by Emily Larkin
“Good evening, sir,” he said, in a soft, shy Hampshire voice. He bobbed a timid curtsy, crossed to the mantelpiece, and placed the vase there. He spent a minute rearranging the flowers, giving the baron time to notice the curves of his waist and hips and buttocks, then he turned around and let the man see how pretty his face was and how well his breasts filled the bodice of his gown. He curtsied again and said in a meek little voice, “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”
The baron’s gaze drifted to Octavius’s breasts and then down to his waist. He smiled.
It wasn’t a nice smile.
Octavius’s pulse gave an exultant leap. He made himself cringe from the baron’s gaze. “Sir?”
“Come here,” the baron said.
Octavius went with slow, reluctant steps and a galloping heart. “Sir?” he said again, when he was standing in front of the baron.
“Closer,” the baron said.
Octavius shuffled nearer, until his skirts brushed one of the baron’s knees. “Sir?” he said, in a timorous whisper.
The baron reached out and fondled Octavius’s hip.
Octavius couldn’t stop himself recoiling. He moved without conscious thought, taking a step back.
The baron lost his smile. His eyebrows drew together in their familiar scowl. “Closer, I said.”
Rage ignited in Octavius’s chest. He bowed his head submissively and made himself step close enough for his skirts to brush the baron’s knee again.
Rumpole laid a hand on Octavius’s hip and fondled that plump curve. Octavius gritted his teeth and stared at the floor, enduring the caress. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Fury choked his throat, making speech impossible.
The baron slurped another mouthful of port and dug his fingers into the roundness of Octavius’s hip. “Sit on my lap.”
Octavius couldn’t prevent another recoil. He managed not to step back this time. He also managed to find his voice. “Sir, I don’t—”
“You want to work for me, then you’ll do as I tell you.” Rumpole squeezed his hip painfully.
Octavius raised his gaze and looked at the baron. He didn’t think he’d ever despised anyone as much as he despised Rumpole. He wanted to pick the man up and fling him across the room, wanted to beat conscience and compassion and kindness into him.
But you couldn’t beat those things into someone. People either had them, or they didn’t. And Baron Rumpole didn’t.
“Sit,” the baron said, with another painful squeeze of Octavius’s hip.
Octavius let his magic flow through him, giving him Amelia Rumpole’s face and Amelia Rumpole’s hair. “You vile and contemptible worm!” he cried. He raised his right hand and the sword flew into it.
This time it was Rumpole who recoiled. He released Octavius and flung himself back in the armchair. Port sprayed from his glass.
The mobcap levitated off Octavius’s head. His hair uncoiled and began to stream behind him.
Rumpole uttered a horrified croak. He threw aside his glass and tried to scramble out of the armchair. The chair fell over backwards—Octavius wasn’t sure whether that was Dex’s doing or not, but he knew Dex was responsible for the way in which Rumpole rose off the floor.
Rumpole gave a terrified choked-off wail. His arms and legs windmilled frantically.
Octavius found himself rising in the air, too. For once, it didn’t bother him. He was filled with a savage, exultant glee. “You vile and contemptible worm!” he cried again, flourishing the sword. “You filthy debaucher! You loathsome molester of women!”
Rumpole flailed desperately, trying to retreat, but he couldn’t move from his position in the midair any more than Octavius could. Both of them were at Dex’s mercy.
“The time has come for you to pay for your wickedness,” Octavius informed the baron. He felt like an avenging angel, sword aloft, his hair and skirts flowing behind him.
Rumpole shook his head wildly. “No,” he cried. “Please! Amelia!”
“I have chosen your punishment,” Octavius said, in as booming and godlike a voice as his female throat was capable of.
Rumpole shook his head again. “Please, Amelia . . .”
“It is castration!”
Rumpole clawed futilely at the air, realized he was trapped, and burst into tears. “No, no, please, no . . .”
Octavius waved the sword in the direction of Rumpole’s groin. Candlelight glinted off the blade.
