Martha sighed and closed her eyes, even though she wasn’t in a hurry to go to sleep and wake up alone again tomorrow morning.
Not surprisingly, rest eluded her.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that she finally identified the emotion that had emanated from Hugo in almost suffocating waves: it had been despair.
Chapter 28
Bevan Davies sat behind the desk that used to be Hugo’s, his big feet propped up on one corner.
He was of middling height, his build whipcord lean, like Hugo’s.
He was not a handsome man, but his craggy face was strangely compelling. He almost always smiled, although it never reached his dark brown eyes. Hugo estimated his age to be somewhere around sixty, although he had lived a hard life and probably looked older.
Bev had spun such a web of lies around his origins that nobody knew when he’d first arrived in London. His accent was still Welsh, but with a big helping of St. Giles thrown in for good measure.
Being Welsh and growing up in St. Giles meant that Hugo had known of Bev Davies from an early age. He even recalled the man coming to the pitiful shack his parents had called home. His father had bowed and scraped whenever Bev visited, but his eyes had glittered with hatred after Bev’s visits.
“Bev Davies is a worse friend than enemy,” Hugo recalled him saying to one of Hugo’s elder brothers.
After Hugo’s father sold him to Mr. Caton—who’d taken him away from St. Giles—Hugo hadn’t seen Bev for several years.
He’d been eighteen when he next ran into him. At the time Hugo had been working in a birching house which Bev had systematically destroyed before purchasing for a greatly reduced sum. He’d asked Hugo to continue working for him after he’d taken over the business.
Finding the right words to decline Bev’s offer—and not end up face down in the muck—had been one of the most nerve-racking experiences of Hugo’s young life.
And here he was, tangled up with Bev all over again, but for far larger stakes.
“Well, well, well. If it ain’t Mr. Hugo Buckingham. I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”
Bev’s lack of surprise greatly displeased him. While Hugo hadn’t hidden his presence in London, he’d not advertised it, either. And he’d not yet released Laura, so Bev’s source of information had been somebody else.
No, he didn’t like that one bit.
“Hello, Bev,” Hugo said. He had to look up since somebody had sawed a good six inches off the chair legs.
“Drink?” Bev gestured to a bottle and two none-too-clean glasses beside it.
It was only eight in the morning.
“Thank you,” Hugo said. No reason to antagonize the man by rejecting his offer of hospitality, no matter how spurious.
Bev poured the liquor and then shoved the glass across the desktop, spilling some and forcing Hugo to stand and fetch the glass.
“Thank you,” he said, feigning a drink, his nostrils burning at the harsh smell of cheap brandy.
“What can I do for you?” Bev grinned, the expression knowing. “If you’re here to talk to your old partner I’m afraid I haven’t seen her in a few days. It seems she took an urgent trip … somewhere.”
So, he’d guessed that Hugo had taken Laura. Well, no surprise, there.
“No, I’m here to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I never signed the papers for the sale of my half of the business.” He had decided on the bold, suicidal approach on his way over this morning.
Bev’s black bushy eyebrows shot up. “I’m confused. Are you saying that Laura forged your signature?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“I don’t think you did,” Hugo prudently lied. “But, if I were to take the matter before a magistrate, I can prove that I was abducted and tried in a false court so that Laura could gain control of my half of the business, not to mention significant personal assets that were seized from my rooms here.”
“Hmm.” Bev rocked back on two legs of his chair, his expression one of exaggerated concern. “That’s quite a tale. And you say you can prove this?”
“Yes.”
Bev let his chair fall with a loud thump, his smile … unfriendly. “Why do I feel like you’re threatening me, Hugo?”
“I’m only telling you that we were both victims of Laura.” And your scheming son, all with your knowledge and encouragement, no doubt.
Hugo wisely left out that part.
“I will pursue this matter through legal means. Or …” Hugo hesitated.
“Or?”
“Or we can make some sort of arrangement.”
