Page 14 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

For once, her face was no mask of cool politeness, transfigured instead into an expression so achingly lost that it rendered Wolf momentarily breathless. It appeared as if the foundation she had been building a future upon had crumbled to the sea before her. The sight of her shattered composure woke something foreign within him: a visceral need to right the wrongs visited upon her. The desire to reduce John’s good-natured face to a pulp for causing her a moment of distress. Where the devil did these thoughts come from? The words came to him out of the ether, as absurd as they were: Longing. He longed to move her so deeply, to see her care so deeply…about him. Shaking himself from that unsettling thought, he refocused his attention upon her. His feelings were inconsequential at that moment.

“What can I do?” He rasped, the question escaping him with an unvarnished sincerity that, for the first time in the span of their acquaintance, was entirely devoid of guile. “I shall call him out. I will do it.”

Wolf’s declaration drew Petra out of her fugue state. “Call him out…No, no, please, my lord. There was never—this is my fault. I was a silly girl who got carried away with an idea of a man she did not truly know.”

Wolf had never heard her speak in such a way about herself and the twist in the center of his chest tightened and crackled like a wildfire.

“Lady Petra, you are many things, but I do not think a silly girl caught in a flight of fancy is one of them.”

Despite her petite size and fairy-like appearance, Petra squared her shoulders as if she were the Queen herself. “I need to right this, my lord. To save them from any scandal.”

Below them, the waltz had ended, unbeknownst to the two of them. Petra’s gaze scoured the cavernous room as if searching for John or Jillian.

“You need to save them?” Wolf searched her face as his mind was abruptly transported to Bristol, once more to the quiet strength of his aunt and uncle. As he drank in the sight of the brave lady before him, that ball of heat within his chest contracted painfully.

He had always been wrong when he told himself his reasoning for being against union between Petra and John. For so long he had convinced himself he had been against their union because she did not deserve John.

What utter rot. Aside from his aunt, he doubted he had ever known a true lady.

The truth was that John had never deserved Petra. And yet she is breaking her own heart over him and trying to save him in the same fell swoop.

Foolish, fierce angel. “I will find him. I will help you, my lady.”

As if only noticing him then, Petra’s eyes widened and she placed a small hand on his forearm, sending a delicious, if untimely, flame up Wolf’s arm. “Thank you, my lord. This is not their fault. They deserve no censure for l-love never does, nor should it. I will do everything in my power so that they can,” Petra offered a small nod, a flush of returning color washing over the honeyed warmth of her features as she finished. “Be together.”

Unlike this fierce angel beside him, Wolf was not quite so forgiving of his friend’s actions. “Let me speak with him first.”

Petra tightened her grip on him. “You will not call him out.”

“I will not call him out.” Wolf repeated and he twisted his arm so that he could kiss her hand. His lips lightly grazed her gloved knuckle, a gesture he didn’t fully understand, yet it resonated within the cavern of his chest as a silent, unwavering promise. To protect her and that big heart of hers that could break and forgive in an instant. “But I did not vow to hit him,” he said under his breath as he turned away.

After scanning the ballroom, Wolf caught sight of a tall gentleman with a boyish cowlick exiting to the Bromley gardens. His gaze went to the French doors that led to the garden and Lady Petra’s followed. He looked back at her as if to tell her to give him a few minutes with John, and somehow, although no words passed between them, she understood, given her clipped nod in his direction. He put away for later any warmth that wordless exchange had caused him, that he could express so much to her without speaking a word and strode purposefully toward the French doors.

Watching his oldest friend pace the garden pensively, Wolf was seized by an unholy sort of rage. He was not inclined to fight, as he had never experienced strong enough emotions to warrant it. And yet, observing John in solitary repose, evidently lost in the contemplation of his own lost Lenore rather than the profound devastation he had visited upon a lady who merited none of it, Wolf felt his carefully cultivated composure fracture. A fierce, unbidden rage took hold, his fingers clenching into a rigid fist as he stalked toward his unsuspecting friend.

Wolf’s knuckles cracked with pain as his fist connected with the side of John’s face. While he was well acquainted with the art of pugilism, having honed such skills amidst the rough-and-tumble docks of his youth, the sudden ache served as a jarring reminder that it had been an age since he had possessed reason to exert such a visceral brand of justice. “What the devil was that in there? How could you do that to her?” he roared as John stumbled backward.

Clutching the side of his face, John gaped at him in shock. “You’ve never hit me before.”

“Well, you’ve never acted dishonorably before,” Wolf muttered. “That is supposed to be my milieu.”

“What was that for?”

“How could you do that to her?” Wolf repeated. How did John not understand how devastating his actions were?

“To Jillian?”

That he was still only thinking of Jillian made Wolf’s blood boil in fury.

“Not her,” he bit out. “Lady Petra. How could you do that to Lady Petra?”

“I…I merely danced with her cousin.”

Possessed of a keen mind, the John that Wolf knew was seldom so slow to apprehend the obvious. Clearly his friend was in a state of willful denial.

“You did not just dance with her cousin. Anyone with eyes could see you staked a claim. She’s it. She’s what you’re thinking of when you look off at the sea, but you never talk about it. Not once in years. Not even to your best friend.”

John opened and closed his mouth, appearing almost as lost as Petra had been before. However, any sympathy Wolf might have held for him evaporated at the thought of Petra’s devastated face.