PAX
The restof the drive up to Town had a gloomy kind of tenseness. After breakfast, Beatrice had withdrawn. To any other, she displayed every omega virtue, but we three knew better.
“I want to ride with her,” I whispered to Jack just before we mounted our horses.
Jack growled, and his scent grated against my senses.
“What?”
“Can you keep your hands off her? Because I could not. I would want to keep my knot in her, and damned that it is an open carriage. Every fibre of my being demands I stay with her, but she needs rest and a chance to gather her thoughts.” His horses danced beneath him, no doubt picking up on his tension. “You heard her. Change. There will be changes, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to see what she was like around other alphas. I don’t want to—”
I pulled my horse across his path, forcing him to pull up. Our eyes met, twisting and voluble. “Alpha, do I need to tell you that we will make this work? She is our mate. Do you hear me? She is my mate—your mate—, and we will work it out.”
I turned my horse and urged it to catch up with the carriage and its precious cargo.
My house looked cold and grey in the afternoon light. It looked empty and lifeless except for a sliver of light cutting vertically through the second floor curtains. But, as if summoned by magic rather than the sound of a carriage and horses, the front door opened and my servants arranged themselves on the pavement, waiting to greet their new mistress.
We alphas dismounted and scrambled to lift Beatrice from the carriage, but an over eager footman was before us, opening the door and offering a hand which she took with a gracious smile. I growled in frustration, biting it off before it became more aggressive. I couldn’t have that. Her thinking us incapable of self restraint in front of our own servants. My jaw clenched, and I looked down at the pavement while I collected myself. I wanted her to like it here. Jack didn’t care much about art. Beatrice was another matter and if she… I knew she wouldn’t reject it. I pictured a life of discussing my collection for hours, or watching her paint. I knew one of her trunks was filled with drawing materials and her sketches. She’d not offered to share them with me… Not yet, at least. But all those hopes rested on my omega accepting her new home.
“Pax!” My head popped up at the sound of my mate’s voice. She stood there, arm through Jack’s, holding a hand out to me. I crossed over the paving stones and pressed a quick kiss to her temple. “We have the rituals to perform.”
I nodded, half distracted by how full her scent was. The other half ran wild with the memory of her last visit, how she’d rejected my proposal. “Welcome home, Vixen.” I bowed over her hand and kissed her knuckles before letting her go.
“Lady Paxton.” My butler Iffley stood in the doorway.
“Lady Paxton,” I hummed my approval. “Go, perform your duties as the omega of this house.”
An omega entering her mate’s home for the first time must be given proof that it was safe, had an appropriate nest, but most importantly, free of the scent of any other omega. Traditionally, they would scent each room in the house. That practice had faded away. Now a member of staff would present a piece of cloth from each room for her to smell.
A change came over our mate as she walked towards the small gathering. Her chin lifted and shoulders drew back—posture now perfect even while I heard her hiss in pain. This was the omega Jack did not know. The omega I did not know. The society omega. A rebel, perhaps, but still trained from birth to make her mark on the Ton. For the first time, I understood her unease. This was an omega we did not know, had never met before. And she was about to demonstrate years of training.
“Lady omega,” my long serving housekeeper curtsied, holding out a silver tray with neatly folded pieces of cloth. Our omega raised each one to her nose and lay it down on the tray carried by another beta servant. Halfway down the line, she froze and took a deep inhale.
“What is this room?” she asked.
“The study,” Mrs Hubbard said.
Beatrice’s posture went stiff, but she put the cloth with the others. When the ceremony finished, she swept into the house, her back still ramrod straight and eyes straight ahead.
“Which cloth?” I asked Mrs Hubbard.
“The blue one—the small sofa in the study. I don’t understand…”
I sniffed it. Nothing. There was no scent on it but the soft one of betas and an almost imperceptible hint of my mate from where she had held it.
“We will have tea in the study first. And canary.”
The household shared furtive glances. They’d gathered to meet their new mistress, who’d walked past them without a second glance. An indifferent omega was no doubt alarming—and so completely unlike the woman I knew her to be. But formalities could wait until I’d discovered what had unsettled my mate.
Beatrice stood in the hall, looking uncertain. Jack slipped past me and with an arm around her waist, led her to the study, which was at the back of the house. A square room with a large desk in the centre and the walls covered with bookshelves rather than paintings. The study was dark. Was every room in my house so dark? I pushed the curtains aside. Not much better, but at least I could now see her face, set in a stoney expression.
“You were displeased by this.” I held the cloth before her. “What is it? I’ve scented it. Nothing.”
“Exactly. Nothing. None of those cloths had your scent.” She sucked her lips between her teeth and frowned at nothing in particular, as if trying to gather her thoughts. “Either of your scents. Do you even live here? Fuck here? Do you do anything here? You said you never go out. Your scent should be everywhere. Yet it is nowhere. Explain that.”
“Because I didn’t want you to smell…” I shrugged. “I supposed you’d prefer no scents so that you could make it your own. A blank slate.”
“I need a nest that smells of my mates, of home. Instead, nothing.”