by Amelia Nolan
“I have a friend who is dabbling in publishing. You shall have to speak to him – he’s coming here in a few days.”
Fear and hope suddenly wrestled in her breast. “Are you… are you serious?”
He laughed. “I don’t see why not. Although I should warn you, he’s a professional dilettante, so giving your work to him might be as useful as throwing it down a well. In fact, you may well curse me for introducing you to him.”
“I would never do such a thing. In fact… I would hope to… repay you in whatever way I could…” she said. She tried to make it sound seductive, but it came out more earnest than anything.
His eyes flickered briefly to the side.
To the bed.
She felt the warmth between her legs suddenly surge, and her heart fluttered against her ribs like a bird against its cage.
Then he looked at the floor, abashed.
“There is no need… think nothing of it. It is the least I can do to make up for Andrew’s ungentlemanly conduct.”
“I am sure he did not mean any harm,” she said, trying to let him know that she did not disdain his brother, then quickly added, “But thank you for stepping in. It was very gallant of you. I… wish I could repay you for that, as well.”
And then, in a bit of shamelessness, she let her own eyes light on the bed and slowly rise up to his.
Again she saw the same struggle on his face, the overwhelming thirst in his eyes. His cheeks blushed red.
But after several seconds, he only clenched his jaw and smiled tightly.
“Well. I should let you get back to your work. Good day.”
She curtsied. “Good day,” she said, her voice betraying her disappointment.
She watched him go, and cursed herself for her boldness.
7
Evan waited at the front door to welcome the approaching carriage. He was very much looking forward to Pemberly’s visit, and not just for old time’s sake. No, he desperately needed something, anything, to divert his attention.
Marian had completely taken over his thoughts. Her face appeared in his mind’s eye a hundred times an hour, no matter how hard he tried not to think of her. He could not read any book, attend to any task, or complete any work without imagining her hair, her smile, her eyes, her body…
After that afternoon in his bedroom, he had kept his distance. The few times he had seen her, the poor girl seemed bewildered and saddened by his obvious attempts to avoid her. She probably figured that he thought badly of her and her rather naïve attempt to seduce him.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
With her shy looks and subtle come-hithers, she had lit a fire inside him that threatened to incinerate all common sense.
At that final moment in the bedroom when she raised her eyes to his, he had wanted nothing more than to throw her down upon the bed, tear off her clothes, and ravish her.
But it had been her simple servant’s uniform that stopped him.
He had a rule. One rule. And he had almost broken it.
He had come within inches of giving in. A hair’s breadth, to tell the truth.
Andrew’s actions had infuriated him at the time. His little brother was doing exactly what Evan’s entitled, loathsome classmates had boasted about – using their position to force a poor servant girl to ruin her honor at best, and to submit to rape at worst. Andrew’s behavior was exactly the sort of thing that had led Evan to create his rule in the first place.
But on reflection, Evan’s view had softened. His brother obviously fancied Marian – only a blind man would not, and even then her voice would enthrall him. Andrew’s attitude towards her was obviously one of enchantment, not animal lust to be sated by any female within his reach.
Andrew had attempted a blunt, clumsy seduction, using his wealth and position to try to woo her. It had not worked, obviously, but Evan knew his brother too well to believe that he would have used physical force or veiled threats against the girl. Andrew would not have had her fired, either, for resisting him; he would instead have walked away, embarrassed, and probably never spoken to her again out of mortification that his advances were rebuffed. Or he might possibly have tried again, depending on the depth of his infatuation.
Either way, his actions could best be described as a rather bumbling and pathetic indiscretion.
They were nothing compared to what Evan wanted to do to her.
He wanted to possess her, body and soul. He wanted to make her moan and scream with pleasure. He wanted to violate her, over and over again, urgently, then tenderly, and bring her to such ecstasies that she would never – could never – love any man but him.
When he looked back on how he had treated Andrew that afternoon, Evan realized that he had not just been angry that his brother had tried to press himself upon Marian.
He had been enraged that his brother had presented himself as a rival for Marian’s affections.
In Evan’s mind – no, not just his mind, but in the deepest, most primitive, most sexual parts of his being – she was his, and his alone.
He wanted her, and with a depth and a violence he had never experienced before. He hungered for her. He thirsted for her.
What made it even more maddening was that she wanted him back. He had no doubt that she would give herself over to him freely if he made but the slightest advance.
But she was a girl. She had no idea what she was doing, the risk she was running.
And a servant in his own house! To expose her to the gossip and malice of the other servants – which he knew would follow, like toadstools after a spring rain – what kind of man would that make him? A man who could never marry her, who could only use her for his own pleasure, and then be forced to cast her aside?
Would he ruin her, and then heartlessly walk away?
He could not.
But he would not let another touch her, either.
Thus had his brain been inflamed with lunacy for the past week, as his thoughts went round and round in a tortured maze of lust and passion with no way out that he could see.
No honorable way out, at least.
