Romance: In Love With A Beast (Paranormal BBW Panther Shifter Romance) (Shapeshifter Mystery Alpha Werebear Romance Short Stories) by Jada Turner

ruddier than yesterday. It didn’t seem to affect his appetite.
    She watched as he stopped eating and rubbed his arm.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing, just a pain in the arm and I keep getting one in my chest.”
    “You should see a doctor.”
    “I haven’t got time for damned Quacks.” He waded back into his breakfast. She looked away.
    “Good morning Sir, M’lady.”
    Diana looked up from her toast to see Jane, her son’s nurse, carrying the one-year-old Michael into the dining room.
    “Good morning Jane,” said Diana.
    Sir Reginald managed a grunt.
    Diana missed having Jane as her Lady’s maid since she promoted her to Nurse. Although unequal in rank, they shared the same sense of humour. Her replacement, Lucy, carried out her duties well, but she didn’t amuse Diana the way Jane had when doing her toilette and caring for her extensive wardrobe.
    Jane had dressed the boy in a blue velvet pair of pants with a matching jacket and a lace-edged white collar. He could have been the subject for a Gainsborough painting had Gainsborough still been alive.
    Diana tickled the boy’s chin and looked into his dark brown eyes that even at his young age seemed to suggest the owner had something special inside. She couldn’t help thinking of his father’s eyes, and remembering how they had made Michael.
    Sir Reginald was too conceited or stupid to realise the boy’s resemblance was not of him. Neither was he aware of her birth control potion that the old gypsy woman supplied to prevent him fathering a child with Diana. He did not know of Richard, the dashing Captain from Wellington’s army for whom Diana abandoned her potion. In fact, Sir Reginald knew very little about what was going on in and around his household. He certainly knew nothing of his wife’s fantasies.
    “Good morning Michael,” said Diana. She stroked his cheek.
    Sir Reginald grunted. He looked over at the boy and Diana. “I hope you are not filling the boy’s head with nonsense again Diana. Sooner he’s packed off to boarding school the better, I say. Make a man of him.”
    “Yes, dear,” said Diana lowering her eyes in pretend submission. Michael would be going to boarding school over her dead body or, the occasional thought had crossed her mind, Sir Reginald’s.
    “I’m going to Chatham, some problems with one of my ships. I could be away for a few days,” said Sir Reginald.
    “What problems?” said Diana trying to keep her tone polite like she was only making conversation.
    “Don’t worry yourself about them. Nothing I can’t handle.”
    “Are you sure you are well enough Reginald?”
    “Of course I am. Stop fussing woman.”
    Diana wasn’t sure if he would be able to handle his problems. She didn’t have a complete grasp of his business. He kept his secrets too well in his locked study. She had heard rumours that he was still shipping slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean and the slave states in America. She knew if the Royal Navy caught one of his ships and they could prove his involvement, all she had and all that Michael would inherit, would be lost. They would be paupers and Sir Reginald would be thrown in gaol.

 
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
     
    Diana watched her husband from the steps of Eylebourne Hall. He climbed painfully into the pony and trap for the ancient, but reliable. Miller to take him to the Mail Coach for Chatham. Although he was usually morose, there was something about her husband today that worried Diana. It wasn’t the same as when he was off on one of his trips to see his several mistresses. She could tell that Sir Reginald, for all his bluster and arrogance, had worry eating away at him.
    She looked up at the sky. The dark clouds had given way to a blue in places. The threatening rain had bypassed them. The scent of jasmine from a climber by the side of the house filtered into her senses. She thought of Richard far away in India among the fragrances of tropical flowers and spices of which she had