Hugo and the Maiden

by S. M. LaViolette

  Somehow, he didn’t think that was what the vicar had in mind.

  “I am sure you will come up with several activities you both would enjoy,” Mr. Pringle said.

  Hugo choked back a laugh. Oh yes, he had no shortage of ideas when it came to entertaining himself with Martha.

  He sighed at the thought of postponing his return to London. Oh, well. What did an additional week matter? He suspected the same mess would await him whether he returned in two weeks or two months.

  The vicar held out a hand, as if to seal their agreement. “You’ll see, Hugo—the two of you won’t even need two weeks to learn to love one another.”

  Hugo just nodded and shook his hand.

  He should have told the old man that he’d already lost; Hugo had never loved anyone except himself and he never would.

  ◆◆◆

  When Hugo entered the tiny pub a few minutes later he easily spotted a familiar flame-red head. “Ah, there you are, Albert, I was hoping to see you this evening.”

  Albert looked up from the small booklet that he always seemed to have his nose buried in, his face breaking into a big smile when he saw Hugo. “I thought that I’d missed you; I heard you were here earlier.”

  Hugo dropped onto the stool beside him. “I just popped in with Cailean before going to have a chat with the vicar about something. But I wanted to talk to you and figured you might be here.”

  “I’ve not seen you in days; you’ve turned into quite the hermit lately.”

  “Yes, well, those days are over.” Hugo nodded at Joe, who lifted a glass and pointed to the beer tap. “Please, Joe—and another for Albert while you’re at it, please.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Albert murmured. “Your letter is all the locals are talking about,” he said, giving Hugo a curious look.

  “Good Lord—I only read it myself a few hours ago.”

  “Well, you know how things are here. So, it’s from a duchess, I hear?”

  Hugo laughed. “Close. My friend is married to the youngest son of a marquess.”

  “Ah.”

  Joe set down their pints. “Thank you, Joe—pour one for yourself when you get a chance. And please add them to my account.”

  The innkeeper smiled, clearly well pleased that Hugo would be spending a goodly chunk of the smaller draft in either his pub and store. “Ta, Hugo.”

  Hugo slid Albert’s beer across the bar to him and raised his glass. “Here’s to getting off his island,” he said in an under voice.

  Albert raised his pint and they clinked glasses. “I’ll drink to that—although it will still be a while for me.”

  “Not anymore. I’ve got enough to send both of us home, Albert.”

  “Oh, but I can’t take money from you.”

  “It’s just a loan—and I know you’re good for it.” Virtue oozed from Albert; giving him a loan was as safe as putting his money into a bank.

  Albert’s green eyes widened. “Really? I mean, are you sure? I shan’t be able to repay you—not right away, so—”

  “We’re going to get our hands on that patent of yours, Albert. You’re going to become a screamingly wealthy man and then can repay me.”

  Albert grinned and raised his glass again. “Now there’s something I can drink to. When do you want to leave?”

  “When can you go?”

  “Hmm.” Albert scratched his head. “The Wilsons asked that I give them a week’s notice.”

  “Good, tell them tonight. I have to wait two weeks, but we can at least get you on the road.”

  “I could wait for you?”

  There was no reason for Albert to wait an extra week just because Hugo had to.

  Not to mention you’re hoping you might be here a bit longer. Maybe even long enough to do what Mr. Pringle wants you to do …

  That thought had never entered his mind.

  Liar.

  Hugo brutally crushed any thoughts of a future with Martha—at least any future beyond the next two weeks. What the vicar wanted and believed was nothing but an old man’s fantasy. The reality was that Hugo would be leaving Stroma as an unmarried man once he’d repaid his debt to Mr. Pringle.

  He grimly took a long pull from his pint. “You needn’t wait for me, Albert. And I won’t be more than a week behind you.”

  Chapter 15

  Martha was sitting in the meeting house darning one of her father’s socks when Hugo appeared in the open doorway.

  At first, she thought she’d imagined him, but then she remembered the only way he appeared in her mind’s eye these days was without any clothing.

  And in a state of animal arousal.

  Today he was clad in a shirt, neckerchief, trousers that actually reached his ankles, boots that matched, and a waistcoat she had never seen. It looked as if his hair had grown longer since she’d last seen him, although she knew that was hardly possible in two weeks. His skin was no longer a pale from being locked in the hold of a ship, but a golden brown. He was thinner and he resembled a satyr more than ever. Cutting flagstone was brutal work and she knew men needed to eat almost constantly to do such work. She doubted he was getting enough to eat.

  She berated herself for caring.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Pringle. What a delight to find you here.”

  As always with Hugo she took refuge in sarcasm. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Buckingham himself.”

  He sauntered into the meeting house as if he owned it. “At your service, ma’am.” He dropped a ridiculously graceful court bow. “I would ask how you’ve been doing but I can see you are blooming.”

  “Did you need something?” she asked coolly.

  He put his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned up against the doorframe, more at ease than he had any right to be. “Are you angry with me?”

  “Of course not,” she said, seething. “I just never expected to see you again.” She grimaced; could she sound more like an infatuated, lovelorn idiot if she tried?

