by Merry Farmer
“I’ve a hankering to get myself set up in life sooner rather than later,” Owen went on. “I have big plans, after all.”
He swung their joined hands between them, and Millie giggled. She glanced up at the blue sky, looked around at the lush green of the hills and the trees along the path they walked. Starcross Castle rose in the distance, making her feel even more like a fairytale princess. What would her father say if he could see how wonderfully her life had turned out, in spite of him?
Half days for the servants were a blessing, but they always meant a flurry of activity and a rush to get caught up when the day ended. As soon as Millie and Owen crossed into the castle’s back courtyard, there were things for them to do.
“Owen, could you lend a hand?” Harry, the coachman, called from the far end of the stables.
Owen turned to Millie. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” Millie took the picnic basket from him. “I love the fact that you’re so helpful.”
It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love—not like the one he’d given her as they lay together—but Owen beamed as if she’d promised him the world. He dipped forward to give her a quick kiss, then jogged off to help Harry with the carriage Lord William had stepped down from earlier.
That detail barely made a dent in Millie’s love-drunk mind. She sighed happily, then headed on to the house.
She stopped short at the sight of Mrs. Wilson watching her from the doorway. The housekeeper held a vase of dead flowers in her hand, giving her every reason to be the courtyard disposing of the flowers, instead of deliberately spying on Millie and Owen. But it gave Millie pause all the same.
“Sorry, Mrs. Wilson,” she said, hurrying back to the house.
Mrs. Wilson made a low, scolding noise as Millie rushed past her, but she didn’t stop Millie or reprimand her. Mrs. Wilson’s concerned and mildly disapproving look was lecture enough, and by the time Millie had returned the picnic basket and blanket to Mrs. Harmon, Mrs. Wilson had made her way back into the house.
“I trust you enjoyed your outing,” she said, lips slightly pursed as she looked Millie over from head to toe.
“It was lovely,” Millie sighed, unable to keep her joy inside.
“Hmm.” Mrs. Wilson raised one eyebrow. “Not too lovely, I hope.”
Millie blushed and glanced down, knowing that if anyone saw her face, they’d be able to tell the whole story.
Mrs. Wilson sighed and shook her head. “Young people. Everything is all sweetness and love, until you find yourself in more trouble than you bargained for.”
“Oh, Owen and I won’t be in trouble,” Millie rushed to reassure her. “Owen wants to—” She stopped, swallowing her words. Owen hadn’t come out and asked her to marry him yet. She shouldn’t put the cart before the horse.
Mrs. Wilson seemed to understand what she meant anyhow. She let a split-second smile escape before clearing her throat and assuming a stern expression. “You’re wanted in the study.”
Millie blinked in surprise. “I am?”
“I assume it has to do with Lord Dunsford’s imminent return.”
“Lord Dunsford’s coming back?” Millie burst into a smile. That meant everything with her and Owen would be resolved soon.
“I’ve had a telegram from London,” Mrs. Wilson confirmed. “That doesn’t mean he’ll show up on the doorstep tomorrow, but we should be prepared nonetheless.”
“Yes, Mrs. Wilson. Absolutely, Mrs. Wilson.” Millie bobbed an excited curtsy.
“Go change into your uniform and take yourself up to the study right away,” Mrs. Wilson went on.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Millie whirled away and practically skipped down the hall toward the stairs. It felt as though everything she had ever dreamed of was mere inches from her fingertips. She had a man who loved her—a good man, an ambitious man—and soon they would be able to build a life together.
Her excitement bubbled over so much that when she reached the landing of the stairs containing the door that led to the main part of the house, rather than bother with going all the way upstairs to change into her uniform, she hurried straight through the butler’s pantry—as she’d learned it was called—and into the house. Uniforms were unimportant, she argued, especially when wonderful things were about to happen. Besides, she assumed she looked presentable enough. It was Sunday, after all, and the rules were relaxed on Sundays. Nobody in Wyoming would mind if she wasn’t in uniform.
