Miss Benwick Reforms a Rogue

by Maggie Fenton

  The fribble didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned.

  “I think I can handle you, sir,” Fawkes responded primly.

  Julian couldn’t help but smirk at that. The poor fellow had no idea. He’d given Fawkes fair warning—more than he’d ever given anyone else.

  “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

  Chapter Eight

  The Plot Thickens

  Two days later, Davina was already beginning to second-guess her determination to remain at Arncliffe Castle. Hirst’s magnum opus was stacked nearly twice her height, and the contents were nearly incomprehensible, not only because they were on a subject of which she had little knowledge, but also because Hirst had the penmanship of a drunken sailor in a hurricane.

  And she was definitely beginning to see why everyone, even Sir Wesley, called Hirst peculiar, never mind their exceptional introduction. He was worse than her brother when it came to his work, and clearly just as delusional.

  Other than the night he’d passed out on her bed, she was fairly certain he hadn’t slept since, or even left his workshop, for he was there when she arrived, and there when she left, and still had on the same bloodstained shirt he’d used to mop his brow after his engine had exploded.

  His focus on his work was as disturbing as it was impressive. She was quite sure that everyone, even eccentric geniuses, needed to sleep at some point. It was indeed one of the fundamental laws of nature, and that seemed to her to have everything to do with “science”.

  But what did she know? She was merely a woman, and the only reason she knew anything at all about “science” was because of her brother’s liberalism on the matter when she’d been a young girl. According to most (i.e. men and her mother), the female sex was incapable of understanding such lofty matters. It seemed to her an extremely unscientific stance to take. She was just as smart as any man.

  Well, perhaps not as smart as Hirst, at least when it came to numbers and formulae. But she definitely surpassed Hirst when it came to common sense…setting aside her imprudent and illogical decision to impersonate her male cousin, obviously.

  The one good thing that came out of Hirst’s obsession with his work was that he wasn’t focused on her. Indeed, she would have thought he’d forgotten her existence entirely, had he not, on occasion, demanded she fetch a tool for him, or even a pot of Mrs. Bundleby’s bootblack (it seemed he had an affinity for the stuff, despite his suspicions). But at least he wasn’t looking at her too attentively. She didn’t think her disguise would have lasted half a day more under his close scrutiny.

  It wasn’t until the afternoon of her second day slogging through the Babylonian scrawl that was Hirst’s manuscript that Hirst’s focus finally seemed to shift back from hammering away at his engine to the world around him. And in quite an unexpected way.

  She was minding her own business, trying futilely to match up one page of diagrams with another, when she looked up to find Mr. Bonnet standing on the other side of the desk. He was watching her work with his beetle brow quirked unpleasantly. She’d not even heard the man come in, but that was nothing new. For all that Hirst’s man-of-affairs looked as dainty as an elephant, he could be surprisingly stealthy when he wanted.

  “Hasn’t run ya off with yer tail between yer legs yet, then?” Mr. Bonnet said to her archly.

  Davina gave him an unimpressed look over the top of Cousin Edmund’s spectacles and returned to her work. Mr. Bonnet grunted, clearly miffed to be so summarily dismissed. He’d made it clear since that first day that he didn’t like her. Well, she didn’t like him either, and she refused to be bullied. He’d have to do a lot worse to come even close to Lady Benwick’s skill in that particular art.

  “Well, what is it?” Hirst demanded of his man-of-affairs, not even looking up from his work.

  Mr. Bonnet gave Davina one more scowl before turning to Hirst. “The marquess and ‘is daughter ‘ave returned to Kildale House.”

  The news was important enough to make Hirst stop working for the first time in hours, his eyes sparking bright with interest. Davina was rather interested as well. She knew the Marquess of Kildale and his daughter all too well. She’d once even considered the Lady Ambrosia a friend. Not any longer, of course. She couldn’t imagine what business a cit like Hirst had with the notoriously snobbish marquess.

  “Rather earlier than I anticipated,” Hirst said, sounding pleased.

