Page 12 of Wolf’s Return (The Wolves of Langeais #4)

D’Artagnon let the conversation flow over him, a forgotten participant slumbering by the fire.

It would take time for the little healer to read through every potion and every page of her grimoire.

More to test the dosages of any herb she thought might be useful.

He yawned and stretched his legs, then rested his muzzle on his paws, his gaze fixed on the happenings at the table.

He would be long gone before she found a solution.

Erin rose. “Well, if Constance is going to be busy reading her grimoire, I am going to get your father’s journal, Gaharet, and see if I can find out about the witch Old Tumas spoke about.”

Constance paused, a page part turned. She was as curious about the witch as his brother’s mate.

“Perhaps she was part of your coven, Constance. Or one of your ancestors,” said Erin, heading for the door. “Heterochromia—when a person has two different colored eyes—is a genetic mutation that often runs in families.”

Constance stiffened. Talking about her eyes made her uncomfortable. Again, the compulsion to comfort her seized him, but he resisted it and kept his place by the fire. A few more days and such emotion would no longer trouble him.

Ulrik leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Constance, when we met, you said Rebekah was not the first woman to come through time, and she would not be the last.”

Erin returned with the journal and began paging through it.

“I assume Marie was the first. Then Erin, then Rebekah. There are more coming?” Ulrik asked. “Do you know when?”

“I believe there will be others, but”—Constance shook her head—“I do not know when. My visions are not always clear. Sometimes it is more of a knowing than a vision. I know there will be more women from the future, but I cannot tell you who they are, or where they will appear. That I was given to know this suggests I will meet them.” She shrugged.

“But that could be tomorrow, or when I am an old woman. Unless I get another vision, I have no way of telling. I am sorry.”

Erin frowned. “I never believed in seers and the like. In my time, there are many charlatans telling gullible people what they want to hear while trying to fleece them of their money. But I will admit, from what I’ve heard from Gaharet and Aimon, you sound like the real deal.

Though it seems to me it’s not as helpful as it sounds.

More like random snippets of information and half-assed answers. That must be so frustrating.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Constance. “More than one time in my life I would have wished for clear knowledge, to be certain of exactly what the vision is telling me, but it is not my experience of how second sight works.”

D’Artagnon’s instincts perked up. She was holding back. Not lying, but hiding something all the same. Something about her visions. She caught his gaze and ducked her head down, her fingers fiddling with the cuff of her dress. Yes, she was definitely hiding something. But what?

Constance continued to study her grimoire, page after page. Occasionally, she would lean forward, her attention caught by a passage, or a word. Then she would press on. The tension in his shoulders eased. That she remained silent suggested she had yet to find anything of use.

Erin flicked through the journal, equally engrossed.

“Listen to this.” Erin smoothed her hand across a page.

“It’s not about the witch Old Tumas spoke of, but it caught my eye and it’s interesting.

It says here a woman, dressed most unusually, turned up in your great grandfather’s time, Gaharet.

He was out for a run. He made special note of it here because, and I quote, ‘ I had not caught scent of her until the moment she suddenly appeared in front of me. Though I stood as a wolf, she showed no hint of fear, but held her ground and spoke to me as though I were a man.’”

Gaharet tugged at his beard. “Spoke to him as though he were a man, not a wolf? That suggests she knew what he was. And he did not catch her scent until she appeared in front of him . ” He turned to Erin.

“That is similar to how we met, though I shifted before you saw me as a wolf. I wonder, did this woman also travel through time?” He leaned closer to his mate, peering at the journal. “Does it say anything further?”

“Yes.” Erin read on. “ Though she spoke Franceis, her inflections were strange to me, her accent broad and rounded, like no other I have ever encountered. As though she was from some faraway land. She asked me if I knew her, and I confessed I did not. Then she told me her name and waited, as though the mere mention of it should have meaning. It did not. She retreated, and I moved to follow her, but one of my pack called me back. A rivalry between two males over a female had turned deadly. On the morrow, I searched for her, but as with her arrival, her departure left no trace. I sent queries to the closest villages. None had heard of her either. Her name was Cordelia. ”

“It does sound as though she was from the future,” agreed Gaharet. “I suspect the encounter was much like ours. I could fathom less than half of the things you said upon our meeting.”

Erin worried her bottom lip. “I wonder what happened to her? Did she find her way home, or was she stuck here somewhere? And accent broad and round. Maybe an American?”

American? What was that?

His brother’s mate was a knowledgeable one.

Curious, and forthright in her opinions, too.

A good match for his brother. Beside her, Constance seemed almost timid.

Yet there was a quiet strength in her, a persistent resilience.

She was a survivor, navigating life’s vagaries with a fortitude more common of a seasoned warrior.

“Here’s something about the witch Old Tumas said the villagers cast out.” Erin looked up from the journal. “She was young. As in, young enough to have an infant.”

Constance gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. His brother recoiled, his distaste thick in the air.

Ulrik shifted in his seat. “If your grand-pére was anything like your father, I do not see him taking such a course of action without reason, Gaharet.”

Neither did D’Artagnon. He had only heard of one person cast out from the village.

By his father. A slovenly stable hand named Didier.

He had attacked Marie, dragged her to the stables and tried to force his attentions on her.

Didier was lucky her mate Victor had not killed him.

And fortunate his father had decreed his punishment banishment and not death.

“And it says here her name was also Cordelia.” Erin cocked her head. “That’s an uncanny coincidence.” She shared a look with Gaharet. “We should talk to Old Tumas. See what he remembers.”

Unease prickled up D’Artagnon’s spine. It was an uncanny coincidence.

Two women of different generations, both mentioned in his father’s journal.