Her joy carried her through the house and all the way to Lord Dunsford’s study. She burst through the doorway into the dark-paneled, masculine room…and instantly, her elation evaporated.
Lord William sat on the edge of Lord Dunsford’s desk, a wolfish gleam in his eyes. Jane stood to one side, dressed in her uniform, her arms crossed. Both of them looked as though they’d been waiting for her, and judging by the absolute confidence in Jane’s sharp face, Millie had just walked into some sort of trap.
“M-Mrs. Wilson said I was needed in the study,” she said, uncertainty fluttering through her stomach.
“And so you are, my dear,” Lord William said. He sent Jane a victorious look, then pushed away from the desk, sidling toward her. “So you are. Needed, that is. Very much.” He murmured the last words as he reached her in much the same way that some of the more frightening men she’d entertained in her early days had spoken to her.
The fluttering in her gut grew painful. “M-my lord?” She tried to keep her back straight, tried not to shrink from him, but it was next to impossible when he had a full hand and she had yet to discover what cards he intended to play.
Instead of answering her directly, Lord William picked up a strand of her loose hair. “My, but you look carefree.” He bent close enough to sniff the strand. “So windswept, so delightfully disheveled.” He let her hair go, and presented her with a blade of grass.
Millie raised a hand to her head. Did she have grass in her hair? She glanced down at herself. What hadn’t mattered a moment before, in the bubble of love she’d been walking around in, seemed glaringly obvious all of a sudden. Her skirt was rumpled from when she’d had it bunched around her waist and her blouse was buttoned wrong. How could she not have noticed?
Lord William flicked the grass away from his fingers. “I’m delighted to see that you’ve resumed your old profession, my dear,” he cooed with false respect. “That will make this so much easier on both of us.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Millie said as though someone had punched her in the stomach.
“You don’t?” Lord William took a step back, chuckling. He raked a lascivious glance over her, but then turned to Jane. “Tell her, Jane.”
Lord William began a slow, assessing circle around Millie, as if imagining all the hurtful things he wanted to do to her, while Jane stepped forward.
“Turns out I wasn’t speaking out of turn when I called you a whore,” Jane said, arms still crossed. The gloating look in her eyes said she was enjoying Millie’s downfall far too much. “Turns out that’s exactly what you are,” she went on.
“I’m not,” Millie protested, but she sounded so weak, so uncertain. “That’s not who I am now.”
“Oh, but it is,” Lord William said coming around from behind her. “At least, that’s what the letters I finally found in my addle-brained uncle’s personal correspondence say.”
“You’ve been lying to everyone,” Jane said. She nodded to Lord William. “His lordship showed me the letters and everything.”
Part of Millie wanted to point out to Jane that Lord William was not lord of Starcross Castle yet, but she was too frozen with fear to open her mouth.
“Bonnie’s Place,” Jane went on. “That’s the name of the whorehouse where you did your disgusting work. Lying with men for money.” She made a revolted noise.
“Now, now.” Lord William had completed his circle around her and came to stand by Jane’s side. “At least we know she has a price. Probably a cheap one at that.�
�
Jane snorted. “I always knew you were a light-skirt.”
“And by the looks of things, she’s been out plying her trade this afternoon.”
Instead of gloating at Lord William’s assessment, Jane seemed stricken. She took a harder look at Millie, then turned red with rage. “You were out with Owen. You—” She swallowed. “—you did filthy things to him, didn’t you?”
Millie’s mouth was too dry to answer. There was no right answer, either to Jane’s accusations or to the look in Lord William’s eyes. If she admitted she and Owen had made love, both of the people in front of her would twist it into something sordid, something they could use against her. She had no choice but to remain silent. Instead, she balled her hands into fists at her sides to give herself strength.
Her lack of an answer only seemed to upset Jane more. “Stay away from Owen,” she hissed. “He’s mine.”
