Hugo and the Maiden

by S. M. LaViolette

“You rutting pig, how dare you touch my betrothed?” The choking eased on his throat just before a fist buffeted the right side of his head. “How dare you put your filthy hands on your betters?” Another blow slammed into his left temple.

  “Stop it! Stop this instant, he did nothing wrong. It was me!”

  “I’ll deal with you next, you little whore,” the earl said, his tone even harsher than his words as his fists cracked against Iain’s head over and over again. Iain’s mouth filled with blood and he struggled to spit it out before he choked on it. And then a knee jammed between his thighs and he screamed, the world going black.

  “You’re going to kill him!”

  Iain retched and Trentham scrambled off him, clearly wishing to avoid becoming drenched in blood and vomit. Iain rolled to his side and cupped his hands protectively over his aching groin, his stomach convulsing until there was nothing left to expel.

  He wanted to die.

  “What the devil is going on here?”

  Iain distantly recognized Lord Yarmouth’s voice.

  “Make him stop, Papa, he will kill him!”

  “I will certainly make him wish he were dead,” Trentham snarled just before a foot made contact with Iain’s side.

  “Ooof!” Iain groaned and rolled away, unwilling to take his hands from his groin and risk more gut-churning abuse.

  “Trentham, what is going on?” Yarmouth asked again.

  “This lout was in the process of mounting your bloody daughter when I caught them.”

  “That’s not—” Lady Elinor began.

  “Silence!” her father roared.

  “Is this the kind of household you run, Yarmouth? Has this happened before? Is she even intact?”

  “I assure you, Trentham, this is the first time such a thing has happened. Look at her. Do you think she poses much of a temptation to any man?” The viscount continued without waiting for an answer. “Besides, this is a mere boy. I told Lady Yarmouth he was too young to be fit for the position. We shall discharge him immediately and forget this ever happened.”

  “I won’t forget it, Yarmouth. And I won’t marry this lout’s castoffs—not unless my doctor examines her and swears she is intact. And I want him—” a kick glanced off Iain’s shoulder—“put where he belongs.”

  “We did nothing wrong, Papa. It was just—”

  “Another word from you, Elinor, and you will regret it most severely.” The viscount’s normally soft voice was thick with disgust and rage. A pregnant pause followed his words before he spoke again. “Very well, Trentham.”

  “Papa, no. It was only a kiss. He didn’t even want to, I begged him—”

  “Enough!” The word was followed by a loud crack and a muffled cry.

  “I want him taken in for attempted rape,” Trentham said, his voice suddenly cool and collected.

  “Very well,” the viscount said. “Thomas, Gerald, take him. You can put him down in the cellar while one of you fetches the constable.”

  Four hands closed around Iain’s arms and began to lift. He struggled weakly against their efforts, squirming and thrashing his way across the plush carpet.

  “You incompetent fools.” The Earl of Trentham’s voice came from behind. “Let me ensure this piece of rubbish gives you no trouble.” Something hard slammed into Iain’s head and the world faded to black.

  Chapter Two

  Village of Trentham

  Fifteen Years Later

  1817

  Elinor washed the blood from her hands and turned back to the young boy. His eyes were crusted with dried tears and his lids had become heavy. He would sleep soon enough. She motioned to the boy’s mother to step outside.

  “He’ll be fine, Mrs. Carruthers. It was only a shallow cut. The skull tends to bleed quite freely, so it appeared worse than it was. He will sleep the day through from the small amount of laudanum I gave him. Tomorrow he can resume his normal diet but keep him indoors and quiet for a few days.”

  “Oh thank you, Lady Trentham!” The older woman wiped tears from her weather-reddened cheeks and took Elinor’s hand and kissed the back of it before Elinor knew what she was doing. “I was that frantic when I went to Doctor Venable’s house and learned he was off helpin’ Squire’s eldest with her first labor. But for you my boy would have died. I know he would.”

  Elinor gently tugged her hand away from the woman’s viselike grasp. “No, no, he most certainly wouldn’t have. It was only a small cut, ma’am, nothing life-threatening. Now, you should take him home, before he wakes up.”

