Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  Last night, as he stared at the cards on the table, he’d realized one fundamental truth. Fate had not saved him from suicidal folly all those years ago. Madame Esmerelda had not intervened with the spirits on his behalf. There was only one conclusion: He must have unwittingly saved himself. What he had accomplished once by accident, he could do again by choice.

  And so here he stood. Some rebellious part of him yearned to go lie down, to give in to the cloying despondency of the last few days. But he’d beaten it before with resolve, albeit a resolve bolstered by lies. He could win a second time with truth.

  He knocked on the door. When the stiff butler answered, Ned handed over his card. “I’m here to see Lady Kathleen,” he said.

  The man glanced at the card. Ned hadn’t thought the fellow could starch up any more, but the sudden rigidity in his joints made his previous posture seem downright malleable by comparison. The butler swiftly closed the door in Ned’s face.

  Resolve, Ned repeated to himself. Resolve and strength would unravel this tangle. Ned waited. And waited. And waited.

  Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again. The butler nodded. “His Grace will see you now.”

  “But I don’t wish to speak to His Grace,” Ned said. His Grace had probably cleaned his pistols in preparation for this moment. “I wish to speak to His Grace’s daughter.”

  The butler raised an eyebrow. “His Grace will see you now.”

  Ned sighed and followed the man. His Grace waited in the front parlor. He was in shirtsleeves, as if he couldn’t bother to dress for Ned. A book was open on his lap. He didn’t look up when Ned entered. Instead, he continued to pretend to read. And a pretense it obviously was. Aside from the carefully timed turning of the pages, the Duke of Ware stared at the pages blankly, his eyes unmoving, his hands strangling the spine of the book. It was precisely the sort of thing Blakely would do—ignore a man to put him in his place.

  Ned balanced from foot to foot in indecision. He didn’t want to antagonize the man. But then again, it wasn’t as if the duke could hate him more. And he couldn’t bear waiting for his life to happen to him. No; from this point onward, he would direct the course of his life.

  He stepped forward and grabbed the book from His Grace’s hands. “I apologize for the precipitate behavior,” he said. “You see, you’re either going to have to kill me or allow me to talk with your daughter. I’m very difficult to ignore.”

  Ware’s face slowly mottled an unflattering orange as he looked up. “Blazing pitch and sulfur! You’ve ignored me. Twice, now, we’ve been scheduled to meet. Twice, now, Blakely convinced me not to hunt you down. I demand satisfaction.”

  “We all want satisfaction, Your Grace. Unfortunately, most of us are doomed to disappointment.”

  “Pistols or swords, you bounder!”

  Ned shook his head. “I’m not going to fight you. If it comes down to it, I prefer pistols. Through the heart, please. I’d prefer not to linger from a gut wound.”

  “Confounded goat-lover! Puling rabbit!”

  This was an easily recognizable pattern. Ned grasped at it.

  “Ridiculous weasel?” he assayed.

  Ware clenched his fists. “Impudent worm!”

  “Five-toed chicken! Ravenous strawberry!”

  That brought Ware up. “What? What did you call me?”

  “Oh, were you calling me those names?” Ned replied innocently. “I thought we were playing a game. You know, irrelevant adjective applied to inexplicable noun. You know how it goes. First to string together a coherent sentence loses.”

  Ware stared in absolute befuddlement. Blakely, Ned had realized, had been excellent practice. Whether practice for getting himself killed or getting himself married remained to be seen.

  “That,” Ned added gently, “implies you lost. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “My daughter is not a game.”

  It was time to test his resolve. “Then why are you toying with me instead of letting me speak with her?”

  Ware’s eyes drilled into Ned’s sternum. His mouth set. Ned wanted to hide, but he made himself stand straight and return the look.

  Finally, the duke stood and walked to the door, his legs stiff. He threw it open. On the other side leaned Lady Kathleen, her hand cupped where the door had been.

  She stiffened into a guilty curtsy. “Papa. Mr. Carhart.”

  Ned bowed. “Lady Kathleen,” he said. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “Well, poppet,” Ware said with a sigh. “Shall I slay him?”

