“How’s it?” I called to John Coachman.
“I’m winged, Your Grace,” came the reply. “But nothing to stop us. Can give—“
“I’ll take the reins.”
“Tis’ a four you aren’t familiar with,” the old man admonished as I jumped up to see how bad “winged” was.
“And you don’t trust me with them? We’ve got light, and the postboys ain’t scared. Eh, lads?” I said. The postboys affirmed that they were right as rain.
The anticipation for a fight had brought the world into focus. I had heard Hippolyta’s warning. I’d made a mistake with Viola. Fool. Arrogant fool to have left things unresolved.
Damned fool to have left London. To have allowed her out of my sight even for a moment.
* * *
Hippolyta had lied. The roads had been muddy, and it had taken us far longer to arrive than I’d wanted.
On entering my house, Horne gasped on seeing me covered in mud from the road. Horne sent a footman running to prepare a bath. I waved him off. It did not matter how I looked when I claimed Viola.
“Find out where I might find Viola Hartwell,” I barked, and a lackey left the house at a sprint.
The man must have wings on his heels for he was back in moments, panting out the information that Viola was at a ball hosted by Viscountess Gale. I growled, furious that my future mate and wife was anywhere near that slippery eel. I didn’t bother asking if I had an invitation, I was an unmarried and unmated duke. No hostess would deny me.
I arrived so late that Gale, her omega wife-mate and their beta husband were no longer greeting their guests. I found my omega hostess, a rail thing woman with an oddly plump face. She pressed her lips together and shook her head in the negative when I questioned her about Viola. But of a sudden, I saw Viola dressed in one of the simplest gowns, silk the same colour as her skin, throwing her unpowdered hair into sharp relief. Every fibre of my being responded to her and a fit of possessive anger flared at the sight of her dancing with another man. He was not familiar to me and by his bearing, no match for my Viola. I did not trust myself if it had been an alpha, but this beta was nothing to me.
But Viola, sweet Viola, summoned me like Circe. I carelessly brushed past my hostess in my eagerness to reach my omega’s side. For seeing her here, even knowing how things had ended, I knew no doubt. She was mine. She drew me like a lodestone through people I neither cared for nor sought to know, until I stood on the edge of the dancing, biding my time until the music finished. And while I waited, I scanned the other alphas to see if there were any who might try and take my place at her side. I growled at the sight of several alphas following her progress down the dance. By no means the most graceful dancer, Viola radiated a regal beauty that drew the eye.
The music had not ended, but I was already moving towards them. There was a deep, if dark, pleasure when Viola saw me. Brave girl, I thought, for she stood her ground and did not look away. At this distance, I could not say if she was unwell. But that chin! Raised and firmed. That assured me that her spirit was not broken. She had fire still.
“Your Grace,” she asked, looking between me and her boring suitor. It was hard to mistake the way the younger man gazed on her. I would not begrudge him those glances. “Did you come to dance? I’m afraid my dance card is full for the evening.”
I smiled down into her arresting eyes. As Iris had written, she did not look well. Her normally clear complexion was sallow, and dark circles under her eyes made me frown with dissatisfaction. She was not taking care of herself. Omegas needed to take care of themselves, be taken care of, before their heats. “I am no dancer. Come walk with me instead.”
“Miss Hartwell?” the man asked.
“It’s fine. I would be happy to join you, Your Grace.”
I placed her hand on my arm and covered it proprietarily, glaring at the stranger until he left.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Syon, please, I implore you. No scandal, Syon. I could not… Yell at me another time. Not here… If my letter angered you…”
I grunted. She misunderstood the situation, but a part of me was soothed that she recognised, bowed to my power over the situation.
“Iris says you are unwell,” I replied. People stared at us. Let them. This merely confirmed our connection. “I dislike… Hartwell, you should not be out in society if you are feeling unwell.”
“I… I had a fever,” she said, looking about nervously. I glanced down at her pale face. Then bent closer than was appropriate—but damn the tabbies—to better catch her scent. There was no illness but a hint of… She’d been in heat. I growled at the thought she had suffered through a heat with no alpha to care for her. For me to see her through it. I wanted to tell her so. In a crowded ballroom, while the polite world watched us, I was more concerned with lecturing her about never going into heat again without me there to rut her through it. More concerned with that than making things right between us. Because there was no forgetting the letter I’d written or what had passed between us.
I swallowed the inappropriate words. The question, demanding why I had not been summoned to rut her. This was not the place. This was not the time. So we walked slowly through the ballroom, acknowledging acquaintances and not speaking to each other.
“Do you and Iris get mistaken often?” I asked as we passed another smiling gentleman who’d met Hartwell at my house.
“Only if I were to wear her clothes… and the light is too poor to see our eyes are not the same,” she laughed bitterly but managed a smile and a slight nod of her head as we passed a couple, who acknowledged her with a wave. “She is an alpha after all. It would be a challenge to confuse anyone.”
“But you did it. Not just with me,” I pressed. While I could only expect the sisters to be close, I did not know how far she had taken Iris into her confidence. “If anyone… You pulled it off. You did with me. With everyone.”
“It was easier when we were children,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Before we presented.”
“Is Iris here?”