Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  She thought this over, tilting her head to one side. Then: “I have now considered that possibility. I reject it. Come, Mr. Marshall. Tell me you didn’t come out here hoping for some sordid story.”

  “So you admit the story is sordid.”

  She wagged her finger at him. “I am guessing as to your own thoughts. There’s no need to prevaricate. I know what people are saying about me. Secretly, you’re judging me, and you’ve already found me wanting. You’re all saying that I’m no better than I should be.”

  Hugo shrugged. “I’ve never understood that saying—no better than you should be. Why would anyone want to be better than required? I only behave when it counts; I wouldn’t begrudge you similar conduct.”

  She stared at him a moment.

  He was misleading her enough as it is. He had no intention of outright lying to her. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “I can’t help it—it’s my face. It makes everyone think that I’m quite friendly, when anyone who knows better will warn you off. I’m entirely ruthless. Quite without morals.”

  The smile she gave him was patronizing. “Is that so? Well. I’m sure you’re a very, very bad man. I’m so scared.”

  Hugo looked upward. “Drat.”

  “Drat?” She hid a smile. “Surely a man as awful as you could conjure up a ‘damn’ in mixed company.”

  “I don’t swear,” he explained. “Not in any company.”

  “I see. You are bad.”

  He glanced at the sky in exasperation. “I am aware that this fact in isolation hardly proves my point. Which is this: If you wish to speak to me in confidence, if you wish to tell your tale without fear of judgment, I’m your man. Nobody would dare to gossip with me.”

  She stared at him. “You’re very convincing,” she said, in a tone that implied she believed anything but. “But you are…what, an accountant? Someone who keeps the household books?”

  He nearly choked. “You could say that,” he finally said. “I suppose I make sure the books balance at the end of the day.”

  She gave him a patronizing nod of the head. “All that ruthlessness, and only the books to balance. Poor Mr. Marshall.” She smiled at him. “I consider myself a good judge of character. And you, sir, are safe.”

  Safe.

  It had been so long since someone hadn’t taken him seriously that he’d forgotten what it was like. But here she was, dismissing him.

  He sat gingerly on the edge of her bench.

  “Maybe I am safe,” he said. “I don’t swear. I don’t drink spirits, either.” He took a deep breath. “You’re sitting here for a reason, though, Miss Barton, and I doubt it’s for your health. Is it so wrong of me to want to help?”

  All the latent humor bled from her face. “Help,” she repeated blankly. “You want to help.”

  “This is no triviality before you. A lady does not risk the wrath of a duke without reason. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “If you’re so ruthless.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Ruthless doesn’t mean that I survey the available options and gleefully choose the cruelest one. It means that I solve problems, whatever the cost. I’m good at that.”

  “And so out of the goodness of your heart, you’re offering—”

  “No,” he said, leaning in. “You misunderstand. There’s no goodness in my heart—that’s what I keep trying to explain to you. You are a problem. It distracts me from my work to think of you here. To wonder…”

  She sucked in her breath and pulled away from him slightly. Her eyes seemed round and very gray. She scarcely moved. The air around them seemed suddenly charged. He couldn’t look away from her, and he could almost hear his words echoed back at him.

  It distracts me to think of you.

  It was almost nothing, that faint sense of attraction he felt. It was no more than the scarcely-heard hum of an insect. Insignificant enough that he waved it away. But she had just noticed, and that small hint of interest, mild though it had been, had washed the smile from her face.

  “Go away,” she said, her voice flat.

  No, she wasn’t here because of an employment dispute. Clermont had a great deal to answer for.

  Hugo reached down and plucked a spare twig from the ground and set it on the bench between them. “This,” he said, “is a wall, and I will not cross it.”

  Her eyes fixed on that piece of wood, a few scant inches in length.

  “I don’t believe in hurting women,” he said.

  She did not respond.

  “I do a great many things, and I’m not proud of many of them. But I don’t swear. I don’t drink. And I don’t hurt women. I don’t do any of those things because my father did every one.” He held her eyes as he spoke. “Now I’ve told you something that nobody else in London knows. Surely you can return the favor. What is it you want?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, Mr. Marshall. I will not be browbeaten, however nicely you do it. I am done with things happening to me. From here on out, I am going to happen to things.”

  She raised her head as she spoke. And that annoying hum—that gnat-like buzz of attraction that he had so easily brushed away—seemed to swell around him like a growing murmur of wind.

  Her features seemed so crisp, outlined against the cool air. She had not a hair out of place. Still, she made him think of a bear, strong and certain, claiming her territory at the top of a mountain.

  Here, he thought, finally, was a match for him.

  There was no point being fanciful. What use had he with a bear? Still… Surely he could appreciate one when he saw it.

  “Brave words,” he said softly. “That’s what it means to be ruthless. After all, I happen to other people on a regular basis.”

  She glanced pointedly at the twig between them.

  Hugo made no move toward her. “I don’t suppose you know why they call him the Wolf of Clermont.”

  “His ruthlessness.”

  “But the specifics. You know how he came to work with Clermont?”

  She shook her head.