And his brother – ye gods, if Andrew had been angry when Evan fetched him from university, that was nothing next to his rage now. He refused to even be in Evan’s presence, and would storm away any time Evan entered the room. He made sure he was away every evening at dinner, which ordinarily would have invited hellish rages from their father – but apparently Andrew had told Lord Blake that Evan had ‘insulted him past all endurance.’ Evan knew this because Lord Blake had used those exact words every evening at dinner for the past seven nights as he querulously interrogated his eldest son.
Thank God Andrew had said nothing about exactly how Evan had insulted him. At least he had that much to be thankful for.
So Pemberly’s visit was to be not only a chance to laugh and reminisce, but to distract him from his problems.
The carriage – a handsome coach-and-four with gilded paint, four marvelous thoroughbreds, and a driver dressed like a royal – roared up the road and came to a halt in the circular drive.
Out stepped a short young man with an impish face and the finest tailored suit that money could buy.
“Pemberly!” Evan laughed.
“Blake, old man! Why must you force me to the remotest parts of the Empire to see you? Why does the pleasure of your company come with such an insupportable price?”
“I saw you in London not three months ago!”
“Yes, and we did not one illegal or immoral thing the entire time you were there. Opportunities wasted, never to be retrieved again. And what mischief can we get up to out here, I ask you? Not a thing, not a damned thing.”
“You sound like Andrew, with your ‘wasted opportunities.’”
“Ah, where is the young stallion? He’ll be a far more enjoyable companion that you, you doddering old man.”
“I fear he’s quite put out with me at the moment.”
“As am I, making me
journey all this way for nothing more rousing than a game of whist with the local vicar.” He turned back to the carriage, where Pemberly’s driver and valet were clumsily unloading several large pieces of luggage. “Nicholls! Have a care, man, if that trunk is scratched, it’s coming out of your hide!”
Evan turned to his own servants. “Johnson, Harcourt, please help Lord Pemberly’s men take the luggage to his rooms.” They quickly obeyed.
“So, what indignity have you visited upon poor Andrew?” Pemberly asked as they entered the main hall. “What violence have you done him? What scandal have you engendered out here amongst the sheep and pigs? Last I remember, you dragged him kicking and screaming from his toils at university.”
“Only you would call gambling and whoring ‘toils.’”
“They are a wonderful pastime, and an even better career. As I recall from our shared years in school, they also happened to be your major area of study.”
“You besmirch my honor in my own house?”
“I tell the truth, sir, and nothing more. But what has vexed young Andrew? Did you rob him of his inheritance? Cheat him at cards? Steal a local farmer’s daughter out from under him at the moment of his greatest joy?”
The mention of a woman, even in jest, made Evan wince. “Nothing so bad as that. But if you wouldn’t mind playing peacemaker, I would be greatly indebted.”
“O-ho! Your conduct has been bad enough that you need me as your diplomat? You are in far worse straits than I thought, m’boy. Why, did you know that I went to America to take their unconditional surrender, and wound up giving away all thirteen colonies instead?”
“Perhaps you would not be the best ambassador for me, then.”
“I am only a poor strategist when I am drunk. The other two hours of the day, not even Richelieu could outwit me.”
“Well, perhaps I should get you to help me before you begin drinking, then.”
“Too late, I started during the trip from London. Not to mention I am on vacation, in which case I am drunk from twilight till dawn, then back again to dusk.”
“Well, if you’re already drunk, you don’t need any more wine, do you?”
“I may be drunk, sir, but I am most certainly not drunk enough! Why, I can still walk straight, which is a poor state of affairs indeed! Where is your hospitality, man? A worn-out traveler, thirsty from the road, and you offer him nothing to slake his thirst? Quick, a glass of Bordeaux, or I shall begin plotting the invasion of France, and none of us wishes that.”
“I don’t know; France has many fine things to offer.”
“Not since they started their damned revolution. I want only its wine… and perhaps a couple thousand of its women. Onward, Blake! I demand your best vintage to accompany your most fascinating news of life here in the country! Which is to say – I shall drink your best vintage in utter silence!”
They sat down to a bottle from the cellar and a sideboard of bread, cheese, and a selection of cold meats. Pemberly told Evan of his recent woes with his father, who was threatening to cut off half his allowance. In fact, Alan was only staying at Blakewood for a day, because Lord Pemberly had summoned him to his estate for a formal reprimand.
“Is it a good idea to be dallying here if your father has summoned you?” Evan asked.
“You might as well ask the condemned man if a stay of the executioner’s ax, no matter how brief, is a ‘good idea,’” Alan snorted. “I confess, your charming home is but a brief detour on my own particular road to perdition. A stop in Purgatory before I reach the Inferno, if you will.”
“What would convince him otherwise?”
“A success of some sort or another. Failing that, to cease throwing his money about with such abandon. Although I suppose cutting my funds in half accomplishes the latter goal quite nicely.”
“What about the publishing venture you spoke of last time?”
