How To Marry A Werewolf (Claw & Courtship, #1)(22)

Faith nodded her agreement. It was challenging.

Throughout the course of the many balls and dinners over the past month, Faith had met and conversed with countless gentlemen. She had even met one or two more of the London Pack. Both proved to be large and charming, and were probably admirable prospective husbands for a soiled, if pretty, American with a substantial rock collection. Except, Faith did not feel she knew them at all. She certainly did not feel anything like the fire of personality that scorched her whenever she was in Major Channing’s presence.

Of him, strangely, she knew a little. He did not even pretend to civility. Instead, he jumped directly into the meat of intimacy whenever they conversed, in a way Faith ought to have found shocking but instead found invigorating. She seemed unable to stop thinking about him and had come to crave their increasingly ridiculous banter.



“Why do you like rocks so much that you feel compelled to defiance and defence of them, my Lazuli?” He sat next to her at a supper party, eating raw liver from a cut-glass bowl while she sipped soup and tried not to splash.

Faith felt a little thrill at the possessiveness in the name. She willfully ignored it, of course, whenever he used it, but she liked that he’d given it to her – special. As if she mattered to him.

Faith had been conversing with Mr Koverswill, on her other side. Mr Koverswill had severe hair, pronounced ears, and an eye for trends. He’d told her (in confidence) that hair muffs were due for a resurgence. Faith had been moved to tap his wrist with her fan and tell him that the very idea was hair-raising. Mr Koverswill was utterly charmed by such forthright American wit. But then the hostess demanded his attention with some question about shawls, and Faith was left abandoned without conversation.

Channing had drawn her attention back to him, saving her from awkward silence with talk of geology. Not that he needed geology to get her attention. Faith always seemed oddly aware of him. Tonight, the moment he walked into the drawing room before dinner, the hairs on the back of her neck had tingled. Also, he tended to be near her if possible. She liked it, both his nearness and her awareness of it.

There was no question he would sit next to her at dinner. The hostess had arranged it and been smug about it. Everyone wanted to watch Major Channing attempt to court society’s newly minted American sensation. Faith didn’t mind. London’s efforts to amuse itself at Channing’s expense only increased the frequency of their encounters.

“Does hiking after specimens make you feel free of societal constraints?” His eyes were focused on hers and he seemed genuinely interested.

Faith was drawn into remembering her strolls about the countryside back home, collecting and exploring, and her one trip westward under the liberty and vastness of the Colorado skies. She had always insisted that whenever her family traveled, they must stop in places they would ordinarily never consider except for her enthusiasm for the landscape. And then she must mitigate their exasperation at her continued delays.

She tried to explain her fascination. “Rocks represent so much time and space, so much history. Yet they’re so solid and unchanging themselves.”

“You are attracted to ancient things,” he concluded.

I’m attracted to hard and sharp and immovable objects with predictable characteristics, she thought.

He regarded her closely. His eyes traced the memory of freckles on her nose, when she’d spent too much time exploring under the hot sun. Faded now. “We are not all so static as that. Some of us are sitting in the wrong time and place, even though we appear to walk about in this one. And some of us like change too much. We revel in the mayflies of life, for all we are stuck with mere existence ourselves.”

He’s telling me that he is not that kind of immortal. He’s not a rock for me to collect. He’s not steady and he’ll not be constant.

She wondered why he was being so obvious in his interest if it wasn’t genuine. She wondered if his intentions were honest. Was he chasing her in order to catch her or merely to keep others away? If he caught her, would he keep her? And do I want that or am I also just enjoying the chase?

Mr Koverswill returned his attention to her then. “Oh, Miss Wigglesworth, are you a lover of history of the ancient world as well? I have recently returned from Rome.”

“Italy? Was it everything you hoped?” Faith knew well how to keep a gentleman engaged. The young man puffed up under her regard. She felt Channing, on her other side, relax back in his seat, watchful.

Mr Koverswill put down his soup spoon. “A strange place. No supernatural creatures at all. No offence, Major Channing.”

“None taken. You are wrong, of course.”

“Am I indeed?”

Faith could not help but be surprised. “He is? I thought Italy was confirmed anti-supernatural.”

“Merely because they do not like us does not mean we are not there. I visited recently myself.”

Mr Koverswill cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed, sir.”

Channing frowned; Faith wanted to reach out to smooth the lines off his forehead. “Perhaps not so recently – about twenty years ago.”

“Were you there as a tourist, too?” Mr Koverswill asked.

“No. I was there to kill someone.”

Mr Koverswill blanched.

Faith felt oddly proud. “What other reason could anyone have for visiting Italy?”

“And did you succeed?” Mr Koverswill asked, a tad injudiciously, Faith thought.