  The angelic Kathleen shook her head. The light caught her hair in a fine nimbus, almost like a halo. “No, Papa.”

  Ware deflated. “I was afraid you would say that.”

  “Not in the parlor,” she added. “Blood stains so.”

  “So it does. So it does. I suppose you’ll talk to him, then?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to.”

  Ware jerked with his thumb. “Call out if he annoys you. I’ll come in and gut him with the poker.”

  Ned’s gaze traveled to the fireplace where the implement rested. “But it’s not even remotely sharp!”

  Ware smiled broadly and rubbed big, hairy hands together. “I know.”

  Well. At least Ned could discard the worry that she’d turn him down because she feared he was mad. She was likely used to insanity. The door shut behind the duke, and Ned was left alone with Lady Kathleen. He knew what he needed to do. It should not have felt like such a hardship.

  Right. He got down on one knee. She stepped back, her lips pressing together. Silence stretched.

  “See here,” he finally said. “We had better get married.”

  She winced and flattened herself against the wall. “A week ago, you sent me a letter, saying you wanted to speak with me alone. As a result of that letter, we were caught together in an improper situation, and you disappeared. It’s been seven days since last I saw you. What the devil have you been doing?”

  Ned grimaced wryly and glanced across the room at her. Explanations flitted through his mind. He finally settled on a variant of the truth. “I’ve been afflicted by madness. It was only temporary.”

  She shook her head. “This seems to be a common affliction in your family. Ought I be worried?” There was a hint of a smile on her lips; no doubt she thought he was joking again.

  Ned thought of the darkness that came over him from time to time, robbing him of strength. And he thought of his own will. It seemed a slender reed to stand against that howling storm. “Yes,” he said solemnly. “You should.”

  She shut her eyes. “Well. This is romantic. You don’t really want to marry me, do you?”

  A marriage, Ned thought, ought to be composed of a great many qualities. Affection. Infatuation. Friendship. But he had nothing to offer her except one last quality: Honesty.

  “No,” he said. “But then—do you really want to marry me, either?”

  She was silent for a very long time. “I’m a duke’s daughter. I never expected to marry for love. I always expected to marry the heir to some great title—and here you are.” She looked at him through long lashes, and an uneasy roil built in his gut. “You make me laugh. You’re not puffed up with your own importance.” She glanced at the door. “You understand, I hope, that I’m my father’s only child, and I’ll be helping him with matters in the House of Lords. Will you interfere with that?”

  “No.” He swallowed uncomfortably and looked away. “Lady Kathleen,” he finally said, “I don’t want you to expect too much from me. I am, after all—”

  She interrupted this speech by reaching for his hand. Instead of taking it in her own, however, she shook it firmly—as if she were embarking on a business deal, not a betrothal. “You’ll do,” she said.

  And like that, Ned was engaged.

  GARETH HAD ARRIVED PRECISELY at the appointed hour. Jenny was aware of his eyes flicking toward her throughout the drive. The sun shone brightly; birds chirped merrily. It was a day pulled out of
an idyllic romanticist’s novel; a phaeton, a pair of smart-stepping horses and a handsome man. The world was sharp and crisp around the edges as their conveyance crossed Blackfriars Bridge.

  But the handsome man wasn’t speaking words of adoration, and besides, she was going to have to leave him. What he did not say in words, he showed in gestures. She read his unease in every movement—the tight clamp his gloved hands kept on the reins, his monosyllabic responses. And always, always, the way he watched her. Warily, as if she wielded some mighty weapon.

  Jenny could have wept.

  She put her hand over his. His jaw twitched and he looked ahead. Stoic and somber.

  Eventually, he turned onto a street labeled Half Moon Lane, a quiet, respectable neighborhood. He pulled the horses up outside an elegant row house. He tossed the reins in one controlled flick to the boy who clambered down off the back. The horses stamped and tossed their heads, but stood. The afternoon silence, after the rattle of wheels over cobblestone, pressed into her skin. Gareth removed one black glove and held out his hand to her. She took it and stepped down. He didn’t retain her grip. Instead he turned, jerkily, to the house and reached the door in a few strides.

