Ravenwood(103)
Caleb nodded and gave her an encouraging smile. “We can do that after breakfast.”
Elinore turned again and saw the small group clustered in the doorway nodding in agreement and then departing, leaving Elinore and Caleb to finish their meal. She felt a thousand butterfly wings flapping madly in her stomach. She’d made a decision for the pack. She inhaled and then exhaled slowly, her breath coming out slightly shaky.
“I think you’ll make a very fine Alpha,” Caleb said, reaching his hand out across the table. She slipped her fingers into his, finding his fingers strong and warm and feeling so grateful for them.
“I hope to make you all proud of me.”
“We are.”
After that, it seemed her days for the next two weeks had been a flurry. Meeting with the omega, inviting him into the pack, learning about the estate, being tutored in the financial records and visiting tenants. Of course, she also had her new abilities to deal with. She had not yet shifted again into her full wolf form, but every day she worked on partial transformations with Caleb, learning how to feed her emotions into her shifting abilities to make them quicker and sharper. Caleb had marveled at the amount of control she already had over her emotions, which Elinore found quite amusing. As a woman, she often had to watch her tongue and mind her words in public, so yes, she was quite schooled in monitoring her emotions.
Of course, all her work had hardly left time for her correspondence with Charlotte. Elinore penned her a long, detailed letter, managing to leave out all mention of werewolves, (there were some things that ought to be shared only in person with one’s best friend) but conveyed her changed relationship with Caleb. Elinore wished dearly to see Charlotte in person and invited her several times in the text of the letter to come to Ravenwood. She wasn’t quite sure if she was ready to leave her new home just yet. Caleb had said it was quite usual for new wolves to feel very attached to their den for a few full moons and want to stay close to hearth and home.
It was only when she’d sat down to write her letter this morning that Elinore realized it had been weeks since she’d written Charlotte. Detailing all her love and fiendish friendship, Elinore folded the many pages together, knowing that Caleb was certain to laugh when he saw how fat and thick her correspondence was. She’d likely have to pay double the postage just to send it.
A knock at the library door had Elinore looking up just as she finished folding. Mrs. Davenport stood in the doorway a slight smile on her face.
“Yes, Mrs. Davenport. What can I do for you?”
“There’s a young boy here, from the county over. He’s asking to speak to the Alpha.”
Elinore felt a surge of strength and spirit at the word. She smoothed her skirt and smiled back at Mrs. Davenport. “Send him in.”
Author Notes
Gentle reader, I love older books and historical stories. My favorite book of all time is Jane Eyre and while I don’t believe I could ever create an homage that would do it justice, this book is the closest I’ve come yet. I wanted to write a historic, Gothic novel that had an independent heroine such as Jane herself, or Lizzie Bennet, or so many of our heroines of time gone by. Women who, although constrained by society and customs of the time, were still great thinkers, feelers and doers.
I was not concerned with historical accuracy, however, merely the feel and sway of those types of books, where the narrative style is longer and less dialogue heavy at times. I hope you enjoyed this book, as it is. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.
Much love, Margaux