  “It seems the entire property is currently unin’abitable,” Mr. Bonnet continued dryly. “Somefing to do wiv overrun cesspits. You wouldn’t know nothing about this, would ya?” Mr. Bonnet demanded, brow already cocked in disbelief.

  “Why would I?” Hirst said, not bothering to temper a smug smile. “And how unfortunate for the marquess and Lady Ambrosia. They shall certainly need a place to stay.”

  Mr. Bonnet’s scowl returned in full. “Even if you invite ‘im ‘ere, there ain’t no guarantee he’ll accept.”

  “Why do you think I’ve tolerated the viscountess for so long? The Highbottoms are Kildale’s particular friends. He would never turn me down, knowing Lady Highbottom was here to sniff out the slightest scandal.”

  Davina gave up any pretense of working and focused on the conversation. She’d been wondering why Hirst had the Highbottoms in residence, since he made very little effort to hide his distaste for them. But what in heaven’s name was Hirst up to with Kildale?

  “You’re really going to go through wiv it, then,” Mr. Bonnet grumbled.

  “Of course,” Hirst said. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. You know that, Bones.”

  “Go through with what?” Davina asked, unable to contain her curiosity a moment longer.

  “‘E wants to woo a Lady,” Mr. Bonnet said disapprovingly. “A proper one what insists on being courted by a gennelman.”

  Davina choked on air and doubled over in a vicious fit of coughing. She’d not expected that particular response. “Lady Ambrosia…Kildale’s daughter?”

  “Do you know her?” Hirst asked, looking mildly concerned by her reaction.

  “Unfortunately,” she muttered. “You want to marry her?”

  He smirked, as if she’d said something amusing. “Something like that.”

  “But…” She found herself at a complete loss. “Really?”

  “You don’t think she’ll have me.”

  “I don’t think she’ll have anybody!”

  Hirst’s smirk grew. “I’m sure Lady Ambrosia has a price. Everyone does.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know if that’s true. But even if you’re right, why would you want to subject yourself to marriage with her?”

  “The lady failed to impress?”

  Davina didn’t bother to deny it. She disliked Lady Ambrosia, quite vehemently, and didn’t think she could pretend otherwise. Lady Ambrosia had stolen away the only suitor Davina had ever truly liked, after all.

  Mr. Xavier had been a younger son, and had just passed muster for Lady Benwick’s requirements, but he was kind and attractive and loved Christopher Essex’s poetry as much as Davina did (though that particular bit of information she did not share with her mother, who was so convinced of that poet’s indecency she’d organized protests against him). She’d thought for a few months that Mr. Xavier could have loved her too, and had definitely thought he’d offer for her.

  But then Lady Ambrosia, whom she’d fancied her friend at the time, had called on the same afternoon as one of the gentleman’s visits. Ambrosia had flirted, and Mr. Xavier had responded, and that had been the end of that. Like so many other men, he’d been a slave to the lady’s every whim for the rest of the Season, until she’d crushed his heart with her rejection.

  In retrospect, Davina was grateful that Ambrosia had revealed the true depths of Mr. Xavier’s affections for her (which were very shallow indeed), but she’d never called her a friend again. Not that Ambrosia had cared, as she’d evidently never considered Davina a friend in the first place—another blow Davina had found difficult
to stomach.

  But this was information that Hirst didn’t need to know.

  “On the contrary. She impressed me very much,” she said dryly. “I have never met anyone who could match her monumental self-absorption. It is a singular achievement.”

  “I ain’t met an aristocrat who weren’t,” Mr. Bonnet muttered.

  “Lady Ambrosia is a breed of her own,” she declared. “She’s even higher in the instep than my mo…my aunt, Lady Benwick.”

  “Sir Wesley’s mother?” Hirst said. “I’ve certainly heard the tales.”

  “They’re all true. You’ll stand no chance with Ambrosia.”

  Hirst looked unimpressed with this assessment. “You know, I can act the part of a gentleman when I want to.”

  She found that very hard to believe. Hirst was undoubtedly charismatic, and underneath all the scruff and…well, bloodstained clothing, he was as fine a specimen of masculine beauty as she’d ever seen.

