Raised By Wolves Volume four- Wolves Read Online Free

tol’ ya?”
“Aye,”I said. “Congratulations, truly, that is wonderful.”
    “Aye,”I said. “Congratulations, truly, that is wonderful.” I tried to keep my concern at Liam’s seeming reluctance from my face—though I thought I well understood his possible doubts. He was the ardent defender of Brethren propriety and comportment: ever preaching about how a man should always stand byhis matelot in the face offemale interlopers. Yet, he had been alone after his beloved Otter died, and he was not a man like me:one who preferred men.
    He looked down at Henrietta and smiled in a manner that erased all my fears about whether or not he was devoted to the endeavor.
    “I am pleased you have found someone after Otter,” Gaston said for us, and I nodded my agreement and embraced our old friend.
    Liam nodded sheepishly. “Aye, I just been worried that there might be those that think I be plannin’ on becomin’ a planter or the like now. Na’ that I want ta rove, mind ya, but…”
“I understand,”I said.
    He grinned and looked at his wife again. He frowned. “Well, ya canna’ see it like ya can on Lady Montren, but… We be expectin’ too.”
    Henrietta laughed merrily, even as she smacked her husband on the arm. “Aye, ya lout, I na’ be a skinny thing. An’ I na’ be as far along, neither,”she added to Gastonand me.
    We gave our congratulations.
Agnes joined us, and I realized she had been gone. Rucker and Bones were hovering nearby, happily watching our exchange with Liam, but Sarah, Striker, and Pete were missing and I guessed they might have gone to look in on a child dear to and I guessed they might have gone to look in on a child dear to their hearts.
“While we wait for the Theodores to arrive,”Agnes said quickly, “I have a thing to show you.” She waved a folded missive witha seal.
We took our leave of the others and followed her into the parlor witha lamp.
“It arrived months ago, but the Marquis sent a note for me sayingI should not openit, but I should give it to youas soon as you returned,” Agnes said as Gaston broke his father’s seal and beganto read.
I was soon alarmed as my matelot’s composure slipped and then disintegrated to such extent that when he finished the letter he threw it on the floor and went to pace at the other end ofthe room.
Agnes regarded me with concern, and I stooped to pick up the pages and took the seat Gaston had vacated and began reading. She perched onthe edge ofthe settee and watched me.
“It is bad news, isn’t it?”Agnes whispered. “Is he well?”
It was not good news: it was awful. Christine was pregnant. Gaston’s father believed it to be his son’s: the get of Gaston’s one unfortunate and violent pairing with her. And that was not the worst of it. Christine’s father, Sir Christopher Vines, had contacted her mother’s family in France: a noble house headed by her uncle the Duke of Verlain. Vines had told them his daughter was married to Gaston, the Comte de Montren, the son of the Marquis de Tervent. Christine was apparently not willing to contradict her father. I surmised she sought Gaston’s name in retribution for… well, our handling of her. She was name in retribution for… well, our handling of her. She was seeking what we had once offered her, a man’s name—without the manattached to it—so that she could do as she would.
Gaston’s father was willing to go along with this if Christine produced a son. To that end, he advised Gaston to wait before trying to get an heir upon Agnes, prayed his son would understand, and apologized profusely for asking such a
thing. I gazed up at Agnes and saw her belly. It was a damn
    good thing my matelot had not been inclined to dipping his wick in women prior to last December: he might have populated the island.
“Have youwritten him—the Marquis—about the baby?”
    I asked Agnes.
“Nay,” she said. “I thought… Gaston should. And,
though Mister Rucker has been tutoring me in French