Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  She drew in a deep breath and turned to his younger brother. He looked a little embarrassed at that out-burst—but not surprised or uncomfortable. Just as if his brother had ruffled his hair.

  “So, Mr. Mark Turner. What is this book you’re writing?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Just Mark will do. It’ll be confusing enough if you have to call us both Turner.”

  Both the Turners were rather too casual. But as a servant, Margaret could hardly object. She inclined her head in acknowledgment.

  “I’m writing about chastity.”

  She waited for him to guffaw. Or even to give her that mischievous grin again, signaling this was another of his schoolboy pranks.

  He didn’t.

  “Chastity?” she repeated weakly.

  “Chastity.”

  He hadn’t said it as one would expect to hear the word—with serious overtones, in a humble, reverent voice. He said it with a sparkle in his eye and a lift to his mouth, as if chastity were the best thing in the world. Margaret had met a great many of her brother’s friends. This was not an attitude that was common among young gentlemen. Quite the opposite.

  “You see,” he continued, “the focus in all the works on chastity to date has often been so philosophical that it fails to engage the general populace on a moral level. My goal is to start with a practical approach, and…” He trailed off, with the air of someone realizing that his enthusiasm for a subject was not matched by those around him. “It’s enormously exciting.”

  “I can see that.”

  Mr. Mark Turner was the same age as Edmund, a few years younger than Richard. She couldn’t imagine her brothers—or any of their friends—writing a philosophical defense of chastity. They likely couldn’t even speak the word without laughing.

  Her lip curled in memory.

  “Chastity,” said the elder Mr. Turner in a dry voice, “is not one of the things I’d planned for my younger brother to embrace.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The two men exchanged level glances. What was encoded in those looks, Margaret could not say.

  “This isn’t a conversation for mixed company,” Mrs. Benedict put in.

  Mark shook himself and looked away. “Too true. Alas, my work is by necessity aimed at men. If I were to write about chastity for women, it would no doubt slant toward a different sort of practicality.”

  “Oh?” Margaret asked.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Mr. Turner warned. “When he has that gleam in his eye, no good can come of it.”

  Margaret turned to Mark. “Consider yourself encouraged.”

  Beside her, Mr. Turner made a noise of exasperation.

  “I was thinking more of a compendium. ‘Places to strike a man so as to best preserve one’s virtue.’”

  “What?” said Mr. Turner. “There’s more than the one?”

  “Gentlemen,” pleaded Mrs. Benedict, but to no avail.

  “What do you say, Miss Lowell? Would ladies have any interest in such a guide?” Mark smiled at her. “Ash tells me you’ve no family to speak of. Does that mean no brother has ever taught you to defend yourself?”

  Edmund had taken her aside when she turned fourteen and advised her that if she kept her legs and her mouth clamped shut, she might land a marquess. That had been the end of his helpful advice. She shook her head.

  The lines about Mark’s eyes softened. “Well, then I’ll have to show you.” He shot a glance at his brother across the table and smiled again—this time, more impishly. “After all, I have no problem if my brother is forced to embrace chastity.” He picked up his fork, applying himself to the meat in front of him as if no further conversation were necessary.

  Perhaps he’d not fully realized what he’d implied with those careless words.

  By the dour look in Mr. Turner’s eyes, and the slow shake of his head, his brother was not amused.

  Margaret heard both the words and the meaning behind them. So much for Mr. Turner’s vaunted honor, his claim that he wouldn’t prey upon a woman alone. The realization turned the bite of turnip in her mouth to charcoal. They’d talked about her already, as brothers were wont to do. In the space of one day, Mr. Turner had already made plans to seduce her—plans so firm, he’d shared them with his younger brother. She’d heard Edmund speaking with his friends often enough, discussing this widow or that willing wife, when they didn’t know she could hear their conversation.