Both named Cordelia. It was not a common name.

It might mean nothing, but the clench of his gut and the discordant clang in his mind had his instincts screaming. Did his brother feel it, too?

“We have enough trouble without borrowing more.” Gaharet nodded at the little healer. “But I see no harm in Constance talking to Tumas if she wishes. There might be, as you have suggested, a family connection.”

Anne lumbered into the room, a covered bowl scenting of herbs and honey in her hands. “If you need to speak to Old Tumas, I have the perfect excuse for you to go see him.” Anne set the bowl in front of Constance. “This is the paste for the old grouch’s boils.”

D’Artagnon wrinkled his nose. He did not envy Old Tumas.

Gaharet’s steward stepped into the room and handed a parchment to his brother. “From the Langeais Keep Guard, Mon Seigneur.”

Gaharet snapped the seal and opened the missive.

His brother grunted. “It seems our time is up. Comte Lothair has summoned us all to Langeais Keep to renew our vows of fealty in three days hence.” Gaharet stood.

“Farren and Aimon, I leave it to you to ensure this keep is well fortified and the men are prepared. If we are to leave my pregnant mate, along with the other mates, I would know they are safe. Ulrik, get word to the others that we are to meet outside the keep. We will enter together. United. Send messages to the others, including Godfrey, if he has returned. If not, have our man ask around the Lagarde estate. See if anyone knows anything. And have him talk to Godfrey’s steward and find out if Lance has been there. ”

Ulrik got to his feet with a scrape of his chair. “Perhaps I should go to the Lagarde estate in person.”

D’Artagnon half rose.

“No,” said Gaharet. “I am not willing to risk another member of our pack, nor leave Rebekah without a mate.”

D’Artagnon eased himself back to the floor.

“But you sent Lance to check on Godfrey,” said Ulrik. “After we rescued Rebekah from Langeais. It surprised me you did, since we cannot be sure we can trust him.”

“I had little choice. I had to send someone. Lance and Godfrey were childhood friends. If I sent anyone else, he would have suspected something was amiss. If Godfrey is the one who has betrayed us, then Lance is match enough for him.”

Ulrik raised an eyebrow. “And if Lance is the traitor and Godfrey has fallen afoul of him?”

Gaharet scrubbed a hand across his face. “Then sending Lance to the Lagarde estate will change nothing.”

“But what about Godfrey?”

“There is little we can do for him now.”

The downturn of Gaharet’s mouth, the tightness around his eyes a measure of the cost such decisions were taking on his brother.

“D’Artagnon, take Constance to see Old Tumas. He needs his boil poultice. I do not need him any grumpier than usual.” Gaharet tapped the missive from Comte Lothair on the table. “Two women named Cordelia…”

His brother did feel it. D’Artagnon would go with Constance. He would hear what Old Tumas had to say. Perhaps he might learn something more and put to rest this uncertain feeling surrounding these two women. This was one burden he could relieve his brother of. Soon, he would relieve him of another.

Gaharet crumpled the parchment from Lothair as Constance, the bowl of pungent herbs in her hand, followed his brother from the hall.

He wanted this traitor caught and held to account for his crimes.

Needed the threat to the pack gone. But he wanted his brother back more.

Constance was the best hope his brother would shift forms, and not because of her skills with herbs, her knowledge of their kind, or her second sight.

As the men departed and the women retired to the library, Anne came to stand beside him. “It is not my place, Gaharet, but…”

Amusement rippled through him, and he raised an eyebrow at his old cook. “Since when has that ever deterred you, Anne? From saying what is on your mind or taking action?”

“I…” She brushed at the flour on her apron. “Well…I confess I may have meddled a little with you and Erin.”

Gaharet chuckled. “I know.” He gave the old woman an indulgent smile. “And you have my eternal gratitude. Without your actions, Erin and I may not have sorted out our differences.”

Anne beamed. Gaharet could afford the little untruth. Nothing would have prevented him from claiming his Erin.

“And I…uhm…”

Gaharet had never seen the old woman flustered like this.

“I may have meddled some more with Kathryn and Aimon.”

He bit back a grin. “Mmm.”

“But I have noticed D’Artagnon is rather fond of Constance. He has barely left her side since she got here.”

“I have noticed that myself.”

“He slept on the bed with her last night. Covered the blankets in dark fur that the maids had a devil of a time getting off.”

“He did, did he?”

“For whatever reason D’Artagnon remains in wolf form, perhaps he just needs the right…encouragement?”

“I was thinking much the same.” Gaharet crossed his arms and looked down at the woman who had been a constant presence in his life since he was a boy. “What do you have in mind, Anne?”

“Well, I had not thought of anything in particular…”

Gaharet doubted that was true. The old woman was a bigger schemer than Archeveque Renaud had been, but with Anne, none of her actions were self-serving. “Anne.”

She harrumphed. “Well, I… I must confess, I have been giving some thought to D’Artagnon’s problem. I think the only thing that will make that boy shift is that girl.”

“You think so?”

“Are you telling me you do not think Constance is D’Artagnon’s mate?

What, with the way he follows her, unable to leave her side.

How he looks at her when she is not paying attention.

” She pointed a flour-dusted finger at him.

“The same way you look at Erin. The way your father looked at your mother.”

“I will tell you no such thing, Anne, for I believe you are right. Constance is D’Artagnon’s mate.”

She fisted her hands on her hips. “Of course I am right.”

“Then what is your plan, Anne?”

“Leave it with me, Gaharet. I will come up with something.”

“Good.” Gaharet turned to leave. “Oh, and Anne, from now on, you have my permission to meddle to your heart’s content.”