  Following behind him, Jenny noticed the knocker had been removed from the glossy blue door. Gareth fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a key. Seconds later, he swung the door open, with the air of a sculptor unveiling his masterpiece. The tense lines of his face set, and he motioned her forward.

  Jenny stepped into the hall. The soles of her shoes clacked on black marble so polished she could have used it as a mirror. Gold tracework climbed the walls. Her vision followed the scrolling gilt up, up and still up. She broke out in gooseflesh. That frightening sense of vertigo assailed her, as if she were looking into a great chasm built of money. Cherubs cavorted across the blue of the ceiling. A lady of Gareth’s acquaintance might have found their chubby smiles comforting. All Jenny could think was that some poor fellow had hung with his feet dangling all those yards above the ground for hours on end, all for the purpose of providing her with five seconds of pleasure should she happen to glance in the air.

  “What do you think of it?” Gareth asked.

  “It makes the bottoms of my feet tingle,” Jenny said honestly.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Well. That’s ambiguous. You should see the rest of the house.”

  He took her arm and guided her through a doorway decorated with ornate molding. Black marble gave way to floors that gleamed like honey. The paper on the walls was a rich burgundy-and-gold. And the gold wasn’t a mere yellow color; it shone with little flecks of gleaming metal. Traces of light seeped through drawn velvet curtains. Jenny turned around, her feet clopping noisily against the floor.

  “It echoes,” Jenny said experimentally. Her voice reverberated back to her.

  “It’s not furnished yet,” Gareth said. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to do it yourself, or if I should hire someone for the task.”

  His words echoed, too. Jenny swallowed, a forbidding pit growing in her stomach.

  “Gareth,” she said quietly, “my furnishings would look rather ridiculous in here.”

  “Pshaw. As if I’d let you keep that rickety old table. Here, you haven’t seen upstairs yet. You can see the back garden from the bedroom window.”

  Jenny planted her feet and shook her hand as he tried to lead her away. “What is this?”

  “It’s a house. A row house. I know it doesn’t look like much at the moment, but imagine it furnished. Paintings on the wall. A fire in the fireplace and a staff.”

  Jenny rolled her eyes. “I know what a house is, Gareth. And I have a perfectly functional imagination. I don’t know why you’re showing it to me.”

  “My solicitor’s drawing up the deed. I’m giving it to you.”

  The world stood still. “What?”

  “I’m. Giving. It. To. You. Oh, stop standing there with your mouth open. If you want to thank me, I can think of several ways for you to do so.”

  Suggestive words, but he delivered them so stiffly.

  Her heart constricted. She’d told him not to send furniture or bring her jewels, so he gave her a house? Had he understood a word she’d told him?

  “Well?” He reached for her hand. “Come along.”

  “It’s a nice house. A very nice house. It’s a little…” Formal. Big. None of that really seemed to match the shrieking horror inside her. “It’s a little outside my means to maintain properly,” she finally managed.

  “Don’t be obtuse, Jenny. It’s a perfectly legitimate bargain. I have money. You don’t. You have you. And in a matter of days, I won’t. Well, trade and trade alike. I’m keeping you.”

  “I don’t want to be kept.”

  His brows scrunched together in puzzlement.

  “I don’t want to feel obliged to you. And I certainly don’t want you to pay me to do something I’d prefer to give freely.”

  Gareth switched the glove he carried to his other hand and slapped it rhythmically against his thigh. “Explain.”

  “I mean, that what you are proposing—it feels like a coffin to me.”

  The glove slapped once more and then stilled as black leather scrunched in his hand. “You, of all people, know I can never say things the right way. What I mean is—I can’t let you leave me. I need you.”

  She wanted to take his hand and smooth out the tension in the muscles. She wanted to kiss his forehead and watch those furrowed lines sink back into comfort.

  But.

  There was always a but. And this one sank sharp needles deep in Jenny’s chest.

