Miss Benwick Reforms a Rogue

by Maggie Fenton

He staggered toward the bed, and, much to her horror, he sank against the mattress next to her and buried his head in her pillow.

  She jumped out of the bed, trying to will away the heat flooding her body. This was a situation she’d never been in before, and never expected to be, but she certainly wasn’t going to remain in the same bed Hirst occupied, as if they were…

  Well, she wasn’t sure what. It was all very confusing.

  “What exactly is going on here?” she demanded.

  He waved vaguely toward the door. “Make her go away,” he muttered sleepily into the pillow.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He turned his head just enough so that he could glare at her with one wintry gray eye. He looked very drunk and very…vulnerable. But no, it couldn’t be. It was the dim lighting that made her think such a stupid thing. He was about as vulnerable as a rock.

  “Lady Highbottom is determined to seduce me, Fawkes. All I want is to have a bloody peaceful night’s sleep and for my rod not to rot off. Is that so much to ask?”

  She would have thought she was dreaming, had the rest of her day not been just as outlandish as her current predicament.

  “Well, we wouldn’t want your rod rotting off,” she muttered dryly. A moment later, all of his words finally registered. “Lady Highbottom? As in Lord and Lady Highbottom? They’re your guests? But they’re the biggest scandalmongers in London! And Lady Highbottom is…is…”

  “A tart?” he offered.

  She glared at him. It never failed to irritate her that men could have as many bed partners as they wanted and be commended for it, while a woman who did the same was immediately branded a whore. Though she did have to admit that Lady Highbottom was rather legendary for her conquests.

  “You’re casting stones?”

  “Stones?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Don’t know about stones, but I’ll always call a spade a spade. She’s a tart, I’m a tart. And Lord Highbottom is definitely a tart,” he said, shuddering with disgust. Davina shuddered too, for Lord Highbottom had all the appeal of a bloated slug. “My own mam was a Covent Garden Nun, and I ain’t ashamed to admit it.”

  Well, that was far too much information. But it did explain rather a lot.

  Another barrage of knocks at the door interrupted their conversation, and Hirst shrank against the mattress, his expression panicked. “Make yourself useful, you bloody fop, and get rid of her. She was trying to ravish me.”

  Any sympathy she may have had about his situation vanished with his demand. She started to tell him precisely where he could shove it, but just as she opened her mouth, she realized something wonderful.

  She had Mr. Hirst in her room and at her mercy.

  She’d given up trying to fight her fate by the time she’d nodded off. But this…

  This was one last opportunity to make Hirst change his mind. Whatever the risk might be in staying here, she needed more time to figure out her…well, her entire bloody life. If there was any chance at all that she could avoid going to the duchess for help, she had to take it, even if it meant working for the bedlamite currently burrowing in her mattress.

  “If I do this for you, will you let me stay?” she demanded.

  He gave her a bleary look. “What?”

  She wondered if everyone who met him wanted to cosh him over the head. “Will you let me stay as your secretary if I deal with Lady Highbottom for you?” she said, enunciating every word with a painful slowness so that it would penetrate his thick skull.

  He threw his head back with a groan, and her eyes widened at what she saw. There seemed to be bite marks on his neck. Bloody bite marks. Perhaps the situation with the viscountess was direr than she’d first thought. “You can’t be serious!” he muttered.

  She moved to open the lock on the door. “I can let her in here now, leave you two alone…”

  He gasped, scandalized, and tried to hide once more behind the pillow. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  She raised her eyebrow and turned the lock halfway.

  He sat up on the bed, his bottom lip jutting out in consternation. It almost looked as if he were pouting. But surely she must have been mistaken, for men like Mr. Hirst would never be caught dead pouting.

  She arched her eyebrow a little higher.

  His pout turned into a sneer. “Oh, for God’s…put your eyebrow down, Fawkes! Why do you want to stay so badly anyway? Most people run away the first chance they get.”

  “Most people have somewhere else to go, then,” she retorted.

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Don’t think to play on my sympathies. I have none. Are you a liar, Mr. Fawkes?” he demanded. “For if there is one thing I loathe the most in the world, it is a liar.”

