The Alpha's Ruin

His mother had chosen the breakfast room for the ambush, which told him how the morning would go. She never gave battle on ground she had not already won.

“You are four-and-thirty,” said the Dowager Viscountess Everhill, buttering toast she had no intention of eating. “Your father is ten months in the ground. You have taken his seat, you have taken his accounts, and you have taken up none of the duties that matter.”

“Good morning, Mother.”

“You will marry this year.”

Wulfric poured his coffee and gave brief consideration to the Continent. “Will I.”

“An omega of good family, settled before the Season ends.” She set the knife down across her plate. “I have already found him.”

“Of course you have.”

“Percival Atteberry. Two-and-twenty, the younger son of the late Mr. Atteberry of Harwood. An old family and an excellent one, and his mother is sensible, which is rarer than beauty and wears far better.” She slid a calling card across the linen as if dealing him a losing hand. “You call on Thursday.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“No. You spent twelve years not agreeing to anything. I found it instructive.”

He set his cup down. “If this is to be a recitation—”

“You were seen leaving Mrs. Everly’s card party at dawn in March. Before her, the opera dancer. Before the dancer, the Comte’s widow. The Harrington twins—separately, I’m told, which I suppose we must call discretion.”

“Mother.”

“I kept a list for some years. I abandoned it when it required a second book.” She rose and shook out her skirts. “You enjoyed yourself. I never begrudged you that, and your father certainly never noticed. But your father is dead, the title is yours, and a viscount with no heir is a wager the entire family loses.” At the door she paused, one gloved hand on the frame. “The boy is charming. Try to deserve him.”

She left him with the toast, the card, and the ruins of his morning.

He turned the card over twice. Mrs. Atteberry, Harwood House, Upper Calder Street. An address that meant old money quietly kept, a family that meant no scandal, an omega that meant, presumably, everything his mother had ordered from the catalogue of respectability.

He finished his coffee. It had gone cold, which felt thematic.

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

Thursday arrived like a bill falling due.

He came to Upper Calder Street armed with hothouse roses and his best behaviour, both selected by his valet. The knocker shone, the steps were scrubbed, and the butler wore the calm of a household that ran on rails.

He was shown into a drawing room the colour of good claret, and Percival Atteberry rose to meet him.

The reports had not lied. The boy was lovely—bright-faced and fair, easy in his own skin, with a liver-and-white spaniel investigating his shoes as he bowed.

“Lord Everhill. You’ve brought roses. How reliable of you.”

“I was told they were obligatory.”

“They are. Mama counts them.” He passed the flowers to a maid with the ease of a man handing off a parcel. “This is Nelson. He wants your boots. Ignore him and he loses heart quickly.”

The spaniel gave Wulfric’s boots one hopeful pass, received nothing, and retired to the hearthrug in visible defeat.

They sat. They spoke of the Season, of horses—“I ride badly and with enthusiasm,” Percy offered, which startled an honest laugh out of him—of Lady Wray’s coming garden party, of nothing at all. It was pleasant. It was exactly as pleasant as tea brewed to the correct temperature, and about as memorable.

He caught himself checking the mantel clock and was ashamed of it; the clock had nothing to do with the company. Percy, who plainly saw him do it, only refilled his cup and moved on to the superiority of the ices at Gunter’s, a mercy the boy would apparently extend to anyone.

Then a page snapped.

Wulfric had noticed the room’s other occupant on entering—a figure in the window seat, reading, who had not risen and had not been introduced, which in most houses meant a poor relation or a secretary. The man turned a page with a crisp little snap, and Percy brightened.

“Oh—my brother. Edgar, come and be civil.”

Edgar Atteberry looked up from his book.

He was older than Percy by some years, sandy hair pushed carelessly back, and his light eyes went over Wulfric once, crown to boot, with the interest of a man valuing furniture he did not intend to buy.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

“…Have we met?”

“No. Your reputation arrived years ago.” He turned another page. “It takes up a great deal of room.”

“Room it earned honestly, I hope.”

“Honestly.” Edgar appeared to weigh the word. “Yes, I’ll grant honestly. Nobody has ever accused you of hypocrisy, my lord. It would require you to have professed a principle first.”

“Edgar,” Percy said.

“I’ve said nothing untrue.”

Wulfric produced the smile that had opened half the doors in London. “You have the advantage of me, then, Mr. Atteberry.”

“I usually do.” He closed the book on one finger, marking his place in it as though he intended to mark his place in the conversation the same way. “You’ll forgive me for reading through your arrival. I assumed you’d be along again; the flowers tend to recur.”

“May I ask what holds your attention so thoroughly?”