The baron shielded his crotch with his hands. “Please,” he begged, through his tears. “Please! I won’t do it again! I promise!”
“Your promises are worth nothing,” Octavius told him. “Your heart is vile and corrupt!”
Dex brought Rumpole a little closer to the sword. The baron’s voice rose in a shriek: “I promise! Never again! I promise, I promise!” He was crying loudly and messily, so frightened he was almost incoherent.
Octavius stopped feeling exultant. All of a sudden he didn’t feel like an avenging angel; he felt like a bully.
“Please!” the baron implored him, sniveling and sobbing. He was kneeling in midair now, abasing himself, groveling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise!”
Their plan had worked. They’d scared Rumpole into a change of heart. But Octavius’s strongest emotion right now wasn’t triumph; it was shame that he’d reduced a man to such a state of terror.
The smell of urine was suddenly pungent in the library. Rumpole had wet himself.
Octavius felt even more ashamed. Hurry up and get this over with, he told himself.
“There will be no second chance,” he boomed. “Do you understand me? If you force your attentions on even one more woman, I will return and castrate you.”
The baron cowered beneath his gaze. “I understand,” he babbled. “I promise I won’t. I promise, I promise, I promise!”
Octavius felt revulsion. Revulsion for the baron—and revulsion for himself. “You are the basest and most contemptible worm to ever crawl upon this earth,” he told Rumpole coldly. “I won’t have my children anywhere near you. You will give them to my brother to raise.”
“He can have them,” the baron cried. “I’ll give them to him. I promise!”
“A legal document, signed and witnessed.” Octavius extended his arm until the tip of the sword touched Rumpole’s chest. “Tomorrow morning.”
The baron cringed from that bright, sharp blade. “I will! I will! I promise! Tomorrow!”
“If you break either of your promises, I shall return.”
“I won’t break them,” Rumpole said frantically. “I won’t! I promise!”
Octavius hung there for a moment, his hair and skirts wafting behind him, the sword tip resting on Rumpole’s chest, and then he glanced at the alcove and gave Dex a nod.
Dex nodded back, and as he nodded the baron began to float towards the furthest corner of the library. Rumpole turned in the air as he drifted. By the time he reached the corner, he was facing the wall. Dex lowered the baron to the floor.
“Kneel there,” Octavius told the man sternly. “Kneel and pray for your soul.”
Rumpole obediently stayed on his knees, snuffling and sobbing.
Dex set Octavius down on the floor. It was a relief to stand on solid ground again and even more of a relief that it was all over.
They tiptoed hastily to the door. Octavius turned the key. Dex slipped through first, the sword sheath in one hand and Octavius’s mobcap in the other. Octavius cast a glance back at the library—at the tipped-over armchair and the port glass lying on the floor and the baron kneeling in the far corner—then he stepped out into the corridor and quietly closed the door.
Chapter Thirty
“That was capital sport,” Dex said, once they’d reached the safety of Octavius’s room. “Capital!”
Octavius grunted, and tossed the sword on his bed.
“Rumpole’s going to be a monk from now on,” Dex said, flinging himself down in the armchair. “Mark my words. A monk
!”
Octavius grunted again.
Dex cocked his head at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Octavius couldn’t articulate how he felt because he didn’t understand it himself. He settled for shaking his head.
“What?” Dex asked.
Octavius shrugged, and said the first thing that entered his head: “He wet himself.”
Dex shrugged, too. “Serves him right.”
Octavius frowned.
Dex frowned back at him. “What?” he said. “You don’t think so? He tried to rape you at Vauxhall.”
“I know,” Octavius said. “I know.” He sighed, and rubbed his forehead. His hair hung around his face. The wrong hair, the wrong face, the wrong body. “Get me out of these clothes, will you?”
He undressed in silence and changed back into himself. The relief was enormous. He took a moment to be grateful for it: his own ears, his own eyes, his own hands, his own voice.
“Here.” Dex tossed him his nightshirt.