For the first time, Pemberly became somewhat serious. “I’m progressing, as it were, but the first two projects were something of a sinkhole. Print runs of a thousand, but fewer than a hundred sold apiece. More’s the pity, as they were both quite good. A bit on the philosophical side, but very well-written.”
“That must have been expensive.”
“Nothing compared with my past expenditures, but that’s not exactly what Father wants to hear as he contemplates cutting the purse strings.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have decided to take a lesson from the one or two paid female companions of my youth, and put the desires of the customer first.”
“By ‘one or two,’ do you mean ‘one or two hundred’? And by ‘youth,’ do you mean the period of your life ending this morning?”
“You wound me, sir! Outrageous! Obviously I meant one or two thousand, and my youth is far from over. Another glass, Blake!”
As Evan poured more wine, he asked, “And what are the desires you plan to satiate?”
“Well, there’s a fetching lass in a bordello down in King’s Cross – ”
“The desires of your readers, I mean.”
“If I were in polite company, I might say that I am searching out slightly more sensational material. Since you are most definitely not polite company, I can tell you that I am looking for the scandalous, the prurient, the titillating.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’? ‘OH’? That is all you have to say? My spinster great-aunt would give me a better reaction than that.”
“No, I was just thinking… there is a young woman I know…”
Pemberly leaned forward, suddenly interested. “Yes?”
“She’s a writer.”
“Oh,” Pemberly said, sinking back into his chair.
“There – you gave me exactly the same reaction as I gave you!”
“Yes, well, you deserved it.”
“I think she could quite possibly be a good addition to your roster.”
Pemberly sighed. “A female writer? Seriously?”
“You should give her a chance.”
“Why, is she any good?”
Evan shifted uneasily in his seat. “I… I believe she is.”
Pemberly looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “You haven’t even read anything she’s written, have you.”
“…not as such, no.”
“Then why should I?”
“Because I more or less told her you would.”
“Oh, lovely. I hope you’ve already secured your ‘fee’ for that little promise.”
Though Pemberly’s jibe was meant to be harmless, it cut Evan deeper than intended.
“I have no ulterior motive in this,” he said sharply. “The least you could do is meet her.”
Pemberly looked at him curiously, as though trying to figure him out. “Touchy, touchy. Fine, can you arrange a meeting tomorrow morning before I leave?”
“I can do better than that.” Evan rang a bell, and one of the parlor maids walked in. “Elisa, could you please have Miss Willows sent down here at once?”
As Elisa walked out, Pemberly asked, “What, she’s staying here? You sly devil.”
“No, she works here.”
Pemberly nearly choked on his wine. “She’s one of your servants?”
“Yes.”
Now Pemberly truly was curious. “What are you playing at, man?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to tup her, why don’t you just use your winning good looks and your rather…”
Here Pemberly looked dramatically around the room.
“…sizable endowment?” he snickered. “I’m sure that will get you farther than a ten percent royalty.”
Evan’s face flushed. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh, I forgot, you honorable little scamp… you always did look down on other fellows who pilfered from the family henhouse, didn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I think it’s disgusting – ”
“Yes, yes,” Pemberly interrupted with a dismissive wave of his han
d. “So, can you bend your rule if she falls in love with you for ‘good and charitable deeds’?”
“I told you, I have no ulterior motive.”
“When did you turn into St. Francis, taking care of all the little birds and domestics?”
“She’s a talented young woman. She’s not even supposed to be a servant. Something happened, and her parents sent her here. Her aunt and uncle work for us.”
“Of course, of course,” Pemberly clucked in mock sympathy.
“What?” Evan scowled.
“Your tale sounds like just the type of book I want to publish: virtuous young heroine, sent to the house of a cruel and lascivious master, who robs her of her virtue…”
“I think that’s your biography you’re speaking of.”
Pemberly frowned, as though just now realizing the truth. “By Jove, I knew it sounded familiar.”
At just that moment, Marian walked into the room, shy and unsure of herself. Even in her plain black dress and white smock, with stray strands of hair poking out of her cotton bonnet, she looked beautiful as wildflowers picked fresh from the field.
Evan felt that familiar ache, that growing hunger.
Pemberly stared up at her, his mouth slightly open.
Evan started to stand, then remembered that she was a servant, and reluctantly forced himself to remain seated. “Miss Marian Willows, Lord Alan Pemberly.”
Marian curtsied. “M’lord.”
Pemberly turned to Evan and used an overly loud stage whisper. “I see what you’re playing at now.”
“What?” Marian asked, confused, as she looked between the two of them.
“Nothing,” Pemberly assured her with a smile, then turned and whispered loudly to Evan again. “Be absolutely sure to collect your fee.”
Evan threw him a savage look.
“M’lord?” Marian frowned.
“So, Blake tells me you’re quite the talented writer!” Pemberly said in an enthusiastic voice.
“Mr. Blake does me a great honor,” Marian said.
“Yes, yes, well, life does confer honors that are not always deserved.”
Marian squinted at the little man and said waspishly, “Sometimes by birth.”