Bev stared hard enough to burn holes through his head.
And then he threw his head back and laughed.
And laughed.
Hugo couldn’t help the slight shiver he experienced at the other man’s reaction.
Bev owned a half-dozen brothels—and now Hugo had an idea how he’d accumulated so many—but they were the sort of places where a man would go in with a hard cock and come away with a case of crab lice. At best.
Solange’s was … well, it was so different from the bawd houses that Davies ran as to constitute a different species, entirely.
Was Hugo insane to be here today, confronting Bev head-on, using his suspicions as a bargaining chip?
Probably. But what else did he have left? If he couldn’t regain his stake in this business his options were grim. He could pursue the matter in the courts, but that would take time and Bev would bleed him of money—if he didn’t actually bleed him of blood—and there would be nothing left of Solange’s if he ever did get his hands on it.
Or he could sup with the Devil.
Bev leaned back in his chair after he’d caught his breath and said, “Did I ever tell you I offered to buy you from your pa?”
Hugo could only stare.
Davies smirked. “Aye, yer ma worked for me in my very first house.” He chuckled at Hugo’s shocked look. “Flora was a prime article in her day. Yer pa met her when he came to work for me. And then he stole her away.”
Hugo wasn’t sure he believed the man. His parents had worked in a brothel? His mother had died when he was thirteen and his father had sold him soon after—not that he’d ever exchanged more than a dozen words with his father in all his years. In truth, he knew nothing about his parents. Besides, why would Bev lie?
“Er, what kind of work did my father do for you?”
“He wasn’t a whore, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. No, Evan Dinwiddy were a tough lad but he weren’t a pretty one.” Bev’s eyes crawled over Hugo like insects. “Not like you.”
Hugo thought Bev must be the only man or woman in the entire city who would call him pretty. He somehow doubted the other man’s regard for him would do him any good.
“No, he didn’t look like you, but then Evan weren’t yer da.”
Hugo had always suspected that. “Do you know who was?” he asked, not that he cared.
“Coulda been almost anyone since she was workin’ at McBride’s when she fell pregnant.”
McBride’s was an Irish brothel that was neither the best nor worst of its kind.
“In fact,” Bev said with a sly grin. “You might even be mine. Flora was past it by then, but I plowed her a time or two for old time’s sake.”
Hugo squeezed the arms of his chair rather than fly across the desk and squeeze Bev’s neck.
Bev smirked, as if he knew what Hugo was thinking. “Evan liked to ride his high horse, but he never could put bread on the table. He weren’t above whorin’ out his wife—although she had to go all the way to McBride’s to ply her trade so’s nobody in the old neighborhood would know.” His dark eyes glinted. “He wasn’t above whorin’ a boy he’d raised as his own son, neither. Though he waited until after yer mam died to do that, dint ’ee?”
Hugo hadn’t believed that an old wound could still cause him such pain.
He’d been wrong
.
“Why did you want to buy me?”
Bev grinned.
Hugo recoiled. “Christ. Even though I might be your son?”
Bev’s grin just broadened. “You were a right temptin’ morsel back then, Hugo. I was willin’ to risk my immortal soul for a taste.”
Hugo felt like throwing up.
Bev shrugged. “But Evan refused. He claimed it was ’cause he didn’t want that life for any of youse. But I know the real reason was that he hated my guts because I had yer mam first and she always did fancy me more.” He gave a bawdy laugh. “I woulda paid more than that old whip maker for you, but Evan Dinwiddy had a head like a fuckin’ brick.” He cocked his head at Hugo. “What about you, eh? You got a brick for a brain, too, Hugo?”
“I must have to have taken Laura Maitland as a partner.”
Davies found that amusing. “Aye. Never do business with women, that’s one o’ my rules.” He gave Hugo a mocking look. “Another is never do business with anyone who’s got the fever. And that’s Laura.”
“I thought it was only for gin, I didn’t realize the extent of the gambling.”
