become distracted as a weaker man might. No, I ran towards my goal with the singular determination of my dynamic. My goal was a wife, not some affair with an omega, who so easily wilted at the sight of a powerful alpha.
“Your Grace,” she murmured and dropped a submissive curtsy as if she’d not curtsied a few minutes before. I nodded and indicated she should take a seat on any one of the chairs littering the space.
“I require your help,” I said, still standing, curious to see how she’d respond to my request.
“Your Grace?”