Page 3 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

For once, Lady Petra’s entire face showed what she was thinking as her mouth fell into an almost perfect “O.”

She really was rather adorable. Where did that thought come from? “Adorable” was not in his lexicon. As she began to regain her composure, Wolf followed his initial, impulsive request before she could respond. “Not a real courtship, mind you, just something to shake Lord John into the parson’s trap. Fearing he might lose you should hasten the nuptials, yes?”

In truth, this ruse would not hasten the betrothal, but help free John, and ultimately free Petra.

Why he wished her to be free, he was not going to examine too closely.

“A fake courtship? But everyone knows I am betrothed to Lord John.”

“Remember Lady Edith two seasons ago? She had been promised to the Duke of Brigdon since childhood. But years passed, and he went off to India and all but forgot her. So she began to allow Lord Allingham to pay her court, and who swiftly arrived home from India to make her the Duchess of Brigdon?” Wolf embellished the story a bit, but it was essentially what happened two years earlier with a few details left out. Namely that the Duke of Brigdon was already on the way home before Allingham began sniffing around Lady Edith. But that information did not serve his story.

“The exertion required on our part would be minimal,” he posited with an air of studied nonchalance, his mind laboring to refine the stratagem even as he spoke. “We need merely grace a few select assemblies in tandem. Such a public display would inevitably compel the ton to arrive at their own scandalous, and ultimately useful, conclusions.”

“Lord Wolfridge, I would not engage in dishonest behavior merely to turn Lord John’s head.” Petra regarded him almost sadly, as though she couldn’t believe he would demand such an undertaking of her.

“Think on it, Lady P. I’ll give you a week.”

At that, he turned and walked away abruptly, overwhelmed with a previously unforeseen desire that caused him to exit as swiftly as possible. It was a desire for Lady Petra to stand on her toes, put her hands on his chest, lift up her head, and…

No. He could never wish for that. That way lay madness.

* * *

The following morning, Wolf set out early from his dwelling in Mayfair to make his way toward London Dock. It was hardly the crack of dawn, but what gentleman of the ton rose before noon these days? And yet, Lord John Longley, his oldest and best friend, had requested a meeting at eleven and John was so bloody agreeable that Wolf could see no reason to protest.

As he strode out the door, gathering his hat and walking stick from Escher, his long-suffering butler, he considered how John never demanded his presence at their shipping company’s largest offices, which were in Bristol. That would require a visit to his aunt and uncle, which was…complicated, to say the least.

Wolf recalled with singular clarity the day over five years earlier when John mentioned he would like to invest in Wolf’s family shipping company, Herron Shipping. At the time, Wolf had deemed it merely the idealistic whim of his friend who often had his head in the clouds.

And yet, John, blast him, had done more than invest his own capital. He had taken to ship innovation and design in a way Wolf never had. Of course, Wolf could not fault his friend, as this investment helped line Wolf’s pockets, he thought, hopping up into his luxurious carriage, with the Wolfridge lupine crest emblazoned on the black lacquer exterior.

Once the door closed with a soft thud, Wolf frowned as he considered how little he had to do for his coffers to overflow these days. The gentleman he presented to the world, to the ton, ought to celebrate that stroke of luck. His overflowing pockets allowed for a certain kind of hedonism he engaged in without thought to the price of anything that he would indulge in. Any rake worth his salt would give a limb for that kind of luxury.

And yet, something did not sit right inside of him at the state of his life, as though Wolf was woodenly performing the lines of a role not written for him. Perhaps he ought to discuss with John ways that he could contribute more to Herron Shipping.

As the carriage left Mayfair, Wolf found himself lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the wheels, only waking to the blare of ship horns which meant London Dock was near. Exiting his carriage, he was immediately swamped by the noxious mix of smells of the docks, from a saltiness that brought to mind no-longer-fresh fish to a burning crispness from the coal and tobacco that filled the air. On top of those scents came the smell of the Thames itself, still recovering from the “Great Stink” of the previous year. With a twitch, Wolf forced himself not to cover his nose with his handkerchief as he waded through the docks to the familiar warehouses and offices. No matter that his father had beaten it out of him, he had been raised amongst docks. He could not lose face at them now.

Once he entered Herron Shipping’s London offices across from their warehouses, the smell fortunately abated and Wolf drew a great breath. Wolf hastened toward John’s office, finding the door ajar and his friend deep in paperwork at his pedestal desk. As John had yet to notice him, he took a moment to study the man. If Wolf was Lucifer, as he had been called many times both by ladies of the ton and their furious husbands, John was surely Gabriel, with his golden boy appearance and his willingness to see the good in everyone.

Even Wolf.

Wholly oblivious to his audience, John meticulously adjusted the spectacles perched upon the bridge of his nose as he extricated a volume from the recesses of his pedestal desk, a notebook that possessed the distinct character of an unused ship’s log. Humming softly to himself, he appeared far more buoyant than Wolf could recall witnessing in recent memory. All those years ago, John had invited himself into the inner workings of Herron Shipping, then thrown himself into the business as if he were burying his head in the sand. Or hiding from something.

Despite their years of friendship, John rarely spent his hours in the indolence that had taken over Wolf’s life since his father tore him away from Bristol. That hardworking nature had seemed almost monk-like in its determination, as if that mindset had required a dimming of John’s naturally warm countenance.

Yet the John that sat before him now appeared eager, almost excited in his industry. There was nothing perfunctory in how he checked through the blank ship’s log as a quiet eagerness played across his features. Wolf wondered what had changed.

Realizing he had been staring at his friend for far longer than what was polite or appropriate, Wolf cleared his throat as if he had just arrived casually late rather than industriously early.

“Wolf! Come sit,” John, who had never been the most orderly of schoolmates, cleared off the many papers strewn across his desk, and carefully moved his bottle ships over to an equally disorderly shelf.

As Wolf sat back lazily in the aging wingback chair, he marveled at the strange course of friendship between them. How did two so diametrically opposite individuals ever come together such as they had? Wolf did not care for model ships or plans to innovate. Watching his friend glance over worriedly at his unevenly stacked ships, Wolf wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps he took more than he gave. It was a philosophy of life his father had meticulously instilled in him, a cold assurance that to take what one desired was the inherent and undeniable prerogative of a gentleman and a peer. John, while not currently a peer of the realm, was to inherit a much larger, older seat than Wolf. And yet here he was, working with shipwrights and dockhands, giving second chances to those who had been discharged from Her Majesty’s Navy in hiring his crews. While Wolf considered John’s industrious nature, that feeling of discontent reared its ugly head again, and Wolf resigned himself to ask for greater responsibility.

“How was Bristol? Your absence was noted at several routs I have attended recently.”

John sighed, seeming satisfied that the bottle ships would not topple. “I wasn’t in Bristol, I was at the family seat.” John shut the blank log book before him and began to file it away in one of the many drawers to his desk. “However, I had several increasingly stern talks with my mother that reminded me of the necessity of my attendance at such events. Thus—” John motioned as if his mother conjured his presence in London.

Wolf was glad for the reprieve of discussing Bristol, and plowed ahead, far away from that more emotionally laden topic.