Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  He swung the door in. Smite was sitting alone. Of course he was reading a book.

  A decanter of port sat on a nearby table, and glasses were ready beside it. Likely that was Mrs. Benedict’s doing, too—although this had substantially less to do with humor and more to do with a certain practicality that understood the typical gentleman of Ash’s station all too well.

  Smite had not drunk the port. Instead, he sat reading his book. He turned a page and glanced down. He almost seemed to be simply staring at it for a few seconds, before he transferred his gaze to the next one and then turned again.

  Ash had never really been scared. Not even in India, where on one memorable occasion, he’d found himself alone and surrounded by natives who brandished spears. He’d always had a sense of things, a knowledge of what to say—or, as was the case in that instance, how to gesture. He’d been able to look at people and intuit what they wanted, what they feared and how to provide them with the former in a way that profited everyone. But with his brothers…he had no notion of how to proceed. It was as if they were an extension of him, so close to his heart that he could not guess at the topography of their emotions. He could see no secret way into their hearts.

  Smite looked up at Ash’s footsteps. He simply stared at him for a second, and then, slowly, a smile crawled over his face. Ash’s stomach lurched.

  God, he loved his brother so much.

  “I’ve met your Miss Lowell,” Smite said.

  His younger brother deployed words precisely. He’d done so even before he took articles in Bristol, but legal training had accelerated the tendency. Smite’s use of the possessive was not happenstance.

  His Miss Lowell. Ash liked that thought very well.

  “I see,” Smite said dryly, “that you don’t bother to disclaim her. I do wonder if she is possibly good enough for you.”

  Good enough for him? Ash held his breath. He wasn’t sure if this was a conscious slur on his brother’s part, denigrating her station, or a shocking compliment to himself. “And your conclusion?”

  Smite simply shook his head. “No. She is not.” He turned away. Nothing more to bolster Ash’s hopes. That bare dismissal felt like a slap in the face.

  “Don’t make hasty judgments,” Ash said. “Look, stay a few nights. A week, if you dare. Talk with her some more.”

  Smite let out a long sigh.

  It was cowardly, but Ash added, “I know Mark would enjoy your company.”

  “I’m leaving in the next hour.”

  “For God’s sake, it’s barely September. The courts are closed. I’d be willing to wager that the man you work under isn’t even in town at the moment. Could you not stay even one night? You won’t make it to Bristol by nightfall, and we’re due for a storm any moment now.”

  Smite’s lips pressed together, but he said nothing. Compliment or insult, there was no way to interpret his hasty departure as anything other than another rejection. Ash let out a pained breath. It had always been like this between them, ever since Ash had come back from India. Mark at least tried to talk with Ash.

  “What must I do?” He strode forward. “What must I do, that I offend you no longer, Smite? Do you want me to beg? I’ll grovel. Do you want me laid low? I’ll cast myself at your feet.”

  Smite interlaced his fingers precisely in front of him. “You have nothing to atone for. And no matter how hard you try, it cannot be made up in any event. But, Ash—” his brother raised his eyes “—you don’t offend me. You never have.”

  His actions spoke louder than words. “You’ll appear the instant Mark dashes off a request, but you won’t even stay another twenty-four hours when I ask it of you? Don’t tell me you would talk to Mark this way.”

  “Of course not,” Smite said in disdain. “Mark would know better than to ask me to stay.”

  “But—”

  “Mark asked me to come here to…meet Miss Lowell. For you, you barbarian, as it appears that when it comes to her, you are intent on diving off a cliff headfirst. I came for you. Not for him.”

  His brother spoke those words as he always did, clean and crisp, with just a hint of wry humor. Ash stared at him, not quite able to comprehend what he’d just said. He wanted to hug him. Or, more like, to barrel him over and pin him to the ground. But so much exuberance would make him uneasy.

  Instead Ash reached out his hand and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. It would have to do, as embraces went. “Thank you,” he said. It seemed inadequate to the moment.

