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prospects in life even if it is only better positions in household servitude. Were you given any education?"
    "Course I was. Went to a National school," the girl said. It was the first she had yet spoken.
    "Then you know how important learning is."
    "I suppose it would be for folks moving to the cities and planning to work with machines and such. We have better skills to learn around here."
    "Do you want to stay on the Marquess' land all your life?"
    "Course I do. Who would not? He treats us good and the wages is fair. He understands his people in ways most don't. Rarely ever heard a renter complain of him."
    "That says a lot for him," Sophronia agreed.
    "Shame you did not get the life you were hoping for," the girl said though Sophronia was not sure if she meant it or was merely humoring her. She supposed it was her own fault and she did not deserve any pity from this girl or anyone else. If she and Eldon had not had their night of poor judgment she might have lived the life she dreamed of.
    "Do you need anything else?" the girl asked. She had finished unpacking her clothes.
    "Not at this time," Sophronia said.
    "There is a cord on the wall if you do," she said indicating a rope that likely sounded a bell downstairs.
    When Sophronia was finally alone she sunk into the bed and closed her eyes. Life was too complicated. She did not want to deal with any of it. Not now. She had gone from a woman on her way to academics to a woman bound as a wife until death. Life was strange.
     
     
    Nathaniel opened the door. Since his wedding had ended he had spent several hours training his dogs but the evening was closing in and both he and the dogs were drained.
    He intended to retire to his chamber but as he walked past the study his father called to him and he was obliged to enter the study and take a seat.
    "I am ordering a small house built for you and your wife. It will be on the east corner of our holdings. It will not be fancy but it should suffice for your domestic needs."
    "That will mean quite a walk to get to my dogs," Nathaniel protested. He leaned forward in his chair and met his father's eyes.
    "It will," his father agreed.
    "And I will have to stay here during breeding season so that I can be easily reached if a bitch starts whelping."
    "I am sure Eldon will have no objection to that."
    "It is not natural for one of our kind to be so far from his kin."
    "I am sending you across our land. Not across an ocean."
    "Uncle Jeremiah lived in this house all his life."
    "He chose never to marry."
    "Would you have thrown your own brother out of his home if he had taken a wife?" Nathaniel asked. His uncle had always been kind to him but he had been injured during the war and had never fully recovered.
    "I am not throwing you out. You and your bride may visit anytime you like."
    "Do not call her my bride. She is merely my wife. I will care for her and the pup inside her, assuming there even is one. That does not make her my bride. Bride would indicate some affection for her and I have none."
    "Affection will grow in time."
    "I do not care if it grows at all. She is no use to me. You certainly do not need my sons for inheritance. I do not even have a use for sons as inheritors of my dog breeding endeavors. I have heard suggestions that steam cars will be the wave of the future." Nathaniel leaned back and crossed his arms.
    "That is crazy talk."
    "Is it? Trevithick is just one of many werewolves that wish to see an alternative to horses. How much easier would our lives be if machines could get us from place to place? It would certainly keep that daft Society for Prevention of Cruelty Towards Animals off our backs. It also would allow us to travel places our dogs cannot pull carriages to. No one has yet to breed a dog sturdy enough to be ridden and it is more likely that machines rather than beasts will be the future of transportation. What I am doing will be obsolete by the time I am old and gray. Maybe sooner." He had heard such