“That sounds like an oversight on your part, mab.”
Hugo knew he was right; he was no crime lord like Bev. All he knew about was fucking and running whores.
“You used the word were when you mentioned my father. Is he dead?”
“Aye, he went in that spate o’ typhus six or seven years back.” He scratched his head, his expression reflective. “Seems two or three of your brothers went off to war, one got transported,” he chuckled, “for real, that was. Your sister Nell died not long after Evan sold you. Moira and Susan came to work for me.” He shrugged. “But they’ve been gone some years now. I couldn’t say where any of them are.”
That was just as well. The last thing he wanted was a family reunion.
“But you didn’t come here to reminisce, now did ye?”
“No.”
Davies waved a hand around the room. “I’ve wanted this place for decades. Since before you were breeched.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, his expression … bemused. “And now I got it.”
“I can’t help noticing that you don’t look very happy about that.”
Bev pushed out his lower lip. “Naw, I ain’t. You see, I ain’t never lost money before.”
“Solange’s is losing money?” It hadn’t in all the years Hugo had worked there.
“Aye.” Bev’s jaw shifted from side to side as if he were chewing on something tough and gristly. He gave Hugo a look that made all the hairs on his body stand up. “I don’t like losin’ money, mab.”
And Hugo didn’t like Bev calling him mab, the Welsh word for son, but he kept that to himself. “No, I can imagine.”
“I don’t like … failure.”
Hugo waited quietly.
He scowled. “I can’t seem to keep these high steppin’ punters.”
Hugo wanted to suggest that the way to keep wealthy clients was not to extort them, but he doubted that would go over well.
“I can see what you’re thinkin’,” Bev said, smirking. “And you’re right. I was plannin’ on squeezin’ a few of ’em. But only those with stacks o’ vowels in my bloody safe.”
Yet another reason Hugo wanted to strangle Laura, who’d insisted they extend ridiculous credit to several of their customers, amounts the men would never be able to repay. He’d considered extorting those bastards himself.
Bev swung his feet back onto his desk. “I’ve always had a soft spot for ye, Hugo. Why, you might be my own blood, after all.”
Hugo hoped he hid just how disturbing he found that.
Bev grinned, exposing more than one black stump. “And that’s why I’m gonna make you an offer.”
Bloody hell. Here we go.
Hugo forced a smile. “I’m all ears, Bev.”
Chapter 29
Martha was in the bookroom when Hugo returned from his meeting with Bev.
He had not come directly from Solange’s but had made a few stops along the way.
He paused a moment just inside the door to admire her. She was curled up on the window seat, so enrapt by whatever she was reading that she didn’t even hear him enter. She wore a dark blue wool dress with a fluffy cream-colored shawl draped over her shoulders, the color remarkably close to that of her hair.
The gown wasn’t especially fashionable—it was one of the few he’d bought for her in Wick—but the severe color and prim cut were the perfect foil for her fair coloring. He swallowed as he drank in the sight of her. Today he had secured their future. It would be a long, difficult year ahead, but at the end of it he would regain his half and would immediately turn around and sell it and get out from under a business that he no longer really wished to operate. It wouldn’t be enough money to last the rest of their lives but should last for a good, long time.
But all that was still far away. A year of managing Bev—not just Solange’s—stood between him and freedom.
Did it infuriate him that he’d struck a bargain with the very same man who’d defrauded him in the first place?
Yes.
But other than a long, expensive court case that he likely wouldn’t survive, he could think of no other way to recoup his investment.
If there was one thing he’d learned in life, it was not to rail against the impossible.
Solange’s, under Bev’s management, was hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. Hugo was confident that he could not only halt the flow but reverse it.
He had made his deal, and now he wanted to celebrate his future with the only person he was interested in spending it with.
“Good evening, darling.”
Martha’s head jerked up and she immediately smiled, her blue eyes lighting up for him in a way that nobody else’s ever had. It was more intoxicating than a glass of the finest brandy.