  Smite looked up at him, his features held very, very still. “You know, Ash,” he said quietly, “you cannot buy me back my childhood. It’s not your fault I lost it, nor is it something you could purchase in any event.”

  They never talked of those years. Never. For Smite to bring it up on his own… Ash held his breath. Whatever had transpired in his absence, Ash knew he could not make up for it. It didn’t stop him from wanting to try. From wanting to throw everything he had in his brother’s direction, just to try to win a smile from him.

  “You can’t purchase my childhood,” Smite repeated. His hands spread, and he flattened them on the table in front of him. He seemed distinctly uneasy. “But perhaps there is something you can do for me as an adult. Some two things.”

  A peace offering. After all these years of spurning Ash’s attempted gifts, there was a peace offering. “Name them,” he said hoarsely.

  “I’d like to be a magistrate.”

  “Done. Hell, when I’m the Duke of Parford, I’ll see you appointed to the Queen’s Bench. Do you fancy being Lord Chief Justice?”

  Smite smiled and shook his head. “Stop embellishing on my dreams, Ash. A magistrate. I have no desire to sit in the assizes. I’d be satisfied to be a small dispensary of justice—someone who sees little people, and who, from time to time, might make a difference in someone’s life. I know that small is not your style. But it is mine.”

  Ash nodded. “Why?”

  His brother smiled faintly once more. “Because what happened to us… I want to make certain it won’t happen again. Not on my watch.”

  “And the second thing?”

  Smite’s gaze slipped away. “I’m sure Mark has shared his feelings on this point. But we both know how Mark is.” His fingers drummed against wood. “It’s about Richard Dalrymple. I want you to take away everything he has ever cared for. Turnabout, after all, is only fair.”

  MARGARET KNEW SHE NEEDED TO talk with Ash, but he’d been busy up until dinner, in anticipation of his brother’s departure. It was almost ten in the evening when Margaret stood in her father’s room, her hands on her hips, listening to him complain.

  “Why,” he demanded, “is it still so warm? It’s September. Autumn should be coming on.”

  The weather over the past few days had not cooled. Instead the heat had built, a furnace stoked by each passing day. The air had grown still and stagnant. Even if Margaret had opened the windows, no breeze would have ruffled the curtains. Instead, the air hung thick and humid, like some bloated creature hunkered sullenly in one corner of its lair.

  Her father continued. “It’s time for fires in the fireplace, and autumn chills and the like.”

  “Would you like me to build you a fire?” she asked dryly.

  “Don’t be a ninny. I would like you to alter the weather.” He looked at her implacably, as if a strong enough ducal command might cause storm clouds to gather.

  “Well, then. I’ll just snap my fingers and make it so. I hope that will satisfy you, Your Grace.” As she spoke, she dabbed gently at his face with a towel. Since she had been left alone at Parford Manor, his incessant demands had become worse, even less reasonable. Had he ever loved her at all? Had she ever loved him? Perhaps there had never been anything between them but duty and obligation.

  “Worthless girl,” he muttered, rubbing the side of his cheek.

  Margaret’s hands closed around the towel. She wasn’t performing tasks for pay. She wasn’t a bear, to dance at the end of a rope.r />
  If she’d been confused about Ash, she was utterly discombobulated when it came to her father. If she was worthless, it was because he had made her so—because he’d engaged in bigamy, and because he had simply ceased to play the charade of father, once the truth was revealed to the world.

  “What was that you said? I couldn’t make it out.” Her voice was low and fierce in her ears.

  Her father’s hand came to a standstill. But if he had ever had the capacity to hear the dangerous note that touched Margaret’s voice, he’d lost it with age and illness. Or maybe he’d always had that irritable lift to his chin, and she’d not noticed.

  “I said you were worthless, girl.”

  He was ill. He was old. She turned away from him, her hands shaking on the laudanum bottle with the sheer effort of restraint. She was not going to abandon him. Damn him, she would not do to him what he’d done to her. If she did, she’d be almost as worthless as he called her. She set the cloth down on the table.