  No doubt Mr. Turner thought she would fall into his bed. Women probably did, for him. That relentless pull tugged her now, even when she wasn’t looking at him. Women laid their hearts at the feet of men like him—a man so ruthlessly intense as to take one’s breath away, and cheerful enough to make one laugh while he did it.

  But then, for all his cheerful intensity, he’d aimed that ruthlessness at her before.

  A year ago, she’d been the belle of the ball, the toast of the town, a diamond of the first water, engaged to a peer of the realm. She’d been the closest thing to a princess that there was.

  Then Ash Turner had intruded in her life. She had been nothing but an afterthought to him, if that. Still, the toast had been charred by the fire; the diamond had turned out to be carved ice, destined to melt in the first heat of gossip.

  He’d robbed her of her name, her dowry, her everything. If after all of that, Mr. Turner thought he would get one scrap of affection from her, he was badly mistaken.

  ASH NEEDED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION with his brother about discretion.

  After that first frozen stare, half horror, half betrayal, Miss Lowell had simply stopped looking at him. And that, Ash decided, was a very, very bad thing. The pudding came—a mercy to kill the conversation—and she sat in place at table, moving the mixed fruit and cream about with her spoon. Her lips pinched together and her complexion went from pale pink and animated to gray and closed.

  There was a gold chain around her neck. The necklace disappeared into the high neck of her gown, weighted into a narrow V, as if there were some heavy locket suspended on it. He felt a hint of jealousy, wondering who had given it to her, and what she might hold inside it.

  No doubt she was wondering how to fight him off. That made him feel like some sordid roué, thinking of nothing but his own pleasure. But as little as he’d been in polite company, even Ash knew better than to issue a clarification. “No, Miss Lowell,” Ash could imagine himself saying, “I would never force myself on you. I mean to seduce you into willingness. That’s all.” That would get him a fork stabbed through his hand, by the black look she gave her pudding.

  Thank God the knives had been removed along with the beef.

  She finished moving the fruit around her plate. Supper was breaking apart—Mark made the customary excuses on behalf of the gentlemen—and still she’d not met his eyes. This was wrong. He couldn’t let it continue.

  When she left, he followed her. They had barely reached the landing of the stairs before she turned on him. There was a ferocious light in her eyes, and he held up his hands to show he intended her no harm.

  “Miss Lowell. I’m afraid my brother has given you the wrong impression.”

  She let out a puff of air. “I know how gentlemen talk when they are amongst themselves,” she said dismissively. “Don’t imagine you can hide it.”

  By “gentlemen,” she likely meant men like Richard and Edmund Dalrymple. Ash could just imagine what those worthless parasites would have said about a too-pretty nurse, with her too-kissable lips and that alabaster skin. No doubt there’d been other indignities visited upon her when they’d been in residence. That was likely the reason Mrs. Benedict had thought it necessary to establish rules of conduct from the beginning. Neither of those worthless boys had ever understood concepts like honor or consent. Ash felt a current of anger go through him, just imagining the importunities that might have been visited upon her. He wasn’t like them.

  “No,” he said curtly. “I don’t think you know what I’m like.”

  �
��You want to take a kiss. You want to take me to your bed. And you’ve boasted to your brother that you’ll do it. Don’t prevaricate, Mr. Turner. You want what every so-called gentleman wants.”

  “You don’t know what I want.” His voice sounded hoarse and he found himself looking at her. She was just the right height for him—tall enough that he might simply tip her head back and take that kiss without even asking.

  “Oh?” Her voice echoed with scorn.

  He stepped toward her. For all her brave words, her eyes widened. But she didn’t move when he reached out to her. She stood her ground, her expression stoic, as if his touch were just one more burden to be endured.

  What had happened to her, that she didn’t even flinch when he touched her shoulders? He ran his finger lightly along the line of her gold chain, tracing it back along her collarbone to the nape of her neck.

  “If this is your idea of a prelude to seduction,” she said haughtily, “all you’ve managed to do is make my skin crawl.”