  He steepled his fingers and looked away from her. “Clermont would never have hired a pugilist as his man of business. But he always did like prizefights. And drinking; all dukes love to drink. He became inebriated one day after a fight, and spilled all his troubles to the champion.”

  “Dukes surely have a great many troubles.” She rolled her eyes.

  “It was the usual litany: old title, nothing but bills to show for it, and a less than sterling reputation to boot. The Wolf wagered him one hundred pounds that in six months, he could rearrange everything so that he’d have no more bill collectors hammering on his doors.”

  She was watching him. “How do you know this?”

  He waved his hand. “Everyone knows this—all the servants around here, in any event.”

  She nodded. “Go on. If this Wolf is to be my nemesis, I need to know everything about him.”

  “Clermont was not without resources. His estates brought in a pittance—with a few months’ grace, and the benevolence of a few lenders, all might have been brought around. But the duke didn’t have a few months. And so the Wolf focused on the duke’s most prominent creditor. Everyone has secrets, and that creditor’s secret was that his money had been made in the slave trade years after it had been banned. The Wolf made sure every sordid detail went to the papers. The family was shunned. And do you know what the Wolf did then?”

  She shook her head.

  He looked her in the eyes. “He paid the debt,” he said. “Publicly. Without once having to voice a threat, the Wolf made Clermont untouchable. Insist on payment, the gossips said, and he’d ruin you. Startling, the number of people who are willing to agree to easier terms of payment when their own future is on the line.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Miss Barton,” he said quietly, “with whom do you think you are speaking?”

  She sucked in air. But her expression did not cha
nge one iota at that confession.

  “You see how it is,” Hugo said. “I am going to get rid of you. But ruining someone is a messy, complicated business. It is much less work to help you than to break you. Let me help.”

  She had not taken her eyes off him during that speech.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I want him to pay.” Her chin lifted. She folded her hands—a dainty motion—but there was nothing dainty in the determined way her fingers tangled together.

  “Money?”

  “Recognition.” Her jaw squared. “He wants me to stay silent. Well, I want him to speak out. To feel one-tenth of the censure that I have.”

  There was no chance of that. No wonder Clermont had passed this woman’s demands on to Hugo. Any form of recognition would destroy the duke’s chances at reconciling with his duchess. With so much at stake, including Hugo’s own five hundred pounds…

  “He’ll never do that,” he said. “I like you, Miss Barton. I don’t wish to have you on my conscience.”

  She picked up the twig he’d laid across the bench and held it out to him.

  “Do your worst,” she said. “That is what you’re known for, is it not?”

  He stared at the twig in her hand for a few moments before taking it from her and laying it back across the bench. “I will,” he said. “If I have to. I’d prefer not to.”

  THE INK FROM THE evening paper had stained Serena’s gloves black, but still she stood on the street corner, trying to make out the advertisements on the back page without straining her eyes.

  Rents for properties with small acreage were close to fifteen pounds per annum, and with expenses calculated at almost twice that, plus sustenance and the cost of someone to stay with her…

  Once, she’d dreamed of what she’d do with the money she carefully set aside from the wages she earned as a governess. She’d planned to lease a small farm, to grow lavender, when she had saved enough. From there, her wistful hopes had built a thousand possibilities. Freddy had pooh-poohed her ambitions, and perhaps she had the right of it. Purchasing a paper now, when her dreams had never been so far away, was the height of foolishness. It served only to underscore how much she had lost—how far removed her girlish dreams were from reality.

  Serena had forty pounds saved from three years of wages. She had enough for the present, but not so much that she could afford to dwell on the past. But she could not get free of her situation by escaping into an elaborate day-dream. Reality waited for her: She was pregnant, and she had no income.

  Serena folded the paper in quarters, hiding away the list of properties for lease and looked up into the darkening night.

  She made herself repeat those damning words. She was pregnant. She had no income. And she had just suffered a blow—a terrible blow.

  Mr. Marshall had seemed so safe, so ordinary. She had not felt so comfortable around a man in months. When he’d picked up that twig and set it between them, some foolish part of her had really believed it was a wall, and that she might breathe easily.

  He’d made her dream of a might-have-been: an afternoon spent with a man who made her smile, who didn’t look at her as if she were some ruined thing. She’d dreamed of a world where any future could be open, if only she could find the right key. She’d wanted attraction. Affection. Security.

  Love.

  Foolish to leap from a conversation in a square to love. But if one man might smile and converse with her, a second could as well.

  As she’d sat on that bench, her might-have-beens had glowed with sunlight.

  But Mr. Marshall was no smiling, friendly fellow. He was the Wolf of Clermont, a man known for his mercilessness. With a few sparse sentences he’d smashed all her hopeful might-have-beens into a single wasn’t.

  Her future stretched like a dark road before her: all hope in eclipse.

  He’d fooled her. I do not curse. I do not drink spirits. And I don’t hurt women. I don’t do any of those things because my father did every one.

  Serena crumpled the paper.

  He was good—very good. And she was the damned fool who had teetered on the brink of trusting him. But he’d offered to help not because he took an interest in her affairs, or because he cared about her welfare. It was just because it was simpler to buy her off than ruin her.

  Black clouds loomed on her horizon.

