The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) (6 page)

She stared into the brown liquid in her cup. “Easy for you to find this all so amusing. But my future is no game. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I will fight to keep what little comfort I’ve earned, small though it may be. I don’t wish to have my actions examined too closely. Neither, I suspect, do you. If you stop, we’ll both be safe.”

“Safe.” He drew out the syllable, as if savoring the word. “I don’t much care for
safe,
myself. And I’d be doing you a favor if I separated you from your suitor.”

She could hardly argue with that. But she shook her head. “It’s no favor if you make it impossible for me to find another. I live on fate, Your Grace. When my great-aunt passes away, the farm will go to her cousin. My Great-Aunt Elizabeth and I will have nowhere to go. I
must
marry.” She lifted her head now, and looked him full in the eyes. “I haven’t any choice.”

His gaze softened. “Your past… It’s so bad that you’re worrying that someone
might
poke into it because of a handbill?”

For one mad moment, she considered laying the whole story at his feet. He looked so open, with his head tilted in that welcome, beguiling manner. Surely, she could…

Even the thought of confession brought a chill to the air, a cramp to her lungs.

She looked back at her tea. “Do you know what it is like to be a woman in these modern times? Gentlemen marry less and less these days. I read that thirty-four percent of genteel young ladies reach the age of twenty-seven without marrying. I don’t need anything shameful in my past. Anything outside the ordinary, no matter how harmless it might seem, is a catastrophe.”

He sat back in his chair and considered this. “Then I see an alternate solution to our mutual problem. I, apparently, need a more believable reason to stay in town. If you didn’t believe what I said, others won’t either. You need to be in the top sixty-six percent of marriageable women, such as it is.” He shrugged. “So I’ll set up a flirtation with you while I’m here. You can reject me; I’ll moon about morosely. The whole thing will do wonders for your reputation. I keep writing; you get your husband.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, but the image that brought up—of
him
dancing attendance on
her,
of his hand resting over hers in a waltz—made her stomach flutter uncertainly. She gave her head a fierce shake. “That’s a terrible idea. Nobody would ever believe that you had any interest in me.”

“I could make them believe. Not one in ten thousand would have figured out what you just did. Not one. I could make everyone believe in the woman who saw that—quiet, yes, and perhaps a little shy in company—”

Minnie made a rude noise, but he waved her quiet.

“You have steel for your backbone and a rare talent for seeing what is plainly in front of your face. I could make everyone see that.” His eyes were intense, boring into her. There was no escaping him, it seemed. He dropped his voice. “I could make everyone see
you.”

Was it just her stomach fluttering? No. Her whole body seemed on the verge of trembling. It had been years since anyone pretended to have an interest in her. To have his attention fall upon her in such concentrated fashion… It was too much.

But he wasn’t finished. “Then there’s your hair. Hair shouldn’t change color, just by curling, but the edges seem to catch the light, and I can’t be sure if it’s brown or blond or even red when it does. I could watch that for hours, to try and figure it out.”

Her heart was thudding in her chest. It wasn’t beating any faster; just more heavily, as if her blood required more work to move.

But this was an exercise in hypotheticals, and Minnie was too desperate to be anything other than practical.

“Go on with you.” She’d intended the words to be dismissive, but her voice trembled. “What would you say when it was just men about? When they were asking you what the devil you saw in that mousy Miss Pursling? I daresay you’d never tell them that you were entranced by the curl of my hair. That’s the sort of thing a man says to convince a woman, but men don’t talk that way amongst themselves.”

He’d obviously expected her to swallow that codswallop about her hair, because he paused, slightly taken aback. And then, he gave her a shake of his head and a grin. “Come, Miss Pursling,” he said. “Men wouldn’t ask any such thing. They’d already know what caught my eye.” He leaned forward and whispered in conspiratorial fashion. “It’s your tits.”

Her mouth dropped open. She was suddenly very aware of said tits—warm and tingling in anticipation, even though he wasn’t anywhere near them.

He murmured, “They’re magnificent.”

He wasn’t even looking at them, but Minnie’s hands itched to cover herself—not to block out his sight, but to explore her own curves. To see if, perhaps, her bosom
was
magnificent—if it had been magnificent all these years, and she had simply never noticed.

If another man had said that her tits were magnificent, it might have been in a leering, lustful way—one that would have made her skin crawl. But the Duke of Clermont was smiling and cheerful, and he’d thrown it out there as if it were merely one more fact to be recounted.
The weather is lovely. The streets are paved with cobblestone. Your tits are magnificent.

“Don’t protest,” he said. “You did ask, and after furthering our acquaintance over a spot of blackmail, we’ve no need to encumber ourselves with false modesty.”

Minnie squared her shoulders, all too aware that the act of doing so brought her bosom up a notch.

“Look in a mirror sometime,” he suggested. “Look beyond
this.”
He touched his cheekbone, mirroring the spot on her face where her scar spread. “Look at yourself sometime the way you are now, all fire and anger, ready to do battle with me. If you’d ever once looked at yourself that way, you wouldn’t question whether I’d want a flirtation with you. You’d
know
I would.”

Her whole body felt on fire—a cold, shimmering, sparking flame. She’d never been so aware of her own flesh—every inch of it, from the tips of her breasts, which might or might not have been magnificent, to the heels of her feet. His eyes were boring into her.

She swallowed. “It’s not well done of you, to try to turn my head before I’ve agreed to your plan.” And if she’d contemplated it at all, that little display decided it. A man who could flirt like
that
had no business flirting with her.