  “Can’t even hold your own against an old man, confined to bed.” His voice came from behind her, taunting. “What must I do to get a response from you? Or are you so tainted with your mother’s weak blood that you can do nothing about an insult except lie down and die in response?”

  At those words, her control broke. A fist seemed to clench around her heart, so tight it felt like to burst with rage.

  Margaret whirled around. She was across the room in half a pace. “Don’t you dare.” Her voice was a low tremble; her chest was about to explode. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother in that manner. You killed her, you and your foolish unconcern. Don’t you dare tell me it’s an insult that I have her blood in my veins. I’ll not have it.” She clenched her trembling hands on the edge of his coverlet, twisting it, while some violent part of her wished she could shake him instead.

  “Ha.” He smiled at her—not a friendly expression, but an almost ferocious grin. But his smile lasted too long—stretching from fierce triumphant growl into something harder, more painful. His lips drew back in a thin, painful rictus. And then, he let himself fall to the bed, simply crumpling into a heap before her eyes. “Fetch horde benedictive,” he snapped.

  “Pardon?” In her rage, she must have misheard him.

  He was looking up at her, his eyes as fierce as ever, piercing into her. “Cord defiant misled to pivot the gunnery. Fidelity lost fortune under witness putter delight wiggle detritus with the obsequious toll for who bunting pole over the witches to view like sea.”

  “What does that mean? Is this some new and unfortunate way to mock me?” How many had there been over the last weeks? How much resistance and malingering had she suffered? “It won’t work.”

  He continued to gaze at her, trembling. He almost looked helpless. “Homonym! Homonym!”

  Helpless? He was terror-stricken. And with the chill of that knowledge penetrating Margaret’s fury, she could see now what she’d missed earlier. He hadn’t let himself fall; he’d fallen, his muscles useless. His limbs trembled now, little vibrations passing through his hands. He wasn’t speaking nonsense to mock her. This was not mere recalcitrance on his part. Something was wrong. Something was dreadfully wrong. He kept talking, a string of gibberish issuing from his mouth, nonsense words strung together as if by a madman.

  It had been only a few seconds since he had begun to babble, but she felt as if she had been staring at him for an eternity. She broke her gaze away and ran for the door. When she wrenched it open, the footmen bracketing each side turned to her. They must have seen the dismay that lit her eyes, because their shoulders tensed.

  “Josephs. Fetch a physician. Fetch a physician instantly.”

  The man on the left started down the hall without waiting for further instruction. Thirty minutes to go to the village on horseback. Thirty to return. And in the interim, she was going to have to keep him alive. How was she to do that, when she didn’t even know what was transpiring? Worse yet: was this her fault? She’d finally lost her temper and turned on him.

  A clap of thunder sounded overhead, breaking through the oppressive heat, and Margaret shivered.

  Behind her, her father’s voice continued. “Liquor to the fires offput less…”

  “Tollin,” she commanded, “come with me.” The other footman followed.

  Her father was shouting now, words thrown into a maelstrom of syllables, devoid of sense. He lay in bed, looking upward, and Margaret felt cold steal over her hands.

  “Should we dose him with laudanum?” the footman asked.

  “I don’t know.” It would keep him quiet, but laudanum was tricky—too much at the wrong time, and he might lose hold of his grasp on life instead.

  And what if this was the beginning of the end? What if, after all this time, the words he spouted were an apology, and she just couldn’t understand it? Could she simply cut them off? What if he still loved her and would not be able to say it at the end because she’d drugged him?

  “I don’t know anything. He’s not thrashing about. If he had gone mad, wouldn’t he be thrashing?”

  Tollin looked at her, frozen in horror. And that much recalled her to her position. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really a nurse. It certainly didn’t matter that she wasn’t Lady Anna Margaret any longer. She had to act like her today. An untrained, inefficient girl would be of no use here, and so she couldn’t be an untrained girl. There was no room for her anxiety.

  She took a deep breath.

  Miss Lowell, you magnificent creature, I want you to paint your own canvas. I want you to unveil yourself before the world.

