Lyall understood a broken heart, but it could not be allowed to rumple perfectly good shirtwaists.

No one ever explained the octopuses.

Lyall had spent centuries nibbling about the great layered cake that was polite society while Lord Akeldama acted the part of the frosting on its top.

Alexia, did you know there is an entire regiment decamping on your front lawn? Laddy Maccon sighed. "Really, Ivy, I would never have noticed.

Later on Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather it mostly involved pain indignity and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And as she told her husband firmly she intended never to go through it again.

Well, my love,” said Alexia with prodigious daring to Lord Maccon, “shall we?” The earl started to move forward and then stopped abruptly and looked down at her, not moving at all. “Am I?” “Are you what?” She peeked up at him through her tangled hair, pretending confusion. There was no possible way she was going to make this easy for him. “Your love?” “Well, you are a werewolf, Scottish, naked, and covered in blood, and I am still holding your hand.” He sighed in evident relief. “Good. That is settled, then.

Lady Maccon cogitated. She would like to encourage this new spirit of social-mindedness. If Felicity needed anything in her life, it was a cause. Then she might stop nitpicking everyone else.