  “I think you missed me.”

  If Martha trusted her aim, she would have thrown her darning needle at his head.

  He strolled over and lowered his long, powerful body onto the bench beside her, sitting so close their legs almost touched.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Sitting.” His expression was as innocent as Cailean’s. “I was wondering, Martha, if—”

  “I did not give you leave to use my name.”

  One moment he was sitting beside her, the next he was down on his knees in front of her, taking her hand—the one with the sock rather than the needle. “I beg of you, Miss Pringle,” he said, his eyes dark and soulful, “please allow me the inestimable privilege of using your Christian name.”

  She snatched her hand away. “You are incorrigible, but I suspect you already know that.”

  “I do,” he admitted, gracefully rising from his knees, brushing off his trousers, and sitting back down on the bench. “But perhaps with your influence I could become … corrigible.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a word.”

  “It has to be.”

  “Why does it have to be?”

  “Well, there is indifferent and different, insolent and solent.”

  Martha snorted. “I know there is no such word as solent.”

  “If that is true, you should be honored.”

  “And why is that, pray tell?”

  “Any man can bring you flowers or baubles, but not just any man can create a new word for you.”

  Martha ignored his foolishness and narrowed her eyes at him. “I see you have new trousers, shoes, and a vest.”

  He looked down at said vest, fingering the lapel with his long, tapered fingers, which were no longer white and soft. Martha couldn’t help noticing the blood blisters on his thumb.

  “My other waistcoat came apart while I was washing it, so I purchased this one from Willy MacLeod’s wife. She said he’d eaten too many dumplings to fit into it.”

  “I don’t recall a time when Willy could
have fit in that.”

  “Well, Willy’s loss is my gain—or perhaps I should say Willy’s gain is my gain.” He grinned and she had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. His eyelids lowered and his nostrils did that ever-so-slight flaring thing that made her stomach flutter. Although, quite honestly, most of the things the irritating man did made her stomach flutter. “Tell me, Martha, do I look well in it?”

  Martha pursed her lips and yanked on the darning yarn with an unnecessarily vicious tug. “You know you do.”

  “Then perhaps you would like to come out walking with me and my waistcoat—be seen out and about with us?”

  “I would have thought you were too busy planning your journey south to bother with walks.” Once again, she wanted to chew out her own tongue.

  He smirked. “Will you miss me when I’m gone, Martha?”

  “No.”

  He laughed.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Not for another two weeks.”

  Joy leapt in her chest, but she immediately suppressed it. It didn’t matter how long he was here; he was still leaving.

  “But let’s not talk about my departure. Come for a walk; it is too lovely an evening to darn socks.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if it was your sock I was darning.”

  Hugo lifted the right leg of his trousers to expose an ankle boot with no stocking showing. He also exposed a fine expanse of muscular calf in the process—although it was nothing she’d not seen before. “I eschew socks.” He leaned toward her when she ignored him. “I’m serious, Martha—why not come walking with me?”

  “Because she’s already agreed to come out with me.”

  Martha jolted. She’d been so fixated on Hugo that she’d noticed nothing else. Hugo, she suspected by the sly smile curling his lips, had known Mr. Clark was nearby and had wanted him to hear the invitation.

  “You should be on your way, Buckingham,” Mr. Clark said, marching up to Martha and taking her hand.

  Martha frowned at his proprietary gesture. He was more interested in thwarting Hugo than walking with her, she was sure of that.

  Based on the knowing, amused glint in Hugo’s eyes, he’d guessed that, too.

  Martha cut Mr. Clark a stern look and then turned to give Hugo a tight smile. “Come back tomorrow evening, Mr. Buckingham. I shall walk with you then.”

  ◆◆◆

  Hugo was waiting on the cottage steps when Martha opened her door at seven o’clock the next evening.

  Instead of the newer outfit he’d worn yesterday, he was dressed in the clothing that she’d scrounged for him. It was a disgrace to call them clothes, but the ragged garments were spotlessly clean.

  “Oh, you’re here,” she said foolishly.

  “I was a few minutes early, but didn’t want to appear over-eager, so I waited outside.”

  “But you thought you’d tell me that you were over-eager, just in case I didn’t happen to notice.”

  He grinned. “You know me so well.”

  “Ha.”

  “I thought we might take a walk down to the Greedy Vicar if you’d let me treat you to a hot chocolate.”

  “You are a spendthrift, Mr. Buckingham. You needn’t put yourself into debt because of me.”

  “Oh, trust me—the thought would never enter my mind. Everything I do, I do for my own satisfaction.”

  “Hmmm.” She cut him a speculative glance. Like everyone else on the island she knew that an aristocrat had sent him a letter containing a bank draft so large—twenty pounds—that Joe hadn’t been able to cash it.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t already gone. I thought you were eager to get off the island and go back to—well, back to whatever it is you do.”

  Martha began walking before he offered her his arm—which is what Mr. Clark always did. But she suspected that she wouldn’t be able to think or walk if she touched any part of Hugo.

  “I’ve decided to give Mr. Stogden two weeks to secure another employee.”

