Read A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) Online
Authors: Shawna Reppert
“No,” Chatham said. “At least not directly. The papers were already out before I sent Browne ‘round to break the news as gently as he could. That was badly done, but the reporters got to my daughter before I or anyone else could counsel her, and she was in quite a state and not thinking clearly. Godwin saw those blasted, infernal papers before Browne arrived. He had one clutched in his hand. His heart, most likely, though the coroner will have to have a look.”
Suddenly the air in the room seemed too thin, too hot, and too cold at the same time. “That doesn’t make sense. Except for the leg, he was the strongest, healthiest man alive.”
Chatham shook his head. “You didn’t know? Perhaps he didn’t want to worry you. That would be like him. When they did the surgery on his leg, the doctor discovered a heart murmur. No one knew how long he’d had it. It was why he was retired from the Yard entirely. We would have been happy to keep him on at a desk job and not lose his wisdom and experience, but the doctors advised he avoid stress.”
First Willie, and now Godwin lost to him. Both in different ways, but both just as final.
“I am sorry, Jones.” Chatham sounded sincerely sympathetic. “I know how much he meant to you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Royston managed, though his mouth was dry and his throat thick.
Twenty-nine
“I’m surprised to see you here, Inspector.”
Royston turned to see Bandon striding across Chatham’s manicured lawn. He hadn’t heard from the man since the morning they’d parted ways at Maxfield’s. Well, unless he counted an unsigned folded paper with a rough sketch of a wolf relaxing with a brandy by a fire. That had been waiting with his mail when he finally returned to his flat.
The toff looked well, skin no more pale than normal and the black arm sling nearly invisible against his black formal tail coat. From the open doors of the impressive brick house behind them sounds of laughter and merriment floated on the lazy summer breeze. The day was bright and clear but not too hot, a perfect day for a wedding.
“A gentleman does not begrudge a lady her happiness because his own suit for her hand failed, nor even give the appearance of doing so.” He added in a lower voice, “Nor is it politic to refuse the invitation of one’s superior. I was surprised to be invited, however. I suppose Miss Chatham—Mrs. Browne insisted.”
Royston had snuck off to a rather isolated corner by a primrose hedge to be alone with a pipe and his thoughts, and so they were private enough for candor.
“Or else he thought you would be conspicuous in your absence, since others in your department are present. You are, after all, quite the hero.”
Maybe, but not to the girls who had died because he failed to catch on sooner. Part of Royston’s bonus money had bought Molly a simple gravestone. He had taken flowers out to her grave yesterday. Posies, because she said once that she liked them better than roses.
“Catherine told me your blood test came back negative. Congratulations on not becoming your own tracking ’wolf,” Bandon said. “I’m closer to coming to terms with what I am than I ever have been before, and I have our adventure to thank for that. Still, I wouldn’t wish my fate on another.”
The hour or so between Miss Fairchild drawing his blood and announcing the results had been an eternity of contemplating what it would mean to live with the prejudice and hostility the general public levied against werewolves.
“Catherine was disappointed that you declined our invitation. She said to tell you she is saving a place for you, regardless.”
“It is not that I don’t wish the both of you every happiness,” Royston said quickly. “I certainly don’t hold you in less regard than Browne and his lady. I—”
Bandon cut him off. “Don’t worry. We regret that you will be absent, but we don’t resent it. I understand why you would not feel comfortable. Catherine does as well, though she pretends not to.”
Royston glanced back toward the house. “Here, at least, there are others to whom I am at least close to being an equal.”
Bandon frowned. “Catherine and I consider you to be at least an equal to any in our acquaintance. But I do understand that the old divisions and differences still stand in the minds of many. Maybe someday, it will not be so.”
Royston fiddled with his unlit pipe. A bit of tobacco would steady his nerves, still on edge from being a guest in a house where he was only nominally welcomed by the host. He filched his tobacco case back out of the pocket of his best formal jacket and offered it to Bandon. “Care for a smoke? It’s the last of Godwin’s.”
He had left it to Royston, along with all of his worldly goods. He might have had enough to survive long enough to find another career path, but that wasn’t what Godwin would have wanted for him. Ultimately, it wasn’t what he wanted for himself.
With the inheritance on top of his detective’s salary, he was better off than he’d ever hoped to be. He’d rather have Godwin back.
Bandon shook his head. “I didn’t bring a pipe. Catherine disapproves of the habit.”
Royston took a second pipe out of his jacket pocket. “Godwin’s as well.”
Bandon glanced over his shoulder, probably looking for Miss Fairchild. “I would be honored, then.”
Since the man was incapacitated by the sling, Royston packed the pipe for him and helped him to light it. They smoked in companionable silence for a few moments.
