When they’d all claimed chairs, August was the first to speak in another explosion of fury and resentment. “If you send her away, I’m leaving, too.”
“That is not your call to make,” the young woman murmured, resting a hand on the boy’s knee.
August shoved her touch off him. “You said you weren’t leaving.”
She’d made that promise to his son? Edwin made himself look at this obstinate wench who’d turned his life and world upside down . . . again.
For one given to a life of crime and treachery, Gertrude Diggory did a rubbish job of hiding her feelings. Rather, she was an open book with her every thought and emotion parading over her diamond-shaped face. The lady warred with herself. She wanted to go toe to toe with Edwin still. “It might be for the best,” she finally said in solemn tones. “If you begin again without me here.”
There should be a swell of triumph at having her falter, at besting her, despite the demands she’d put to him.
“Says who? You?” His son finally looked over at Edwin. “Or him?”
Except it was impossible to be victorious when one’s own son looked at one the way he might a slug crawling upon the earth.
“Miss Diggory cannot remain here forever,” Edwin finally said diplomatically. “She has her own life.” Doing whatever it was thieves and sinners did. And he’d be damned if she remained here, ready to pounce like the last vile thug of Mac Diggory’s who’d lived here.
The woman shifted then, falling to a knee alongside August’s chair. Taking his hands in her own, she squeezed them and said something.
With his lips pursed, August shook his head.
She nodded; whatever words she spoke to the child were so hushed they barely qualified as sound.
August’s lower lip trembled, that first mark of vulnerability, and it wrenched at that organ in Edwin’s chest that he had believed dead long, long ago. Catching Edwin’s stare, all hint of weakness immediately lifted. “I ain’t staying.”
“You are,” the young woman repeated. “And you will be fine. You will be better than fine.”
While the pair resumed their nearly inaudible discussion, August stole several glances at him. Edwin sat still, the recipient of his own child’s flagrant animosity.
The villain in his own household . . . because of this woman.
She’d seen to it that when she left, his son would have nothing but resentment for the one who’d sent her away. It had been a neat, clever trap that Edwin could not find his way out of. Not without forever damaging his new beginning with August. For with her demands and Edwin’s insistence that she take herself off to whichever hole the Diggorys resided in at the given moment, she’d managed to shred him in his son’s eyes—again.
Bloody, bloody hell on Sunday.
“If you will excuse Miss Diggory and me for a moment?” Edwin clipped out, and the sibling-like pair across from him both glanced up, shocked, as if they’d forgotten his presence.
August set his chin at a mutinous angle in a gesture so resembling the woman next to him that in the moment, Edwin could almost be deceived into believing the two were in fact brother and sister who shared blood.
The young woman leaned forward and whispered something into the boy’s ear.
August lingered there, defiant.
But then he climbed to his feet. Holding Edwin’s eyes with his own, the boy turned his knife menacingly in Edwin’s direction. He swirled the tip of that gleaming blade, motioning to the neckcloth at Edwin’s throat. The irony of that silent, threatening exchange was not lost on Edwin. How many times had he silently prayed for such a fate? A swift, decisive end to his miserable existence.
“Stephen,” the young woman scolded with such horror and shock a less jaded person than Edwin might believe she was capable of such emotions.
All the while grief battered at him. His longing for death had belonged to a man who’d lost his family . . . mourning this boy who stood before him. The same boy who now issued a threat against his life—one Edwin didn’t believe was at all empty.
The boy abruptly stopped, his knife and gaze all trained on the gold pin at Edwin’s throat. August’s arm faltered, and for a moment Edwin believed he recognized the piece. Remembered it.
Until he shifted his focus up and there was only nothingness there.
“I said, put your knife away, Stephen,” she admonished.
“Fine,” the boy mumbled. He jammed his dagger back inside a clever strap attached to the point just above his ankle. Backing slowly toward the front of the room, August watched them both, and reaching the door, the boy shot a hand behind him and pressed the handle.
