Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  It reminded him of the cacophony of an orchestra as it tuned its instruments: dissonance, suddenly resolving into harmony. It was the rumble, not of thunder, but its low, rolling precursor, trembling on the horizon. It was all of that. It was none of that. It was sheer animal instinct, and it reached up and grabbed him by the throat. Her. Her.

  Ash had never ignored his instincts before—not once. He swallowed hard as the majordomo approached.

  “One thing,” he whispered to his brother. “The woman in the last row—on the far right? She’s mine.”

  Before his brother could do more than frown at him, before Ash himself could swallow the lingering feeling of sparks coursing through his veins, the majordomo was upon them, bowing and introducing himself. Ash took a deep breath and focused on the man.

  “Mr.— I mean, my—” The man paused, uncertain how to address Ash. With the duke still alive, Ash, a mere distant cousin, held no title. And yet he had come here as heir to the dukedom, on the strictest orders from Chancery. Ash could guess at the careful calculation in the majordomo’s eyes: should he risk offending the man who might well be his next master? Or ought he adhere to the strict formalities required by etiquette?

  Ash tossed his reins to the groom who crept forward. “Plain Mr. Turner will do. There’s no need to worry about how you address me. I scarcely know what to call myself.”

  The man nodded and the taut muscles in his face relaxed. “Mr. Turner, shall I arrange a tour, or would you and your brother care to take some refreshment first?”

  Ash’s eyes wandered to the woman in the back row. She met his gaze, her expression implacable, and a queer shiver ran down his spine. It was not lust itself he felt, but the premonition of desire, as if the wind that whipped around his cravat were whispering in his ears. Her. Choose her.

  “Good luck,” Mark muttered. “I don’t believe she likes you all that much.”

  That much Ash had gleaned from the set of her jaw.

  “No refreshment,” Ash said aloud. “No rest. I want to know everything, and the sooner, the better. I’ll need to speak with Parford as well. I’d best start as I mean to go on.” He glanced at the woman one last time, and then met his brother’s eyes. “After all, I do enjoy a challenge.”

  FROM HER HIGH PERCH on the cold stone steps, Anna Margaret Dalrymple could make out little in the features of the two gentlemen who approached on horseback. But what she could see did not bode well for her future.

  Ash Turner was both taller and younger than she had expected. Margaret had imagined him arriving in a jewel-encrusted carriage, pulled by a team of eight horses—something both ridiculously feminine and outrageously ostentatious, to match his reputation as a wealthy nabob. The man who had taken everything from her should have been some hunched creature: prematurely bald, capable of no expression except an insolent sneer.

  But this man sat his horse with all the ease and grace of an accomplished rider, and she could not make out a single massive, unsightly gem anywhere on his person.

  Drat.

  As Mr. Turner cantered up, the servants—it was difficult to think of them as fellow servants, when she was used to thinking of them as hers—tensed, breath held. And no wonder. This man had supplanted her brother, the rightful heir, through ruthless legal machinations. If Richard failed in his bid to have the Duke of Parford’s children legitimized by Act of Parliament, Mr. Turner would be the new master. And when her father died, Margaret would find herself a homeless bastard.

  He dismounted from his steed with ease and tossed the reins to the stable boy who dashed out to greet him. While he exchanged a few words with the majordomo, she could sense the unease about her, multiplying itself through the shuffling of feet and the uncertain rubbing of hands against sides. What sort of a man was he?

  His gaze swept over them, harsh and severe. For one brief second, his eyes came to rest on Margaret. It was an illusion, of course—a wealthy merchant, come to investigate his patrimony, would care nothing for a servant clad in a shapeless gray frock, her hair secured under a severe mobcap. But it seemed as if he were looking directly inside her, as if he could see every day of these past painful months. It was as if he could see the empty echo of the lady she had been. Her heart thumped once, heavily.

  She’d counted on being invisible to him in this guise.

  Then, as if she’d been but a brief snag in the fluid silk of his life, he looked away, finishing his survey of the massed knot of servants. Beside her, the upstairs maids held their breath. Margaret wished he would just get it over with and say something dastardly, so they could all hate him.