  Perhaps Mr. Hirst was more alert at the moment than he looked. She couldn’t help but notice his accent had suddenly vanished.

  “I would hardly admit to it if I were,” she retorted.

  “So any explanation I manage to wring out of you as to why you are so determined to stay here shall be a fabrication? For I know you are hiding something from me.”

  Davina was certain that any way she chose to go forward was guaranteed to ensnare her. But he was also ridiculous, and she refused to be intimidated by a ridiculous man. Even so, she decided that perhaps honesty was the best course of action…well, honesty of a sort.

  “Maybe I am hiding something,” she said. “But it is nothing to do with you.”

  His eyes narrowed even farther with dissatisfaction. Hirst opened his mouth to speak, but Lady Highbottom chose that moment to kick the door so hard an ancient painting of the moors fell off the wall next to it.

  Hirst paled at the violence and swallowed thickly. “Fine, damn you. Stay! Whatever you want. Just get rid of her.”

  She threw the lock and reached for the doorknob, girding herself for battle. How bad could Lady Highbottom be? She looked down at the mangled painting, the canvas popping out of the back of the broken frame, and her stomach sank at what awaited her on the other side. Hirst didn’t intimidate her, but Lady Highbottom certainly did.

  “Fawkes!” Hirst hissed.

  She sighed in annoyance as she turned back to him, though she was secretly thankful for the reprieve. He’d managed to roll himself into the coverlet in a further attempt to conceal himself. His two very long, very large legs stuck out the other side. His scruffy face peeked over the top of the pillow, and his gray eyes seemed enormous in the candlelight, filled with apprehension. He looked like an overgrown boy who’d done something very naughty.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. As if he weren’t throwing her to the Mongol Horde. “Don’t let her talk you into sticking your rod in her. She can be very persuasive.”

  She glared at him. “Don’t trouble yourself on my account, sir.”

  Hirst gave her a speculative look. “You do know what I’m talking about, do you not? Rods and the places they go, that sort of thing.”

  “I comprehend your meaning thoroughly, Mr. Hirst,” she managed to ground out around her complete and utter horror at the turn of their conversation.

  He squinted at her. “You’re…bloody hell, you’re the color of your nightcap. You are a virgin, aren’t you?”

  “What!” She realized she was shouting and lowered the pitch of her voice. “That is none of your business!”

  A slow, lazy smile stole over Hirst’s face. “Aren’t you a prim little fribble. Well, she ain’t to my taste, and I’d be wary of where she’s been bestowing her affections, but if you want to have a go at her, get your little problem—”

  “Problem!” she gasped.

  “—out of the way, be my guest. I must warn you, however, the lady has claws.” He gestured toward his shredded shirt and bleeding neck.

  Good God.

  “I shall not take advantage of that woman,” she hissed.

  He guffawed. “Take advantage? Of her? Why, she nearly succeeded in stealing my virtue. And I thought I’d misplaced it decades ago. You don’t have a chan
ce.” He squinted at her. “Unless you don’t like women. Even then, I doubt it shall make a difference to Pansy. Friction and that.”

  She decided to ignore the last two minutes of her life and make the entire problem go away as quickly as possible, no matter the cost to her physical wellbeing. She turned the knob.

  A pillow crashed into the back of her head, knocking Cousin Edmund’s spectacles to the floor.

  She shot Hirst a glare over one shoulder as she retrieved them and shoved them back on her nose. He had the good sense to look halfway contrite. “Sorry,” he said in his ridiculous stage whisper. It almost sounded as if he meant it. “I wanted to say, when you open that door, don’t let her in.”

  “I shall do my best to restrain myself,” she said dryly. She reached for the knob once more.

  “Fawkes! Fawkes!” he hissed.

  “What now?” she ground out.

  “Throw me that pillow, would you? My neck’s gone stiff.”

  Davina hurled the offending article at Hirst. It hit him in the face, a few feathers shooting out of the top on impact. It was the most satisfying thing she’d done all day.

  She turned back to the door, opened it and stalked into the hallway.

  She was immediately accosted.

