Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  Mrs. Benedict must have put Ash’s brothers in the upper parlor. Margaret stopped, and another ring of laughter traveled out to greet her. Mark’s chuckle she already knew. His brother, the middle Mr. Turner with the dreadful name—he must have been the one with the baritone.

  Margaret set her hand against the door and pushed it open another few inches.

  The brothers stood on the far side of the room, leaning toward one another as if in each other’s confidences. They had thrown a window open, and they were looking out, the curtains fluttering about them. They did not see her enter, as they were both engaged in gazing into the distance, their shoulders forming one uniform wall. She would have guessed they were brothers from that unity. If that hadn’t betrayed their relationship she could see some similarity in their figures. They were both lean without being skinny, tall without towering over her.

  Her mother had used this parlor as a dry, stuffy place to take tea; it had the most formal arrangement of all the rooms in Parford Manor. Margaret could not recall a time when the gilded walls had ever felt a breeze. For as long as she remembered, the curtains had been tightly drawn to protect the lush carpet underfoot from the sun.

  But daylight played across the window sash now, spilling carelessly from there onto the priceless carpet.

  It wasn’t the sunlight Margaret minded. It wasn’t the laughter that set her stomach to a slow boil. It was the way these two men stood in such close friendship, never caring that not so far from this room their eldest brother was feeling vulnerable. Alone.

  The taller gentleman—Mr. Smite Turner—appeared to be in the midst of telling his brother a story. He had shed his coat and had draped it over one arm—a trick that reminded her of Ash. He gesticulated with the other hand. His face was turned in profile. His visage was a quiet echo of Ash’s. But where Ash had dark, curling hair, this man’s was cropped close to his skull, and it was almost ebony. Where Ash’s skin was tinged in color from the sun, this man was pale.

  One thing they had in common was that air of charisma. He said something, and Mark let out a cackle of laughter. At the same moment, the new fellow turned his head slightly and met her eyes. The friendly smile froze in place. His face stiffened; his chin lifted. His eyes grew harder, and he scanned her from head to toe.

  Margaret was used to men looking her over. But this perusal didn’t feel like masculine admiration. It felt as if he were cataloguing her, from the half-boots still on her feet from the gardens, to the starched white collar of her gown. He nodded once, as if he’d fit her into some mental taxonomy.

  “Mark,” he said quietly, “this is she, is it not?”

  She? Etiquette demanded that Margaret curtsy, that she smile at this man in greeting. But he hadn’t even addressed her. He’d been rude to Ash. And he was standing here, laughing with Mark, while his brother felt unwelcome. She stared back at him and straightened her spine.

  “At least she’s pretty,” he finally said.

  “That went without saying,” Mark said simply. “You can always count on Ash for that.”

  So the brothers had spoken not only of her, but about their elder brother. Behind his back. Margaret’s anger boiled over. She strode across the room to stand before the two men.

  “You,” she said accusingly, jabbing her finger toward Mr. Smite Turner’s chest. “You may talk about me as if I am not in the room, but don’t you dare do it to your brother. He risked his life for your sakes in India, and now you two leave him alone, isolated? You speak of him as if he were nothing more than a choice bit of gossip? You make him feel as if he’s not a welcome part of your family? How dare you?” She turned to Mark. “How dare you? I thought better of you than this.”

  Mr. Smite Turner held his hands up, palms out, as if to stem this onslaught. A bemused expression lit his face. That gesture was so very like Ash—and the similarity only enraged Margaret further.

  “Have you any notion how much you’re hurting him with your carelessness?” He’d talked about his brothers with her, and every aspect of those conversations returned to her now. “He paid for your education. He funded your apprenticeship. He sends you a quarterly allowance, even if you choose not to accept it. And you repay him by excluding him from your tight little circle of friendship? By refusing his invitations, and then accepting one from Mark? You make this house the grounds for your own private party, and you fail to issue him an invitation. Shame on you. Shame on you both.”

