The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister #0.5)

Love.

Foolish to leap from a conversation in a square to love. But if one man might smile and converse with her, a second could as well.

As she’d sat on that bench, her might-have-beens had glowed with sunlight.

But Mr. Marshall was no smiling, friendly fellow. He was the Wolf of Clermont, a man known for his mercilessness. With a few sparse sentences he’d smashed all her hopeful might-have-beens into a single wasn’t.

Her future stretched like a dark road before her: all hope in eclipse.

He’d fooled her. I do not curse. I do not drink spirits. And I don’t hurt women. I don’t do any of those things because my father did every one.

Serena crumpled the paper.

He was good—very good. And she was the damned fool who had teetered on the brink of trusting him. But he’d offered to help not because he took an interest in her affairs, or because he cared about her welfare. It was just because it was simpler to buy her off than ruin her.

Black clouds loomed on her horizon.

Serena set her hand on her stomach. Despair couldn’t be good for the baby. When she let it settle around her, it seemed to fill her belly with a bitter, starving impossibility. She could scarcely digest it; how could a life so fragile and tiny manage what she could not?

No. Her baby would have no nightmares, no doubts, no fears.

When one climbed trees, it was a fool’s game to look down. If one did, one risked vertigo. So Serena looked up now, past the oncoming gloom of the night. She focused on the warm orange glow of the lamp and the dimmer light of the stars beyond. She looked up and refused to think of falling.

Chapter Three

PERHAPS HE WAS GROWING SOFT, but Hugo started with the most simple of expedients. He tried to rid himself of Miss Barton by taking her seat. It cost him all of six shillings to hire four pensioners to sit on her spot on the bench. He watched her arrive early the next morning. She drew up when she saw that the bench was occupied, and then set her hand in the small of her back. Just that little note of complaint. Then she smiled, shook her head, and walked idly around the square, as if she’d planned to perambulate in any event. She glanced at the old men as she walked. She made another slow circuit, and then another. After half an hour, she seemed to realize they weren’t leaving.

Her chin lifted. She looked over at Clermont’s house as if she could see Hugo inside. As if she were daring him to do worse. She stood all day, her head held high, and if she occasionally rubbed her hips when she thought nobody was looking, or shifted from foot to foot in discomfort, it only served to make Hugo feel worse about what he was doing.

On the second day, she arrived an hour earlier, while the streetlamps were still lit. She strode sedately toward the bench—and stopped abruptly.

Hugo had anticipated her early arrival, of course, and he’d offered the pensioners seven shillings for that extra hour. Once again, she stayed standing on her feet for nine straight hours—disappearing only, he supposed, to use the necessary. Once again, he found himself admiring her obstinacy.

On the third day, it rained. The rain fell in great gusting torrents, and the pensioners couldn’t be had. Still, Hugo managed to round up a few laborers dressed in mackintosh—and scarcely in time. They had just settled in when Miss Barton arrived. She was swathed in a cloak of dark wool, one that covered her gown. He couldn’t see her hair, couldn’t see her hands.

After an hour, her umbrella was so sodden that it no longer repelled water; she abandoned it next to a tree. But she didn’t let the wet stop her. She scarcely looked at the bench. Instead, she stood next to a tree, her lips set in grim determination.

He watched her throughout the morning. Midday, he stopped work for a bowl of soup. She was still there; he ate, standing at the window, watching as she pulled her arms around herself and rubbed briskly, trying to stay warm.

She was going to catch her death. The wind was blowing leaves about; it had to be bitter cold. Noon turned to one o’clock, and then two. She hadn’t left when the clock in the hall chimed three, even though her cloak had turned dark with rain. She huddled in on herself more and more.

Anyone else would have gone home at the first sign of inclement weather. He wasn’t sure if he should applaud her tenacity or rage at how impossible she’d made the situation. Down in the square, she swiped a hand over her face, brushing away rainwater.

This was something that Hugo was going to have to fix, if for no other reason than that he didn’t want her life on his head.

BEFORE SERENA’S CLOAK soaked through, it hadn’t been so bad. She’d been damp and rather cold. But having to stand had been a blessing in disguise; she’d been able to warm herself by walking.

By the time the clock struck three, though, she could scarcely feel her feet. Her hands were frozen inside her gloves.