  But a gentleman he was not.

  “Can you?”

  “’Course I can. Ten years of boarding school beat its pretty manners into me quite literally. I just rarely have a good enough reason to actually use them,” he retorted, his lighthearted tone turned to something darker. “The world is a beastly place, Fawkes, and most people are beastly no matter how many fancy-arse titles they have or how rounded their vowels are. Why should I bother pretending otherwise?”

  “Then it is truly baffling to me why you would want to wed Lady Ambrosia, for she is nothing but pretty manners,” she pointed out. “Surely you could find someone less…challenging. Why settle for a marquess’ daughter when your fortune could buy you a duke’s?”

  He grinned. “How very mercenary of you, Fawkes. I’ll have disillusioned you in no time.”

  Ha. She needed no help in that department. “Oh, I hold no illusions about the marriage mart. And I’m familiar enough with it to know you could do much better.”

  His amusement deepened. “Ambrosia is very beautiful, though.”

  “And as judgmental as Solomon.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I’m as rich as Solomon, so why not buy a pretty bride? It’s what rich men do.”

  She hated that he wasn’t wrong.

  “If beauty is what you’re after, I’ve seen plenty who are far superior in that area,” she said, aware that her tone had taken on an inexplicably sulky edge. She tried to focus on the papers in front of her, a hopeless endeavor when she could feel Hirst’s sharp gaze studying her with too much interest.

  “You are quite set against the match. Want her for yourself?” he teased.

  She gave up any pretense of returning to her work and turned back to him, completely affronted by the allegation. “Hardly!” she scoffed.

  “Then leave it, Fawkes. It’s Lady Ambrosia or none other.”

  “But…”

  “I have my reasons, and that’s that.” He gestured toward the mountain of papers behind her. “And I’d say you have enough to occupy your time without eavesdropping on my conversations.”

  Well, that told her.

  She scowled at him and turned back to her task with a huff.

  There had to be more to his choice of Lady Ambrosia than his shallow admiration of her dubious charms. She wondered what his true motives were…then she wondered why she cared so much. Hirst could marry as foolishly as he liked. It was nothing to her.

  Perhaps it was the challenge he craved. Lady Ambrosia had once vowed to marry nothing less than a duke, but even that particular breed had failed to impress the lady. She wondered if Hirst’s infinite pots of money were enough to tempt the lady away from her vow.

  But she supposed the better question was whether Lord Kildale could be tempted…in which case perhaps Hirst would have his bride after all. It was common knowledge Kildale had bankrupted the family coffers, and that even his title was no longer staving off his creditors.

  Lady Ambrosia might not have much choice in the matter of her marriage. She was probably regretting turning up her nose at all those offers she’d received when her father was still flush in the pocket (or at least pretending to be). Davina could almost feel sorry for her if that was the case, for she was all too familiar with how little real choice a lady had in who she wed. Almost.

  But Davina could hold a grudge—one trait she had indeed inherited from her mother—and she was still rather miffed over the whole Mr. Xavier affair. Ambrosia didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  And honestly, the lady could do a lot worse than Hirst. Setting aside her own visceral response to the man and looking at him as objectively as possible, she didn’t think that Hirst was a horrible marriage prospect. He was certainly a step up from Lord Dalrymple.

  He may have been a gruff, unmannerly gutter rat with far too many eccentricities. And he may have been too clever for his own good and generally infuriating, and a whole host of unflattering adjectives. But beneath all of these layers, he was not unkind. He would never abuse a woman. She’d seen that immediately from his interactions with the staff and Lady Highbottom—the latter whose tenacity could easily drive a saint to violence.

  And he was…well, he was not unattractive.

  An understatement, really, since he was one of the singular most breathtaking men she’d ever seen. He was beautiful, in a hard hewn, primitive sort of way…something she’d been trying hard not to think about these past few days.

