“If I grant you the post, you will have no fine garments,” he warned. He flicked the slight puffed sleeve of her satin gown and she stiffened. Then his words registered and hope blossomed in her breast. Despite his taunting words and warnings, a giddy sensation ran through her. He would grant her the post! “There will be no lavish jewels and balls to attend with a mere girl.” Even as a mistress, she’d not attended balls. Her protector had given her food, a place to dwell, but there had been no funds for baubles. “You will be a mere servant in this household.” He’d erroneously assumed she was a lady whose family was in dire straits.
“I know that,” she said calmly. If she let on a trace of the elation filling her, he’d toss her out without a backward glance.
The duke stared hard at her and for one terrifying, agonizing moment, it was as though he could see all the sins stamped on her skin. Then he said; “You are to be invisible. You are not to darken my door. I do not even want you in these corridors. You are to keep the child away from this hall and in her schoolrooms or nursery or….” He waved the bottle in his hand about. “Wherever it is children go. Can you do that?”
Emotion pounded at her breast, numbing her to the sentiment she’d thought long dead—hope. He would allow her to remain! “I can.” A woman who’d done everything Lily had in order to survive could certainly handle a seven- or eight-year-old child. Failure would not be an option in this regard.
His Grace set the decanter down hard. “Very well,” he said in his aloof, ducal tones.
Yet for his shocking capitulation, she’d become suspect of any hints of uncharacteristic weakness in people. Those individuals, usually males, expected more in return. As he limped back to his desk, she called out. “Why would you do this?”
With the same regality of the Prince Regent claiming his throne, the duke sat in his leather winged back chair. Between his large, gloved hands, he cradled his drink. “Would you talk me from my decision?”
She was struck by how unwittingly close to the mark his rejoinder, in fact, was. For deep down, the part of her that was still good and decent chafed with the act of theft she intended to commit against this man—kin of George or no. Unable to form words past the guilt clogging her throat, she gave her head a shake.
“There is the matter of your payment.”
My payment. Lily stiffened and, reflexively, her fingers tightened along the arms of the chair. “And what form of payment do you expect?” she managed to squeeze out past tight lips. Ultimately all these powerful men wanted but one thing of her.
“Expect?” he drawled.
Lily folded her arms protectively at her chest and glared. Invariably, they all asked for more and that more, inevitably, entailed the use of her body.
His Grace sipped from his brandy, all the while keeping that sole, ice blue eye on her. He ran his gaze up and down her person. “I am uncertain of the other employers you’ve had before this post, but I assure you, I do not have designs upon your person, Miss Bennett.”
Those jeering words were, no doubt, intended as an insult. They had the opposite effect. The tension left her. “My name is Mrs. Benedict, and—” She promptly closed her mouth. Coward as she was, she slid her gaze away from the contemptuous sneer on his lips. How much greater that contempt would be if he knew she’d lain with his brother and then whored herself in the time since. Self-loathing unfurled in her belly. Unnerved by his presence, she shifted in her seat. “Have we concluded this meeting, Your Grace? I am eager to…” Escape. “Begin in my post.”
He stared at her through thick, impossibly long, black lashes. A little fluttering danced in her belly. His was the beauty of darkly fallen angels, who’d tempt a lady out of her good name and virtue. Both of which she’d long been without. That satin black patch covering the remnants of his other eye gave him a sinister, dangerous quality. Then, he inclined his head. She drew in a steadying breath, stood up, and started for the door.
She made it no further than the leather sofa.
“Mrs. Benedict?”
Lily froze and remained with her gaze trained on the doorway. He knows. He knows I am the whore who gave her innocence to his brother and came here even now on a plan to fleece him of his diamond. She turned slowly back. “Your Grace?”
The young duke leaned back. “How very peculiar you do not wish to discuss the terms of your employment.”