Millie swallowed. “I think he would disagree.”
“Only because you seduced him, you filthy—” She sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut dramatically. “I can’t even say the word anymore. It’s too despicable.”
Things had spun out of control so fast that all Millie could do was whisper, “That’s not who I am anymore. That’s not my life now.”
“Oh, I think it is,” Lord William said. He reached out and flicked the collar of her blouse where it was buttoned wrong. “I think you’ve just proved it.”
Too many emotions swirled through Millie at once. Anger for the way she was being treated. Fear of what Lord William would do. Despair that everything that had seemed so perfect just minutes before was on the verge of being destroyed. Tears stung at the back of her eyes, but if there was one thing that enduring the life she used to live had taught her, it was to hold her head up when she knew she was not in the wrong.
“What do you want from me?” she asked outright, hoping to take back at least some control of the situation.
“I want you to stay away from Owen,” Jane answered first.
“Owen loves me,” she said, meeting and holding Jane’s gaze.
Jane made a disgusted sound. “He does not. He’s infatuated, and it’s shameful. Stay away from him, and he’ll come back around to realizing that the two of us are meant to be together.”
Bristling hopelessness writhed down Millie’s spine. Jane was so unreasonable in the way she assumed she and Owen would or could be together, in spite of a complete lack of any encouragement from Owen, that Millie didn’t see how she could get the woman to see the truth.
“Owen’s mind is his own,” she said. “It’s up to him to decide.”
It was the wrong answer. Jane surged forward as though she would slap Millie. How she held back, Millie had no idea. “You will stay away from him or I will tell him exactly who you are and what you do,” she threatened. Millie’s eyes went wide, but Jane rushed on with, “How many men have you parted your legs for? Dozens? Hundreds? How do you think sweet Owen will react when he hears that he was just one of your legions of paying customers?”
Millie’s face flared hot. “You can’t tell him. It would break his heart.”
“Exactly.” Jane crossed her arms again and leaned back with a sly grin. “It would crush him. And then he’d be forced to fly into the arms of a pure, wholesome girl instead of a foul prostitute like you.”
Millie snapped her mouth shut. “He wouldn’t… You can’t….”
“I will, unless you stay far, far away from him. Believe me, I will tell him.” Millie opened her mouth, but when no argument came out, Jane grinned and let her arms drop. “That’s what I want. I can’t speak for Lord William, though.” She sent a smug look Lord William’s way.
It was a sign of just how focused and dangerous Lord William was that he didn’t call Jane out on her lack of deference. His fiery gaze was locked on Millie.
“Oh, I think the chit knows exactly what I want,” he said, raking her with his gaze.
Millie shuddered as though he had run his hands over her body. She knew all too well what it felt like to be used by someone she found repulsive. The last thing she wanted was to feel that way again. “I don’t want you, Lord William. I don’t care what else you do to punish me for it, but I’ll never again lay with a man I don’t love.”
“Won’t you?” Lord William slid closer to her, heat radiating from him as he came close to touching her. “Not even if I tell my uncle how you’ve begun to ply your trade amongst his footmen?”
Millie blinked and caught her breath.
Lord William’s grin grew sharp. He went on. “How do you think my uncle will react when he finds out that he hasn’t offered a sweet, unfortunate woman a second chance, but rather that he’s let a fox, a vixen, into his henhouse? Do you think he’ll keep you on? Oh, no. He’ll toss you out into the streets. Where will you turn when you have no money, no friends, and nowhere to go?” His answering smirk told Millie that he thought she would have no choice but to turn to him.
The trouble was, she had no answer to his question. She didn’t have any money of her own. Not enough to support herself. And the only people she knew in all of England were there at Starcross Castle. His threat had teeth.
He must have seen how deeply his threat had penetrated. Still grinning like a wolf, he took a half step back. “I like the look of a woman who knows she’s defeated. Desperation has such a delicious scent.” He breathed in through his nose as if to prove his point. Even Jane looked a little uneasy, but not enough to soften by a hair.
