Courtney Milan (5 page)

Her chin lifted. She looked over at Clermont’s house as if she could see Hugo inside. As if she were
daring
him to do worse. She stood all day, her head held high, and if she occasionally rubbed her hips when she thought nobody was looking, or shifted from foot to foot in discomfort, it only served to make Hugo feel worse about what he was doing.

On the second day, she arrived an hour earlier, while the streetlamps were still lit. She strode sedately toward the bench—and stopped abruptly.

Hugo had anticipated her early arrival, of course, and he’d offered the pensioners seven shillings for that extra hour. Once again, she stayed standing on her feet for nine straight hours—disappearing only, he supposed, to use the necessary. Once again, he found himself admiring her obstinacy.

On the third day, it rained. The rain fell in great gusting torrents, and the pensioners couldn’t be had. Still, Hugo managed to round up a few laborers dressed in mackintosh—and scarcely in time. They had just settled in when Miss Barton arrived. She was swathed in a cloak of dark wool, one that covered her gown. He couldn’t see her hair, couldn’t see her hands.

After an hour, her umbrella was so sodden that it no longer repelled water; she abandoned it next to a tree. But she didn’t let the wet stop her. She scarcely looked at the bench. Instead, she stood next to a tree, her lips set in grim determination.

He watched her throughout the morning. Midday, he stopped work for a bowl of soup. She was still there; he ate, standing at the window, watching as she pulled her arms around herself and rubbed briskly, trying to stay warm.

She was going to catch her death. The wind was blowing leaves about; it had to be bitter cold. Noon turned to one o’clock, and then two. She hadn’t left when the clock in the hall chimed three, even though her cloak had turned dark with rain. She huddled in on herself more and more.

Anyone else would have gone home at the first sign of inclement weather. He wasn’t sure if he should applaud her tenacity or rage at how impossible she’d made the situation. Down in the square, she swiped a hand over her face, brushing away rainwater.

This was something that Hugo was going to have to fix, if for no other reason than that he didn’t want her life on his head.

B
EFORE
S
ERENA’S CLOAK
soaked through, it hadn’t been so bad. She’d been damp and rather cold. But having to stand had been a blessing in disguise; she’d been able to warm herself by walking.

By the time the clock struck three, though, she could scarcely feel her feet. Her hands were frozen inside her gloves.

Go home. It’s only one afternoon.

It wasn’t loud, that impulse. Just insidious. She’d heard it too often.
Keep quiet now, and you’ll be taken care of. Don’t scream tonight; it will stop soon enough
. But that voice was a lie. Those who did nothing lost. There was nothing so cold as regret.

If she walked away now, Mr. Marshall would know that he
could
drive her away. It would just spur him on to greater efforts.

And so she chafed her hands together and paced.

Nobody was out unless he had to be. And so that was why, when a figure came around the corner, she turned to look—and then froze. It was Mr. Marshall—the Wolf of Clermont, she reminded herself—looking very grim. He had a bundle under his arm. He walked, head down. When he came abreast of her, he glanced down the street and crossed quickly.

He walked right past her without saying a word, and instead marched up to the men sitting on the bench. She had struggled to see the Wolf of Clermont in him when he’d confessed his identity three days past, but in that instant, she saw it. His ordinariness was an illusion, a cloak of normalcy that he donned for politeness’s sake. Now, he projected a quiet menace—one so palpable that she stepped back, raising her hand to her throat, even though his ire wasn’t directed at her. He fixed the men on the bench with a look.

“Well?” he asked. “Get out of here.”

“But—” said one.

“You heard what I said. It’s over. I have no more need of you. Get out of here.” He gave his head a little jerk.

The men exchanged glances, and then, one by one, they stood and filed out of the square. Serena raised her hands to her lips and blew on them, trying to warm them through her sodden gloves. But Mr. Marshall didn’t look at her. He unfolded his bundle. It was, oddly enough, a load of towels wrapped around an umbrella. He laid the towels out on the bench, drying the seat. Then he popped open the umbrella and motioned her over.

“Sit,” he said. His features were stone.

She was too bedraggled—and too cold—to object to being ordered about. She came over and sat. He hooked the umbrella to the back of the seat, fastening it in place with a bit of rope so that it shielded her half of the bench from rain. Then he unrolled a second towel and took out a metal flask, an irregular package wrapped in wax paper, and, inexplicably, a teacup. He handed her the cup. “Hold this.”

She tried to take it in her hands, but her fingers were too cold to grasp properly and it slipped away.

He caught it midair and glared at her, as if it were her fault her hands could not grip. Without saying a word, he took hold of her wrist and, before she could protest, he had slipped a finger beneath her glove.

She jerked spasmodically away; his grip tightened in reaction. He raised his head, met her eyes, and became very still.

She could count his breaths. She could feel her pulse thrumming in her wrist, encased in his fingers.

Slowly, he let go.

“My apologies,” he said. “I was not thinking. I was going to take off your gloves and rub some sensation into your fingers. Can you do it on your own?”

She fumbled with her own glove, but the material clung to her skin and she could scarcely feel what she was doing.

“Will you let me?” he asked.

Serena met his eyes. He’d dropped his air of menace, and—even knowing full well how wrong the notion was—that same sense returned to her.
Safe. Safe. This man is safe.

Ridiculous.

Nonetheless, Serena held out her hands to him.

He took off one glove and then the other, touching her only long enough to work the fabric down her fingers.

The air was cold against her bare skin, but the sensation lasted only a few seconds. He set her gloves aside, wrapped her hands in a towel and rubbed them vigorously.