Octavius didn’t feel like going to bed. What he most wanted to do was to go for a very long walk, to climb the hanger and wander for hours along the hilltops, to clear his head and his lungs and his conscience—if such a thing were possible.
But it was past ten o’clock. Too late for long, solitary country walks.
He pulled on the nightshirt.
“You going to tell me what’s wrong?” Dex asked.
Octavius sighed, and rubbed his forehead again. This time it was his own face, his own hair. “It made me feel like a bully.”
“A bully?” Dex gave an incredulous laugh. “You’re not a bully, Otto.”
“I stood over Rumpole and threatened him until he wet his breeches. If that’s not bullying, I don’t know what is.”
“It was justice,” Dex said. “Justice for every female Rumpole has ever forced to swive him.”
Yes, it had been justice. But Octavius had always thought that justice would feel right, not wrong.
“He’ll keep doing it forever, if someone doesn’t stop him.”
“I know,” Octavius said. “We had to do it, it’s just . . . I don’t like how it made me feel.”
To beat a bully, he’d become a bully.
Dex eyed him for a long moment, then shook his head. “You’re softer than I thought you were.”
Was he soft? He didn’t think so. He just hadn’t liked scaring another person so badly that he wet himself.
“What about the valet?” Dex asked. “You going to just let him get away with it?”
Octavius thought about Lord Rumpole sobbing and pleading in the library, the smell of urine—and then he thought about the valet attacking him on the stairs, the suddenness of it, the violence. “No. We’ll do him tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Lord Newingham usually knocked on the schoolroom door not long after breakfast. That morning he didn’t make an appearance. Neither did Lord Octavius. Or Mr. Pryor. Pip tried not to worry, but it was impossible not to. Had something gone wrong last night?
An hour passed. Arithmetic gave way to French verbs, and still Lord Newingham didn’t come. Edie and Fanny were restless and fidgety. “Where’s Uncle Robert?” Fanny asked, a whining note in her voice, when Pip asked her to decline the verb pouvoir.
Pip didn’t reprimand her. She felt like whining, too. Where was Lord Octavius?
Another hour passed. Pip heard the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor. Lord Newingham burst into the schoolroom. His face was flushed, as if he’d run up the stairs. “Guess what?” he cried.
Fanny bounced up from her seat. “We’re going to fly kites?”
Newingham shook his head and beamed at her. “You’re coming home with me.”
Edie sprang up from her seat, too. “For the summer?”
“For ever,” Newingham said, brandishing a piece of paper. “Your father has given me guardianship of you. You’re going to live with me from now on.”
Fanny gave a little squeal of delight, then ran to her uncle and shyly hugged him.
Newingham hugged her back, lifting her off her feet, swinging her around, and then he hugged Edie, too. His grin was wide and exhilarated.
“What about Archie?” Edie asked, clinging to her uncle. “Can he come live with you, too?”
“Your brother can visit as often as he likes,” the viscount said.
Movement in the doorway caught Pip’s eye. Lord Octavius and his cousin stood there.
“We’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning,” the viscount said. “Which means your trunks need to be packed today. Come! Let’s get started.” He swept the girls out of the schoolroom.
Pip followed. Lord Octavius fell into step with her. He touched her hand, a fleeting brush of fingertips that said Hello and Good morning and I’m happy to see you.
Newingham disappeared down the corridor, the girls frisking around him like puppies. Their voices echoed back, bright with excitement.
“Last night was obviously a success,” Pip said.
“It was.” Lord Octavius’s tone was oddly neutral.
Pip glanced at him, and discovered that his expression was neutral, too.
She didn’t have time to enquire further. First, she had to stop Newingham from flinging the girls’ clothing willy-nilly onto their beds, then she had to direct the footmen to bring down the trunks from the attic and instruct two housemaids to pack the girls’ belongings. Newingham was as excited as the girls. He darted here and there. “Do you want to take this?” he cried, waving a bonnet, “Or these?” brandishing a pair of slippers.