Actually, she hadn’t. Since she’d entered the Duke of Blackthorne’s home, she’d not truly allowed herself to think to this moment. She’d grown so accustomed to the world saying no, she’d forgotten the universe still had an occasional yes for her. She cursed her misstep. For all the ways in which life and time had aged her, she’d never developed the skill of prevarication. If she weren’t more careful, it would land her in Newgate.
He winged a menacing black eyebrow upward.
Lily’s mind turned quickly. What did a woman require in terms of funds, in order to live secure and safe for the remainder of her years? “Forty pounds per year of service,” she blurted. That ridiculous sum was nearly triple the funds given to a woman in the respective position. Yet, those monies could be, nay would be, set aside for her future. Guilt needled at her, for ultimately when she made off with his coin, she’d also be gone with Holdsworth’s heirloom.
“Forty pounds per year?” His harsh, gravelly question caused her to jump.
Her future wasn’t something she’d allowed herself to think on or about, for the absolute grimness of such a prospect. In failing to acknowledge or confront that inevitable problem, with Sir Henry’s passing, she found herself humbled before another stranger, and now this man. What a cruel world women dwelled in. After living a life in chains of Society’s constraints and her own making, the tantalizing glimpse of freedom hovered just within her grasp. She squared her shoulders. “And a pension of five hundred pounds when I’ve completed my terms of service to Her Ladyship.” She braced for his blunt rejection of her outlandish requests, which mattered not. In the end, she’d be gone long before that pension was ever granted.
The duke downed the remaining contents of his glass. He set it down hard before him. “Very well.” He rose effortlessly from his chair.
He’d agreed? She followed his movements as he crossed over, serpent cane in hand, and rang the servant’s bell. “Very well?” she repeated back dumbly. He’d agreed to those terms. All of them? With no questions asked and from the woman who’d made demands upon him, no less. And with the respectable position he offered, for a foolish instant, she imagined abandoning Holdsworth’s plans and living here, with the Devil and all.
A hard glint lit his eye. It was a soulless, dark eye Satan would have begged the duke for. “Unless there is something more you’d ask for?”
As soon as the thought slid in, she abandoned it. If she failed to aid Holdsworth, he would see her in Newgate before he’d ever allow her a life of decency in this house.
Not for the first time since she’d agreed to this madcap scheme for survival, warning bells went off and blared loud in her ears. “N-no, there is nothing.”
A rap sounded at the door and she sent a silent thank you skyward at the interruption.
“Enter.” His thunderous voice kicked her heartbeat up into that frenzied rhythm he somehow managed to elicit with each command and utterance.
The butler entered the room. The poor man seemed to be a perpetual shade of gray. Or perhaps that was the effect of working in this particular household. He cast a commiserative glance in Lily’s direction and then swiftly turned his focus to his employer. “You rang, Your Grace?”
“This very important meeting is concluded.” She frowned at the mocking emphasis placed on that one word. Without waiting for any potential questions from the young servant, the duke walked slowly back to his desk. “If you’ll show Mrs. Benedict to her rooms?” he called out, not breaking his stride.
Lily hesitated. There was something she should say to him. She cast a glance back at Harris, who patiently waited w
ith a pained glimmer in his eyes. He wanted out of the devil’s lair. And yet… She looked to the duke once again, now seated upon the leather winged back chair that may as well have been a king’s throne for the power he evinced in the leather folds.
“Mrs. Benedict?” There was a faint entreaty in Harris’ tone, which called her to the moment.
Giving her head a clearing shake, she started after him.
“Mrs. Benedict?”
At that steely edged whisper, Lily stilled and wheeled slowly back to face the duke.
“You sold yourself short. If you’d asked for triple that sum, I would have paid it to be free of the burden of the responsibilities that go with that child.”
Those callous words about the small girl drew a frown from her. She bit her tongue to keep from telling His Grace precisely what she thought of one who saw his ward—a motherless, fatherless child—as nothing more than an inconvenience he’d like to rid himself of. The child might be the niece of the man who ruined her, but she was still a defenseless girl, dependent on others for her security. “I am not greedy, Your Grace.” No, I’m a whore, liar, and a thief. But never greedy.