  “I’ve got no money, my lady.” Her ruddy cheeks darkened even more.

  “Please don’t concern yourself with that, Mrs. Carruthers.”

  “Mr. Carruthers is fixed to bring in the lambs soon. I’ll bring you a fine leg of lamb.”

  “That will be lovely.”

  Mrs. Carruthers finally left, taking her sleeping child and embarrassing gratitude with her, leaving Elinor to tidy up her surgery. She’d learned to take the gifts her patients offered, even when they couldn’t afford to give such things away and Elinor didn’t need them. But she didn’t wish to insult the goodhearted folk and she always found a place for the offerings, usually in some other needy household; God knew there were enough of them on the current Earl of Trentham’s lands.

  Elinor frowned as she bundled up the soiled linen. She liked thinking about her dead husband’s nephew—the current earl—almost as much as she liked thinking about her dead husband, which was to say not at all.

  Instead, she turned her mind to the work she had yet to finish today. She was studying the human digestive system and had not completed the essay Doctor Venable had assigned her.

  She finished cleaning the small surgery and was about to commence her studies when Beth bustled in, her plump, rosy cheeks bright with two spots of color.

  “You must come with me, my lady. Quickly now. His lordship approaches with a guest.” Beth glanced around the room, her mouth tightening with disapproval. “You know how the earl feels about, well . . . about what it is you do here.”

  Elinor closed the medical text she’d only just opened. “Fortunately I don’t need to concern myself with his lordship’s likes or dislikes, Beth. I am free of all male interference and direction in my life until I shuffle off my mortal coil.”

  Beth frowned. “Well I don’t know nothin’ about those kinds of coals, my lady, but I do know you’ve blood on your second-best muslin. Come now, we must make haste.”

  Her maid scolded Elinor nonstop as she dragged her from the outbuilding that served as her surgery toward the Dower House, which was her home. Beth did not stop when they reached her chambers. Instead, she yanked off the offending gown and then clucked and fussed as she garbed Elinor in her third-best morning gown.

  “This dress is shameful, my lady. I can’t turn the hem again, it’s all but threadbare.”

  “Where did you speak to Lord Trentham?” Elinor asked, before Beth could launch into her favorite topic: the dismal state of Elinor’s wardrobe.

  “He was bound for town when I was coming back from the market, my lady.” She paused in the act of fastening the small buttons to cast a rapturous glance at Elinor. “With him was the most handsome man I have seen in . . . well . . . maybe ever.”

  “Oh? Who is this paragon?”

  “He’s not a foreigner, my lady, but a proper gentleman.”

  Elinor bit back a smile. “A paragon is something of unsurpassed excellence, Beth, not a foreign dignitary.”

  “He has the most beautiful green eyes,” Beth continued, not interested in a vocabulary lesson. “And hair the color of polished copper. He was dressed bang up to the nines, my lady, and made his lordship look quite dull. His coat was a dark mustard shade with—”

  Elinor held up one hand. “Green, copper, mustard? He sounds quite vulgar. Did his hat have bells?”

  Beth grunted. “Oh you do like to tease, my lady.” She gave Elinor’s shawl a few twitches before stepping back to admire her ha
ndiwork in the mirror. Her smile faltered.

  “Poor Beth,” Elinor chuckled, patting her maid’s hand. “I don’t give you much to work with, do I?” She stumped toward the door, her leg heavy and awkward from standing too long in her surgery.

  “Oh, my lady, what a thing to say. Why, you’ve a sweet figure and such lovely eyes. And beautiful, thick hair, if you’d only let me—”

  “I suppose I must offer them tea,” Elinor said, stopping her maid before she could get started on yet another of her favorite harangues: Elinor’s person and how she failed to make the most of it. “Will you have Hetty send in some of her currant buns. They are just the sort of thing to appeal to gentlemen. I shall receive them in the library,” she added, closing the door on her servant’s protests before limping down the narrow stairs to the second floor.

  She would receive her visitors in the book-lined room no matter that it defied convention—or maybe because it defied convention—and would irritate her dead husband’s successor.

