Courtney Milan (9 page)

“At least I wouldn’t have made you stand all day, four days running,” he shot back. “I’d have understood that when you asked for
recognition,
you were not speaking solely about revenge. Tell me, Miss Barton, and tell me plainly. What is it you want?”

“I want funds enough for the future.”

“You’re looking for perpetual support?”

“No. That farm I told you about—I want to grow lavender, make soaps, and take them to market.”

He inclined his head.

“I want my child to be able to overcome the circumstances of his birth. If he is to be a duke’s son, he should have some advantages. I want him to go to Eton. Or, if she’s a girl, to have a Season. Clermont is the father. He owes his child some sort of future, and I will not go away until it’s secured.”

Hugo exhaled and tried to imagine the duke taking responsibility. He tried to imagine the
duchess
understanding. No use; it would never happen.

He tried to imagine himself driving Serena away—but that was an even more futile prospect. He was trapped between an improbability and an unlikelihood.

He frowned. “I’ll need to look into a few things,” he said. “But we’ll talk tomorrow—let us say at eleven in the morning. And this time I mean it. No threats—not from either of us. This is a problem.”

He reached out and set his hand over hers on the walking stick. She raised her eyes to his, wide and luminous.

“I solve problems,” he said.

F
REDDY HAD BEEN IN BED
when Serena arrived last evening; she was still sleeping when Serena awoke, early in the morning.

Serena was just slipping into her shoes in the entry when a querulous note sounded behind her.

“Serena? Are you sneaking out already? Where were you so late last night?”

Serena’s heart skipped a beat. “Out,” she said.

“Out doing what?”

“Out being…out.”

There sounded the thump of feet hitting the floor, and then Freddy turned the corner. Her countenance was screwed into worried little lines.

“You arrived in someone’s company,” she said. “I watched you.”

And she’d thought Freddy asleep. Her sister had likely been too upset to speak. There was no use denying the accusation, though, so Serena simply picked up her cloak.

“A man. Haven’t men caused you enough trouble?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Don’t you know how men are? It is
always
like that with them. Is that how you got in trouble? Walking out with a man after dark?” Freddy grimaced. “You’ve never learned your lesson.”

“What lesson should I have learned?”

Freddy straightened and set her hands on her hips. “I scarcely said a word when you flaunted your problems before all of Mayfair. And now I’m being forced to vacate the home I hold dear. I am made homeless, and
you
are out at all hours of the night cavorting with men.”

“I wasn’t cavorting. It was the Wolf of Clermont, if you must know. I
have
to speak with him. And even if it wasn’t, what do you expect me to do? Hide for the rest of my life, because something bad happened to me?”

Freddy’s lips compressed.

“If you’re worried about where to stay, I’ve a few leads on rooms. I’ll have us a new place by nightfall. I was just headed out to—”

As she spoke, Freddy reached down and picked up a pair of slippers. “Us?” she said. “
We
won’t have anything.” And then she threw the slippers at Serena.

They were made of wool and therefore bounced ineffectually off Serena’s forehead. Still, she was aghast. Mild-mannered Freddy, tossing things at her?

“How dare you?” Freddy said. “How dare you bring me into this?”

“Freddy—it’s just a place to stay. We’ll find a new one, just as good.”

“You don’t understand!” Freddy looked about the entry. “You’ve never understood. I have only ever had one safe place—these rooms—and now you’ve taken them from me.”

Freddy reached down and picked up the tired valise that stood next to the table.

“Listen to yourself,” Serena said. “You want me to hide, just like you do—hurt once, never risking anything else again. You won’t be satisfied until you’ve brought me down to your level.”

Freddy’s eyes flashed. Her lips pressed together, and in that moment, Serena had the horrible, awful feeling of having said too much. Freddy hurled the valise at her. It traveled only a few feet, lacking the basic capabilities to sustain long flight, and landed in a discordant crumple of leather and buckles.

“Do you not understand what happened to you?” Freddy glared at her. “You suffered a fate worse than death, and still you—”

“I am alive,” Serena said. “My child is alive. I intend to carry on living. Can you say that much?”

At that, Freddy swiped her hand across the side-table, tipping it over. It fell with a resounding crash.

Serena stepped forward and bent awkwardly to right the furniture. Her sister let out a sniff. “Oh, don’t bother,” she said crossly. “I’ll clean it up. I always do clean up after your messes. You would do it wrong, anyway. Go and dally with an entire company of men. I don’t care.”

Chapter Seven

A
T ELEVEN O’CLOCK
precisely, Serena was met at her bench by a man she had never seen before. He looked precisely the sort of man she would have imagined as the Wolf of Clermont a month ago—tall and muscular, eyes set close together, neck disappearing into broad shoulders.

“Miss Barton?” he asked.

Serena stood, folding the list of housing advertisements that she’d been perusing.

“I’m to show you around the back.”

She followed. It was foolish to be nervous. She’d talked with Mr. Marshall before. But not since he’d kissed her. Not since he’d discovered she was pregnant with another man’s child, and he’d drawn back.

He led her around the street and into a mews in back. From there, they ducked into the servants’ entrance in one of the white stone houses. The door opened onto a cellar. This he passed through swiftly, taking her up several flights of a narrow stair, and from there, into a richly carpeted hall, paintings on the walls.