“No, you are naïve and trusting which is far more dangerous to you.” How eerily accurate he was with that throwaway comment. She’d been naïvely trusting twice before in her life. Both times it had destroyed her. “Do you intend to gape at me all day?” He jerked his chin. “Get out.”
His sharp order snapped her into motion and she took her leave of The Beast, grateful as Harris closed the door behind them. Only with that damning click thundering in the quiet, she started. She’d not even so much looked about his office for the revered artifact that had brought her into his home under false pretenses. Lily cast a glance back at the closed door and then followed Harris in silence as he led her through the labyrinth of the duke’s lair up the servant’s stairs and down corridor after corridor. With each step, her skin pricked with the eerie sense of being watched. She stopped abruptly and spun about, scanning the hall. The empty hall. Her heart pounded wildly as she sought the ghosts of the duke’s home.
“Mrs. Benedict, are you all right?”
Harris’ concerned question brought her around. “Fine,” she murmured. A dull heat slapped her cheeks at being a fearful, silly lackwit who saw ghosts in the shadows. “I’m fine,” she repeated when he continued to study her with that dubious stare. Anyway, hadn’t she well learned that real men were far more threatening and ominous than those who’d gone?
“Would you have me show you to the nursery first to meet Her Ladyship?”
“No!” The denial burst from her, earning a befuddled look. Following her meeting with the darkly dangerous duke, she needed a stolen moment of calm; one that did not involve the child whose care had been erroneously turned over to her. She steadied her tones. “I thought to refresh following my travels,” she said softly.
“Of course, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head. They resumed their path along the blood-red carpeted hall, a perfect color for the duke who called this his home. Harris stopped beside the last door at the end of the hall. He pressed the handle. “Here you are, Mrs. Benedict. I had your belongings brought to your room. Is there anything else you require?” Courage, strength, a calm imagination.
She managed a smile. “No, that will be all.”
He bowed and took his leave. Lily stared after him until he’d gone.
With his leaving, she was now truly alone in this cold, empty townhouse.
She made to enter the room, when again the prickle of awareness sent shivers racing along her spine. “Hello?” She skimmed her gaze over the corridor. Perhaps the ghosts of the dead Duchess of Blackthorne hovered about, protesting Lily’s presence here, still. “Who is there?” The sharp echo of her words on the empty walls served as her only answer. “You are going mad,” she muttered to herself and took a step inside her rooms.
“Hullo—”
A shriek burst from Lily’s lips and she spun around and nearly collided with a young girl. “Oh.” So this was the ghost. No ghost really. Just a lonely child. Her charge. Heart racing, she managed a smile.
The child with tight brown curls stared at her with wide, curious eyes. Familiar eyes. Her uncle’s eyes. Such a detail should cause a pang of regret and yet there was nothing left but anger for the man she’d gifted her virtue to.
Lily dropped slowly to her knee. “Hullo.”
The girl’s cornflower blue eyes reflected suspicion and interest. “You are afraid.”
Terror had gripped her from the moment she stepped inside this home. “I’m not,” she lied. Not fear she’d admit to, anyway.
The child drifted closer and peered at Lily. Did she sense the lie there? “The last one was and she left. Never to return.”
Icy tendrils of fear snaked about her heart. At a girl’s words? She gave her head a shake. “Well, I do not intend to go.” Lily couldn’t very well admit to the truth of having no other options but to remain. “What is your n—?”
“You are scared.” She leaned forward and spoke in hushed, entirely too mature tones. “I was scared, too, when I first arrived, but then sometimes, when he thinks he is alone, I hear him crying.” Oh, god. Lily’s chest tightened. “They say he is a beast. Do not be scared. Be brave.” She must be all manner of fool for she remained frozen, transfixed by the words of a young child. The girl touched the left portion of her face. “He is ugly here.” She touched her opposite cheek. “But not here.” The duke. “And you will find he really isn’t that scary. All the time.” With that, the girl danced away and sprinted down the hall.