  Elinor loathed Charles Atwood, the Fifth Earl of Trentham, and he loathed her right back. He was a greedy, self-absorbed man who did a dreadful job caring for the estate and its people. He’d never been satisfied that he’d inherited the title, the properties, and the bulk of the wealth from his dead uncle—the fourth earl—and he still resented Elinor’s meager jointure of a thousand pounds per annum and the use of the Dower House.

  The man would like nothing better than to see her cast out of house and home. Luckily for Elinor, the only way he could get his wish was if he sold off the estate; finding somebody willing to purchase the dilapidated house and estate would be next to impossible in the current environment.

  Elinor pushed the matter from her mind as she dropped into her chair and began to tidy the clutter that seemed to accrete on her desk no matter how hard she tried to be neat.

  She’d just finished re-shelving a pile of books when the library door swung open.

  “The Earl of Trentham and Mr. Stephen Worth,” Beth announced, flinging out the names with enough pomp to satisfy a prince.

  Charles strode into the library as if he owned it. Which he did, of course. Behind him came the most striking man Elinor had ever seen. His hair was the burnished hue of copper and his eyes were the vivid green of emeralds. If that wasn’t enough, his features and person were the stuff of mythic heroes. It was hard work dragging her eyes back to the earl’s less-than-appealing figure.

  Charles gave her a perfunctory bow. “Good afternoon, Elinor. You are looking lovely today.” He smirked at his own lie. “Mr. Worth, may I present to you my aunt, Lady Trentham. Elinor, this is Mr. Stephen Worth.”

  The paragon towered several inches above Charles, his broad shoulders, buckskin-clad thighs, and highly polished boots dominating the room. He fixed his beautiful eyes on her face and his full lips curved in a way that resurrected her long-slumbering heart and set it hammering against her ribs like a lunatic pounding on a cell door.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady.” His accent was unusual and Elinor struggled to place it as he took her hand and bowed over it. She refused to wear gloves, much to Beth’s chagrin, and her hands were not those of a lady. For the first time in memory, Elinor felt the urge to hide her calloused, chapped fingers from this perfect, elegant creature. She settled for removing her hand as quickly as politely possible.

  “You are not from England, Mr. Worth?” She was pleased to hear her voice sounded normal, no matter how strangely the rest of her body was behaving.

  His teeth were a flash of white in his tanned face. “No, my lady, I’m from England’s prior upstart colony.” His cocky smile belied his humble words.

  “One could hardly call the United States an upstart.”

  His smile turned wry. “I thought the same thing until I spent a Season in London.”

  Elinor couldn’t help smiling. What a shock the burnished, gorgeous creature must have given the pale aristocrats who dominated the ton.

  “Mr. Worth is here on business, Elinor,” Charles broke in, clearly in no mood for social banter. “He represents Siddons Bank of Boston.” His pale blue eyes, so like those of Elinor’s dead husband, watched her with the cold intensity of a snake.

  “Naturally I’ve heard of Siddons,” Elinor murmured. Did Charles mean the man was in England for business? Or in Trentham for business? Just what was Charles up to?

  The door opened and Beth entered bearing a large tea tray.

  Elinor gestured to her desk and Beth’s frown told Elinor what her servant thought of such a barbaric notion, but Elinor ignored her. For some reason, she was not inclined to leave the safety of her desk to serve tea today.

  “Mr. Worth recently assisted the Duke of Coventry with his, er, entail issue,” Charles said the instant the door closed behind Beth.

  Elinor’s hand shook at the word ‘entail’ and tea sloshed over the rim of the cup and pooled in the saucer.

  “How clumsy of me,” she murmured, her hand trembling as she lowered the teapot. She looked up to find two sets of eyes on her. One pair was, predictably, malicious and the other? Well, she didn’t know what she saw in the American’s eyes. Curiosity? Boredom? Thirst?

  “Do you take milk or sugar, Mr. Worth?”

  “Milk and two sugars, please.”

  Elinor fixed his tea, filled a plate with an assortment from the tray, and looked up. The American rose and came to take the cup. He was tall and well-formed and moved with the grace of an athlete.