  “That is thoughtful.”

  “Thoughtfulness has nothing to do with it. My behavior is entirely self-serving.”

  “How so?”

  He gave her a warm look. “It means I get to spend more time with you. Life is too precious and brief to deny ourselves every sensual pleasure, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Martha’s face heated at his blatant innuendo. “That sounds like the philosophy of a hedonist.”

  “Absolutely! My goal is unfettered pleasure.”

  “You’re a care-for-nobody, in other words,” she suggested.

  He gave her a look of mock surprise. “Why, Miss Martha, I feel as if you know me better than I know myself.”

  “Hmmph. I spoke to Albert earlier today and he said you are paying for his transportation to London and gave him the name of a friend who will put him up when he reaches the city.”

  Hugo frowned. “Did he.” It wasn’t a question.

  “He says you have been generous to him. One might say … selfless, almost.”

  Hugo’s mouth twisted into a pruney shape. “Mr. Franks needs to keep his opinions to himself.”

  “Why do you wish to pretend as if you care only about yourself?”

  “It’s not a pretense, trust me.”

  Martha could see by the stubborn set of his jaw that she would get nowhere on this subject. “Tell me, Mr. Buckingham—”

  “I insist you call me Hugo.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Buckingham, what is it you do in London?”

  “I manage various business concerns.”

  “That sounds considerably less strenuous than cutting flagstone.” It also sounded very vague.

  “Are you wondering how I maintain such a magnificent physique while engaging in such sedentary work?”

  Martha’s face burned. “I’m wondering no such thing.”

  He chuckled. “A man can always hope.”

  Really! He was a menace to a woman’s peace of mind. Why did she enjoy his company so much when he always made her feel so skittish?

  And why didn’t she believe him when he claimed to be self-centered—what sort of person would say that if it weren’t true? How come she persisted in believing that there was more to him than frivolity and selfishness? And why was he so much more intriguing than Mr. Clark—whom she knew to be a good man, at least in most matters?

  Just what was wrong with her? Was she like a magpie and Hugo the new, shiny object that caught her attention? Could she really be so shallow?

  Martha had—grudgingly—accepted that a great deal of her feelings for him were physical in nature. But that wasn’t all of it. There was just something about him that seemed to call to her.

  Every instinct screamed that she should send him off with a flea in his ear, but she could not make herself do it. The two long weeks that he’d avoided her had been dreary—frighteningly so—and she was in no hurry to return to those tedious days.

  Besides, he would only be here for a short time and then he would be gone. Forever. Surely there was no harm in enjoying him before he left?

  The thought of Hugo leaving forever made her stomach churn as if she’d just eaten bad fish.

  She bit her lip to keep from groaning at her own stupidity. What was wrong with her? How in the world could she have become so attached to the man in such a short time? Was she really in danger of falling in love with him?

  Or even worse, had she already fallen?

  Chapter 16

  Hugo was late.

  He was also filthy, which he hated. He had planned to wash up and change his clothing before going out with Martha—the seventh evening they’d spent together out of the last ten—but the day had been chaotic and long.

  The driller he worked with, Gerry Boyle, had suffered an accident that crushed his arm. Hugo and one of the other men had carried the injured man on a stretcher to Nethertown. When they’d arrived, Mr. Stogden had a boat waiting to take Gerry over to the doctor on the mainland.

  The entire process
had left Hugo dirty, exhausted, and scared—for Gerry. He liked what he knew of the hardworking man, who had a wife and three young children. The Boyles had a tiny bit of land, but it wouldn’t be enough to sustain them without Gerry’s money from cutting stone. Hugo imagined that, in addition to physical pain, Gerry was probably worrying about his family right now. That was what happened when somebody allowed themselves to care for other people: they became a burden.

  As Hugo made his way toward the Pringle cottage, he thought about what the vicar had said about life on Stroma aging people.

  There was plenty of aging going on in the rookeries, but Stroma had brutal weather to contend with as well as geographical isolation.

  Gerry had been able to go to the mainland today because the weather had cooperated. What would have happened if it had been storming and a boat couldn’t get across? A person could die so easily while help was only a few miles distant.

  The lights were on in the windows of the Pringle cottage and Hugo grimaced as he realized how late he was. He wouldn’t be surprised if that bloody Clark had taken advantage of the situation and stolen a march on him.

  He raised his hand to knock but the door opened.

  “Oh, Hugo,” Martha said, her expression anxious.

  “I’m sorry I’m late it—”

  “Hush, you needn’t apologize.” She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I heard you helped bring poor Gerry to Nethertown.” She drew him inside and led him toward the small table where he’d had tea with Mr. Pringle. “Mr. Stogden went with him to the mainland?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said, more than a little distracted by the feel of her small, work-roughened hand on his. She was so small physically and yet so … potent.

  She released him to reach for the kettle, and Hugo immediately missed her.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  It took a moment for his befogged brain to translate her words. “Er, please. I would love some.”

  Hugo took his hand from the table and rested it in his lap, covering his half-hard cock, more than a little alarmed by what a simple touch from her did to his body.