The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) (10 page)

“Me, sitting in the Lords?” Finney laughed. “I should like to see
that.”

“So should I,” Robert said. “If
I
had a chance to be a part of this nation’s governance, I’d not waste it protecting my prerogatives and interests. No. I’d find every last way that the deck was stacked to allow people like Clermont to poison his workers, and to punish them for voicing complaint when he did so. And I’d eradicate them all.”

He was surprised by the vehemence in his voice.

“Now that,” said Mrs. Finney, “that
is
sedition, and best not to say those words no matter how safe you think you are. You’re young, Mr. Blaisdell. We were all once young. But take a deep breath and put such talk away. It’ll do nobody any good.” She glanced warily at Miss Pursling. “Besides, Miss Pursling, have you not
met
the Duke of Clermont? You do travel in those circles. Sometimes.”

Mr. Finney subsided in his chair, somewhat embarrassed.

Miss Pursling looked away from Robert. “I have.”

“And how is the old bugger?” Finney asked. “One can only hope—”

“Shush, Mr. Finney.”

“I believe,” Miss Pursling, “that this is the other man’s son.”

Finney brushed this off. “Seen one duke, seen ’em all. Am I right, Mr. Blaisdell, am I right?”

Robert didn’t answer. He simply watched Miss Pursling. She’d scarcely shown any emotion at all as he spoke, not even a furrow of concentration on her brow.

She shook her head now. “He’s tall. He’s wealthy. He’s handsome, and those things rarely bode well for a man’s character.”

Robert winced.

But she wasn’t done. “I very much doubt he understands what it means to be a working man, and I suspect that all his life he’s had anything he wanted handed to him, just for the wishing.”

It was a harsh judgment, made harsher still because it was the truth. Robert burned in his seat.

“Men who have only known easy times often cannot comprehend hard ones,” Miss Pursling said.

Amazing how deeply facts could cut. Robert couldn’t even be angry with her. It was no more than he’d told himself of an evening.

“And yet…” She trailed off, shaking her head, and Robert leaned forward, desperate to hear what she might say of him.

Her voice was so quiet, and yet the room seemed quieter still, waiting for her to fill the silence.

“And yet,” she said, without once looking Robert’s way, “I think he is not at all like his father. I don’t know what to make of him.”

He felt rooted in place, unable to move. She hadn’t glanced his way once as she spoke. She hadn’t raised her voice. And yet those words, spoken in a near-whisper, seemed like a benediction whispered over his head.

Not at all like his father.

He let out a shaky breath. “So will you tell the magistrates about this conversation, Miss Pursling?”

“And involve the Finneys? I think not.” She bit her lip. “Tell me, Mr. Blaisdell. This charity you represent. Are you offering pensions to
everyone
who worked at Graydon Boots?”

Not everyone. They wouldn’t believe that, for one. Half of them were dead; more had left town.

“Those who were wronged,” he said tightly, looking away.

“Mrs. Finney,” Miss Pursling said, “I am most grateful for your agreement to present the proposal to the board of the Cooperative.”

“Of course,” the other woman answered.

“Mr. Finney. Mr. Blaisdell.” Miss Pursling inclined her head, touched her skirts in a mild curtsey, and withdrew.

He’d thought her unattractive in this mode, head turned down, voice so quiet. Not any longer. Some women blazed with light and energy. Miss Pursling reminded him of the pearlescent hint of dawn that crept under the door after a long, long night. There was a quiet grace to her, like a tiger pacing in its cage. There was a majesty in claws unused, in muscles poised for action that never came. There was a somber beauty to a caged beast.

He wanted to see her break free of that melancholy. He wanted her to turn those knowing eyes on him and tell him that he wasn’t his father, that he
wouldn’t
be him.

What stood between them had become infinitely simple and entirely too complicated all at once.

Not at all like his father.

He wanted her to say that again, and he wanted her to mean it.

Chapter Six

R
OBERT’S DREAM THAT NIGHT—
as so many of his dreams were these days—was charged with sexual longing.

In this dream, he had Minnie where he’d first met her: behind the davenport in the Guildhall library, the curtains shielding them from all eyes. This time, though, instead of listening to someone else’s conversation, they heard the gentle murmur of ocean waves. Neither remarked on the oddity of the sea in a library. Instead of being fully clothed, Robert wore nothing at all—and she was stripped to the waist. The dream version of Minnie smiled up at him with inviting allure. Her honey-brown hair was down and it curled over her shoulders, framing naked breasts tipped with deep rose. Those breasts brushed his knees as she knelt before him and took the length of his cock in her mouth.

The details of his dreams were always frustratingly vague. He couldn’t feel the wet heat of her mouth or the pressure of her tongue. There was only the fire of his own burning lust and a dulled sensation of want. But at least in dreams, one needn’t worry about morality or consequences. In dreams, there was nothing but the physical truth of desire, and that had him firmly in its grip.

In his dream, she was very, very good. He knew it, even though he could not quite feel it. No matter how he pivoted, no matter how he held her, he couldn’t really touch her. Just the force of his own red-hot desire growing with every stroke. He could only lust, and lust, and lust again.

“God, Minnie,” he begged in his dream. “Give me what I want.”