Lily surged to her feet. “Wait,” she called out. Except the child disappeared around the corridor, vanishing like the morning mist.
She stood there long after the small waif-like girl had gone; the child who’d been nothing more than the pawn that had brought Lily into this home in order to commit a theft upon the duke. The girl unwittingly represented Lily’s eventual salvation. Yet, with one whispered “hullo” and an urging to be brave, the child had become more than the means to an end of Lily’s years as a whore. The brown-haired girl was a stranger no more, but instead a person whose care she’d been charged with and, suddenly, the anger and hatred she’d carried for all who bore the Winters’ blood, dimmed.
Lily forced her legs to move and wandered inside her new rooms. With a deep sigh, she closed the door and leaned back against the wooden panel. She closed her eyes. She’d spent so many years only caring for and about herself that until this meeting outside her new rooms a handful of moments ago, she’d neglected the obvious truth. What had brought her into the beast’s lair was not revenge or Holdsworth’s diamond.
It was a child.
Chapter 5
Following Lily’s corridor meeting with her charge, the girl had remained as elusive as a ghost. The next morning, Lily woke determined to begin her responsibilities as governess. The sooner she could locate that blasted diamond, the sooner she could be free of this cold, eerie home. Standing at the bevel mirror in her chambers, she pinched color into her cheeks and then, taking a deep steadying breath, left the safety of her rooms and ventured out in search of the duke’s ward. She glanced first left and then right, down the long, quiet halls. The hum of silence served as her only company.
“Now, how to go about finding a girl who does not wish to be found?” She nibbled her lower lip. Her experience as an older sibling had proven one certain fact—a child who did not wish to be found could hide like the very cleverest pygmy shrew.
With a sigh, Lily took the right hallway. In the years she’d been away from her younger siblings, she’d not allowed herself to think on them. The agony of missing them had eased with the passage of time. In the moments, she allowed them to slip into her thoughts, the agony of losing them from her life had ravaged her with the same vicious pain as when her father had tossed her aboard a mail coach and sent her off to London.
As such, she’d not allowed herself to think about all
that made a child…well, a child. To think of those innocent, loving beings only roused thoughts of another babe who’d never be. Whores did not become mothers. Not mothers who were, in any way, respectable. Longing tightened painfully about her heart and she forcibly thrust aside foolish yearnings for what would never be.
Lily stopped beside a closed door. She pressed the handle and shoved it open. “Flora?” Skimming her gaze about the darkened room, she sighed and pulled the panel closed behind her. Since arriving in the duke’s household yesterday, she’d quickly learned that Flora was a spirited miss who reveled in her ability to hide in the shadows of this home.
She walked, her footsteps silent on the carpet-lined corridors, as she made her way through the maze-like home. Occasionally, she glanced at the paintings adorning the walls of the duke’s noble family who, by their dress and bewigged heads, were long-gone ancestors. With the great gulf between them, she and the duke may as well have belonged to two different universes.
He and his kind donned satins and silks and the finest fabrics. Hers had always been a respectable family, cut of religious cloth. Had her fifteen-year-old self seen this opulent home, surely even that naïve child would still not have been so foolish as to believe George’s intentions were honorable.
She continued walking, when out of the corner of her eye, she spied a particular portrait that brought her to a staggering halt. George, the late Duke of Blackthorne, with his condescending glint did not command her notice but rather the delicate woman at his side. Attired in a Grecian gown of white satin, the regal blonde woman evinced everything a duchess should be. Drawn forward, she stopped at the base of the painting. Lily’s gaze fixed on the obscenely large diamond about the woman’s delicate neck. Her stomach muscles knotted reflexively. So this was the piece that a man would have at all costs and that she would sell her soul for?
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