The touch should have felt intimate and invasive. His hands engulfed hers. And he’d practically disrobed her—well, maybe dis
gloved
her. But he was so matter-of-fact about it that his touch felt…normal.

Safe,
the back of her mind whispered.

He left her hands wrapped in the towel, like some oversized muff, and then picked up the metal flask. It looked like the sort of container in which gentlemen stored gin—flat and thin. But he unscrewed the cap and a curl of steam escaped.

Serena sighed in longing. He poured the contents—a glorious golden-brown—into the teacup, and then held it out to her. “I don’t know how you take your tea,” he said, “and I had no way to bring the cream and sugar out here. I added both. I can only hope the result is palatable.”

She maneuvered a hand out of the towel and took the cup. Her hand was still shaking; he watched her with narrowed eyes. But the cup was warm—so warm that it seared her skin. And the tea… Oh, it was lovely. Strong and sweet, with a generous dollop of creamy milk.

The first sip seemed to thaw the ice in her fingers.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you,” he said. “I don’t hurt women.”

“You’re hardly responsible for my presence here. I’m here by dint of my own willful stubbornness.” She took another gulp of tea.

“Semantics,” he returned. “You’re here. Who is to blame, if I am not?”

“The Duke of Clermont comes to mind. You’re his charge, not the other way around.”

Mr. Marshall snorted. “Is that what you think?”

She took another swallow of tea rather than answer the question. “This is the best tea I have ever had,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.”

Her gaze locked with his, and she found herself unable to look away. His eyes were brown—light, like the color of sunlight filtered through autumn leaves. He was so focused on her, the entire world seemed to melt away—the dark clouds overhead, the puddles underfoot. There was nothing but him.

It had been more than three months since she’d felt even the mildest hints of sexual attraction. She’d thought it had been burned from her for good, stolen by fear and the cold, clutching hands of dark memory. Apparently not. Her better sense could be swayed by two swallows of tea and an umbrella.

Safe. He is safe.

But no matter that he’d brought her shelter and warmth, there was nothing safe about him.

Mr. Marshall smiled at her—not the easy smile of a mild acquaintance, but a smile with a sharp edge. Still, he stayed on his half of the bench. Rain collected on the brim of his hat and dripped over the edges, but it did not make him look in the least disheveled.

“You could have sent another servant out with an umbrella. You didn’t have to come yourself.”

“I assumed it would unsettle you more if I fed you in person,” he answered.

“Feed me? You haven’t—”

“Ah. Thank you for the reminder.” He unfolded a package wrapped in waxed paper, revealing some squashed sandwiches filled with a strange green and pink mixture.

“I shouldn’t.”

He snorted. “You shouldn’t be standing in a square in the rain. Your hands shouldn’t be so cold that you can’t properly wrap them around a teacup. I hate to think what you are doing to your lungs, breathing this cold, wet air for hours on end. You’re risking your health. In what possible world can you do all those things and yet not have a sandwich?” He held out the waxed paper to her. “Eat.”

“You’re trying to browbeat me again.” Still, she took his offering and nibbled at the edge. She wasn’t sure what was in it—some kind of smoked ham, maybe. Diced cucumber was easier to recognize. It was delicious, although she suspected that had more to do with her hunger and the cold than the actual sandwich.

He refilled her teacup.

She swallowed. “You’re too kind.”

“No, I’m not,” he contradicted. “I’m deliberately confusing you out of a desire to assuage my own meager excuse for a conscience. To add to my sins, in defiance of all society’s rules, I wish to become better acquainted with you. Don’t imagine there’s anything akin to kindness behind my selfish behavior.”

The umbrella had slowly tilted to one side behind them, and it had begun to drip on the towel—plop, plop, plop, slow and steady.

“Society’s rules?” she said. “When a gentleman condescends to a ruined woman, it’s called kindness. No matter what his motives might be.”

He straightened the umbrella. “I’m no gentleman.”

She stared at him—at his well-made coat and the half-sandwich still wrapped in waxed paper, set off to his side. “You work for a duke.”

“You’re a lady who had to stoop to governessing. I make a good game of it, but my father was a coal miner in Yorkshire. I’m the fourteenth of sixteen children. I made my living with my fists for a handful of years.”

“You sound as if you’re from the north.” But not quite. He spoke in a clipped rhythm that made her think of London—fast and frenetic. There was a hint of a burr there, a roll to his words. But it had softened and smoothed out. “But how does a miner become a…a…”

He smiled. “I don’t know what I am, either.”

“Nonetheless. You’re in charge of a duke’s finances. I would have thought one required a certain amount of education in order to do that.”

“Charity school,” he said. “Also, I was small for my age, and so my mother convinced my father I was too young to go into the mines. She did that for years. He never could keep track of all his children. So when my younger brothers passed away, he became confused as to my age. I got rather a better education than might otherwise have been usual.”

He was looking off into the distance as he spoke. But for all that his words seemed matter-of-fact, there was something about what he’d said—the thought of his mother lying to his father for the sake of his education, and his father not
noticing
—that sent a chill down her spine.

“I was fourteen when they first expected me to go into the mines.” He turned back to her. “Old, really. Old enough to know better. I had watched the mines age men before their time. A year in the mines was worth ten years out. It was death working there—the only question was whether that death came slow or came on quick.” He handed her another sandwich. “I was a miner for three days. I couldn’t stand feeling that I was enclosed on all sides. So I ran away from home.”

“What did you do instead?”

“Any work I could get my hands on.” He looked away. She had no idea what kind of work a fourteen-year-old child would do, but she suspected that this man, dressed in clean and sober clothing, might not want to admit to being a common laborer. “But I knew what I wanted. I’ve always known what I wanted, ever since I left.”