  But he smiled. It was an easy, casual expression, and it radiated a good cheer that left Margaret feeling perversely annoyed. He took off his black leather riding gloves and turned to address them.

  “This place,” he said in a voice that was quiet yet carrying, “looks marvelous. I can tell that Parford Manor is in the hands of one of the finest staffs in all of England.”

  Margaret could see the effect of those words travel like a wave through the servants. Backs straightened, subtly; eyes that had been narrowed relaxed. Hands unclenched. They all leaned toward him, just the barest inch, as if the sun had peeked out from behind disapproving clouds.

  Just like that, he was stealing from her again. This time, he robbed her of the trust and support of her family retainers.

  Mr. Turner, however, didn’t seem to realize his cruelty.

  He removed his riding coat, revealing broad, straight shoulders—shoulders that ought to have bowed under the sheer villainous weight of what he’d done. He turned back to the majordomo. He acted as if he were not stealing onto Parford lands, as if he hadn’t won the grudging right to come here in Chancery a bare few weeks ago to investigate what he had called economic waste.

  Smith, the traitor, was already beginning to relax in response.

  Margaret had assumed that the servants were hers. After all those years running the house alongside her mother, she’d believed their loyalties could not be suborned.

  But Mr. Smith nodded at something Mr. Turner said. Slowly, her servant—her old, faithful servant, whose family had served hers for six generations—turned and looked in Margaret’s direction. He held out his hand, and Mr. Turner looked up at her. This time, his gaze fixed on her and stayed. The wind blew, whipping her skirts about her ankles, as if he’d called up a gale with the intensity of his stare.

  She couldn’t hear Smith’s commentary, but she could imagine his words delivered in his matter-of-fact tenor. “That’s Anna Margaret Dalrymple there, His Grace’s daughter. She’s stayed behind on Parford lands to report your comings and goings to her brothers. Oh, and she’s pretending to be the old duke’s nurse, because they’re afraid you’ll kill the man to influence the succession.”

  Mr. Turner put his head to the side and blinked at her, as if not believing his eyes. He knew who she was; he had to know, or he’d not be looking at her like that. He wouldn’t be stalking toward her, his footfalls sure as a tiger’s. Now, she could see the windswept tousle of his hair, the strong line of his jaw. As he came closer, she could even make out the little creases around his mouth, where his smile had left lines.

  It seemed entirely wrong that someone so awful could be so handsome.

  Mr. Turner came to stand in front of her. Margaret tilted her chin up, so that she could look him in the eyes, and wished she were just a little taller.

  He was studying her with something like bemusement. “Miss?” he finally asked.

  Smith came up beside Margaret. “Ah, yes. Mr. Turner, this is Miss…” He paused and glanced at her, and in that instant, the growing bubble of betrayal was pricked, and she realized he had not given her secrets away. Ash Turner didn’t know who she was.

  “Miss Lowell.” She remembered to curtsy, too, ducking her head as a servant would. “Miss Margaret Lowell.”

  “You’re Parford’s nurse?”

  Nurse; daughter. With his illness, it came to the same t
hing. She was the only protection her father had against this man, with her brothers scattered across England to fight for their inheritance in Parliament. She met Mr. Turner’s gaze steadily. “I am.”

  “I should like to speak with him. Smith tells me you’re very strict about his schedule. When would it least inconvenience you?”

  He gave her a great big dazzling smile that felt as if he’d just opened the firebox on a kitchen range. As bitterly as she disliked him, she still felt its effect. This was how this man, barely older than her, had managed to make a fortune so quickly. Even she wanted to jump to attention, to scurry just a little faster, just so he would favor her with that smile again.

  Instead, she met his eyes implacably. “I’m not strict.” She drew herself up a little taller. “Strict implies unnecessary, but I assure you the care I take is very necessary indeed. His Grace is old. He is ill. He is weak, and I won’t brook any nonsense. I won’t have him disturbed just because some fool of a gentleman bids me do so.”