He frowned, and then scrubbed his forehead. “Come, Miss Pursling.” He gave her a little grin. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve met since I arrived. It would be a pleasure to spend more time in your company.”

For him, that would mean that he could waltz off to other cities. For her… For her it would mean a short spell of having this man dance attendance on her. A month of his compliments, a few weeks of melting smiles. It would mean day after blissful day where she might fall under his spell. And just look what he’d done to her in ten minutes.

Minnie shook her head, clearing away the cobwebs that he’d so artfully strewn about. It would mean everyone looking at her at every assembly. She couldn’t stand for that kind of scrutiny.

“There’s no benefit for me in that plan, Your Grace. If I help you and we are discovered, you’ll be excused as wealthy and eccentric and powerful. I’ll be the woman—the traitor!—who gave up everything for you. And if you’ve set me up as a flirt, everyone will believe I’ve been your lover. I’ll be ruined. And when—” A wave of sadness passed through her; she couldn’t finish that sentence. She didn’t want to think of Great-Aunt Caroline gone. Instead, she took a deep breath. “At the end of it all, I’ll be destitute, and you’ll be a duke.”

“I treat my lovers better than that. Even my pretend ones.”

She raised her chin and gave him a flat look. “My future is not a joke, Your Grace.”

He winced. “I’m going about this all wrong. Look, Miss Pursling.” He sighed. “I’m not trying to make light of your situation. But I’m not here to dabble in Leicester on a whim. I’m here because of a promise I made. My father put some things wrong, and I must set them right. I don’t
wish
to cause you any harm, but I won’t cease simply because you ask it. There’s no need for us to be at odds.”

“I don’t
wish
to have to slowly drop hints and build up a store of proof that would inevitably point you out as the culprit,” she said. “But I will if I have to. If I do it my way, when it’s all said and done, people will say, ‘Well, Minnie really kept her head, even when a duke was about.’”

“And men will marry you because of that?” he asked dubiously.

“I only need one man to do so,” Minnie shot back. “More would be illegal.”

The smile popped back on his face. “You don’t miss much, do you? I can’t believe Gardley called you a rodent. You’re the most formidable mouse I’ve ever met.”

He placed his index finger atop her hand. It wasn’t a caress. It couldn’t be a caress. Still, her entire being seemed to freeze in place, fixed by that solitary point of contact. “My dear,” he said. “I give you my word that you’ll have an offer of marriage before I leave. Even if I have to do the job myself.”

She jumped to her feet, pushing away from him. “That’s not funny,” she said, not even bothering to moderate her tone. “It’s not a joke, no matter what you might think, and I’ll thank you to stop treating it as one.”

She’d knocked her teacup off the table and onto her foot in her attempt to escape from him and his horrible proposition. She could feel the wet liquid seeping into her stockings. But he made no comment; he simply straightened the tray on the table. Behind them, Lydia’s brows had drawn down; she watched them uneasily.

“Well, then,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’ll do it my way, and you try it yours—and we’ll see who wins out.”

“That’s impossible,” she said flatly. “You can’t flirt with me. I’m going to be at war with you.”

“No, you won’t,” he said politely. “Try going to war with an unwilling combatant. I don’t think even you can manage that.”

“You don’t know what I can manage.”

“No.” He gave her a broad grin, one that started sparks flying in her belly.

And then he stood up and took her hand. This time, he bowed over it—bowed so low that his lips brushed the curve of her palm. She’d removed her gloves, and she felt the light kiss he brushed against her hand from head to toe.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

Chapter Four

R
AIN DOTTED THE WINDOWPANES
of Robert’s upstairs study, dissolving the world outside into murky swirls. The two women on the street below appeared as receding blobs of fluttering skirts under dark umbrellas. Pale blue—that was Miss Charingford—and dark brown—that was the inimitable Miss Pursling. From above, nothing set Miss Pursling apart from any other umbrella on the street. If he hadn’t seen her gown just a few minutes ago, he’d not even have realized who it was.

He felt as if he’d woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he’d spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever—and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place. And yet there stood Miss Pursling, pausing to stand under an awning on the corner, turning to her friend and twirling her umbrella as if nothing had happened.

As if she hadn’t just upended his every expectation.

The door opened quietly behind him and footsteps approached. He didn’t need to look to see who was coming; the servants in this household were still too much in awe of him to approach without begging for permission. That left only one possibility—Mr. Oliver Marshall.

“So,” Oliver said from behind him. “Was it as bad as you feared?”

Robert drummed his fingers against the windowsill and pondered how to respond. “Two young ladies came to solicit a contribution for the Workers’… Oh, Devil take it. I can’t remember—oh yes. The Workers’ Hygiene Commission.”

There were very few secrets that Robert kept from Oliver. He’d not mentioned Miss Pursling last night. For one, it hadn’t seemed important, and for another, if there was a secret there, it belonged to her, not him. This, though… This touched on one of the few secrets he had no choice but to keep from Oliver.

“I see. They came to gawk at you.” There was a hint of humor in the other man’s voice, and he came to stand next to him. He peered out the window too, frowning when he saw nothing of interest.

“No, actually.” Across the way, Miss Pursling and her friend passed under the awning, heads tilted toward one another, shoulders touching. The rain spilled off the metal overhang that shielded them, splashing to the ground in dirty waves of dishwater. Oliver thought they were only here to talk to the residents of town about the prospect of voting reform. Miss Pursling had threatened to reveal the truth about Robert’s other activities here, and that was substantially more annoying than gawking. On the other hand…

Robert turned to the man standing beside him. “Oliver,” he said, “how did you ever come to the conclusion that I was a worthwhile human being?”