“What did you say?” roared Lord Maccon, outraged.
“Uh. The wrong thing?” suggested Alexia, mystified by this sudden switch in moods. She had no more time to correct her gaffe, for Lord Maccon's yell had reached out into the hallway, and Mrs. Loontwill, whose curiosity was chomping at the proverbial bit, burst into the room.
Only to find her eldest daughter entwined on the couch with Lord Maccon, Earl of Woolsey, behind a table decorated with the carcasses of three dead chickens.
CHAPTER NINE
A Problem of Werewolf Proportions
Mrs. Loontwill did what any well-prepared mother would do upon finding her unmarried daughter in the arms of a gentleman werewolf: she had very decorous, and extremely loud, hysterics.
As a result of this considerable noise, the entirety of the Loontwill household came rushing from whatever room they had formerly been occupying and into the front parlor. Naturally, they assumed someone had died or that Miss Hisselpenny had arrived in a bonnet of unmatched ugliness. Instead, they found something far less likely— Alexia and the Earl of Woolsey romantically enmeshed.
Miss Tarabotti would have moved off the couch and seated herself an appropriate distance from Lord Maccon, but he coiled one arm about her waist and would not let her shift.
She glared at him in extreme annoyance from under dark brows. “What are you doing, you horrible man? We are already in enough trouble. Mama will see us married; you see if she does not,” she hissed under her breath.
Lord Maccon said only, “Hush up now. Let me handle this.” Then he nuzzled her neck. Which naturally made Miss Tarabotti even more put out and uncomfortable.
Felicity and Evylin paused in the doorway, eyes wide, and then commenced hysterical giggling. Floote appeared at their heels and hovered in a worried but mostly invisible manner next to the hat stand.
Mrs. Loontwill continued to scream, more in surprise than in outrage. The earl and Alexia? What would this do to their social standing?
Miss Tarabotti fidgeted under the warmth of Lord Maccon's arm. Surreptitiously, she tried to pry his fingers off where they gripped her waist, just above her hipbone. His arm rested across the top of her bustle —shocking. He merely winked at her subtle struggles in apparent amusement. Winked!
I mean, thought Alexia, really!
Squire Loontwill bumbled into the front parlor with a handful of household accounts he had been in the middle of reckoning. Upon observing Alexia and the earl, he dropped the accounts and sucked his teeth sharply. He then bent to retrieve the paperwork, taking his time so as to consider his options. He ought, of course, to call the earl out. But there were intricate layers to this situation, for the earl and he could not engage in a duel, being as one was supernatural and the other not. As the challenger, Squire Loontwill would have to find a werewolf to fight the earl as his champion. No werewolf of his limited acquaintance would take on the Woolsey Castle Alpha. As far as he knew, no werewolf in London would take on such a Herculean task, not even the dewan. On the other hand, he could always ask the gentleman to do the right thing by his stepdaughter. But who would willingly take on Alexia for life? That was more of a curse than even werewolf change. No, Lord Maccon would probably have to be forced. The real question was whether the earl could be persuaded in a nonviolent manner to marry Alexia or if the best the squire could hope for was for her to become simply one of Woolsey's clavigers.
Mrs. Loontwill, naturally, complicated the issue.
“Oh, Herbert,” she said pleadingly to her silent husband, “you must make him marry her! Call for the parson immediately! Look at them... they are...,” she sputtered, “canoodling!”
“Now, now, Leticia, be reasonable. Being a claviger is not so bad in this day and age.” Squire Loontwill was thinking of the expense of Alexia's continued upkeep. This situation might turn out to be profitable for all concerned, except Alexia's reputation.
Mrs. Loontwill did not agree. “My daughter is not claviger material.”
Alexia muttered under her breath, “You have no idea how true a statement that is.”
Lord Maccon rolled his eyes heavenward.
Her mother ignored her. “She is wife material!” Mrs. Loontwill clearly had visions of drastically improved social status.
Miss Tarabotti stood up from the couch to better confront her relations. This forced the earl to release her, which upset him far more than her mother's hysterics or her stepfather's cowardice.
“I will not marry under duress, Mama. Nor will I force the earl into such bondage. Lord Maccon has not tendered me an offer, and I will not have him commit unwillingly. Don't you dare press the issue!”
Mrs. Loontwill was no longer hysterical. There was instead a steel-edged gleam in her pale blue eyes. A gleam that made Lord Maccon wonder which side Alexia had gotten her flinty personality from. Until that moment, he had blamed the deceased Italian father. Now he was not so certain.