  That bemused smile grew. “My God, Mark. She has a tongue on her.” Mr. Smite Turner rubbed his chin with his hand. “Lady Anna Margaret, this is not what you suppose. I did not come because I wished to exclude Ash. But circumstances—”

  “Circumstances? Truly? If you didn’t wish to exclude him, then where is your brother now?”

  The man drew back and folded his arms, and a small smile twitched his lips. “I don’t know, my lady. Shall I fetch him and perform the requisite introductions?”

  “Introductions? Why—” She choked on the rest of her sentence. Through the thick haze of her rage, she heard what he’d said—really heard. He’d called her my lady. And before that, he’d called her… Oh, God. His words seemed to echo, and her hands felt suddenly cold. He’d called her Lady Anna Margaret. Lady Anna Margaret. He knew. He knew.

  She’d thought to have a few more days. A week, even.

  “What did you call me?” A futile attempt. Her protest was too late in coming. “I’m not—I’m not—” A more ineffectual denial Margaret had never heard.

  And naturally, he didn’t believe it. He shook his dark head, the motion quick and precise. “No point dissembling, my lady. I saw you two years prior at the theater. You were attending with your brother, and I remember everything I see. The line of your nose. Your chin. If you would like, I could recite precisely what you wore that night, down to the pearls around your neck.”

  “Pearls?”

  “South Sea pearls, round, with a light golden sheen. A quarter of an inch in diameter each.” He shut his eyes and moved his lips, as if counting. “A strand of likely thirty such. Perhaps as many as thirty-two. I could not see the entire string from where I stood.”

  He opened his eyes again. He was not guessing. He was sure. And he was describing her mother’s strand of pearls—a necklace she’d borrowed on occasion.

  “I see I made quite the impression.”

  Mark came to stand by her. “Smite remembers everything. Precisely.”

  Margaret drew a shaky breath. Denial wasn’t working. Defense was no longer an option. That left only attack. “That’s very well,” she started again smoothly, “but we are not here to talk about me, interesting as I might be. I came to ask—no, demand, that you talk with him.”

  The two brothers exchanged glances.

  “Let me strike a bargain,” the elder Mr. Turner said. “You stop browbeating me like a shrew for my treatment of my brother, and I’ll keep your little secret. How is that for a trade?” He smiled at her negligently.

  If Ash knew the truth about her, he would never look at her the same way again. He would never smile at her, would never believe that she was something special. She would become just another Dalrymple to him—and a deceitful, lying one at that. That was the inevitable end to their relationship—recrimination and anger. There was no future between them.

  Margaret had no desire to rush headlong into that nonexistent future.

  All she would have to do was walk away. And do so, knowing that he was sitting in his office, hurting, because these two men were too selfish to understand what they had done to him. After all that Ash had given her, he didn’t deserve to have her desert him as well.

  “No deal.” Her voice shook. “What sort of man are you, to offer to bargain with your brother’s happiness, in exchange for a moment’s comfort?”

  Mark and Smite exchanged glances again.

  “I told you so,” Mark said, an impish smile lighting his face. “I told you she wouldn’t take the bait. And I was right.”
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br />   “You did. Brat.” There was no accusation in that last word though, only affection. Smite shook his head and glanced over at Margaret. “You see, when I heard that my brother—my eldest brother, who rescued me from the streets, who stayed up to three in the morning laboring over the accounts from the previous night so that he might pay for my education—when I heard that he had taken an extraordinary interest in a woman who might have been the daughter of his worst enemy—yes, Lady Anna Margaret, I did come running to his side. That is precisely how I repay him. I don’t let my brothers come to harm.”

  “You knew?” Margaret glanced at Mark.

  “I guessed.”

  “And still you were kind to me.” Had it been an attempt to win her confidences, to use her?

  “It was a recent guess.” Mark shrugged. “Unlike my other brothers, I’ve never much believed in this foolish dispute. I knew you would keep Ash on his toes long before I believed you were a Dalrymple.”

  His elder brother snorted in disbelief.