Quint Marlow stood there in loyal wait, as he’d done so many other times before this one.
August spared him a quick look, sizing him up and down. “You again.” By the derisive smile on his lips, he found the other man wanting.
Edwin’s man-of-affairs now assessed the boy with a proper degree of wariness and mistrust. “Why don’t I show you to your rooms now, Lord August.”
And this time, after a moment’s hesitation, August continued on. Marlow quickly drew the door shut once more.
“I don’t want you here,” Edwin said without preamble. “I’d rather see you to the Devil where you belong than allow you to reside in my household.”
The chit’s eyebrows lifted. “And yet?”
She was clever, and he would do well to remember that much. To not forget it. To always assume she was ten steps ahead of him and then plot his way to five and ten past the woman to beat her. He’d not, however, give her the pleasure of being told she was right . . . even as she was. Edwin proceeded to fire off directives, reclaiming control. “You’ll remain here until a proper governess or tutor can be found.” One who’d not be devoured by the snarling boy who’d just quit Edwin’s offices. “You’ll continue to oversee his lessons until then. You’re not to set foot outside this townhouse with my son unless someone accompanies you, and even then, I want details so I can choose whether or not to give my permission.” There wouldn’t be a reason for her to leave. He didn’t expect it would take more than a fortnight to find a suitable instructor.
The minx pursed her mouth. “You’ll make us prisoners, then,” she said brusquely. “That is rather an inauspicious beginning to your future with your son.”
His ears went hot at having his own unspoken words from a short while ago hurled in his face by this sternly disapproving woman. She of all people would condemn his decisions or actions? Edwin dropped his voice to a rough whisper. “You misunderstand. You are the prisoner here. Not August. You.”
Fear flashed within her eyes. It bled her cheeks of color. And it was the first time since she’d invaded his household that she’d shown a hint of weakening. “I’m no man’s p-prisoner.” That faintest of quivers further evidenced the young woman’s unease.
He grinned coldly at the interloper. “If you choose to remain, then yes, that is precisely what you’ll be. You will not have any correspondence with your family. You’re not to instruct my servants to send word to your family’s minions.” As he spoke, her thin chestnut eyebrows drew into a line, the only telltale indication she heard—and resented—each order. Resting his palms on his stomach, Edwin reclined in his chair and braced for her to finally take flight.
She scrabbled with her lower lip, worrying that flesh between her slightly crooked front teeth.
“Well?” he purred, arching a single eyebrow.
The young woman glanced over her shoulder a long while. Whether she stayed or left, the decision would be owned by her. August’s resentment would be reserved for the one who’d abandoned him. And then Edwin and August could begin their lives anew. Under his palms, his stomach muscles contracted. This woman’s leaving still did not make up for the fact that Edwin didn’t have a single bloody clue what to do with his son.
“What is it to be, Miss Killoran?”
Her shoulders snapped back as a crackling tension went through her slen
der frame, and she returned her focus to him. That one clear, clever eye leveled him to his seat. Slowly, she pushed herself upright. “What I said at the outset of our conversation still holds true. I’m remaining as long as it takes for Stephen to acclimate to his place and role here. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
He flared his nostrils, staring after her retreating back. By God, was there no end to the chit’s insolence?
“Halt,” he commanded. The young woman stopped and did a slow, graceful turn so that they again faced one another. “I have not yet dismissed you, Miss Killoran.” Nor was he foolish enough to allow her free rein of his household. Except . . . you are allowing the chit to reside under the same roof. What did that say about his logic? He’d allow her to stay, but that did not mean he himself had to have any personal dealings with her. “While you are here, you are not to darken my door. Any communication between us will be carried out through Marlow.” Reaching behind him, he tugged the bell pull.
A dutiful, strapping footman nearly eight inches taller than the chit entered a few moments later.
“See Miss Killoran to the guest chambers,” Edwin instructed.