  “And what,” she said slowly, “will I do with the other twenty-two hours of the day?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I assume you’ll devote no more time to Jenny Keeble than Gareth receives. Gareth gets his two hours of scientific work in the morning. What do I get at night?”

  “Jenny. You know I can’t give more. It’s my responsibility, and I cannot give it up—”

  Jenny shut her eyes. Deep down inside her, that strong stillness she’d found waited. And no matter how much her heart cried out to go to him, that quiet center of strength did not recede.

  “I want,” she said, “my integrity. I don’t want to be bought.”

  She stepped back. This marble tomb was just another form of abandonment—another way that a man could put her off in perpetuity. It reduced her longing for family and independence to a stark figure. The number of pounds it took to purchase a house in town. The number of minutes Gareth gave her. She would be nothing more than another column in his account books.

  Account books could be closed, and entire columns could be set aside.

  His mouth parted. He reached for her.

  Jenny shut her eyes against stinging tears. “I don’t want you to buy me. I want you to live. I don’t want to be another one of your responsibilities. I want to be your—”

  Your family.

  She couldn’t say the word. But he took her meaning instantly. “I can’t,” he breathed.

  Beneath wet lashes, she saw him turn away and grip the door frame.

  “You want me to call you Gareth,” Jenny said. “But Lord Blakely will always be between us. His responsibility. His estate. And now you’re trying to make me his mistress. Do you really think—after all you’ve known of me—that you can buy me with money?”

  “It’s all I have to give.”

  Jenny opened her eyes fully. He was facing away from her, the muscles of his back taut.

  “No.” Her words sounded thin and metallic in her ears. As if she stood at a great distance from herself. “It is all you are willing to give. You hide behind money and responsibility.”

  He whipped around, his eyes flashing angrily. “I’m not hiding.”

  “You are. And you want to hide me, too. Well, I’m not having it. You can’t purchase me with numbers or persuade me with logic.”

  He inhaled fiercely, his nostrils flaring. “Ask for anything else. And d
on’t you tell me about hiding. You’re the one who cringes when I talk of adoration and need. You won’t even let yourself depend on me for this one little thing.”

  “No. If you want me,” Jenny said desperately, “trade yourself.”

  “Damn you, Jenny,” he snapped. “It’s not a fair trade.”

  Jenny’s world turned to crystal, all cold sharp edges. Brittle, and teetering on the brink of some high precipice. He needed her. He wouldn’t give up his responsibility. But responsibility—that benevolent word encoded a malign sentiment.

  Hire an estate manager, she’d suggested. He’d responded with, Who would I trust? I was born to this. He’d been taught all his life he was better than everyone else. That careless assumption of superiority left him unable to relinquish either duty or dominance.

  “Not a fair trade.” The words cut her lips as she repeated them.

  He was angry. He felt betrayed. And he did never manage to say the right things. But only half of that could be attributed to underlying awkwardness. This time, he’d meant what he said.

  “If I’m not a fair trade,” she forced herself to say, “it’s because you don’t think I am worth as much as you.”

  And why would he? He’d been taught all his life she wasn’t.

  “Really, Jenny,” he drawled. All emotion had washed from his voice—a sure sign, Jenny knew, that he was too caught up in hurt to dissemble. “Be rational. Who would think you my equal?”

  “I can think of one person.” Jenny squared her shoulders. Her throat ached. She met his eyes, dead-on, without flinching. “Me.”

  His eyes widened and he reached for her wrist, but he moved as if through honey. Jenny stepped back, evading his hand. His glove fell as he stretched for her. It hit the floor with a hollow thump.

  “Don’t go.” His words resounded in the cavernous room. “I didn’t—”

  He caught himself, and Jenny knew that same implacable honor prevented him from finishing that lie. Because he really had meant it. And without once saying goodbye, he’d managed to abandon her in every way that mattered.

  Jenny backed away. When she judged there to be enough distance between them, she turned and walked swiftly to the door. Her footsteps echoed all the way out the foyer, but his did not sound in pursuit.