After fifteen minutes, Pip sent him outside with the girls. “Come back in two hours,” she told him firmly. “All of you, go, shoo.”
“I bought some kites in London,” Lord Octavius said to the girls. “Fancy ones with long tails. Would you like to fly them?”
Newingham gave a loud whoop and departed down the stairs at a run. The girls and Mr. Pryor bounded after him. Lord Octavius exchanged an amused glance with Pip, then followed them. He reappeared five minutes later, alone. “How can I help?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to fly kites?”
He shook his head. “You’re leaving tomorrow, too. We all are.”
“Oh,” Pip said. Her stomach gave a little squirm of excitement. She was leaving. Tomorrow. With Lord Octavius.
“How can I help?” he said again. “What needs to be done?”
“My trunk needs to be brought down from the attic.”
“I’ll see to it.”
Pip went back to the schoolroom and began going through drawers, cupboards, and shelves. She was barely two minutes into her task when a floorboard creaked behind her. “That was quick,” she said, turning around.
But it wasn’t Lord Octavius who stood there; it was Mr. Donald.
Pip jerked backwards a step. “Mr. Donald.” She pressed her hand to her chest, where her heart thudded rapidly. “What are you doing here?”
“Lord Rumpole has informed me that his daughters are leaving tomorrow. He has offered my services.”
“Oh,” Pip said. “That’s very kind of him, but—”
“I’ll pack their trunks.”
“Thank you, but Jenny and Agnes are doing that.”
Mr. Donald gave a disparaging curl of his lip. “I’ll supervise.” He turned to leave, and then paused. “Are you departing tomorrow, Miss Toogood?”
“Yes,” Pip said.
His eyelids dipped slightly and he smiled. Something about that smile made all the hairs on Pip’s scalp stand on end. Predator, a little voice whispered in her ear.
Pip watched him leave the schoolroom. His footsteps retreated along the corridor and faded from earshot.
He was gone, but she found it impossible to turn her back to the door and resume her task. She was still standing in the center of the schoolroom with her hand pressed to her chest when Lord Octavius returned. He took one look at her and frowned sharply. “What is it?”
“Mr. Don
ald was just here.”
Lord Octavius’s frown didn’t change markedly—a slight narrowing of his eyes, an infinitesimal flaring of his nostrils—but he suddenly looked dangerous. “Was he?” His voice was pitched lower than it usually was and somehow that was dangerous, too.
“He knows I’m leaving tomorrow. I think . . .” Pip shivered. “I think he’s going to try something tonight.”
“I have no doubt of it,” Lord Octavius said grimly. His eyes narrowed further, his frown changing yet again, becoming less angry and more thoughtful. “May I borrow one of your gowns? Tonight’s lesson would be best coming from you.”
“You’ll pretend to be me when you put the fear of God into him?”
He nodded.
Pip rather liked the thought of that: the predator getting his comeuppance from a governess. “I’ll fetch a gown,” she said.
Lord Octavius refused to let her go alone, which brought foolish heat to Pip’s cheeks. She and Lord Octavius were walking to her bedroom and even though the reason wasn’t romantic—was in fact the exact opposite of romantic—she found herself feeling ridiculously self-conscious.
“How did it go last night?” she asked, to distract herself.
Lord Octavius hesitated before answering. Pip saw his lips twitch in a brief grimace. “It went very well.”
Pip wondered what that grimace had been for. “But something went wrong?”
“Wrong? No. Nothing went wrong.”
“But?”
Lord Octavius sighed, and halted in the corridor. He rubbed his forehead and glanced at her and then away. “Rumpole cried and he wet himself and I just . . .” He shook his head. “It was harder than I thought it would be.”
Pip reached out and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. “You found it hard because you’re a good person.”
He made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. “I don’t feel like a good person. Not after last night.”
“You are,” Pip said, with certainty. She took his hand and gave his fingers a squeeze. “A very good person. A hero, in fact.”
