Page 44 of Omega's Virtue: Part Two (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 3)

“As you no doubt did her before crawling to my drawing room on your belly asking for my help.”

“I seek to help you. Pay attention. When an alpha and omega decide to pursue a mating, they give each other mating gifts. There is a courting process. The omega is normally so much younger. With you and your mates, all of that is thrown out the window. Beatrice has run her mother’s household. She is a woman grown and that will make it far harder for her to fit into a new routine than a naïve omega in their first season. You’d have faced some different challenges if you’d met socially. But not only do you three have your own ways of living, but you must have the most protracted courtship. What? Barely two weeks between seeing her at Ayleigh and mating her? That might be stuff fit for novels. Reality, however, has other thoughts. You are well served that Bea and Fordom have a history and that you suit her so well. If you had just… Consider if things were not so good between them. If she truly did hate him for leaving? I was the one to hold her when she cried that first year. She is as dear to me as my own flesh and blood.”

“Have you finished your lecture?” I snapped. She made me feel like a school boy who’d gotten his lessons wrong. “I know how wrong I was.”

“I could go on. However…” She reached out and took my hand in both of hers. “My Lord. Beatrice is like another daughter to me. I am not blind to her worse qualities—though her recklessness seems playful in my eyes—but her good parts are good. So good. When you have earned her love, which is another thing you are learning, you will find it is a fearsome thing.”

“And how do I manage that when she won’t share her nest with us!” I froze. I’d never meant to reveal that to another soul.

“You buy her presents. Fuckin’ posh twat not knowing how to get to an omega’s heart.” Dixon laughed from the door. I’d not noticed the larger alpha coming in. “Don’t pull up stiff, my lord. Buy her something pretty. They might huff and deny it, but every omega loves a trinket of affection. They collect things from their mates.”

“Tosh!” Mrs Markham laughed.

“How many snuff boxes do you own, CeCe?”

The omega’s scent sparked, but she smiled at the alpha, who lounged in the door.

“I take my leave of you.”

I bowed to Mrs Markham, whose face was now pink with embarrassment.

“I’ll walk you out.”

At the door, Dixon caught my elbow. “I hope we can count on your discretion? She is a widow. And I value her privacy.”

“Naturally.”

There was no question where I would find a gift for my omega. Dixon had suggested something she could collect? Only one thing met that requirement.

Henry Nock’s duelling pistols were without doubt my favourite so it was to him I headed with all haste and not a little embarrassment that I was so quick to heal the breach between myself and my mate with some gift rather than the grovelling apology I knew she deserved. They could go hand in hand. I smiled. She’d enjoy being given pistols while I implored her to forgive me.

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