  Mark grinned across at her. “I would take care, Smite. I’ve been teaching her how to disable a man. Her lessons continue apace.”

  “I’m so worried.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t let her sweet appearance fool you. She hit hard enough to take Ash down.”

  Margaret tapped her foot angrily. “She is standing right in front of you.”

  Smite glanced at her. “I suppose if she truly intended him harm, she wouldn’t have cut into a rage at me. My God. Has she put him in his place like that?”

  “More than once,” Mark answered. “It was magnificent. You should have been there.”

  “You can address me in the following ways: ‘Lady Anna Margaret;’ or ‘ahoy, you there!’ or, if you should wish, just Margaret—that is, after all, what my friends and family call me. You may not call me she. Not under any circumstances, not when speaking to my face.”

  Mr. Smite Turner smiled again. There was little amusement in the expression. “I apologize for my rudeness. Mark and I…we’ve experienced a great deal together. When we’re together, we sometimes lapse into familiarity. We love Ash. But you must understand that as dedicated as Ash is, he is also overpoweringly annoying.”

  He spoke those words using the same solemn certainty with which he’d pronounced her name, as if this were a simple fact. Margaret felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

  “Annoying? I hadn’t noticed,” she said a little hotly—and rather untruthfully, because as she spoke, she remembered the master key hanging from her neck—and his tiger-cub Laurette—and his damned insistence the other night that Lady Anna Margaret was a pitiful creature. He was easily the most annoying man she had ever met. She looked away.

  The two brothers simply looked at each other, and finally Mark nodded, and Smite let out a sigh.

  “If I believed you intended him harm—but you don’t, do you? I suppose he charmed you out of any such thoughts in the first hour he knew you.” Mr. Smite Turner shook his head. “Everything is always so simple for him.”

  “In point of fact,” Margaret said, “it took him more than a week.”

  He truly smiled at that. “Good. Then he’ll not trample all over you—he’s wont to do that, you know. Ash just wants things, and generally, reality leaps to make them happen. After you’ve spent more time with him, you’ll see.”

  “But I won’t spend time with him,” Margaret said, “not after you divulge my identity tonight.” She had known this moment was coming. But it had always seemed a distant possibility on the horizon—an eventual discovery, not an imminent threat. She was about to lose him. And it should not have felt so much like a loss. She had, after all, known he was never hers. Not truly.

  “I was ready to do so,” Smite said slowly. “I came here, convinced I’d have to wrestle him into facing the truth. But Mark has dissuaded me. No, you’ll have to tell him yourself.”

  Margaret stared at him. “Why…why would you allow me to do that?”

  It was Mark who finally spoke. “Because it will cause him less pain to hear it freely offered from you than to have the truth come from us.”

  “You’ll tell him by tomorrow morning,” Smite said firmly. “Because according to Mark, he cares for you. And my brother deserves to have the truth from the woman he cares about.” He stared at her, his gaze as implacable as hers had been earlier. Mark, next to him, looked no less sober. Together, they formed a solid wall of grim male intention. It almost warmed her heart, to know that they cared for him this much.

  Still, she put one hand on her hip. “If you don’t want him hurt,” she said to the elder Turner, “perhaps once—just once—you might let him do something for you. He hates that you take nothing from him.”

  His chin rose. His nostrils flared. But if he’d heard what she said, he did not show it. Instead, he fixed his unblinking gaze on her. “Tell him. I’ll give you one day.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE HOURS BEFORE DINNER DRAGGED. Ash attempted to focus during a series of meetings with his men. The words they spoke, however, barely intruded into his consciousness. He wasn’t even sure he heard his responses to their queries. His mind was elsewhere—on his brothers.

  When one of his men slid a stack of papers toward him, he simply stared at it.

  “What is this?” he asked quietly.

  Across the table from him, Strong grimaced. Cottry, who had handed him the papers, looked up uneasily. “An accounting of the expenses estimated for refurbishing the Lily.” Ash glanced down. The pages were mostly numbers—and numbers, unlike words, had always made sense to him. But still, there was enough text that following it would be difficult. And besides, it was the principle of the thing.