  Ash doubted that was true, by the slow change in her breathing. He undid the hook his fingers found in the necklace and slid the chain from her neck. It was heavy; the expected locket came from between her breasts as he pulled the chain. It was a surprisingly well-made piece, ornate and with a hint of aged tarnish that suggested it was an heirloom.

  She snatched for it, but he turned swiftly, holding it away from her.

  He wondered whose face he might see if he were to undo the catch of the locket. He didn’t want to know. If it were Richard, or worse, Edmund…

  “Give it back.” She grabbed again.

  He fished in his waistcoat pocket with his free hand until he found the bounty he’d received earlier that day.

  “This,” he said holding up the prize, “is the master key to the manor. I received it from Mrs. Benedict just this afternoon. It unlocks every door here. Including, presumably, yours.”

  He held it up by its iron shank and slid the gold chain of her locket through the bow made by the sword. When he let go, the key slid down the necklace and clanged against her locket. She jumped. He reached for her hand and piled the whole thing in her palm—chain, locket and key.

  “I don’t want to take a kiss,” he said. “I don’t want to take you to bed.” He closed her hand about the locket, pressing her fingers into it. “I don’t want to take anything from you. Do you understand?”

  She swallowed and shook her head.

  “I want you to give me a kiss. I want you to forget the idiot man who gave you this and then walked away, leaving you alone.” He squeezed the hand that held her locket. “I want you to know that if you don’t wish to kiss me, you can rid yourself of me with this simple expedient. Look me in the eyes and say, ‘Ash, I have no desire to be your sordid love slave.’ And I will simply walk away. Go ahead. Try it.”

  She met his gaze. “Mr. Turner—”

  He brought his hand to her lips, not touching her, but close enough that her breath warmed his fingers. “No good. You at least have to call me Ash.”

  She pulled away from him, playing with a strand of hair that had escaped the knot atop her head. Even bound together, that mass of dark hair made an impressive coil. If she brushed it loose, it might reach her waist.

  “Come now,” he said. “Such a little thing I’m asking for.”

  “What kind of a Christian name is Ash?” She shook her head. “What is wrong with Luke or John or Adam?”

  This was not something he wanted to talk about. “It’s not my Christian name. It’s a…a use name. Of a sort.” His mother had given all her children full Bible verses for names. Telling her the mouthful of a name he’d been born with would simply take too long. “I don’t have a Christian name. I have…” Ash paused, frowning. “I have a label, recorded in a parish register. And it’s of no moment. Everyone who knows me calls me Ash. If you are going to refuse to be my love slave, you should at least do me the honor of not Mr. Turnering me.”

  She looked up at him from behind wisps of hair that had fallen from her knot. For the first time that evening, he caught a glimpse of one hint of a dimple, an unwilling smile that quirked her lips. That amusement was a fragile, delicate thing, as insubstantial as moonlight on water. He held his breath, waiting. But she dispelled it with a shake of her head.

  “It’s too familiar. People will say—” She stopped, and ran one hand down the serviceable fabric of her dress. “They’ll say I’m reaching above my station.”

  He shrugged to hide his appalled reaction. Miss Lowell had fire. She had intelligence. She had an almost haunting beauty. And yet she wouldn’t reach above what she saw as her station? What a monstrous waste.

  Whoever was in that locket had a lot to answer for.

  “I am going to guess,” he said quietly, “that you’ve heard about your station all your life. That you’ve been told, over and over, what you can and cannot do because of some foolish accident of your birth.”

  Her nostrils flared, and her fingers clenched around the key he’d given her.

  Ash continued. “What do they know? Do they hear the secret dreams you whisper in the dark of the night? Don’t let your station in life strangle you.”

  Her bosom held motionless, as if she didn’t dare exhale.

  “If I never so much as breathe against the skin of your wrist, I want you to forget what you’ve been told.”

  Her hand had gone to her wrist as he spoke, as if she felt the heat of his breath there.

