John nodded.
“What have you discovered?”
“We was cleaning his wounds and couldn’t help noticing a strange smell, Yer Grace.”
“Smell?” That was odd.
“Rather like, well, like a cut of bacon.”
“Bacon?” Hayworth echoed Adam’s response.
“Yes, Yer Grace. And I’m wondering if that might be why the wolves attacked Atlas. They didn’t bother with me and my horse, neither you and Zeus. Not really, considering how intent they was on Atlas. Her Grace might have picked up some of that smell, and that’d be why the pack seemed interested in her, but not as much as Atlas.”
“You spoke of smells, Hayworth.” Adam looked at his steward. “Would bacon be a luring smell?”
Hayworth nodded in confirmation.
“How does a horse come to smell like a cut of meat?” Adam asked John.
“All I can think is one of the stable boys didn’t wash up good after breakfast or was holdin’ on to a piece of bacon in his pocket or sommat, wantin’ to eat it later and got the smell on the horse or saddle or sommat like ’at.” John’s accent always grew cruder when he was upset. Slovenliness among his staff would be upsetting to the man who prided himself on his stable.
“That might account for a slight smell. You seemed to indicate it was stronger than that.”
John raised his hands in a gesture of frustrated confusion. He was obviously at a loss to fully explain it.
“Did the pack ever enter the walls?” Adam asked.
“No, Yer Grace,” John said. “They stayed just outside the gate for a while but then went back into the forest.”
“That is a good sign, Your Grace,” Hayworth said. “They haven’t grown more aggressive, it would seem. They were just too tempted to resist.”
“Talk with your staff,” Adam instructed John. “Find out how this happened. If it had anything to do with the attack, I do not want the same mistake to occur again.”
“Yes, Yer Grace.” John bowed and quit the room in an enormous hurry.
Hayworth took his leave next, promising to report to Adam in a day’s time with a specific plan for dealing with the pack.
Adam propped his elbows on the desk and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Could something as simple as poor washing after breakfast have led to such a grueling ordeal? It hardly seemed possible. How many times had Adam gone for a ride after having kidneys or ham at breakfast? There was no guarantee he had been thorough enough in his ablutions to completely eradicate any lingering aroma. Yet the pack had never attacked him.
He interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on his clasped hands, thinking. John had been right on one count: the pack had been decidedly more interested in Atlas than any of the others. Even Persephone, who had been in the midst of the fray, had sustained more injuries from her fall than from the pack, though that had been an instant from changing when Adam arrived.
The pack had returned to the forest. Adam remembered this information quite suddenly. He got instantly to his feet and crossed to the book room doors. He made his way to the first-floor landing. Either Barton or a footman would be positioned at the front door.
A footman.
Adam thought a moment before recalling the man’s name. “Joseph.”
He looked up.
“Inform Barton that I wish him to send for Mr. Johns in Sifton.” If the pack no longer posed a threat, the apothecary ought to be brought in.
Joseph, the footman, offered a bow and left to deliver the message.
“Adam?” That was Mother’s voice, oddly choked and broken.
He turned around to see her standing just outside the doors of the informal drawing room, balled-up handkerchief in her hands and actual tears on her face. Tears? Adam had never seen his mother cry. Not once in all his life.
“What is it?” Anxiety touched his tone.