  “Sir,” Strong continued, “I know you don’t like reports, but there are so many little details, all of which you must be conversant with if you are to make an informed decision. So if you’ll just turn to page two—”

  Ash shook his head.

  Books had worked for his brothers. They could have simply read what Strong presented to them and been able to engage him in a discussion of endless minutiae. For them, there was no difference between actual knowledge and this written facsimile thereof. But Ash had never had the trick of learning from words. He lacked whatever magic happened behind most people’s eyes, the miracle that transmuted ink into understanding. Words were just words. He couldn’t read about agriculture and have it come to life in his mind. Until he felt the soil between his fingers, until he watched plants poke green spears through rich mulch, he would never understand farming.

  He sighed and pushed the papers back across the desk. “No, Cottry.”

  “But, sir—”

  “No buts. No excuses. My mind simply doesn’t work on paper.” It was as close as he’d come to ever admitting the truth to anyone, besides Margaret. “It works on things—people, ships, jewels. Tangible items. I want to be able to put my hands on something, look it in the eye.”

  Cottry exhaled in frustration. “Sir. Lily is a ship. She doesn’t have eyes.”

  Ash stood up and beckoned the man closer. Cottry swallowed and leaned in his direction. Ash looked at him. He was an intelligent fellow. This wasn’t about Ash’s supposed refusal to read documents. No—this was something he went through with all his men at some point. They huddled in the nest like little fledglings, beaks open wide to receive what scant nourishment he might deliver.

  “Cottry,” Ash said, with a weary shake of his head, “I own an entire fleet of vessels. I have holdings in four countries and warehouses in seven ports. I haven’t the time to sort through maintenance records, even if I had the inclination.” Or the ability.

  Cottry swallowed.

  “You’re afraid,” Ash said. It didn’t require much intelligence to make that out. He’d seen it too many times before to miss the telltale signs. “You’re afraid you’ve made a mistake, and that if it goes unchecked, something will go dreadfully wrong. And so you want me to look everything over. Well. I am
not a balustrade, erected at the edge of a cliff to keep you from tumbling over. I am not your governess, tasked to keep you safe. I am your employer.”

  Cottry nodded.

  “I hired you,” Ash said, “because I knew you could make these decisions on your own.”

  Cottry inhaled. He looked a faint plea at Ash.

  “The first time’s the worst,” Ash said cheerily. “Make the decision on your own—tell me about it—and afterward, if you need to vomit, please try to make your way to the chamberpot first.”

  “Sir.” Cottry sounded strangled.

  “It’s a ship, man, not a battle plan. If you are in error, I’ll only lose money. Use your best judgment.” He leaned forward and looked the man in the eyes. “I know it’s good.”

  Cottry nodded weakly. It was weak assent—but it was assent.

  Ash gave him one last nod. “I know you can do it,” he said quietly. Cottry met his eyes, and a ripple of panic passed over his face. Ash had seen that look a hundred times at this stage, and he knew precisely what it meant: Dear God, please don’t let me fail.

  As his men left, Ash realized that Margaret was right. His method of doing business had started out as a way for him to hide his weakness. But since then, he’d met too many other tradesmen who became trapped by their own myopia. They’d been too bogged down by details to successfully handle an empire.

  Ash hadn’t been able to comprehend all the details, and so instead, he had learned to comprehend other people. People wanted to believe they were capable, and when you told them they were, they leaped to prove it.

  Ash was never going to be a scholar. But then…he didn’t have to be one. He was good enough, as himself. Ash stood and brushed off his coat. It was time to give it one last try.

  His brothers had been set up, along with a tray of sandwiches, in a parlor decorated in stuffy pinkness. He wondered if Mrs. Benedict had put them here out of some perverse sense of humor—the femininity of the room, with its embroidered roses and gold-scrolled wallpaper, along with a bewildering array of lace-edged pillows, was almost overwhelming.