“You’re home early.” She glanced out the window. “It’s still daylight.”
As he strode toward her, her eyes dropped to the huge box in his hands.
“From now on I’ll be able to adhere to a much more reasonable schedule, sweetheart.” He set the big pink box on her lap.
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you.”
“Oh, Hugo, you’ve already bought me too—”
“Shhh, I bought this for me. Open it,” he ordered.
Her fingers shook as she lifted the lid and pushed back the layers of tissue paper.
She gasped and looked up at him as she lifted the gown from the box. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But—but wherever will I wear it?”
“You’ll wear it tonight when we go to the theater. But first, we shall go out to dinner, and I know just the place.”
Her gaze flickered from the yards and yards of pale-yellow silk in her hands to Hugo. “Really?”
He grinned at her enthusiasm. “Really.”
She frowned.
“What is it?”
“It’s just that I’d like Cailean to come—he’s never seen a play.”
“Of course he can come, darling.”
“But I’ve not seen him all day; he’s taken to drifting in right before dinner.
Hugo didn’t like the sound of that. “I’ll talk to him and mention he should be home at a more reasonable hour.” Just listen to him—he sounded like a pillock.
No, you sound like a father.
Hugo ignored the startling thought and said, “If he shows up in time, splendid. If not, then tonight will be just for the two of us.” He gave her a long, lingering kiss. “And this is only the first of many evenings, Martha. I shall be able to spend more time with you and Cailean.” He kissed her again. “Things are going to change from now on—for the better.”
◆◆◆
The days sped by with alarming speed and before Martha knew it, more than a month had slipped away and they were still living in Lady Selwood’s house.
Guilt ate at her. Other than the few hours she
spent working on reading and writing with Cailean—he was turning out to be a veritable wizard at both—her only real duty was to find a house to lease, and she’d not done so.
Hugo worked all day, and even some evenings, so he’d entrusted her with finding their new accommodations.
But it was an enormous responsibility, and she didn’t want to choose unwisely and burden Hugo with a house he disliked, even though he claimed he would like whatever she chose.
But it was time—past time—to make a decision.
Martha looked up from her list of possible houses and glanced across at Hugo, who was reading the newspaper. It was just her and her husband in the breakfast room since Cailean had gone out at first light—as usual—although he’d been much better at coming home at a reasonable hour.
Husband. Even though they’d been married for almost six weeks the word still sounded exotic.
Her husband looked exotic, too.
Unlike all the businessmen she’d seen on her trips around the city, Hugo garbed himself almost entirely in black—black skin-tight pantaloons, black linen, and glossy black hessians that even had black tassels.
Martha had been startled the first time he’d come down to breakfast so uniquely accoutered. Surprisingly, she adored his somber wardrobe, which made his rather stark features look stern, dangerous, and mysterious.
Love, pride, and desire welled up in her as she stared across the table at him. Her love for him was so overpowering that she felt a sharp prickling behind her eyes.
Hugo looked up and smiled. “You are giving me a quizzical look … wife.” His eyelids lowered slightly at that last word, reminding her of how he’d looked last night in bed: wild and sensual as he’d managed to shock and please her.
Her cheeks heated. “I’m just thinking about what I have planned for the day,” she fibbed.
“And what is on your schedule?”
“Mr. Duncan will be here around one and he has two more houses for me to look at.”
“Ah, how is the search going?”
“I think I have it narrowed down to three houses, unless one of these today is better.” She wanted to pick a house that wasn’t just comfortable and convenient to the Exchange, but also close to a church where she felt at home. The closest church to Lady Selwood’s house felt more like Rotten Row than a religious sanctuary. Most of the congregants paid more attention to what their neighbor was wearing than what the vicar was saying. And the vicar and his wife had dressed as luxuriously as their wealthy parishioners.
Hugo and the Maiden: A Steamy Virgin and Rake Regency Romance (The Seducers Book 3) Page 25