  Mr. Turner’s smile grew as she spoke. “Precisely so,” he said. “Tell me, Miss…” he paused there and lowered one eyelid at her in a shiver of a languid wink. “Miss Margaret Lowell, do you always speak to your new employers in this manner, or is this an exception carved out for me in particular?”

  “While Parford lives, you are not my employer. And when he has—” Her throat caught at the words; her lungs burned at the memory of the last grave she’d stood beside.

  Hold yourself together, Margaret chided herself, or he’ll know who you are before the day’s over.

  She cleared her throat and enunciated with particular care. “And once he’s passed on, you’ll hardly have need of my services. Not unless you’re planning on becoming bedridden yourself. Is there any chance of that?”

  “Fierce and intelligent, too.” He let out a little sigh. “When I’m in bed, I don’t suppose I’ll want your services. Leastwise, not as a nurse. So yes, you are quite correct.”

  His eyelashes were unconscionably thick. They shielded eyes so dark she could not distinguish pupil from iris. It took her a moment to realize that what he’d said went well beyond idle flirtation. Smith coughed uneasily. He’d overheard the whole thing, from that unfortunate compliment to the improper innuendo. How horrifying. How lowering.

  Still, the image came to mind unbidden—Mr. Turner, stripped of those layers of dark blue wool and pristine linen, his skin shining gold against white sheets, turned over on his side, that smile glinting just for her.

  How enticing.

  Margaret pressed her lips together and imagined herself emptying the chamber pot over his naked form. Now there was a thought that would bring her some satisfaction.

  He leaned in. “Tell me, Miss Lowell. Is Parford well enough for a little conversation? You can accompany me to the room and make sure I don’t overstep myself or overexcite him.”

  “He was alert earlier.” And, in point of fact, her father had insisted that when that devil Turner arrived, he wanted to see him straight away. “I’ll see if he’s still awake and willing to speak with you.”

  She turned away, but he caught her wrist. She turned reluctantly back toward him. His naked hand was warm against her skin. She wished he hadn’t removed his gloves. His grip was not tight, but it was strong.

  “One last question.” His eyes found hers. “Why did the majordomo hesitate before pronouncing your name?”

  So he’d noticed that, too. In circumstances such as this, only the truth would do.

  “Because,” she said with a sigh, “I’m a bastard. It’s not precisely clear what name I should be given.”

  “What? No family? No one to stand for you and protect your good name? No brothers to beat off unwanted suitors?” His fingers tightened on her wrist a fraction; his gaze dipped downward, briefly, to her bosom, before returning to her face. “Well. That’s a shame.” He smiled at her again, as if to say that there was no shame at all—at least not for him.

  And that smile, that dratted smile. After all that he’d done to her, he thought he could waltz into her family home and take her to bed?

  But he gave a sigh and let go of her hand. “It’s a terrible shame. I make it a point of honor not to impose upon defenseless women.”

  He shook his head, almost sadly, and turned to gesture behind him. The young man who had accompanied him when he’d arrived loped up the steps in response.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Miss Lowell, let me present to you my younger brother, Mr. Mark Turner. He’s come into the country with me this fine summer so he can have some quiet time to finish the philosophical tract he is writing.”

  “It’s not precisely a philosophical tract.”

  Mr. Mark Turner, unlike his brother, was slight—not skinny, but wiry, his muscles ropy. He was a few inches shorter than his elder brother, and in sharp contrast with his brother’s tanned complexion and dark hair, he was pale and blond.

  “Mark, this is Miss Lowell, Parford’s nurse. Undoubtedly, she needs all her patience for that old misanthrope, so treat her kindly.” Mr. Turner grinned, as if he’d said something very droll.

  Mr. Mark Turner did not appear to think it odd that his brother had introduced him to a servant—worse, that he had introduced a servant to him. He just looked at his brother and very slowly shook his head, as if to reprove him. “Ash” was all he said.