The liveried servant bowed and started forward.
“Oh, and Miss Killoran?” Edwin called after her before she could be ushered off.
She eyed him with a proper modicum of wariness. “Yes?”
“You might have won this round”—he thinned his eyes into small slits—“but your days are numbered here. When you do leave, this will have been the last contact you ever have with my son.”
And then Edwin would at last be free of her and her cursed siblings.
Chapter 7
“You convinced him.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t Cleopatra, Ophelia, or Broderick.” Gertrude directed that mumbled utterance into the back of her brother’s new armoire. Pride, however, filled her. She had done it. She’d not only faced down a man rumored to be mad—one who’d tormented her and her siblings over crimes that belonged squarely with their father—but also secured his agreement and inserted her place in his household.
Having been shown to her rooms, Gertrude had quit the bright, sun-filled guest chamber and gone in search of Stephen. Now, several hours since they’d arrived, she saw to tidying and making this new space Stephen’s.
She squinted into the darkened armoire and felt around, running her palms along the walls of the mahogany piece. “Oh, no.” She made a tsking sound that echoed off the empty wood closet. No, this would not do at all.
“Yea,” Stephen called from behind her. “But I didn’t expect that it would be you who convinced him.”
“Thank you,” she muttered. “But it was, in fact, you who changed the marquess’s mind.” If he’d had his way, Gertrude would have been banished to the fiery flames of hell with her rotted sire.
“Me?” Incredulity filled Stephen’s voice.
Pushing herself upright, Gertrude turned, and the words died on her lips.
Stephen sat perched on the edge of an ornate half tester bed; the gigantic, carved piece dwarfed his tiny frame and highlighted just how small her brother in fact was. And for all intents and purposes, with her working as she was and him swinging his legs off the side of that frame, they might as well have been at home in the Devil’s Den and not in this foreign place.
Slightly reclined and stroking Gus’s back, Stephen went on. “Maddock didn’t seem that afraid when I stuck my knife at him.”
She laughed softly. “Oh, Stephen.” Quitting her place at the opposite end of the room, she joined him at the side of the rosewood rococo bed and, gripping the edges, pulled herself up so that she sat next to him. The moment she was settled on the slightly too-firm mattress, Gus popped up and clawed his way from around Stephen. “It wasn’t your knife,” she said, stroking the cat’s sensitive back.
Stephen’s face pulled. “It wasn’t?”
“No.” She’d known the precise moment the marquess had capitulated. Warmth filled her chest. He’d not allowed Gertrude to stay because of any threat, real or otherwise perceived. It spoke volumes of the gentleman. It spoke of one who wasn’t necessarily violent or mad, but who still had compassion in him. Gertrude looked over at Stephen. “He saw that you wanted me here.”
Her brother stiffened. “Pfft. He doesn’t care what I want.”
“He does,” she returned with an automaticity born of truth. “If he didn’t, he’d have tossed me out on my buttocks. Instead, he’s allowed me to remain, and that”—she stuck a finger up—“surely says something about your father.”
Her brother snorted. “You’re defending the madman? You’re as crazy as him.”
At that hateful insult Stephen continued to hurl about his father, Gertrude frowned. It was one he’d tossed out during their meeting with the man who’d sired him. What must it be like for a man to lose everything he held dear and then go through life, shunned as a lunatic by all . . . including the child he’d so desperately searched for? “He is your father, Stephen,” she said gently, adding a firmness to that reminder. “And you shouldn’t go about calling him mad.”
“He ain’t my father,” Stephen mumbled.
The marquess, from his obstinate noble jawline down to his clever and harsh gaze, was very much the boy’s father. She’d not force Stephen to accept the truth of it. That was something he needed to come to terms with . . . in his own time . . . and couldn’t have forced upon him. “Very well. I’ll not insist you accept him as your father . . .” After all, she’d learned firsthand that blood did not a father make. The marquess, however, had searched for his son when Gertrude’s own father hadn’t even bothered to name her at birth. “I will ask,” she went on, “that you stop insulting him.”