All around her, the surroundings echoed wealth and generations of power—everything that had aligned itself against her.
This
was what she’d been fighting against. Not just the Duke of Clermont, or Mr. Marshall, but an entire country’s worth of opinion. She was as nothing compared to this sort of power—nothing more than a single grain in an entire sack of wheat. Nobody cared whether kernels wished to be ground into flour. It didn’t matter if she spoke or stayed silent; she had no voice either way.

Well, it mattered to her.

The servant came to a stop in front of a door, and Serena drew in a breath.

Her escort rapped on the door, once.

“Come in,” a voice said.

The man beside her opened the door. He held it for her, expectantly, and she realized that he wasn’t going to be entering with her.

She stepped into the room. Big strides. Head high.
Breathe,
she reminded herself. She was in an office—or at least she assumed it was an office. It could have been a library, with those books on the shelves. But there was paper everywhere—not only strewn about in loose stacks, but also set in cunning little shelves and tied up with different colors of cotton tape, all of which seemed to have some meaning. Blue there, yellow here, red spread out on the desk.

She couldn’t see Hugo—the high back of the black leather chair was turned to shield him.

“Well, Mr. Marshall,” she said, walking into the room with more bravery then she felt, “So this is where you crush hopes and shatter dreams.”

“Very droll.” He rose to his feet. Despite his words, there was no indication that he saw anything amusing at all. His mouth was set in one firm, sober line. And when he’d caught her attention, he gestured to the solitary wooden chair that stood across the desk from him. “Sit,” he commanded.

Serena smoothed her palms over her skirt and complied.

He sank into his chair. But he didn’t start the conversation. He simply steepled his fingers and looked at her silently. She wondered what he was seeing. The woman he’d kissed last night? A lady of easy virtue? Or someone else entirely?

He frowned and then pushed back in his chair. “Well,” he said. “We appear to have found ourselves in a bit of a difficulty.”

“You don’t seem to have done too badly for yourself.”

“I haven’t even—” He broke off and blew out a frustrated puff of air. “Never mind. Here is what we are going to offer you.”

“Who do you mean by
we?
”

Mr. Marshall ignored this. “We can’t provide what you ask for—no Eton, no Season. To give that much, the duke would have to exert himself for the child. His wife would discover it, and he has too much to lose.”

“Then I shall continue to sit outside his house. What do you suppose the gossip will run to once I begin to show?” She began to stand.

He slammed his hand against the table with a resounding thud. “
Wait.
”

“Don’t you screech at me,” Serena snapped. “Not you of all people.”

He stared at her a moment and then let out a breath. “My apologies,” he said stiffly. “I am rather on edge at the moment. I suspect we both are.” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “We are prepared to give you your fifty pounds, and then an extra fifty beyond that. Enough for you to live on, if you manage your resources judiciously. Enough to pay for a solid education or a finishing school. It’s not what you hoped for, but it is the best I can manage.”

She would be a fool not to take it. Anyone would say so.

But if she agreed, she’d no doubt be setting her name to more silence—a hundred supercilious looks, a lifetime of shaking heads. And her child…he would still be some nameless, unprotected bastard.

“What about my sister?” she asked.

He waved his hand. “She may stay where she is or live with you, as is her preference. This has already been communicated to her landlord; Miss Frederica Barton knows by now that she need not leave.”

She should take what he’d offered. Still, Serena met his eyes and held them. “Is that all you’ve got to offer? It isn’t enough.”

He’d been watching her the entire time. But now, for the first time, he looked away.

“As it happens, there is something else.” He played with the handle of a desk drawer uneasily. “What you wanted for your child was acceptance. That will be unattainable if your child is born a bastard. Eton would have been a futile promise in any event, as the founding statutes say quite clearly that any boy who attends must be legitimate. Have you any plans to marry at present?”

“You know I haven’t.”

He was still looking away, addressing the desk. “Consider acquiring some.”

Serena felt herself flush.

“Mr. Marshall, recall the circumstances in which I find myself. I have no great wealth, no family name to shield me. I am pregnant with another man’s child. Marriage is simply not an option.”

His expression did not change. “On the contrary, Miss Barton. You have a pending proposal of marriage—one you have not yet answered.”

“What are you talking about? I think I would know better than you if someone had proposed.”

“Think harder, Miss Barton. I know the circumstances of the offer quite well. I should. After all, I made it.”

Her heart came to a standstill. That note, that confusing, heart-rending note that he’d sent her…was it just yesterday afternoon?

“That wasn’t seriously meant,” she protested. “You don’t want to get married.”

“Don’t imagine it would be the usual kind of marriage.” He seemed to withdraw even more. “It needn’t even be consummated. Any woman I liked well enough to marry doesn’t deserve to be saddled with me. If we marry, it will be a quiet wedding by special license in a back room. At the end, we’ll go our separate ways—you, to your farm, and me…” He looked around the small room at the messy piles of paper. “I’m not offering to make a life with you. I am merely giving you the chance to make your child legitimate. Nothing more.”

He watched her, his eyes hooded and wary. And deep inside… She had no notion as to what to say.