How To Marry A Werewolf (Claw & Courtship, #1)(42)

“Your tool kit?”

Minnie nodded and set it on the floor to pop it open, lifting out the accordion shelves. It was constructed like a sewing basket but modified heavily to specific technologies. It had lots of nooks and crannies to stash both gadgets and supplies and was Minnie’s pride and joy. It also had a hidden compartment that only Minnie, Faith, and the original maker knew about.

Minnie popped open this secret drawer and pulled out what looked to be two or three dozen tiny bobbins, each one loosely wound with yarn.

Minnie handed one to Faith to look over.

The yarn was clearly a disguise, because the small bobbin was far too heavy to be a real bobbin, and not shaped at all correctly upon close inspection. Faith pulled off the yarn. Underneath, it looked like an elaborately filigreed version of…

“A bullet?”

Minnie nodded. “Sundowner bullets.”

Faith gasped and dropped the deadly little thing onto the bed. “Oh, Minnie.”

Faith stared down at it, innocently resting on her coverlet, horrified. There before her was the only thing that could reliably kill a vampire or a werewolf. It was the standard brass color of most bullets (not that Faith had a great of familiarity with projectiles), only this one was pretty and jewelry-like – caged, patterned, and cored with threads of grey and shards of blond. Incredibly expensive and complicated to produce, a Sundowner bullet incorporated both silver and rowan wood, yet could be loaded and shot like any other .36 caliber. Sundowner armaments were strictly patented and production was tightly controlled, even more so in England than in the Union. In fact, only a few people in all of Britain were authorized to use them, let alone make them, and most of those were supernaturals themselves.

Faith suddenly knew. “Major Channing was looking for these, wasn’t he, when he pulled aside my specimen case? I thought it was his fierceness that scared you, but you had these with you all along. That’s why you were so nervous.”

Minnie nodded. “Yes, miss. Lucky for me, the higher the rank, the more likely they are to forget servants are people, not property or furniture.”

Faith winced. “I take it you failed to deliver to Papa’s associate. Why?”

Minnie grimaced. “I thought I could sell ’em myself. Turn a tidy profit, use the money to emigrate to Europe. I didn’t know how hard it is to fence bullets in a foreign land, especially when one is only a lady’s maid.”

“Did you take the work with Mrs Honeybun in an effort to pursue this illicit activity?”

Minnie hung her head. “Yes, miss, in part. I mean, I do like it. The money from the sale would have gone into me starting my own dress shop. But it’s too hard for someone like me to sell something like this. I’ve never done it before, miss. Please believe me.”

Faith could understand wanting independence. She could understand hating the supernatural set. She didn’t blame Minnie.

“We’re all sinners, Minnie, in some form or another. But why confess now?”

“Your father wants his bullets back. And he didn’t ask nicely.”

Minnie pushed at her cap, revealing what she’d been hiding under it. One of her eyes was dark and swollen. She’d clearly been beaten.

“Mrs Honeybun yelled for lawmen and he ran. But he’ll return.”

Faith nodded. “You’re safe here tonight, I think. The Iftercasts have taken against my parents, thank heavens. I don’t know what we did to deserve the care of such nice people, Minnie.”

“True, miss.”

Faith patted the counterpane, and Minnie put the bullets away and came to sit next to her. Still trembling a little.

“And tomorrow, miss, what then?”

“Did you hear that I’m engaged, Minnie?”

“No, miss. Felicitations?”

“To a werewolf.”

“The grumpy one from after we landed, who you yelled at?”

“Yes, Minnie, that’s him.”

Minnie gave a small smile that might have been approval. “Very good, miss.”

Faith said, “Here’s what I think we should do…”



Channing believed that Biffy would come to talk to him about his hasty choices, but it was Lyall who found him.

Channing was in the library of Falmouth House, his favorite haunt when he must be at home. Which wasn’t often but, he supposed, with a wife, might become more frequent in the future. He’d claimed one of the small tables for his desk, and most of the rest of the pack left him be. Children were not allowed in the library. Not until they could actually read.

He was examining a set of shelves in the brightest corner of the room. Or what would be the brightest corner, with the curtains open and the sun above the horizon.

The shelves were sparsely populated with only the cheapest of volumes. Book spines were too likely to fade on these particular shelves, since the staff had orders to open all the downstairs windows in the summertime and to draw the curtains year ’round. Just because werewolves could only be awake at night did not mean they allowed a gloomy, cheerless, stuffy habitat like that of the vampires.

After long consideration, Channing began removing those few books that were on the shelves and rehoming them elsewhere in the library.

The London Pack didn’t boast a particularly vast book collection. In fact, it might be called embarrassingly petite. Channing thought that he ought to put a concerted effort into improving it. It had dwindled considerably since he joined the pack. Most of the political, historical, and technical manuals had migrated to BUR over the last half century. A great many books had been abandoned by the pack in the library at Woolsey Castle when they’d been forced to relocate to London. They were now the property of the resident vampires. Once a hive got their fangs into something, it was easier to buy another than demand it back.