  “Much obliged, my lady,” he said, his unusual accent pleasing to her ear. Indeed, there was nothing about him that did not appear pleasing; except perhaps his reasons for coming to Trentham.

  Elinor turned away from his disturbingly appealing person and prepared Charles’s tea. She was relieved to have something to busy her hands with as she asked her next question.

  “But Blackfriars is not entailed.” She lifted the cup and saucer toward him, grateful her hand was no longer shaking.

  Charles took the proffered cup and waved away the plate of food.

  “No, it is not. But that is not the only service Mr. Worth’s bank offers.”

  A sick feeling began to expand in her stomach. “Oh?”

  “I need to consider my options,” Charles said with a smirk. “You, more than anyone, should know the property is a horrific drain on my purse, Elinor. You watched for almost a decade as it drained my uncle of his resources. It will hardly get better as crop prices continue to fall. We beat the French in battle but they will have their revenge with the plow. We simply cannot compete with them when it comes to agriculture and it is foolish to try.”

  Elinor ignored his self-serving argument.

  “The property is vastly underutilized, Charles. Blackfriars would provide far more revenue if you made the necessary repairs to attract more tenants. Easily half the land goes un-worked and many of the cottages are—”

  Charles waved his hand, his thin lips twisting into a condescending smile. “Things are far different now than they were even five years ago. Landed gentry are an anachronism and the sooner men of sense and vision recognize that fact, the better it will be for all of Britain. Farming is a thing of the past, isn’t it, Worth?”

  The American set down his cup and saucer and gave a slight shrug of his broad shoulders. “Perhaps you have oversimplified the matter, my lord.” He turned to Elinor, his smile apologetic. “Even so, I’m afraid the earl has the right of it, Lady Trentham. English agriculture was under assault even before Waterloo. The economy is far from robust and the great landed estates of England can no longer survive decades of mismanagement as they have in the past.”

  Charles blinked at the other man’s words and then frowned, as if he couldn’t possibly have heard the American correctly. He turned from the American to Elinor and continued with his argument.

  “It is manufacturing we should turn our attention to now. I say let the Frenchies do the farming.”

  Elinor ignored the earl’s foolish bravado
and smoothed the fabric of her skirt. Beth was correct; her blue muslin was no longer fit to be seen. The seams had been turned so often they were visible even from a distance. She must seem like a ragamuffin to the wealthy, beautifully attired American.

  She looked up and caught the object of her ruminations staring, his green eyes intense with something that looked like . . . fury? Elinor flinched back and he dropped his gaze to his plate, depriving her of a better look. He picked up a piece of biscuit and placed it between his shapely lips before looking up again, his expression as mild as milk.

  Elinor realized she’d been holding her breath and exhaled. She must have misread his expression; what would he have to be furious about? It was Elinor who should be angry with him, particularly if he was here for the reason she suspected.

  “You helped the duke break entail? Is that something bankers do in your country, Mr. Worth?”

  He didn’t smile, but somehow Elinor knew he found her rather tart question amusing.

  “Not in the general way, my lady, but I am also a lawyer. As such, I find antiquated property law matters diverting.” His eyes flickered across Elinor, her desk, and the rest of the shabby room, as if entails weren’t the only quaintly amusing thing England had to offer. “You could almost say the topic of entails is something of a hobby for me.”

  Elinor opened her mouth to ask him what it was he enjoyed so much about destroying ancient estates but Charles cut in before she could speak.

  “Mr. Worth isn’t here to talk about entails, Elinor. He believes his bank might be interested in acquiring Blackfriars.”

  Elinor was not stupid. She knew the only reason Charles and his weak-chinned son—a man as devoid of all sense and decency as his father—hadn’t already sold Blackfriars was because of the dearth of eager buyers for such a property. The land was in bad enough condition, but the house itself would require a monstrous amount of money to repair and operate.

  She gave the American a coolly appraising glance, hoping it hid the sick feeling that had begun in her stomach and was rapidly migrating out to the rest of her body.

  “Is acquiring unprofitable estates another of your hobbies, Mr. Worth?”