  The elder Turner reached out and ruffled his younger brother’s hair. Mr. Mark Turner did not glower under that touch like a youth pretending to be an adult; neither did he preen like a child being recognized by his elder. He could not have been more than four-and-twenty, the same age as Margaret’s second-eldest brother. Yet he stood and regarded his brother, unflinching under his touch, his eyes steady and ageless.

  It was as if they’d exchanged an entire conversation with those gestures. And Margaret despised Mr. Turner all the more for that obvious affection between him and his younger brother. He wasn’t supposed to be handsome. He wasn’t supposed to be human. He wasn’t supposed to have any good qualities at all.

  One thing was for certain: Ash Turner was going to be a damned nuisance.

  Chapter Two

  MR. TURNER CONTINUED to be a nuisance as Margaret led him up the wide stairway toward her father’s sickroom. At first, he said nothing. Instead, he gawked about him with a sense of casual proprietorship, taking in the stone of the stairways, and then, as they entered the upper gallery, the portraits on the wall. It wasn’t greed she saw in his gaze; that she could have forgiven. But he was an interloper at Parford Manor, and he looked about him with the jaded eye of a purchaser—searching out the flaws, as if he didn’t want to say too much by way of compliment, lest he raise the price too high in subsequent rounds of bargaining.

  He glanced out the leaded windows. “Pleasantly situated,” he remarked.

  Pleasantly situated. Parford Manor was the center of a massive estate—fifty acres of parkland on the most beautiful rolling hills in all of England, surrounded by tenant farms. The gardens were the labor of her mother’s life, a living, breathing monument to a woman who was even now fading from common memory. And he thought it was merely pleasantly situated?

  He was a boor.

  “Beautifully maintained,” he said as they passed a tapestry in the stone stairs.

  She rolled her eyes, which thankfully, as she walked ahead of him, he could not see.

  “The manor needs a bit of updating, though.”

  Margaret stopped dead, afraid to even look in his direction. He came abreast of her and turned to look at her.

  “You don’t agree? All that dark wainscoting downstairs. Tear it down—get some bright papers on the wall.” He gestured above to the gallery’s ceiling. “New chandeliers—Lord, it must be dark in here, of a winter evening. Don’t you think?”

  He was absolutely intolerable. “The gallery was last renovated by the duchess herself, a decade prior. I shouldn’t like to set my tastes against a sensibility as refined as hers.”

&
nbsp; His brow furrowed. “Surely you have an opinion of your own.”

  “I do. I believe I just expressed it.”

  There was a bit too much asperity in her tone, and he looked at her in surprise. Of course; a nurse wouldn’t have been quite so bold in her speech. Not to a duke’s heir. Not even to a wealthy tradesman who held the power of her employment in his too-large hands.

  But what he said was “So. I’m a lout to think of altering her choices. I suppose I am fouling up a great lot of tradition. But only to improve, Miss Lowell. Only to improve.”

  Margaret’s life had hardly been improved when he’d made her a bastard. That, however, she couldn’t say. Instead, she sighed. “Are you always this chatty with servants?”

  “Only the pretty ones.” He cast her another sidelong glance, and a grin. “The pretty, intelligent ones.”

  A beat fluttered in her stomach and Margaret started walking again. Down the gallery, into the hall beyond. She stopped before a wide wooden door. “We’re about to enter a sickroom, so consider restraining your flirtations. His Grace is not well.”

  Mr. Turner shook his head, solemn again. “A shame. I’d prefer him in his study, hale and hearty. There’s little honor in vanquishing an invalid.”

  Margaret gripped the brass handle of her father’s door. She couldn’t look back at him, for fear he’d read the truth in the rigidity of her features. Her mother’s locket hung heavy on its chain, a great weight around her neck. “Is that why you did this, then? Is that why you had the duke and the duchess’s marriage of thirty years voided for bigamy, their innocent children declared bastards and disinherited entirely?” Her voice was shaking. “You claim to have too much honor to importune a woman without family, but let a man have a dukedom, and you feel free to…to vanquish him?”