  Though Hirst had struck her as being in a class all his own, perhaps he wasn’t so different from the rest after all. It was almost comforting to know that in this one area at least he was ordinary, since everything else about him wasn’t. And yet…

  And yet, she was disappointed in him as well. For some reason, she didn’t want him to be ordinary. She didn’t want him to be fixated on Lady Ambrosia, like every other male in the kingdom. At least he was honest about his rather cutthroat intentions toward the lady, and didn’t seem to be hiding behind flowery declarations of a love he didn’t feel. But he’d still set his sights on her.

  Davina wasn’t prepared to examine too closely her reasons for wanting Hirst to be immune to Ambrosia’s many allures. She’d only known him a handful of days and really shouldn’t expect much out of a man she’d first met passed out in a ditch. But she did.

  Perhaps it was his mind. He was as brilliant as Sir Wesley had always nattered on about, and Davina was sure such an intellect would be wasted on someone like Ambrosia.

  Then again, perhaps she was just jealous of Ambrosia. She was not too proud to admit to such pettiness.

  But she was unsettled by the news of the Kildales’ pending arrival for an entirely different reason that had nothing to do with her jealousy or Hirst’s poor judgment in paramours: The last thing she needed was Ambrosia at the castle, for she feared her disguise would never hold up under the lady’s scrutiny.

  She doubted her former friend would step foot in a crowded, filthy place like Hirst’s workshop, but one never knew with Ambrosia. She had an annoying habit of ruining Davina’s life just when things were starting to go well for her. She’d done it with Mr. Xavier, and Davina was afraid she’d do it with Hirst.

  Not that Hirst was courting her…or that he even knew she was a woman.

  And not that Davina wanted him to.

  She cleared her throat and picked up a stack of foolscap, staring down at it through her cousin’s spectacles and seeing nothing but paragraphs and paragraphs of blurry hieroglyphics. She most certainly did not stare at Hirst’s rippling forearms as he began to pound away at a piece of metal with a hammer. Or the way his unkempt curls fell across his brow as he worked.

  Not at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Villains, Like Chickens, Come Home To Roost

  Lord Kildale proved both Bones’ and Fawkes’ doubts unfounded when he immediately accepted Julian’s invitation to stay at Arncliffe Castle, for what choice did a man without real friends or money have? He arrived with his daughter the following morning, in a coach he could doubtless ill afford. />
  Julian was there to greet them with Lady Highbottom by his side. The viscountess gave an unladylike squeal at the sight of Lady Ambrosia and ran off to fuss over her friend, leaving Julian to face the marquess alone, whose expression dripping with disdain as he descended the coach.

  Kildale was just as Julian remembered him from their last brief encounter in London, and Julian’s opinion of him had not improved. The marquess’ once blond hair had gone completely white, cropped short in a style more suited to a man half his age. He had boyish features awash in wrinkles and a permanent choleric flush to his cheeks, and his burly build, now run to fat with age and over-indulgence, could not entirely be hidden behind the expert tailoring of his jacket.

  He was a typical example of his kind, a well-dressed dilettante determined to ignore his advancing years and fading looks. Julian would have loathed him on principle even without knowing just how morally bankrupt he was.

  Most of the world thought the marquess a genial man with a regrettably poor head for business. If anyone cared enough to look, the man’s true nature—one that was more sinister than that of a mere injudicious landowner—was easily spotted in the man’s eyes. Dark, cold and reptilian, they were the eyes of a predator with little use for anything in the world that couldn’t be turned to his personal advantage.

  And as the marquess approached him, not bothering to mask the contempt in his eyes, Julian longed for the day he’d see their cold gleam dulled with defeat.

  “Kildale,” Julian greeted, pasting on his most insincerely polite smile, and categorically refusing to grant the marquess even the slightest obeisance. Why bother pretending he liked the man?

  “Hirst,” the marquess sneered. By the pinched look on his face, Kildale didn’t appreciate being maneuvered into staying at Arncliffe Castle. One would think the marquess would at least attempt to be more courteous in his manner, considering Julian owned him financially, down to the clothes on the man’s back (Julian had settled the man’s tailors’ bills, some of which pre-dated the Battle of Waterloo), but Kildale’s sense of entitlement would never change.