  “So call me Ash,” he said with a smile. “Call me Ash, not for me, but as a small defiance. Call me Ash because you deserve it. Because your station is just so many words in a parish register, not a sentence of death.”

  She swallowed and swayed toward him—not even an inch, but still, she moved. Ash stood very still, willing her closer. She opened her lips a fraction and wet them. His blood stirred at the sight of the pink of her tongue.

  “Ash.” She breathed the word as if it were the last name on earth. He stood there, almost tipsy at the sound of it on her lips. Yes. Yes.

  “Yes?” His own voice was hoarse.

  She looked him in the eyes. And he saw there every last scrap of strength, every inch of backbone that he desired. She drew herself up straight. He could almost taste her on his tongue.

  “Ash,” she repeated more firmly. “I have no desire to be your sordid love slave. Now leave me alone.”

  Chapter Four

  THE SUN WAS SO HOT AT NOON the next day that waves rose from the track in front of her, blurring the small town two miles distant into indistinct smudges of brown. Margaret’s hairpins bit into her scalp like aggressive little insects.

  She’d composed a letter to her brother last night. When they’d first come up with this plan, they’d imagined that Margaret would see Mr. Turner only in passing and would have just the servants’ gossip to send on. But she’d filled pages with her account of that first evening. After she’d penned a factual account of the day, she’d added the following:

  None of this captures the essence of the man. For all his mercenary tradesmanlike mannerisms, Ash Turner is far more dangerous than we believed, for a reason that will not sound sinister when I write it: he makes people like him. Think on what that will mean when he addresses the Members of Parliament who will vote on the question.

  This letter to her brother was now tucked into the inner pocket of her mantle, the hard corners of the paper poking her ribs in tangible reminder. She had stayed behind because her family needed her. Because when Parliament resumed in mid-November, it would debate whether to pass a bill granting her family the extraordinary remedy of legitimacy.

  Her role here had been simple when they’d conceived it: she was to document Mr. Turner’s every failing. She would transcribe letters, dictated by her father, adding her own observations. These observations would demonstrate that Mr. Turner was unfit to manage the estate. The evidence would be collected, collated and sent to the lords in the autumn, when her brothers presented their petition.
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  Margaret had thought sending a letter would be as simple as asking her father to frank it and leaving it on the front table with the remainder of the post. She hadn’t truly thought through her deception. Had Mr. Turner been bent on sport or drink as her brothers were, simplicity would have sufficed. But what seemed like half his office had arrived this morning—a regular cadre of sober businessmen who had taken over one of the gatehouses. They were all dedicated to serving Mr. Turner, and they were constantly coming and going. Any one of those men might see her leaving the letter in the hall. They would wonder why a simple nurse was writing to the Dalrymple brothers. She’d had little choice but to carry the letter into town, where the vicar’s wife would assist her.

  The walk had already proved hot and uncomfortable.

  But halfway to the village, the sullen summer silence was marred by hoofbeats. Hoofbeats were not a good sign. Margaret pulled her bonnet ribbons about her chin. With her brothers gone, only the Turners would be about on horseback, riding on Parford land. And somehow, she didn’t imagine that Mr. Mark Turner—gentle, sweet Mark who wrote about chastity—had sought her out. That would have been too easy.

  The horse cantered into view, coming around a bend in the hedge.

  Of course it had to be the elder of the two brothers. The taller one. The larger one. The dangerous one. Of course she had to be set upon by the man who’d destroyed her life. And of course it happened at the precise moment when the last of the starch deserted the collar of her gown. Mr. Turner looked as if he’d no notion that the sun shone overhead. No sweat beaded on his forehead; no flush of heat colored his cheeks as he rode up beside her and slowed his horse to a walk. He manufactured no polite excuse for his presence. Instead, he looked her up and down, from her dusty half-boots to the drooping bonnet on her head. And then he smiled.

  “Am I intruding?” he asked.