  The viscountess jumped on her, arms and legs wrapping around her like tentacles. Davina staggered back against a wall, barely managing to keep them both upright. Fortunately, her attacker was a petite woman. Otherwise Davina feared her back would be broken by now.

  By some minor miracle, Davina managed to maneuver her face out of range of Lady Highbottom’s kisses and waited for her to finally realize she was not Hirst.

  It took a while.

  “But you’re not Hirst,” the lady finally exclaimed, jumping off of Davina with a pout.

  Davina could only imagine if the prudish Pilby were here now. He wouldn’t know where to settle his eyes, for Lady Highbottom’s current sartorial choices left much to be desired. Literally.

  “No, my lady.”

  “But where is he?” Lady Highbottom crossed her arms under her ample bosom, nearly stretching the fragile silk to the breaking point.

  “He is indisposed.”

  “Indis…” The word seemed to be beyond the woman’s powers at the moment. Considering the way the lady swayed on her feet in obvious intoxication, it was no wonder her vocabulary was so limited. Though Davina surmised it was not very broad to begin with.

  Davina seized upon this moment of confusion and took Lady Highbottom by the elbow, leading her down the corridor, as far away from her room as she could get.

  “Mr. Hirst sends his regrets. He is at this moment casting up his accounts into the chamber pot. Bad fish tonight,” she said briskly.

  “But we didn’t have…”

  “Did I say fish? I meant the soup. I hope you didn’t have the soup, Lady Highbottom.”

  “No, I did not…”

  “Thank heavens. Mr. Hirst has asked me to escort you back to your chambers.”

  The lady stopped abruptly and stomped her foot. “You’re bamming me.”

  “I assure you I am doing nothing of the kind.”

  “You are, yes, you are bamming me! He’s not sick, he…he…”

  Davina cringed as the lady’s voice grew more and more shrill. She wasn’t sure what Lady Highbottom was going to do, but it couldn’t end well.

  The lady burst into tears. “He doesn’t want me!” she wailed.

  It was even worse than Davina could have imagined.

  They had reached a flight of stairs leading up into the next wing of the castle, and Lady Highbottom slumped down on the bottom step, burying her head in her hands. Moonlight drifted down from a slit in the wall, pouring over her pale shoulders, which heaved with sobs.

  Davina sighed inwardly. She didn’t know the etiquette for comforting rejected coquettes, so she patted the lady’s hair and murmured, “There, there.”

  Davina had seen men do the same thing when confronted by feminine tears, and though it never seemed to work, it was certainly better than thumping Lady Highbottom’s head in frustration, as she really wished to do.

  “Hirst doesn’t want me! Not even Highbottom wants me! No one w-w-wants me!” the lady cried.

  “There, there,” Davina repeated, clenching her jaw. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, my lady.”

  “No, i-it’s worse. I throw myself at him, and he-he runs away. To you!” She lifted her head and gazed up at Davina through puffy, unfocused eyes. “Who are you?”

  “Fawkes, my lady. I am Mr. Hirst’s…er, secretary?”

  Lady Highbottom looked completely confused. “Secretary? H-he has a secretary?”

  “He does now,” she muttered.

  The viscountess squinted at her, looking dangerously contemplative. “Fawkes, you say…”

  Davina cursed inwardly. She’d encountered Lady Highbottom at the occasional London ball, but they’d never been introduced. By all accounts, Lady Highbottom would be hard pressed to remember what her husband looked like, so surely the lady didn’t recognize a wallflower like Davina Benwick beneath Leon’s clothes. But one never knew.

  Davina’s pats grew a little more forceful, coaxing Lady Highbottom’s head in the opposite direction of Davina’s face, just in case. “Now, now, my lady. You’ll be all puffy tomorrow. It shall not help your situation.”

  Lady Highbottom was promptly distracted and burst into a fresh round of tears. “What’s wrong with me, Mr. Fawkes? A-am I not beautiful?”

  “You’re quite beautiful,” she said, honestly enough. “Any man would be lucky to have you.” Davina was certain that this was a bit of a bouncer, what with the state of Hirst’s neck.