  Margaret straightened her spine and walked briskly forward.

  She took his wrist and felt for his pulse. His hand trembled in hers, but she found the beat, steady despite the tumultuous flow of his words. “No,” she pronounced, with more sureness than she felt. “He’s not mad.” She laid her hand against his forehead. “The only thing he’s doing is talking, and there’s no harm in that.”

  “But—”

  Margaret looked behind her to discover that Tollin was no longer alone. Several other servants had joined him—two of the upstairs maids, their hands clasped together, and behind them, Mrs. Benedict. Word would spread. This was how panic started. The last thing she needed was a household in chaos. She had to hold them together, to make sure that her father lived until the physician could come and see what was wrong. The physician would fix everything.

  Until then, she needed to keep the servants orderly. They all needed something to do.

  Margaret pulled her hand from her father’s forehead. “He’s overly warm. Tollin, I am going to need you to fetch some ice water. And extra ice from the icehouse, while you are down there.”

  A few seconds of faint patter at the windows, and then came the sound of rain, pelting from the sky. Margaret shut her eyes and thought of Josephs, who was no doubt riding for the physician on horseback through the breaking storm. She felt that thread of fear pulling at her, and tamped it down. He would arrive safely. He had to.

  Tollin nodded, his muscles relaxing slightly. He seemed grateful to be given something to do. She would have to assign them all tasks until the physician arrived. Yet another wave of people crowded through the door. If Margaret didn’t act, her father would be smothered by well-meaning servants.

  “Mrs. Benedict,” Margaret said, “we’ll need a posset. Something sustaining—the duke will need to keep up his strength. I’m sure that Mrs. Lorens can arrange something suitable. Please send someone to the kitchens.” Mrs. Benedict met her eyes and then nodded.

  Margaret leaned over her father. He was still speaking, but he was no longer shouting. Now his words came out on a whisper, a wistful stream of babble flowing over her with as much meaning as the passing water of a brook.

  “I believe,” she announced with as much conviction as she could muster, “that his chest has taken an ill humor, which has caused his lungs to react in this unfavorable manner.”

  Nobody contradicted t
his blatant idiocy; instead, heads nodded, pleased to be able to put words to his condition. Even she felt better, and she knew that she’d just invented the mysterious problem herself. Not madness, nor failure; just a lung condition, like a cough or a cold.

  “We’re going to need to prepare something to draw the inflammation from his chest.” Something harmless. Something with a great many ingredients, which would keep everyone occupied until the physician arrived. “I’m going to need a brazier for the fire and some heated water. Willow water,” she said, because that would take longer to fetch. “Then cloves. A handful of crushed calendula flowers…”

  She rattled off every innocuous ingredient that came to mind. So long as they kept him cool and comfortable, it was unlikely to hurt.

  Outside, thunder rumbled again, and rain continued to splash down.

  As an afterthought, Margaret tasked two of the maids with standing outside the room and barring entry to anyone else.

  As the servants streamed out to fetch their respective items, one more person ducked his head in. It was Ash.

  He frowned at Margaret and leaned against the door frame. “Miss Lowell. What’s happened?”

  For the first time, a thread of fear crept through her. She’d stayed behind in part to watch over her father. The notion that Ash might do the duke harm seemed ludicrous now that she knew him. And so she didn’t fear Ash himself. But she did fear for him. She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t come any farther into the room than that chair, Mr. Turner. I mean it. Stop moving.”

  “Good God, Margaret.”

  “The duke is in serious condition. If anything happens while you’re present, they will say you killed him. If he dies before Parliament votes on the Dalrymples’ Act of Legitimation, you’ll inherit everything. You have a reason to harm him. I’ll not let anyone say you took the opportunity.”

  Ash’s jaw set. “You don’t think I would actually do him harm.”

  Margaret put her hands on her hips. “No. Of course not. But if you imagine I’ll let anyone say you did, you’ve gone mad. And so not another step. If you don’t come into the room, I can attest that you didn’t come within ten yards.”