Free Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey

herself to the silly little girls of the minor nobility that she had met via the twins. Of course, that was hardly fair; a relatively serious person was not likely to inhabit the same sorts of social circles that the twins did. But if most of the young women that Sebastian had met were like those frivolous little fluff-heads, well—she must be surprising him every time she opened her mouth.
    â€œI imagine I am,” she said dryly, and left it at that.
    He clapped his hands once, and it was her turn to stare, as one of the branched candlesticks on the table lifted up and floated toward her. “Just follow the candles,” he said, a faint look of satisfaction on his face at her surprise. “I hope you like your rooms. When I received word of your coming, I did my best to arrange things so that you would be comfortable.” He paused. “Nevertheless, now that I have met you, I know that all that I am, and all that I have, could not match what you are worth.”
    Well…
    There really was no way to respond to that entirely gallant statement without seeming skeptical, ungrateful or just unpleasant. So she just nodded what she hoped was a properly shaped acknowledgment, and followed the floating candles.
    The entire Manor seemed to have been constructed around the model of murder-corridors connecting lovely rooms. It did make her a little curious, since Redbuck was so far away from anything—what had it been built to defend against? Or had the original Duke simply been ultracautious?
    She got brief glimpses of a small ballroom, what might have been an audience chamber, a parlor and an enormous library—where the spines of most of the books seemed to be made of tin—she was resolved to come back to before the floating candles led her to a corridor that had a dead end with three doors: one on the left hand, one at the dead end and one on the right. The door to the left swung open and the candles proceeded inside. She followed.
    The candles paused for a moment, then set down on a table beside the door. A moment later, heavy curtains she had not seen inthe gloom whisked aside, and sunlight streamed into a very satisfactory parlor, charming and well-appointed even by Genevieve’s exacting standards. She didn’t have any time to admire it, however, for a rose—and how had he managed a rose in the middle of winter?—levitated out of a vase near the window, and with a little wave that seemed to signal that she should follow, it floated over to a door to the left and opened it.
    She limped in through this door to another darkened room—the darkness was quickly remedied as more curtains parted, revealing quite the most wonderful bedroom she had ever seen.
    She was getting used to the fact that there were tapestries on virtually every wall here, and when she thought about it, the fact made sense. These were stone walls and would otherwise be very cold, especially in winter. But whoever had chosen the tapestries for this room had created an especially welcome environment, for they all showed a flowering wood, the sort of woodlands she wanted to run into and lose herself. Once again, what must have been a stone floor had been overlaid with wood except at the hearth, and as if that was not enough, there were carpets at the side of the bed, so the occupant would never find herself stepping barefoot onto a cold floor.
    There was not a great deal of furniture in this room; instead of wardrobes and chests to hold her clothing as she had at home, there was a closet where, through the open door, she could see familiar clothing already hung up. There was a dressing table and mirror and chair, and the bed.
    But such a bed!
    You could bed down an entire family in that bed and they wouldn’t crowd each other, she thought, marveling. A massive canopy was supported by four fat, carved pillars covered with vines and flowers. The headboard was not just a headboard; it supported two lamps on