“I can’t promise that.”
Damn his stubbornness. She, however, shared that same obstinacy. “Then try.”
They battled in silence. “Fiiiiine. I’ll try. But I don’t see why it matters if I call him ‘mad’ if he is m—” Gertrude gave him a look. “Fine. Fine,” he groused. “Broderick isn’t going to be happy with you,” he said suddenly.
“He’ll understand.” And he’s going to be panicked when you fail to return.
“He’s going to worry.”
Of course Broderick would worry. She suspected he and the rest of their siblings all doubted Gertrude’s abilities. Refusing to let talk or thought of her family’s low expectations diminish her earlier triumph, she smiled at her brother. “Enough talk about Broderick.” She hopped up, and at that abrupt movement, Gus leapt off the bed, landing with a solid thump on the hardwood floors. “We need to focus first on making this space yours.”
Gertrude settled her hands on her hips and did a slow circle, assessing each corner and article. The chambers were made up of matching rosewood rococo furniture; from the three-drawer worktable to a curved writing desk with built-in cases and cubbies, no expense had been spared. Ornate, bronzed, rococo mirror wall sconces hung in pairs throughout the rooms, filled with enough candles that at dark, one could likely be tricked into believing it was daylight still.
“I hate it,” Stephen muttered, bringing her gaze away from the furnishings and over to him. His legs folded in a crisscross, he’d made an effective little cage. And by the chirping from within, Sethos was happy at play there.
“It isn’t all bad,” she said with forced cheer.
“You’re a lousy liar. At least Cleo would tell the truth.”
Fair turn.
“Very well. Do you want to know what I’m really thinking? It’s ornate,” she said bluntly. “It exudes wealth and power, and in that appreciation for the finer things, the marquess is not different from Broderick, Stephen.” It did, however, mean that the marquess didn’t know the boy who’d call this household home.
Because of you and your family . . .
Guilt scissored at her chest. The marquess was right in his hatred and fury.
Stephen carefully stretched his legs out, and Sethos scurried out from under
them.
Gus’s ears pricked up. “Stop,” Gertrude said briskly, snapping her fingers twice, and the tabby sank reluctantly back onto the floral, pink-and-green Aubusson carpet.
“Pink and green and flowers,” Stephen groused, shooing Gus away until the cat abandoned his interest in Sethos and took up a spot in the corner of the room.
“I’ll speak to the marquess,” Gertrude offered, and as soon as those words slipped out, she wanted to pull them back.
Except . . .
Stephen’s face brightened. “You will?”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to have as few dealings as possible with a man who looked like he wished her dead ten times to Sunday. But she’d insisted on remaining. She was determined to be here for Stephen. Gertrude forced a smile that strained every muscle of her face. “I will.”
Stephen snorted. “And what are you going to say? ‘Burn your fancy furniture’?”
It was the wrong thing to say, and if he realized it, he gave no indication. And whether it had been intentional, Gertrude could not say.
“I’m going to say that you might do better with new . . . décor.” Gertrude returned to the side of the bed and pressed her hand on it. She grimaced. “And your mattress. We’re going to require your mattress be brought over.”
She winced. There was the whole matter of getting that beloved piece from within the Devil’s Den, which would be a nigh-impossible feat after the marquess’s express orders about her and—
Gertrude groaned. “Bloody, bloody hell,” she whispered. How was she going to notify her family? She had to tell them something.
“What?” Stephen piped in.
Gertrude let her hand fall to her side and forced another grin in place. “Nothing. It is nothing at all. We’ll simply require a place for you to . . . hide your things.” Later. She’d just have to convince the marquess to let her send word to her family. For now, Stephen was who mattered and where all her focus needed to be. “Rule one . . . protect your belongings,” she reminded her brother, ruffling the top of his head.
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