  Serena set her hand on her stomach. Despair couldn’t be good for the baby. When she let it settle around her, it seemed to fill her belly with a bitter, starving impossibility. She could scarcely digest it; how could a life so fragile and tiny manage what she could not?

  No. Her baby would have no nightmares, no doubts, no fears.

  When one climbed trees, it was a fool’s game to look down. If one did, one risked vertigo. So Serena looked up now, past the oncoming gloom of the night. She focused on the warm orange glow of the lamp and the dimmer light of the stars beyond. She looked up and refused to think of falling.

  Chapter Three

  PERHAPS HE WAS GROWING SOFT, but Hugo started with the most simple of expedients. He tried to rid himself of Miss Barton by taking her seat. It cost him all of six shillings to hire four pensioners to sit on her spot on the bench. He watched her arrive early the next morning. She drew up when she saw that the bench was occupied, and then set her hand in the small of her back. Just that little note of complaint. Then she smiled, shook her head, and walked idly around the square, as if she’d planned to perambulate in any event. She glanced at the old men as she walked. She made another slow circuit, and then another. After half an hour, she seemed to realize they weren’t leaving.

  Her chin lifted. She looked over at Clermont’s house as if she could see Hugo inside. As if she were daring him to do worse. She stood all day, her head held high, and if she occasionally rubbed her hips when she thought nobody was looking, or shifted from foot to foot in discomfort, it only served to make Hugo feel worse about what he was doing.

  On the second day, she arrived an hour earlier, while the streetlamps were still lit. She strode sedately toward the bench—and stopped abruptly.

  Hugo had anticipated her early arrival, of course, and he’d offered the pensioners seven shillings for that extra hour. Once again, she stayed standing on her feet for nine straight hours—disappearing only, he supposed, to use the necessary. Once again, he found himself admiring her obstinacy.

  On the third day, it rained. The rain fell in great gusting torrents, and the pensioners couldn’t be had. Still, Hugo managed to round up a few laborers dressed in mackintosh—and scarcely in time. They had just settled in when Miss Barton arrived. She was swathed in a cloak of dark wool, one that covered her gown. He couldn’t see her hair, couldn’t see her hands.

  After an hour, her umbrella was so sodden that it no longer repelled water; she abandoned it next to a tree. But she didn’t let the wet stop her. She scarcely looked at the bench. Instead, she stood next to a tree, her lips set in grim determination.

  He watched her throughout the morning. Midday, he stopped work for a bowl of soup. She was still there; he ate, standing at the window, watching as she pulled her arms around herself and rubbed briskly, trying to stay warm.

  She was going to catch her death. The wind was blowing leaves about; it had to be bitter cold. Noon turned to one o’clock, and then two. She hadn’t left when the clock in the hall chimed three, even though her cloak had turned dark with rain. She huddled in on herself more and more.

  Anyone else would have gone home at the first sign of inclement weather. He wasn’t sure if he should applaud her tenacity or rage at how impossible she’d made the situation. Down in the square, she swiped a hand over her face, brushing away rainwater.

  This was something that Hugo was going to have to fix, if for no other reason than that he didn’t want her life on his head.

  BEFORE SERENA’S CLOAK soaked through, it hadn’t been so bad. She’d been damp and rather cold. But having to stand had been a blessing in disguise; sh
e’d been able to warm herself by walking.

  By the time the clock struck three, though, she could scarcely feel her feet. Her hands were frozen inside her gloves.

  Go home. It’s only one afternoon.

  It wasn’t loud, that impulse. Just insidious. She’d heard it too often. Keep quiet now, and you’ll be taken care of. Don’t scream tonight; it will stop soon enough. But that voice was a lie. Those who did nothing lost. There was nothing so cold as regret.

  If she walked away now, Mr. Marshall would know that he could drive her away. It would just spur him on to greater efforts.

  And so she chafed her hands together and paced.

  Nobody was out unless he had to be. And so that was why, when a figure came around the corner, she turned to look—and then froze. It was Mr. Marshall—the Wolf of Clermont, she reminded herself—looking very grim. He had a bundle under his arm. He walked, head down. When he came abreast of her, he glanced down the street and crossed quickly.

  He walked right past her without saying a word, and instead marched up to the men sitting on the bench. She had struggled to see the Wolf of Clermont in him when he’d confessed his identity three days past, but in that instant, she saw it. His ordinariness was an illusion, a cloak of normalcy that he donned for politeness’s sake. Now, he projected a quiet menace—one so palpable that she stepped back, raising her hand to her throat, even though his ire wasn’t directed at her. He fixed the men on the bench with a look.

  “Well?” he asked. “Get out of here.”

  “But—” said one.

  “You heard what I said. It’s over. I have no more need of you. Get out of here.” He gave his head a little jerk.

  The men exchanged glances, and then, one by one, they stood and filed out of the square. Serena raised her hands to her lips and blew on them, trying to warm them through her sodden gloves. But Mr. Marshall didn’t look at her. He unfolded his bundle. It was, oddly enough, a load of towels wrapped around an umbrella. He laid the towels out on the bench, drying the seat. Then he popped open the umbrella and motioned her over.