The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister #0.5)

THE CARRIAGE PULLED UP OUTSIDE a bleak, thin row house.

Serena had expected something more sumptuous from the man who was responsible for Clermont’s fortune. But Hugo made no apology for the dark, narrow stair he led her up, nor for the haphazard disarray of the rooms beyond the door that he unlocked. There were two low openings off the main room—so low that Hugo would have to stoop to get through them.

He wasn’t neat. Truthfully, after staying with Freddy, Serena suspected that nobody would ever seem neat again. A jacket hung on a chair; a pair of stockings was strewn across the floor.

She peered into one of the neighboring rooms and found stray barrels and a trunk. In the other was a bed—heaped haphazardly in bedclothes and tousled sheets.

Neither of them said a word.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—that she’d offer herself to him and win him from the duke? That he’d become her husband in truth, cleaving unto her as the words of the wedding ceremony suggested he should?

But there was no cleaving. They felt awkwardly, painfully separate.

Before Serena could lose her nerve, she ducked into his bedchamber. Her heart pounded, but she unbuttoned the pelisse that covered her gown and set it over a chair, then tugged off her gloves. Her hands were shaking by the time she undid the sash on her gown, but still she started to unhook the bodice. It was foolish for her hands to shake—foolish, because she felt no trepidation.

She couldn’t feel trepidation. She wouldn’t let herself. As long as she didn’t look down…

But she looked up from her buttons to see Hugo standing in the doorway, watching her. There was a point, she’d discovered climbing trees as a child, when she reached the end of the branches. When the leaves gave way to sun, and the breeze blew fresh and unhindered upon her face.

For a few seconds when she reached the top, she would feel the finest sense of accomplishment. But that was also the moment when she first looked at the distant ground between her feet. And when she did, what came to mind was not the thrill of victory, but: Now how am I going to get down?

She’d been outrunning her fears for so long, pushing them away, pretending the ground didn’t exist below her. But now she’d secured her farm and saved her child from bastardy. She’d set everything else aside for later. And now, with nothing left to reach for, later had come.

He didn’t move toward her, but he didn’t have to. The dark recesses of her imagination took hold anyway. He was going to push himself on top of her. His weight would pin her down. She could hear herself breathing overloud; her vision darkened at the edges.

She wasn’t sure where the first tear came from, or the second. She wasn’t the sort of woman to do anything so useless as weep.

But the next thing she knew, she was crying into the orange linen of her wedding gown. And these were no demure, dainty tears; they were great gasping sobs that she couldn’t hold back.

She wasn’t sure when he came to sit next to her on the bed, when his arms went around her. When he started to wipe away her tears.

He didn’t offer useless platitudes, promising that all would be well. He didn’t murmur sweet nothings. He simply held her. It felt as if his warmth enfolded her for hours. When the storm began to fade to hiccoughing sobs, he handed her a clean handkerchief.

“Uncomfortable memories?” he finally asked.

Those. Impossible emotions, too. Guilt. Fear. Anger. All the things that she had put off like so many unpaid bills had returned to hammer on her door, insisting on immediate collection of all amounts owed.

Serena blew her nose. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me. Just—can you just get on with it?”

“No, sweetheart. I have to be aroused to get on with anything, and I find nothing to desire in laboring over a woman who wishes herself elsewhere.” He touched her nose. She was sure it must have been red. But he didn’t comment on her looks. “Even if she is you,” he said.

“I’m well now.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think this should happen.”

He started to stand, but she set her hand on his arm. “You don’t understand. I only have the one memory of Clermont. I need…” She gulped air. “When I wake up at night, remembering his weight upon me, I want another memory I can hold to, so that I might banish the thought. I need you to drive him out.”

She gathered all her nerve and stood. The bodice of her gown was already undone. All she had to do was slide the sleeves off her shoulders and let the fabric fall. Like that, she was left in corset and chemise.

She had hoped that disrobing would do the trick. But he was not overcome by lust at seeing her in dishabille. He simply walked to her.

He was warm against her, warm and close; he parted her hair briefly and then, pulled a hairpin free.

“We’re not going to be doing this that way, Serena,” he said.