“I would have rather thought you would consider yourself well rid of me,” Royston said. “How’s the shoulder?”
Bandon glanced down at the sling. “Healing well, thank you.” He looked around, then added in a quiet voice, “It will be a while before I’m up for another hunt.”
“I wouldn’t ask you again,” Royston assured him. “I’ve learned my lesson about drafting civilians.”
Bandon gazed off into the middle distance. “Shame. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Royston almost dropped his pipe. “Are you insane? I nearly got you killed.”
“But you didn’t. And we stopped a killer.” He drew deep from the pipe, then blew the smoke out slowly. “You risk your life every day to make London safer for those who can’t protect themselves. This whole experience has brought home that there are bigger and more serious problems than whether Lord Pemberton cheats at whist. Which he does, by the way, most outrageously.” He inhaled again from the pipe. “Maybe it started before this, watching Catherine work so hard to help werewolves. I started to feel like I should do something useful to the world.”
“Landed gentry don’t work, you know.” Once, Royston would have leveled that as an accusation. The teasing tone in his own voice surprised him.
“And werewolves aren’t invited to society weddings.” Bandon flashed a grin. “We share blood now, you and I. The natives of the Americas would say that makes us brothers.”
“Indeed.” Royston blew smoke out slowly to express how little he credited the assertion.
“Indeed.” Bandon bounced once on the balls of his feet, wolf energy shining through the gentlemanly exterior. “Also, you saved my life. I believe that means it belongs to you.”
Miss Fairchild might have an opinion on that. “You saved my life first, when you took a bullet to stop Willie. So where does that leave us?”
“Inextricably linked, I'd say.” Bandon’s broad, boyish smile made him seem at least a decade younger than he was. “I’ve come to know you, come to know your dedication. Sooner or later, you’ll have another case where my other self will be needed, and you won’t be able to resist doing anything you can to get a dangerous criminal off the streets. I’m just letting you know that I’m amenable.”
The Beauchamp case came to mind, though that was by now so old that there would be no scent markers. He couldn’t even blame Chatham—much—for refusing to let him open it. But another case would come where he was stumped, lives were on the line, and the scents were fresh and, yes, it would be hard to resist the temptation.
Royston was saved from responding by the new Mrs. Browne’s voice trilling from the steps of the house. “Mr. Jones, there you are. My dear Mr. Jones, you must come in. We’re just about to cut the cake.”
The sun shone in her hair, and her white dress floated about her like soft summer clouds. Any faint bittersweet of might-have-been was lost in the savor of seeing her beautiful, vibrant, and
alive.
Not enough to banish the shades of the dead girls entirely, or to make him forget the evils that still lurked in the dark corners of London, but still it was something.
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About the author:
Shawna Reppert, an award-winning author of fantasy and steampunk, is proud of keeping readers up all night and making them miss work deadlines. She believes that fiction should ask questions for which there are no easy answers, while at the same time taking the reader on a fine adventure that grips them heart and soul and keeps them turning pages until the very end. To that purpose, she took workshops and seminars from the likes of David Farland, Donald Maass, Elizabeth Lyon, and Charles de Lint.
“Definitely give this author a chance,” says one reader, “her storytelling will draw you in. Her style is just a hint of Andre Norton, a dash of J. K. Rowling, and the tiniest pinch of Anne Rice. The rest is her own unique stamp.”
Her debut novel, The Stolen Luck, won a silver medal for original-world fantasy in the Global Ebooks Awards and an Eppie for fantasy romance. The first book of her Ravensblood urban fantasy series won a gold medal for contemporary fantasy, as did its sequel, Raven’s Wing.
Two of her short stories won Honorable Mention in the prestigious Writers of the Future contest, and her steampunk werewolf story, The Beast Within, appears in the anthology Gears and Levers 2 edited by Phyllis Irene Radford.
Shawna’s love of live Irish music and dance frequently influences her work. She has an affinity for wolves and used to keep a wolf hybrid as a pet, a background which helps her put the wolf in her werewolves. Her current four-footed children are a Lipizzan stallion and a black-and-orange cat named Samhain who occasionally takes over her blog.
Shawna also likes to play with the Society for Creative Anachronism, and can sometimes be found in medieval garb on a caparisoned horse, throwing javelins into innocent hay bales that never did anything to her.
She grew up in Pennsylvania, and now lives in the beautiful wine country of Oregon. Each has colored her writing in different ways.
You can find her work on Amazon. Friend her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter, where she posts an amazing array of geekery, including history tidbits, Whovian memes, Trek humor, writing tips, and pics of David Tennant in a kilt.
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