“May I go, my lord?” Millie asked, her voice shaking.
“Only if you clearly understand what you must do,” he answered.
Millie glanced from him to Jane and back. She knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
“You will keep your distance from the footman, Owen,” Lord William answered for her. “And you will stop resisting your true nature. When I call, you will come immediately, and you will do whatever I tell you to do.”
She made a sound in her throat, but couldn’t bring herself to say the customary, “Yes, my lord.” At least he hadn’t dismissed Jane so that he could have his way with her right then and there.
“I’ll have you begging for it before I’m done,” Lord William added, licking his lips. “I’m going to enjoy this chase.”
Jane grimaced and took a half-step away from him. Millie wanted to do more than inch away. She wanted to run as fast and as far as she could, but she knew full well that she had nowhere to go.
CHAPTER 8
F or the rest of Sunday and into Monday, Owen felt as though his heart were as light as a cloud. Although she hadn’t said so in as many words, he was certain that Millie loved him. She must love him. A woman like her wouldn’t have been so intimate with him if she didn’t. And the beautiful glow that had settled over the two of them afterwards was almost better than the deep, urgent pleasure that he’d felt during the act. He barely slept Sunday night as he bounced back and forth between the ecstasy of love and the deliciousness of lust.
It was that haze of romance that distracted him all through the next day. That and the fact that Lord Dunsford’s return was imminent. He hardly registered the fact that Millie seemed tired and distant at Monday’s breakfast. It made sense that she would sit at the other end of the table to avoid raising suspicions, especially with Jane watching both of them so attentively. He was certain Millie had a thousand things to do around the house—as did he—and that was why he only saw her twice during the rest of the day. He wasn’t sure if she even noticed him those two times either.
But by the evening, a creeping feeling of doubt began to itch its way down his back. She should want to sneak off for stolen kisses whenever they had a chance or send him flirtatious glances across the room when the staff assembled for supper, like he did, shouldn’t she? That was what lovers did.
His second night after everything they’d shared was just as restless as the first, but for an entirely different reason. Had he done something wron
g? Had he accidentally offended Millie somehow? Worst of all, had he misread the situation entirely and managed to hurt her in the most despicable way without knowing it?
Millie still wouldn’t look at him by Tuesday morning, but now that the blinkers of the love he felt for her were gone, he couldn’t let things float on without addressing them. And that wasn’t easy to do, considering the way Millie was avoiding him. He only managed to catch up to her just before luncheon, and only then by catching her in the downstairs hallway and tugging her into the shoe room.
“Sweetheart,” he greeted her, testing the waters by pulling her into his arms for a kiss.
Millie made a soft noise of protest, but melted into his embrace, tilting her head up to let him kiss her. She started out by kissing him back too, before pulling away with a sigh that was filled with pain.
“What’s wrong?” he asked outright, before she could pull away further.
“I—”
It was as if the words caught in her throat, refusing to be spoken. She wouldn’t look at him.
Owen stepped closer to her, close enough to rest a hand on her waist. She tensed, but didn’t pull away. “What did I do wrong?” he asked. “Was it…did I hurt you? I got carried away, I know.”
She shook her head and swallowed. “You could never hurt me,” she said, her voice small and breathy.
“I must have done something,” he fretted. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I lost my head. It’s just that…I’ve never done that with anyone before.”
She gasped and whipped to face him. The last thing he expected was for her expression to look so stricken. “That was your first time?”
Deep worry, and a good measure of fear, filled Owen’s gut, but he nodded all the same. “It was,” he admitted, brushing a hand along the side of her pinched face. “And I wouldn’t have wanted it to be with anyone else.”
“Oh, Owen.” Millie’s shoulders dropped. He couldn’t tell if she was touched by his admission or disappointed by it. In fact, he couldn’t fathom anything about her in that moment. She seemed like she was about to cry.