  Lady Highbottom glanced up once more, this time sheepishly. “D-do you really think so?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, careful to keep her expression neutral. “You’ve just been going after the wrong sort of men, obviously. Hirst, for example. One would have to be insane to want that sort of fellow, so coarse and uncivilized.”

  “But that’s why I want him!” Lady Highbottom blubbered.

  Davina huffed out a sigh. Of course it was. She pulled another one of Leon’s handkerchiefs out of her lapel and offered it to the lady. She took it, blew her nose noisily, and wiped her tears, obviously beyond any attempt at decorum.

  Davina would not be asking for that back. Now Leon’s absurd number of handkerchiefs was starting to make sense.

  “Let’s get you back to your chambers, my lady.”

  Lady Highbottom dabbed at her eyes and stood. “Yes, yes, I should like that…” she said querulously, allowing Davina to lead her up the steps and down the long, dim hallway.

  Davina wracked her brain for anything that would sound like halfway decent advice, though she wondered why she bothered. She had a feeling the viscountess wasn’t going to remember much, if anything, that happened tonight.

  “You should find someone worthy of your affections, my lady. Perhaps Lord Highbottom just needs a bit of nudging. You must have married him for a reason.”

  “For his title, of course,” Lady Highbottom sniffled.

  Davina shouldn’t have been surprised. Though why anyone would be eager for the title of Viscountess Highbottom was beyond her. “And why did he marry you?”

  “For my fortune,” the lady said, as if this too were obvious.

  Well. So much for romance.

  After what seemed two centuries, they arrived at the door to the lady’s room. Davina sighed inwardly with relief as she escorted the viscountess inside. She turned to leave, but Lady Highbottom latched onto her arm and gave her a melting smile, her eyes gleaming, but no longer with tears.

  It was a suspiciously quick change in the lady’s mood. Davina immediately sensed danger and began backing toward the door.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fawkes,” Lady Highbottom said, matching Davina’s every step. Her fingernails began to flick at Davina’s lapel playfully, and Davina eyed them with great sus
picion, remembering what they had done to Hirst’s shirt. And neck. “My knight in shining armor. You’ve been very…kind tonight.”

  “Yes, well…”

  “Such a polite young thing.”

  “Er, thank you…?”

  Lady Highbottom plucked the spectacles off Davina’s nose with a mischievous grin. “And such pretty eyes. A shame to hide them behind these horrid things.”

  Davina snatched the spectacles back and shoved back into place. “I’d be lost without them. Now I really must be going. Mr. Hirst is waiting for me.”

  She pouted playfully. “The scoundrel doesn’t deserve you. I’m sure I could put you to much better use,” she purred, her hands roaming over Davina’s shoulders.

  Well. Even a dimwit could have spotted that rather blatant innuendo.

  “And if you wanted to stay and chat,” the lady drawled, smashing her breasts against Davina and leaning close to her ear, “I wouldn’t say no. I could use a bit of secretarial assistance myself tonight.”

  Davina shuddered, feeling in dire need of a good scrubbing, and stepped firmly into the hall before Lady Highbottom could escalate her seduction.

  “Perhaps…um, perhaps another time, my lady,” she stammered and immediately wanted to kick herself. Another time? Another time when pigs sprouted wings and flew, maybe. Certainly not in Davina’s lifetime.

  “Yes,” the lady said, posing seductively against the doorframe and winking. “Another time.”

  Oh, dear Lord, what had she done?

  Lady Highbottom’s parting smirk haunted her the entire walk back to her room. But her troubles were not over. She’d not be enjoying the comforts of her bed any time soon, since Hirst had yet to vacate it. In fact, he was fast asleep on his stomach, limbs akimbo, emitting a low rumble from the back of his throat.

  Fitting that he should growl even in slumber.

  She should really send him on his way with a firm cuff to his thick head, but for some reason she dared not fathom, she couldn’t seem to find the heart to rouse him. He just looked so…peaceful. No, not peaceful. Just…still. Almost harmless, beard and all.

  Besides, she didn’t want to run the risk of waking him up, only to have him decide to send her off on the mail coach after all.