“You may. It’s the committee report on the Marriage Property Bill. I don’t recommend it—you’d find the ending familiar. Everything the omega owns goes to somebody else.”

“You take an interest in law.”

“I take an interest in losses.” Edgar tilted his head. “Tell me, my lord. The Property Bill, second reading, last session. How did you vote?”

The clock on the mantel filled the pause with ticking. Percy reached for the teapot.

“I was not in attendance.”

“No. You were at Newmarket. The bill fell by nine votes.” A beat. “Your horse won, I understand, so the day wasn’t wholly wasted.”

“You keep a tally of my engagements?”

“I keep a tally of the votes. Your engagements simply appear wherever the votes ought to be.”

“And you follow the divisions closely, for a man with no seat in the House.”

“Someone must. The men with seats are at Newmarket.”

“More tea?” said Percy, radiantly, into the silence.

Wulfric took the cup he did not want and studied the elder Atteberry over its rim. The man had gone back to his report already, unbothered, one thumb smoothing the corner of a page, and it occurred to Wulfric that he had just been dismissed in his own courtship.

“You’ll want the garden,” Edgar said, without looking up. “Percy, show his lordship the roses. The ones out there are still alive.”

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

The garden was small, walled, and immaculate, and Percy walked him down the gravel path with his hands clasped behind his back like a diplomat escorting a defeated power off the field.

“You must forgive my brother.”

“Must I?”

“No,” Percy said, entirely cheerful. “But it’s what one says. He’s read everything and forgiven none of it.”

“Is he always so—”

“Yes.” Percy stooped to right a plant stake the wind had tipped. “Since before I could talk. Mama says he was born disappointed in the government.” He straightened, and for a moment the grin eased into something plainer and fonder. “People used to court him, you know. Now they court around him. He pretends to prefer it.”

“And you’re telling me this because—”

“Because you asked what he was reading,” Percy said. “Callers don’t, as a rule. They wait for him to finish being clever, and then they ask me about the weather.” He tipped his face up to the sun, guileless as a milk pudding. “It’s been very fine lately, hasn’t it.”

Wulfric regarded the omega he had come to court and felt, distinctly, that he had just been moved across a board by a much better player.

“Very fine,” he agreed.

Wulfric glanced back at the house. Through the glass, Edgar had returned to his report as if the drawing room had emptied.

“I hope,” Percy said, resuming his stroll, “that you’ll call again. You’ve survived him once, which puts you ahead of most.”

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

At his club that evening, Gernon found him at the far table with an untouched glass at his elbow.

“There he is. The condemned man.” Gernon dropped into the opposite chair. “How was the respectable omega? I hear he’s charming.”

“He is.”

“Pretty?”

“Very.”

“Well-mannered, good family, plays the pianoforte, worships the ground beneath viscounts?”

“I imagine so.”

Gernon peered at him. “You’ve the look of a man doing sums.”

“I’m perfectly content.”

“You’ve said four words together all evening and your brandy’s still full. Either the boy horrified you or the Frenchman’s cooking has, and I ate the same dinner.” He signalled for cards. “What happened at Upper Calder Street?”

What happened, Wulfric did not say, was that a man in a window seat asked me one question and I have been losing the argument ever since.

“Nothing,” he said. “It went well. I’ll call again.”

“God help us. Everhill, courting. My father owes me twenty pounds.”

They played three hands. Wulfric lost all three, which had not happened since the year he learned the rules.

“Right,” said Gernon, gathering his winnings with deep suspicion. “Whoever it is, I want the name before the betting book gets it.”

“There’s no name.”

“Everhill. I have watched you bluff a marquess out of eight hundred pounds while discussing the fish course. Tonight you discarded to my knave. Twice.” He pocketed the coins. “No name. Fine. I’ll have it by June.”

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

At home he went through the estate letters, poured a brandy, and left it standing on the desk.

The letters were the usual: a roof wanting repair at the Dower House, a dispute over the mill lease, his steward’s low opinion of the barley. He answered two and began a third, and found he had written the bill fell by nine where the date should be.

He looked at it for a while. Then he tore the sheet in half, twice, and went up to bed.

In the dark he reviewed the visit as a gentleman should. The omega he was meant to court: sweet-faced, warm, quick to laugh, easy company. Suitable in every respect. His mother had chosen well, and he could do far worse, and the sensible road lay straight ahead of him, freshly gravelled and clearly signed.

He arranged the pillow. He closed his eyes.

He fell asleep to sandy hair and ink-light eyes and a voice saying the bill fell by nine.

In the morning he blamed the wine at dinner.

He had not, strictly speaking, had any.