But instead of taking him harder—or shifting herself so that he could plunge inside her—the dream Minnie simply looked up at him and sat back on her heels. “If you insist,” she said with a coquettish smile. She leaned in, and suddenly, as these things were in dreams, she was whispering in his ear. “I know who you are.”

The shock was so great that it woke him. He blinked, blearily. It was the middle of the night, and silence reigned. His bedchamber was dark. Even though he’d tossed off most of the covers in his sleep, he felt as if he were burning with fever. His cock was rock-hard, his body shuddering with tension, demanding relief. And he couldn’t dispel the image from his dream. Miss Pursling, unclothed, her hair down to her shoulders, looking up at him with that brilliant smile.

God.

He’d thought that it would have been hard to explain what he saw in her to his friends. She wasn’t classically pretty; she wasn’t even striking. And while her figure had much to recommend itself, he was aware that there were better.

Maybe it was simply this: When first she’d seen him, she hadn’t seen a duke, but a man who wrote radical handbills.

I know who you are.

His left hand slid around his erection.

Robert believed in restraint. He made it a point
not
to emulate his father. He refused to be the kind of man who took a woman just because he fancied her. But, damn it, sometimes he wished he were. He wished he were with every part of his being.

He threw off the sheets that still covered him and let the cold air wash over him. It did no good.

It never did any good, not by itself. Instead, he slid his palm down his cock, ever so slowly, letting himself fall into that familiar rhythm. He let the dream play back in his mind—Minnie on her knees, Minnie smiling up at him as her lips closed around his member. He stroked himself in short, sharp jerks, letting them come faster and more urgent until the moment of climax came.

And in that moment, he imagined Minnie giving him that smile—a smile that held nothing back—and saying that she knew who he was. He bit his lip against the savage pleasure that filled him.

It took a few moments for reason to find him afterward, for him to admit that he found himself in a state that was unusually fixed on one person. This was not the first time he’d dreamed of her. It wasn’t the first time he’d awoken in a fit of wanton lust and indulged himself, either. In his mind, he’d had her against walls and in beds. The beauty of masturbation was that he always got what he wanted, how he wanted it. Nobody was hurt, and it left no lasting effects.

I know who you are.

He stared into the darkness of the night. It had just been a dream, of course. Things happened in dreams that had no bearing whatsoever on reality. If his dreams had any relation to the truth, he’d have been exiled from decent company years before. Still, dreams often served as a lever for his lust. He’d wake in a fever, would think about the images from his dream as he brought himself to climax, and the combination of the dream and his own efforts alleviated the worst of his frustrations.

But there weren’t enough orgasms in the world to give him relief from the want that coiled about him now. Up until this point, he’d had the good sense to indulge in desires that he could easily satisfy. No reason to change that now.

I know who you are.

He stared into the darkness and wished those words away. Instead, they hung about him, unsaid and yet still ringing in his ears.

She didn’t think he was his father. He wanted her to know who he was. And he wanted to know her back.

D
ESPITE
R
OBERT’S BEST EFFORTS,
it was a week before he saw Miss Pursling again—and that was a meeting he had to engineer.

He’d made a donation of one hundred pounds to the Workers’ Hygiene Commission. That made him one of their patrons—and wouldn’t it make sense to see how his money would be spent?

The Commission, however, didn’t meet in a respectable private room at the Three Crowns Hotel, or in the front room of the Bell. It met instead on the outskirts of the old town, at a run-down place called the Nag’s Head Hostelry.

Robert arrived ten minutes after the appointed time and drew no eyes at all when he slipped into the room behind a barmaid. She bustled about the room in swift competence, filling the ladies’ cups with what looked like barley water, pouring weak beer for the gentlemen, swiping up the inevitable spills with a wide, dirty towel that hung from her apron strings.

Nobody paid any attention, they were already so intent on their argument.

He made his way to a chair in the back and sat down.

Not only was this particular commission held in an odd location, but the composition was surprising. He’d sat on enough charitable boards to know what to expect—a few wealthy people, who’d been asked for their money and their connections, rather than their knowledge, interspersed with a few professional folks. But here, there was a man he remembered as a doctor. There was Captain Stevens. Miss Pursling, of course, seated next to a wealthy-looking older woman. Those formed the usual sort that made up these charity boards. But across the table, there sat a young woman, maybe Miss Pursling’s age, dressed in a serviceable shirtwaist. Next to her was an older, grizzled man dressed in well-patched tweed. One seat over was a plump woman in a high-necked black wool gown, complete with a round, black collar—the kind of uniform that shouted that she was in service. Half the participants had the look of working people.

That made it like no charity that Robert had ever seen. He leaned forward in interest.

Stevens was shaking his head. “Well,” he muttered, “we’ll worry about that later. Miss Pursling, you have your report on the disinfectant?”

Miss Pursling nodded. Her back was to him, and he could see her curls dip against her neck. They were interesting, those curls of hers, not the fat sausage curls that were carefully constructed by maids with irons. These curls were a masquerade—a little too corkscrewed, too wild. He rather suspected her hair had a natural curl to it, one that no iron could tame into regular twists of hair.

“The board of the Cooperative met last evening.” He had to strain to hear her talk. Her voice was clear, but so quiet. “They agreed to sell the disinfecting solution at their cost—provided that we mention the Cooperative in the handbill. They were eventually convinced that the advertisement was compensation enough.”