Page 19 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

Of course the earl would only view Petra as a means to an end, something of diminishing value once she was seen as “on the shelf”. Wolf ground his teeth and attempted to maintain his expression of disinterest.

Adeptly responding to Wolf’s demeanor, he quickly changed tactics. “You know, I remember your father, Wolfridge.”

Relaxing the rigid fist he had maintained within his pocket, Wolf redirected his gaze toward Kemberley, meticulously schooling his features into a mask of receptive interest, the very reaction the man so clearly craved.

“He was a few years older than I. Yet I remember always thinking he was a true gentleman. Not necessarily the old breed, those who relied solely on their word. He was a gentleman who understood the power and respect his name commanded. In what the world owed him.”

Wolf refrained from scowling. Yes, his father had been a perfect gentleman. And he had instilled in Wolf the need to quash all impulses to the contrary. Absorbing Lord Kemberley’s pronouncements, Wolf curbed the sudden impulse to reach for the silver and shark skin timepiece tucked within his waistcoat, a heavy touchstone of his late sire’s legacy.

The earl pressed forward, his assessing gaze sharp with the predatory awareness that he finally held Wolf’s undivided attention. “He was the kind to know his worth but act decisively if needed. I believe he would have supported a union between our houses.”

“Between our houses?” Wolf began to apprehend the purpose of the day’s assembly, much as if a thick pall of obscurity were gradually drawn aside.

“While your title is not as old as Camborne, I would still desire a connection to your shipping network and a titled husband for Pet.” Wolf suppressed a grimace at her father’s use of “Pet,” though he couldn’t explain the source of his aversion.

“And yet, I cannot let this draw out, such as before. The time has come for swift action.”

“Do you…” Wolf hesitated, weighing his words to request what he needed without revealing too much. “Do you believe the lady would be amenable to this swift action?”

Kemberley batted his question away as if swatting a fly. “What she is amenable to is inconsequential. It is the timing that is key.”

Wolf did not agree but allowed the man to carry on.

“My mistake with Lord John was all in the timing, I see that now. But with you, I know you will be like your father. You will take what you want and claim it for yourself. Because I have noticed you of late, Wolfridge. I believe I know what it is you want.”

I’ve been watching you much longer.

“You want Petra and you are your father’s son. As her father, I am telling you, take what you want.”

“You…” Wolf paused as Kemberley’s true purpose began to dawn on him. Yet it still felt obscured, as if hidden behind a diaphanous curtain. “You wish for me to ask for her hand?”

“No, she will not agree to that so soon after everything that has passed. What I am suggesting is to engineer a set of circumstances that will secure my daughter’s hand. And I have invited you here to tell you there will be no repercussions on my end.”

Wolf stared at the man, for the first time truly shocked. “You wish for me to trap your daughter in marriage, and you will not call me out for my actions.”

Kemberley leaned his head theatrically. “Trap is such an ugly word, is it not? You are a gentleman like your father, yes? I am telling you to take what you want, what is your right as a gentleman. It is what your father did as a young man.”

There it was. The thread of the web he did not see, could not have anticipated. Wolf knew little of his parents’ courtship, yet it was entirely within the realm of possibility that his father had trapped his mother, who had been wealthy and blue-blooded. An heiress and a gentlewoman.

Just like Petra.

But what about what Petra wished for? While Kemberley clearly did not care, Wolf did.

Yet she was in a haze of grief and sorrow at the moment. Even in her quick action to protect John and Jillian at the ball, she was still visibly distraught. Under Kemberley’s keen gaze, a strange surety began to take root: Wolf could be the one to help her out of that miasma. She would forgive him eventually, wouldn’t she? And didn’t his father always say to take what he wanted as a gentleman, consequences be damned? He would do nothing against her will of course, but if she could be convinced to desire him…he could stoke that desire.

Although Wolf fundamentally distrusted Kemberley, the man had taken that seed of want which Wolf had only just discovered he carried for Petra and watered it, then given it a home and a garden to grow.

In the midst of his inner turmoil, Wolf made sure to keep his face expressionless, but nodded in agreement with the earl. He had entered the spider’s lair, but in this instance, perhaps he was not the fly.

“I believe,” Kemberley began, “there is another ball in two days at Stillwell House. I will ensure my daughter is in attendance.”

Wolf offered another nod of practiced indifference, yet a cold shiver of apprehension found its way down his spine. Why did he feel like Faust, teetering on the precipice of a most precarious bargain? This was what he wanted. She was what he wanted. And just as his father and Kemberley reminded him, it did not matter the method he used to gain the prize, as long as he had the prize in the end.

If the end was right, it justified the means.

* * *

In a daze, Wolf sent his carriage back to Wolfridge House and proceeded to wend aimlessly about town, caught in a web that he had willingly entered.